IS/VR and pellet rifle shooting?

[Zzyzx]

In photography now with all the digital stuff we have IS and VR... Image Stabilization and Vibration Reduction. This is in the lens with some cameras and in thecamera body with others. The effect is to allow hand holding a camera/lens combination at much slower shutter speeds without camera shake having an effect on the sharpness of the photograph. Somehow the internals register movement by the person holding the camera/lens combination and move lens elements or compensate with the body and digital sensor and micromove it/them to compensate for the sensed movement/camera shake. This makes for photos that are sharp at shutter speeds down to 1/10 of a second or so. I know it works with very large and heavy Super Telephoto lenses (600mm and over 10 pounds) to wide angle zoom lenses.(such as the 15-85mm Canon IS Zoom) With this technology working in consumer photo gear and working well many more sharp photos are possible thanks to technology. It works handheld as well as on minimally shaky tripods or braced and propped platforms.

In the past we have had things like the Kenyon GyroStabilizer which was a set of gyroscopes that powered up and, when attached to the cameras tripod socket, smoothed out the handling of the camera. This made for hand holding cameras in shaky environments like helicopters and flight much easier and smoother and resulted in sharp photographs while on the vibration prone platform. Hollywood has used these things for years to smooth out panning motions in the movies.

Is something like this available on any Air Rifles?

With the newer high end rifles from Daystate and maybe others being computer controlled for shot to shot consistency and power, why not a built in computer controlled stabilization system that would help with holding the rifle on target? If it can work on camera lenses why not on a pellet rifle? Why not a scope system designed integrally with the rifle to hold the barrel/sight picture on the target and automatically compensating for slight user motion?

[SDale]

It sounds good on paper, but when you actually get down to it. A scope like that would possibly make the gun LESS accurate.

The way I understand it, Image stabilization visually dampens movement. It doesn't really physically dampen it (digital, not gyroscopic). Now, if it only visually stabilizes an image, the there would be a lag and angular difference between the picture in the scopes reticle and what the barrel is actually pointed at. So when you pull the trigger, you'd really be aiming at a spot other than what the reticle is transmitting to the eye.  Now, if the scope's image stabilization was somehow connected to the trigger, then that would be a different story.

Now Gyros make lots of sense. So much in fact that the military has been using them on tanks, missiles, rockets and ship based guns to keep them on target. I think they'd work fairly well, in a limited fashion for airguns. But, the gyros would have to have fairly large flywheels in order to compensate for the large swings of a rifle. This adds WEIGHT. It would also make it ALLOT harder to move from target to target or track a moving target with any kind of speed. On a Bi-Pod or on the bench you'd be golden. But I wouldn't want to carry that set-up for long periods of time in a hunting situation.