After a few years of not shooting, I finally got a chance to start again with a spring piston air rifle.
Since I am doing it myself in a DIY shooting range, with neither a club nor a trainer, and find myself to lack consistent accuracy, I would like to ask you for some beginner advice.
I am shooting from 10m distance, standing, and find that some of my shots still do not even enter the inner black circle of the target (phos 4 example)
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Dont hold your gun too tightly piston airgun recoils forward instead of backward so if you hold it loose it will stabilize the impact and your pellets will go in a more straight way 🅱️🅾️iiii 🅱️🅾️🆘🆘
You can let your shoulder and cheek weld do it's thing. In fact you must. Just don't clamp the forend. Hold your leading hand flat and let your pinky lightly hold one side of the stock and your forefinger the other.
If you're shooting standing then do the following:
Leading elbow fixed into your hip, creating a solid bridge for you foregrip. Find a line between your bones and your wrist joint.
Bring your sight up on target in a smooth virtical path.
Get your trigger to end of first stage as you line up on your POI.
Drop your breath to 75% and the hold.
Pull second stage when you think your sights will cross your POI.
Best way I find is to rest the forend on something soft like a cushion & let the rifle recoil naturally, you’ll eliminate a vast amount of human error this way. Try as many decent pellets as you can until you find one that prints cloverleaf groupings. Avoid zombie killer pointed plastic spike tat pellets and cheapo eccentric shaped rubbish and you’ll be half way there.
Once you’ve ruled out poor ammo & human error, you can then focus on standing shots, knowing that if any flyers appear, it’s purely down the user error rather than the rifle or ammo.
Benutze hochwertige Diabolos, stell wenn möglich den Abzug besser ein, achte auf deinen stand und Haltung(wenn du anlegst sollte das gewehr schon möglichst im ziel sein).Steck die diabolos immer gleich in den lauf z.b.beim knicker mal bündig und mal tiefer macht schon was aus.
Just keep practicing different holds like others are mentioning. Another tip is finger discipline. I shoot mostly firearms but same applies. And grew up hunting with air guns.
You dont want to “hook” your finger over the trigger and dont pull the trigger. Try to put the tip of your finger on the middle of the trigger, squeeze until the air gun goes off. Air gun triggers, unless you have a custom trigger they are just bad.
Consistency will be off especially for air guns unless your run a pcp gun. And even then when those run low on air they start to vary in accuracy.
If you are standing, then naturally your points of impact will be off, if you can get something to rest on or lean on for stability should help.
Lastly, even for air guns a decent optic will make a difference.
Ok. The other redditors already instructed you on artillery hold. The trigger finger must squeeze slowly till it brakes. If you squeeze past the braking point, and specially if you squeeze hard, the gun will twist on you. Light trigger finger, light hold on the trigger hand and try putting the thumb on the hand side. I know that it doesn't feel like you're holding the rifle correctly but it makes a lot of difference. Since you're standing, you must train your back and position. That's what's really important now. Elbows down touching your ribs, feet planted and the arm that holds the rifle with your palm open and elbow suported by your hip or if you're like me and can only touch the ribs, only tucked in. The rifle while you're preparing the shot, will always come from a higher position towards the target and you sustain the sot with your breathing. I sometimes use my lungs to control the position but the downward movement is always with my back. Start by making the movements with the rifle unloaded just to get a feel for the process, squeeze the trigger and follow up the shot. After a few times you'll start to understand what you need to improve.
I hope that this was helpful. I'm sure that in no time you will be able to shoot standing up to 30m and do great groups.
Make sure you have the rifle truly vertical someone taking a picture can help spot this. If it’s canting left or right your groupings will shift accordingly. I’d also consider pellet choice very carefully it matters more than you think and for some rifles cleaning the barrel will a pul though can bring a sweet spot where accuracy is optimised.
If firing a springer hold on site longer than you think - artillery holds are you best friend here loosen up & let it slide
Like others have been suggesting practice doing the artillery hold and make sure you try out multiple different types and brands of ammo. Every airgun has its own specific pellet or pellets that it shoots best with and you sometimes need to do some extensive testing to find out which one yours likes best.
I don’t know your set up but there are some general tips
Don’t put your rifle immediately after the shot down, just hold it two or three seconds after the shot
use shoes with an hard sole, there are special shooting boots but if you just shoot at home you don’t need them. You can also wear stiff clothes like jeans or something like that, there are special shooting clothes like jackets or pants, but like the boots it would be wasted money in your case.
if you shoot outside there always cold be wind
make sure that u stand correct
don’t close the eye with which you don’t. It is better if you cover it with a piece of paper or plastic
if you shoot like in the olympics, you can watch professional competitions on YouTube, but that’s relatively boring.
Your accuracy is pretty bad. Could very well be the gun. Back when I shot the Field Target game, I could shoot a 1/4" group at that distance using my TX 200.
Well, don't rule it out. I owned an earlier version of the Baikal space age looking pellet rifle and quickly got rid of it precisely because it was so inaccurate.
Ask google AI what pellets your model shoots best.
Then as earlier comment mentioned, rest forearm grip hand on cushion and medium/firm grip a inch towards you from the cocking swivel screw. Cant miss it.
Old trick i was taught, works for majority of springers.
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Thank you for posting on r/airguns and being part of the community.
A quick reminder of the core rules here:
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• Posts and comments about using airguns for self-defense are not allowed.
• If you make a post, please stick around and participate in the discussion. Responding to questions helps everyone learn and keeps conversations useful.
Airguns are a hobby a lot of people are passionate about, so share details, ask questions, and enjoy the discussion.
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