Testing who REALLY makes the worlds most accurate air rifles and pellets!? This is a gamechanger! 

Its not until you see something like this you realise just how much those tiny little differences can make.very informative thank you

Top stuff Mr Tilly. It's called the law of diminishing returns: Great gun, pellets not good enough. Buy better pellets, gun not good enough. Buy better gun, pellets not good enough. Buy better pellets, gun not good enough, AND repeat till you have gone from a £500 PCP with £8 for 500 pellets to a £3k PCP with £15 for 500 pellets. I would like to thank you for showing how incredibly hard it is to hit a tiny target at an incredibly short distance.

Still on a wobbly base, the one at our range is an angle iron frame and clamping system cemented into a concrete base, absolutely essential for group testing various ammunition in a particular barrel, and beyond 25 yards, for accurate adjustment of a barrel tuner.

Strewth, your dedication and determination to gain as much info as possible on accuracy is outstanding and this one makes for another brilliant video 🙏 Talking pellets, has anyone else found Air Arms Diabolo Fields to be not as well finished/ QC’d as they were? Or am I just unfortunate….

Great video as usual 👍. Maybe a few points to consider. If you are purely concerned with grouping then you need to eliminate variables. This includes the scope (parallax, variations in how you present to the scope, cant etc). So no scope & after initial set up for zero you should not need a scope. The vice itself, a self centering, presicion milling vice would be good, one with as few adjustment options as possible, to eliminate movement due to lose bolts etc. The base needs to be rock solid, absolutly stable, any movement just renders the vice/mount useless for precision shooting. Heavy steel table or concrete pillar. Establish an initial zero with a vice mounted action at test range in middle of target card by moving vice/mount, not the scope and that is your zero, no adjustment made to the table/vice from this point. Mount the rifle actions to be tested & shoot. It doesn't matter if the zero is off from the initial zero, it's the grouping you are concerned with. Unless the pellets or rifle are really bad the POI should be on the target card. The point is you should never be adjusting the vice/table or be using a scope. Laser should not be needed (those variables). As long as the shots are on the card you are good. You need to remove as many movement variables as possible. Clamp the gun action in & that is it, as long as you zeroed the 1st rifle to the centre of the card you should not have to mess around adjusting scope zeros etc., the POI should be on the card if gun zeroed at test range with scope previously. Replace target cards rather than moving the set up to move POI, you should only be putting action in the vice, that is it, no adjusting the table to move POI etc Just some thoughts 👍

Really good to see someone shooting pellets from a fixture. So far it seems to show how much of inaccuracy comes from pellet and rifle inconsistencies and how little from the shooter.

OMG finally. I have no idea why people who claim to test differences between rifles and pellets just... hold the gun and HOPE to shoot straight. Clamping the gun so it points always in the same direction is the most basic thing that one could do while doing this sort of testing, and yet, people do not do it. I have no idea why honestly.

I hope you're taking into account the Eötvös effect and the Coriolis phenomenon!

You have made a solid vice with a lot of weight then put it on a jelly..... Your rig will change the harmonics of the barrel by a significant degree too.

Interesting. You should consider fixing the set up to the ground, and also ensure that the target is fixed, you can see the cardboard moving slightly in the breeze. Doing it indoors would also eliminate wind effect on trajectory.

Fascinating! This reminds me of when my pistol club, back in the good old days, got a Ransom rest. The results from that got several shooters suddenly working on their technique rather than blaming the gun or the ammo! One observation I would make about you rig, speaking as a retired machinist, is that I would be using much thicker washers to clamp that vice down onto the disk. I always used washers around 4mm thick from memory, thin ones let the vice creep around. I'm really looking forward to seeing your future videos.

Now this guy is serious. Love it

I have been enjoying your videos. I come to this as an ex .22 rimfire shooter from the ‘70s where we were shooting prone using single point slings and open sights at 25yds and I admit I would have been expecting all my shots to be in the 10s and most of them also to be X. I think my running average was 99.8. So it is really interesting to watch your experiments with the heavy clamp. In my day the success was very largely due to control of the heart rate and being able to reduce the heart rate at will in a consistent way. Keep up the good work.

Fascinating and very informative, T! Thanks, mucker - I'm definately trying that today with my vice! (see how bad I am wobbling)

Here’s a crazy idea,what about a remote control target micro controller so you’re moving the target for zeroing instead of the rifle?

look up a video on YT of a gun firing in slow motion.. once you see that you'll give up on this. Harmonics aside, the variables stack against you, no 2 pellets are alike, fowling, cheek weld/parallax, valve speed, pressure consistency, velocity consistency ... Once you figure all that out and find the magic combination of the above... the next day the temperature of the day and barometric pressure will be different, and you start over. Did you know the suns angle in the sky reflects a different target image in your scope (causing poi shift) depending on what time of day it is? good luck.😀

