humbling experience

[.20cal fan]

I wrote a post asking opinions as to what spring and/or tune kit I should look into.  I wrote the criteria of hunting crows, squirrels, rabbits and groundhogs out to 65yds and target shooting out to 100yds.  Of all the responses, maybe 3-4 people "actually" gave me an answer as to what they like or should do.  But all the other responses suggested i use a pcp, or that my expectations were unrealistic and so forth.  Now mind you, I have take game out humanely at these yards before and shoot target out further than what I stated above. Basically the post got off track. But then again, this is America, free speech right?  Anywho the point of this post is:

Ed Canoles suggested that I shoot paintballs (5/8") at 65 yds (i think) and then rethink my wants/needs.  Now we all know of Mr. Canoles a.k.a Mr. R9.  From what I have been reading from his posts since taking possession of my hw95, I hold him in high regards.  I am not saying anyone else has more or less knowledge/experience than he has with the R9's/HW95's nor am i saying that I don't value EVERY member's opinion on here, its just a choice that I made. 

So I took him up on his challenge.  I got 23 5/8" paintballs, glued them to 1/2" plywood and because of my back, I had someone walk it out to a lasered 65yds.  I slowly eased myself to the "forbidden" railroad tracks, adjusted the parallax, opened my tin of H&N FTT 5.53's, loaded my hw and commenced to show everyone I am that guy, that dude.  See the pictures below right? Wrong, I was 45% in my hits.  Thats why there isn't no pics.  Not because I was ashamed, not because I was embarrassed, not because i couldn't prove mr r9 wrong, but because it was a very humbling experience.  Now this is not me trying to save face, but I do believe that if they were 1" or 1-1/4", my percentage would be at least 75%.  So Mr. Canoles, and everyone else, I want to thank you, and i'm being sincere when I say that.  I still believe that you don't need a pcp to just target shoot at a 100yds though but hunting, hunting humanely, hunting accurately and hunting humanely, accurately and with consistency in the 80%+ will be done at 50yds and under.  I have total confidence in my ranging and wind doping ability but I feel more comfortable and confident with great repetitiveness at 40 in the 90% range of clean dispatching with the occasional confident 50yd shot because of a 5/8" paintball.

Humbling, it truly was and Mr. Canoles, thank you once again.

Oh yeah, as for the power that I want or think I want/need: I sat back and just thought. Thinking of a time when I 1st joined and wanting a full of wet and vinegar AG.  So before I even studied, before i even bothered to ask anyone, before I just stopped and smelled the roses, I bought (wasted $ is what I really did) a NPXL1500.

1st mistake: I was caught up in the alleged 1500fps 2nd mistake: too much power for a .177.  3rd mistake: being  young, dumb and full of well you know how it goes.  So i did a basic home tune on her, replaced seals etc and couldn't get a consistant grouping what so ever.  one day she is on and tight, next day you would have thought someone hit her against a tree.  So I got tired of her and just shot my low powered $80 crosman phantom...hey!!!! How can this $80 gun out shoot a $300 one? hey! again? No tune, no expensive pellets (cpl's from WM), no Hawke Scope (CP from WM), no 48" long, no tipping scales at 10lbs +/-, no violent recoil and jumping around, no forceful follow through.  Nothing like the NPXL at all and i mean nothing.  The only correlation between the 2 is manufacturer.  So why such accuracy from that little gun?  Its power.  I'm not totally sure but maybe with a couple of $100 buck, the npxl could be made a shooter like the phantom, but with that type of money invested, one would just a tx. 

So my hw is an awesome shooter now.  I don't need the more power and as we all know, power w/o accuracy is frivolous.   

So again, thank you all for "grounding" me in my search for what I thought I needed. 

[uglymike]

I admire your honesty. Everybody makes mistakes, I just try and not make the same one twice.

[dtdtdtdt]

Yeah, Ed is a real keeper!  I have learned a lot from reading his posts and interacting with him.