Air Rifle Accuracy

[tillylamp 1,940]

hi, can anyone answer this, the strangest of things happened today as I was target shooting in my field, there was a light breeze coming from behind me and a bit to my left, my gun is zeroed in at 30 yards in which was fine, leaving a 5 shot group of about 1p coin size with the odd flyer, now, when I moved my target out to around 45 yards and 1 and half mill dot above zero, my pellet was hitting the correct height, but, it was about 1 inch to the left of the point of impact, and this was with 3 shots, all were the same, and in the opposite way of the wind, and yet it was ok at 30 yards?, I'm using .177 with aa fields that suit my barrel, but this has never happened before, could it be that my zero of 30 yards is favouring to the left a bit?, therefor making it shoot wide? or was it 3 flyers? has anyone else ever encountered this, most odd!

 

thanks tl

[john79 29]

could be you are canting the rifle over to one side causing the poi to move off zero ,or your scope/ mount's are not inline with your barrel giving you crossover

 

atb john

[Coypu Hunter 486]

...or could indeed be three flyers... or could be that you're zero's slightly off to the left, although I'd expect that to take the group less than an inch to the left if you're only moving from 30 to 45 yards...

 

Easy one first: check for flyers. Three shots isn't enough to gauge if you're zero's bang on or not. Try a few longer strings at 45 yards -- three or four strings of five shots should do it -- and see if the problem was caused by flyers.

 

If the problem's still there, your 30-yard zero could be slightly out. Zero your scope at 45 yards in terms of windage, but leave the elevation as it is, at the 30-yard setting. Then move back to 30 yards and you should still be shooting bang on.

 

If you're not, As john79 said, it could be cant. String up a plumb line at 30 or 45 yards and put your rifle on shooting bags. When the vertical crosshair is bang on the plumb line, put a spirit level across the back of your rifle, behind the action, and see if you've got a bit of cant there.

 

If the rifle seems level with the crosshair bang on vertical, then check your scope alignment, or swap the rear and front scope mounts and re-zero.

[jamesS410 106]

Could also be that your scope is rotated left or right in the mount, use a spirit level on your rifle to ensure the guns level and aim at a plumb line to make sure the vertical stadia isn't canted one way or the other

 

Edit - sorry coypu hunter beat me to it

Edited October 25, 2014 by jamesS410

[tillylamp 1,940]

hi, thanks for all your answers, I will check all that was mentioned, and see how get on, goes to show your never to old to learn,

 

thanks tl

[bilbobagins 92]

had a similar problem a few years ago and it was the scope not in line with the barrel as said re zero to 45yds then shoot at 30 yds and you'll probably find it shooting the other way a bit