Excellent video. You never cease to amaze me.Totally agree about the club and meeting folks, its v easy to get too much into a comfort zone, Dont ask me how I know. Excuse, its harderr to find an air rifle club over here in the Hick Zone. Take care and all the best Keith

Well done Tommy, an absolutely fascinating video and so much more to learn. Can’t wait for the next instalment 👍

If you were to use some bits of plywood set up to act as a wind barrier or some sturdy seethrough plastic sheets (b and q sell some) plywood would reduce light though you could point a torch at the target so whatever would be cheaper would be the best choice. it would be similar to indoor shooting and would eliminate any variables from any potential wind plus youll be able to stack and put the plywood/sheet plastic away when you are done, just need to come up with some feet to slot onto the bottom of them to stand up and then some connecting joints to hold them together kinda like how those temporary metal fences people put around construction sites work. Hope this gives you an idea to use/improve on. Love your videos keep them coming

Brilliant video, the only thing I can see wrong with your new set up is the leveling bolts on your pipe flange (round disk) need to be a bigger size in diameter ,16mm or 20mm diameter bolts and use 2 nuts and washers per bolt ( one nut and washer on the bottom to level and the other nut and washer onto to nip it down )maybe put 2 at the back and 1 at the front .

A very interesting watch. As you make the base more stable it will likely reduce its portability. You could try a metal hamster to clamp onto rather than the wooden on, anything with threads for the feet though will have some play in it, unless they are tightened with a clamping nut. You are certainly well into expending huge amounts of effort to gain much smaller increases in accuracy - as long as you enjoy it!

Great stuff. Have thought about doing the exact same myself. I have attempted something similar by strapping my rifle to my rifle bench rest, though it certainly won't be as sturdy as the set up you have put together in this footage.

Good vid and nice to see your hand has improved lumping that about👍

A stock would wrap around the action and keep it square. It seems like the barrel could potentially move from right to left. Nothing holding it from moving but the tightness of the screw. I love the concept though. I want to make a robot that shoots. .... Is is that a plastic folding table? That's going to be shaking all over the place.

I dont shoot air rifles, but if you if you are having inconsistency with this test rig, it could be action screws are getting too much torque/crush between the stock and the action. You are clamping the whole stock in a vise, which could cause the wood to expand outward in the verical plane, from lateral pressure of the vise. If everything is bedded into aluminum/steel blocks in the stock might not be an issue but if the action is touching laminated wood all it could be torquing the action or cause action torque screw issues.

Really really interesting video tilly. Now you've got me thinking and my question is, if the rifle in vice shoots straight every time with the same regulated air flow,so that means the slightest damage or weight difference to pellets even if pellet looks okay will throw it off however slightly because of aerodynamics,this means that there is no way to hit perfect group,unless you have perfect pellets.so now to my question. is the only way for me to improve my or anybodys shooting is weighing pellets witch i don't do and checking for damage witch I do. I think the answer is yes. Plus I would love you try same experiment with flathead pellets because there must be a reason why they use them in Olympics. Thanks for wonderful content and for racking my brains. Rob😊

Great vid tilley!! Try different action torque pressures? Looking forward to next vid Rgds steve

Does the inconsistency of the shooter counteract some of the potential inconsistency of pellet / rifle? We are the weakest link as you say, but are we also the factor that can adjust and minimise or of course aggrevate the changes? Is the hamster mounting system the weakest point at the moment? Moving the jig laterally doesn't always move the POI move laterally as well?

great videos

Another great mind twisting video. The one thing that without doing a lot of additional work to sort/grade pellets don't think you'd get much tighter groups than some of those you got. It would be interesting to see groups at range.

Now that you have your rifle in an heavy vice, you want to do the same for your target. Build a solid steal frame with a tiny hole in it no more than a 5x5cm square. You want 2 frames that you can bolt together to pinch your target paper because you don’t want to just tape your target.

Great video. Might be usefull to cement a flat granite slab to that concrete so you can have a level platform AND shift the point of aim without varying the balance of the rig.

My grandmother always said: If you do sports and you can’t win, you first have to try cheating, when that doesn’t work you just find a new hobby. Since you complain about the material and already tried cheating with that strange table, maybe tennis is a nice thing for you to try.

Another great video Tommy. This would just prove what a rubbish shot I am if I were to try something similar. Look forward to the follow up.

Very nice video. Really liked watching this. Thank you.

Cool testing. There are so many variables.

1mm POI change at 25 range equals to 0,01mm shift at the muzzle (for instance in 10" or 250mm barrel length). Does table/mount/rest able to move (or vibrate differently) gun's barrel to that amount from shoot to shoot? Well, maybe?

Even assuming your firing rig is stable (which it clearly isn’t) you are still testing two variables - one being the pellet but the other is the regulator!

Thanks for the work, you should really try AA express or cometa express supposed to be better than jsb, in my experience it has been, although have not used the AA express not available here in South Africa.

Love your approach to accuracy fine tuning ! Can I suggest a pedestal mount ( as used for bench grinders ) for your vise setup ?

