I just posted in the Chinese gun gate about my old Crosman Phantom and the wood Remington Summit or 777SB stock I'm putting it in, RC roller bearing mod, steel barrel weight, barrel vibration damper. Yes it's all worth the time and money. Fun stuff. There's not a lot of difference in one holing and holes touching or 1/4" groups for that matter.I must have a tin ear for twang. I never really notice it or am bothered by it. I don't believe twang in and of itself ever made me miss.Harsh shot cycle to me is kicks hard. When shooting my Hatsan 135 or Beeman Mach 12.5 .177 springers I have to wait till my eyes re-focus and my teeth stop rattleing to look and see if I hit anything. That's the thrill and challenge of shooting them along with two hand cocking.A Crosman Optima, Storm, Quest, Fury, Phantom or G1 Extreme, they're all the same gun and with a wood stock and just a trigger mod makes a big difference. 10mm trigger adjustment screw will give a short soft first stage and a clean breaking 2lbs trigger. RC roller bearing mod will give you no first stage and a little over 1lbs clean breaking trigger. About as good as a GRT trigger. But the GRT is nicer looking. You can dip the Crosman trigger in gold paint.I have old B3's and 4's to my Diana 56th. and a lot in between. I enjoy shooting all of them. It's like having 80 friends and they're all different.
I also have several Ruger, Gamo, Crosman, Daisy, Benjamin, Hatsan and other "cheap" springers.
Thanks for the backup, Novagun.I took my B3 (.22 with shortened spring) down another half an inch, and it turned into a laser. Extreme FPS spread was reduced by half. And the slowest shot of a 5 strong group (3 of them were basically at 405, fastest 412) was a couple FPS FASTER than the slowest shot before. Shooting at a brick at 25 yards, the lead spot appears exactly where the crosshairs were when the trigger broke. No problem seeing where the shot landed, anymore. I'll have to set up a bench to shoot off bags, someday soon. I'm pretty sure no stock B3 will touch what this baby can do. That last half an inch made a massive difference. At ~6" barrel length, now.After many years of taking rats, the spring is getting weaker on my Ruger Explorer. I felt accuracy was down a notch. I took that down another half an inch, and it's back to awesome. It is clocking the exact same velocity as my B3 but in .177 vs .22. And where did that barrel end up? Also 6". Coincidence?
I just cut another 40 mms off my BSA Spitfire. Barrel is now 12 inches long. I had to make a new muzzle brake to increase the length. Two handed cocking is no good in the field.Accuracy is about the same. The interesting thing is that with the first 25 mms cut of the barrel the energy dropped from 21 to 17.5 ft/lbs.The next cut making total cut 65 mms has dropped energy to 15.7 ft/lbs. (.22 calibre)I didn't really know how short to go so I stopped a bit longer than Cardews recommended 11.5 inches.I recall that he said anything over that was just drag on the pellet.I was surprised to see the energy decrease so I will have to read Cardew again and ponder if something else is going on.Just as a side bar, I tested a Diana 34 compact.(.177) 11.43 ft/lbs with 8.44 gn pellets and 11.99 with 7.89 gns.Very warm here today must be 30 derees in the shed.