Welcome Chuck, nice to have you with us on GTA
Phil has already given you some good advice.
Have you cleaned the barrel
That should help the accuracy as well. Since you're new to airguns you must remember not to use powder burner cleaning solvents in the air rifle. All you need to clean the barrel is some "Goo-Gone", which is a citrus based cleaner available in most good hardware stores, a length of weed whacker line and some cleaning patches. cut a length of weed whacker line, sharpen one end to a point so you can pierce the patch and thread it onto the line. Heat the other end of the line with a lighter and form it into a round bulb and let it dry. The bulb will prevent the patch from coming off the line as you pull it through the barrel. Once you have a "Goo Gone" soaked patch on the line thread the line into the breech end of the barrel , push it through until it comes out the muzzle end and then pull the patch through. Alternate with clean, dry patches until they come out clean. No doubt there's a ton of "gunk" in your barrel from the factory. Don't use metal cleaning rods in your air rifle, use the weed whacker line. You didn't say what kind of pellets you're shooting but stay away from the pointed pellets and especially the gold colored "PBA" pellets. The PBA pellets are much to light and can damage the internals of your new gun by creating a situation where you get "piston slam"..... where the piston slams into the top of the piston chamber because the light pellet doesn't provide enough resistance. Walmart sells Crosman hollow points..... they are usually a good pellet to start out with as they usually fly well in most guns and they are also a great hunting pellet.
Phil warned you about "scope creep". The best way to avoid creep is to thoroughly clean the top of the receiver, the dovetail grooves and all parts of the scope rings (including the screw threads) with denatured alcohol prior to installing the scope. Use a drop of blue loc-tite on the screw threads when installing the mount and scope and put the rifle away for at least 24 hours to let the loc-tite cure before shooting. That procedure should insure that you don't have any creep. You should also loc-tite the stock screws.
Even after you do all these things it will still take a few hundred pellets for the gun to "break in" and calm down,, just like Phil said.
You will, if you haven't already, learn very quickly that shooting powder burners and shooting spring air rifles are two completely different types of shooting, but once you get used to the double recoil of the air rifle you will see your accuracy get better. Also, most spring air rifles do not like a very firm grip. Gently rest the forearm in your cupped hand lightly when you shoot, this may also greatly improve your accuracy. Like anything else it's a learning process but it's a great sport and I think you'll wind up as addicted to it as the rest of us.
Again, Welcome to GTA, I'll be looking forward to your future posts.....
JEff