Ive done this test. Accupel 7.9gr washed, weighed and sorted. My Daystate CRX in a gun vice can put 30 pellets in a 5mm group at 30 yards with 7.9gr Accupel I get similar results with the Steyr LG110FT as long as the barrel is clean. My Daystate 2000 has no regulator, so suffers from a power curve. It draws a 10mm x 5mm line. My accuracy problems are caused by the meatsack pulling the trigger.

would be good to set up a micrometer on the end of the barrel with a camera looking at it to see if you get any flex/whip etc?

Great video as usual, have you considered “ clean, lube, weighing and sizing “ ?

Super nerdy but very interesting 👍

Very Interesting GREAT test platform 😎

Thank you for your work, and if you do tests with complete chargers, checking the difference with the manual one by one, greetings.

Your vice and base is resting on a fairly coarse concrete surface and so the rifle is probably not completely rigid. Possibly smoothing the concrete surface might help but the best, if impractical for home construction, answer would be to build a large and heavy mount of concrete and steel firmly implanted in the ground. An interesting video and I do not even own an air rifle.

since covid the exacts have been shite

Mmm, I bet you that the high end manufacturers are using something very (maybe not quite as" home made"!) similar to test their rifles... can't fault your dedication to the sport mate!👍

You really need to shoot larger groups in testing. 5 shot groups tell you absolutely nothing about your accuracy. Dispersion with a rifle is random. You might get five close shots and then five or ten shots scattered outside the center. Your groups sizes are not as small as your best 5 shot group. They are as large as a 50 shot group. The size of individual 5 shot groups will vary wildly. Please go watch Hornady's podcast episode 50. It explains the statistics of random samples. It will change the way you think about accuracy.

2010 FX Exacts, you've got pellets from 14 years ago?

👌 brilliant totally interesting 👌👌👌👌👌👌

Great start Professor,eeeeek!👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎

laser pointer attached to the barrel so you can see if the laser dot moves when being fired? OK 18 minutes later you mention this... :)

Will you repeat this study with .22 slugs?

Get an open top oil drum filled with sand and lay the base plate on the bed of sand. Same principle as for vibration proof benches in laboratories.

Great video mate! Did you ever find the sweet spot on the Xti50's air stripper?

Hello again. What about a real back to basics experiment ? No feathers, levelling devices, no high mag scopes, or limit mag to 9x and below, no shooting glove, pick a tin of pellets but no wsahing or sorting or weighing and see how different the groups come out ? I would try it , but thats how I already shoot....Should be relatively esay to set up(I know NO video is esay ) All the best Keith

Looking forward to the rest of this one, one comment would be is it really testing the accuracy of barrels, or the consistency in manufacture of pellets?? The reason I say this is for a truly scientific test only one pellet should be used, think about it, already you're saying this barrel doesn't like these etc. In a true barrel test the only variable should be the barrel, everything else should remain the same i.e. the pellet, otherwise it's back to a pellet/barrel combination test? give it some thought, all those scientists out there will agree with me. Then for pellets you pick one barrel and the only variable then becomes the pellets, what you are doing is mixing up two tests. So for true readings in A you would repeat with different pellets and B different barrels, then collate all the evidence and find a median.

maybe need points on the feet, might be better than flat feet. ...

You need a solid table to get a true reading

I think it's worthless if you test at 25 yards, I shot the same group sizes at 50m. And there are people that do the same group sizes at 200 yards. Obviously with FX airguns.... So if you want to compare or measure accuracy, you should take a further distance as the spread gets bigger because scientifically, bigger spreads are easier to measure and to copare.

I love watching your videos but they are a little bit long and you could speed them up a bit and I’d watch every one of them sorry bud impatience and I’m 70 years old. I haven’t got a lot of time on this planet so every minute counts to me.

Looks like your target is moving when it is getting impacted and not your base. Not sure how you could tell one way or the other when looking through the scope.

Your not considering the pellets variables. C of G , Axis Tilt, deformation. Still good video though.

The only thing insane is your inappropriate use of this word .....

Why wastea gas pipe flange and a milling vice !!😂😂 thort you was a chipy pal wood bench be better

I have been enjoying your videos. I come to this as an ex .22 rimfire shooter from the ‘70s where we were shooting prone using single point slings and open sights at 25yds and I admit I would have been expecting all my shots to be in the 10s and most of them also to be X. I think my running average was 99.8. So it is really interesting to watch your experiments with the heavy clamp. In my day the success was very largely due to control of the heart rate and being able to reduce the heart rate at will in a consistent way. Keep up the good work.

Great stuff! Like a few have mentioned, I’d replace the wood here with properly machined steel and perhaps “T” shaped rather than square so it indexes consistency on the top of the vice jaws. You’re going to get to a point quite quickly where too many variables like pellet size and weight or regulator variation will be the cause of variance, but until then ….. “Lay on, Macduff, and damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'