Flyers..... whats the deal

I go thru phases (and maybe Ive answered my own question...) where I can stack them, fairly effortlessly, then cant get any group to come down below an inch and a half..... Lately though, I'll get a sub-half inch 5 shot group going, then shot 3 or 4 will drift out, making it a 1.25 or something.

I know that sometimes you get a bad pellet, or it does seat or seal well..... but I think this is happening too often to fully blame the hardware.
What are some of the causes of flyers (besides Dan.... )? I'm inside, seated shooting off a bench.....

Annoying, thats what they are......

Some rifles just like some pellets better. My RWS 5G pistol loves FTS but sprays a lot of other pellets around like crazy.

Of course, it's magnified even more with big bore. Different lead / tix mixture, casting technique (or lack thereof), worn-out molds, sorted and graded slugs, etc.

Could be a bad scope too . . . if you've got a busted scope, the POI can be all over the place even though it appears to stay put.

-- Jim

Rimfire central had a link to :

just under figure 9 I found this:

I) - Unsettled fore-hand position.
11) - Trigger Pulling.
III) - Pushing the butt forward with the shoulder.
IV) - Poor aiming-variable hold or inefficient sights or sighting.

When the big box o'pels hets here, I do some more group shooting and pay particular attention to the first three Items above.

I'm starting to think that maybe my hold is shifting between shots, and I'nm not consistent in my hold--hand on forend and cheekweld, snapping the trigger and not having the butt anchored to my shoulder.

Flyers? Whatever do you speak of?

Bench technique is all about consistency. Human consistency is why assembly lines use robots. It takes alot of attention to the smallest detail to produce an MOA group.

Your grip on the rifle, and the stock's contact with your shoulder are the two largest things to concentrate on (after you have a consistent bag position for the gun).

Gary

barnespneumatic Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Your grip on the rifle, and the stock's contact
> with your shoulder are the two largest things to
> concentrate on (after you have a consistent bag
> position for the gun).
>

Yea, I think thats it. After finding that blurb on RFC, I'm thinking that its my technique, or lack there of. Consistentcy from shot to shot.

Hand placement on the foregrip, and where my left elbow goes on the bench, and my cheek weld seem to stand out in my memory from Sunday afternoon's group session. The bag would deform from my hand, so that was easy to get a repeatable spot. the other stuff, its on me..... Yea, got something to go on now. And 2000 pels in the mail..... I'll report in on this soon

Once you get the basics of "repeatable bench technique", then you can start worrying about things like ... the bags becoming "compacted" during a shooting session. They will pack down, and the rifle will then bounce off of them differently. You have to "fluff them up" from time to time.

Gary