Benjamin Trail Grouping Poorly

[MonsterManiac7]

Ok Guys,

I am new to the forum hear, but I am not new to shooting and hunting. I bought my benjamin trail np .22 in November and have put about 800 rounds through it now, so I would say it is broke in. During this time, I have gone through to centerpoint scopes(one the crosshairs tilted when the power changed, and the other was not fogproof). Anyways, I have done the trigger upgrade(awesome!) and have installed brass pivot washers(Interestingly though, I had to sand Gene's washers down, my yokes must be bent inward a little. After all of that, and installing loctite on all screws I have not improved accuracy one bit. I have tried every hold imaginable on the stock including the famed "artillery hold". For shooting I have been using a soft towel in front and a sand bag in the rear. At 42 feet(basement) I have only been able to obtain a little better that 1" groups, to me that is not acceptable. The groups are generally tight, with one or two fliers everytime. I know this is not me, as I have a very solid rest and I went through over 300 pellets yesterday just trying to get one decent group. Attached below is a picture of the groups. I bought the shootersupply sampler pack, so each group is a different pellet. Could recrowning the barrel fix any of this? I recrowned it once, but maybe I could  do it better with better compound(instead of rubbbing compound). Well hopefully you guys have some ideas, because I have about had it with this gun

Thanks,

Jon

[Protos]

Jon,

I have been there and done that. You have already put money into the gun with a trigger and bushings ect ... I would suggest that if there is a gunsmith in your area that you fork out the 20-30 dollars for a lathe recrown. Barring that ..... not much more I can offer you. I am sure others will chime in.

Personally I gave up on my NP XL and ordered an R9.
I am done with spanish and oriental girls, got me a German Blonde Fraulein now.

[devdem]

The only thing that comes to mind is did you clean the barrel with goo gone to get any spooge leftover from the assembly?

Drag a q-tip out of the crown to see if anything is grabbing the cotton

Use a wooden dowel to push a pellet through from breech to crown to see if you have any catches in the barrel

Do the tissue test over your breech seal to see if it's compromised.

If you can access a chronograph, wouldn't be bad to help diagnose it (maybe you can sweet talk someone for a loaner).

You may consider doing a lube/tune to remove that variability.  I've heard they can be really dirty inside.

My Trail NP XL1000 hates a lot of pellets.  I've found a couple that group decently at 25 yards.

[devdem]

Oh and you may want to remove the shroud to see if it's interfering with pellets.  One of my next tasks....

[cmjr]

I just finished my NP22 build, did the deburr, lube, GRS, GTX trigger, brass washers etc....I only have 100-125 rnds through it so don't know if it is "broken in" yet. Have tried RWS Hobby's, Superdomes, and Beeman Silver Stings and I'm getting right at 1.5" groups at 50ft. That's using a Hart front rest and rabbit ear rear bag, supported right in front of the trigger guard so that it balances. Looked at my crown when I pulled the shroud and it looks clean, doesn't grab when I pull a Q-tip through it, basically everything I check when doing load workup for a centerfire. Through a chrony I get good SD's around 7. Mine will shoot the flatnose Hobby's the best(1.5"), everything else so far around 3". Not real impressed at this point, my 10yr old son's boxstock Airhawk will smoke this one right now but I will continue to run pellets through it hoping it cleans up. Your groups look to be half the size of mine.   

[longislandhunter]

Dan gave you some great advice (clean, tissue, q-tip, etc)  so no need for me to reiterate however.... my advice is to get rid of the sand bag in the rear and the soft towel in the front that you're using during your shooting sessions.  Keep the rifle solidly pulled into  your shoulder, like you're shooting one of your big game rifles, and don't let anything support the front of your rifle except your hand.  It's ok to rest the back of your hand on a solid rest but make sure that your hand is the only thing directly supporting your forearm stock.  Also, grip the rifle firmly, just as you would your big game rifle, forget the artillery hold.....use the same hold you use on your deer rifle.  With all that done now take your shots and see if you notice a difference.  I think you may indeed see a big difference. 

The last thing is the pellets,,,,  it be that you just haven't found the right pellets yet.   Try some other pellets and see what happens.  I know you ordered a sampler pack and tried them all but get some additional pellet types and try them.  I have a couple of rifles in my collection that drove me crazy until I found the right pellet,, then the rifles were a dream to hunt with.   

You've done a lot of work on your rifle so don't give up, hang in there and keep shooting.  You'll get it all sorted out. 

Jeff

[cmjr]

look familiar? Just shot these, interesting it was the 2nd shot in both 5 shot groups. Over the chrony, RWS Hobby 11.9 @ 835fps, SD 6, both flyers were right in the FPS range. Again, I haven't tried but 3 types of pellets and I have less than 150 through it since the build.

