You know, it's not a bad taste for springers, or I hope, lack of skill shooting one. It is the fact that I have several springers and if I pick one up I haven't shot in a while, it is like starting all over to get the hold right, and to start shooting groups of less than, say, 1 inch at 30 yards. It isn't to say that I can't pop small varmints or pull off the occasional great shot at longer distances with some regularity, but the effort required to be able to shoot 20 or 30 consecutive shots consistently inside a 1 inch bull at 30 yards with a springer is, what? . . . discouraging. And I am not so sure that I agree with the opinion that being able to shoot a springer well translates into being able to shoot any air rifle well. In fact, it usually feels to me like spending the time and rifle-specific effort to zero in with one particular springer or another may well cause me to develop bad habits -- no, different habits -- that I have to then shake off and change when I shoot something else, particularly a really accurate PCP or rim fire rifle. Where I am headed with this is that it may be time to (gasp) pick one springer, forsaking all others, and get really good with that one air rifle, presuming the reason I shoot is to be able to put the pellet on target consistently. I can tell you that taking 3 or 4 spingers you haven't shot for a while out to the range to see how well you can do with shooting a carefully scored match with each of them is an exercise in frustration for me. But if I pick up my Walther or my Air Arms S410, it's an entirely different experience. In this case, all my mental efforts go to thinking about what I, the shooter, am doing - position, center, stance, breathing, trigger pull, etc. instead of thinking about the rifle and "how the hell did that shot fly 4 inches low and right? Do I need to change my grip? Is it not grouping because I am shooting FTS instead of JSB", etc. Sometimes it is fun to work thru that sort of thing, but for the most part, for me, it is fun to not to have to work through that and to just go out there and punch one-hole groups at 30 yards. If you can do that consistently with your springers, please shoot the bench match and post your scores.