[BenjiHunter]

Make sure you keep the crosshairs on the target a few second after each shot.

[kmiJ]

My 22 Trail gives me similar results after doing all the stuff to it you have...that's why I asked Santa for a different gun. Being new to airguns I didn't know if it was me or the gun. It's the gun. You can always figure the first shoot to be an inch high at 10 yds.....always...then after a few shots it groups decent...for awhile...then it all goes to pot. Then it starts all over. Sometimes it shoots good just to tease you. Next step is complete tear down and hope THAT helps....

   Jim

[MonsterManiac7]

This is becoming really depressing....I am going to try the things stated above, but I am not very optimistic. Anybody know a good place to sell airguns? Maybe I was better off sticking with my 10/22 with subsonic rounds

[tvan]

I'm wishing that I would have read this before I bought mine.  I just got it for Christmas and just ordered the trigger upgrade.  Will Crosman refund if the store won't (beyond 30 days)?  No sense putting any work into it and breaking it in, if the gun is not going to get accurate.

[BenjiHunter]

It seems to me that Benjamin Trails are poorly made guns.
You have to do this and that to make them shoot well.
I'm going to get scolded for this, but they just don't seem to be worth the money.
Am I right or wrong?



Rule #6 violation

[Protos]

It seems to me that Benjamin Trails are poorly made guns.
You have to do this and that to make them shoot well.
I'm going to get scolded for this, but they just don't seem to be worth the money.
Am I right or wrong?

Your not wrong ...... but you most likely will catch the scolding as there are plenty of fanbois and vendor lackies around.
However if you have never owned one, you might not want to stick your neck out. I tried 3 and they each had various issues out of the box.
That was enough for me.

Now I try to save people aggravation wherever I can. Crosman is a good company, quite good really, but the chinese QA is just garbage.


Rule #6 violation

[blueline]

OK first off it is a price point gun, made to generate dollars. it may be top of the crosman list but bottom of the barrel air gun in general. They can be made to shoot much better than they do out of the box, keep in mind they have a very loose tollerance in the 10 million they produce.  The big PB manufactures do the same thing!  Why make a 1/2 moa rifle if the 10 year old is gonna shoot 5" groups....I beleave you can milk the accuracy out of them just like you milk a Bull

[11x]

best move i every made was taking my trail back to the store. i had 1000rds through my trail and it just wouldn't shoot accurately enough to please me. i bought a Diana rws 34. the first time i shot it i yelled out in joy. it is a great feeling when you finally get a good gun. i am sure there are good and bad in all guns but my trail was pure junk. when i brought the Diana home i cleaned it and shot it with open sights. the first 5 pellets through it were way better than any group i ever shot with the trail. my trail wasn't bad at first but seemed to get worse the more i shot it.  oh and by the way my Diana rws 34 was cheaper than the trail was
here is the first 5 pellets through my rws 34

here is a 10 shot group with it sighted in

[Darrell]

My Benjamin Trail AW was doing the same thing. After a new trigger, crown, pivot washers and ram bushings, what I found to make the biggest difference was the shroud torque or tightness. I played with that until I found just the right torque now I can group under an inch at 30 yards consistently. Oddly enough before messing with the shroud the gun seemed to like JSB 14.3 the best, now it prefers the RWS Superdomes 14.5.

[MonsterManiac7]

I have tried 21 different pellet types through the gun to no avail, I recrowned it again and it seems to shoot worse now....1" groups at best. Before this I tried shooting it like my deer rifle, and just using my hands as a rest, but It shot the same. So, where is the best place to sell these things(I am using this word in place of many other choice words I can think of).

[Bryan Heimann]

I think it's the lockup mechanism.  Tension bar instead of dual opposing chisel.  Used to be the dual chisel mechanism in the crosman guns.

[02stampede]

I have tried 21 different pellet types through the gun to no avail, I recrowned it again and it seems to shoot worse now....1" groups at best. Before this I tried shooting it like my deer rifle, and just using my hands as a rest, but It shot the same. So, where is the best place to sell these things(I am using this word in place of many other choice words I can think of).

I sold one to another member here after going through the same frustration. I gave him every detail I could about how it shot beforehand. He ended up getting it to shoot decent after a re crown and some other work.

I don't want to encourage you to give up on it but.. Personally, I would much rather put time, money, and effort into making a decent gun shoot great. Not a sub par gun to shoot average.

[MonsterManiac7]

Well I got the crown looking immaculate and it only grouped about 1.25" groupings. Installed the shroud and messed with the tension on it and I could only get 1" groupings at best....so its back to square one. Any ideas?