Sighting in Projectors

It is imperative to know your equipment and how it will perform before you get into the field and start shooting live darts into live animals.  You will save yourself frustration, and money, and perhaps injury to your livestock if you just do your homework.  In preparation, you will have your projector and the source of dart propulsion, i.e. a cartridge fired rifle and blanks, or a CO2 projector and the CO2, or perhaps a pump air rifle and you have eaten your bowl of “Wheaties” that morning to have the necessary energy to pump it.  You have the practice darts that correspond to the live darts you will be using.  You will have pre-measured distances in yards established. You will need a target and a place to shoot from.  You will be way ahead to have a steady table and something solid to rest the rifle on while shooting.

When you are sighting in any cartridge fired projector, and shots are being made at thirty second intervals or less, you should employee a “cycling” procedure.  Cycling is putting fresh air into the cartridge load chamber of the rifle.  When darts are fired in rapid succession the oxygen in the tube in front of the chamber may be depleted.  This can result in an incomplete burn of the powder from your succeeding blank, resulting in a slower velocity of the dart to be projected.  I have a portable air tank that has a blow valve on the hose.  With the bolt of the rifle open I induce fresh air into this chamber with a puff of air.  When the air tank is not readily at hand I will simply do this with my breath.  If the dart barrel is still closed after a shot has been made and you induce this fresh air, you will note that smoke will exit the muzzle of the barrel as you perform this procedure.  Although not necessary, turning the projector’s power setting to 5 will allow an easier flow of this air.  It is unnecessary to perform this procedure when you are doctoring your livestock or longer intervals are allowed between shots, as the air will cycle naturally.

My favorite target is to hang a piece of horse stall mat with a canvas Pneu-Dart target stretched and attached to it with three-quarters of an inch drywall screws.  This mat will hold the practice darts in place from shot to shot.  It’s difficult to tell what you’re doing when the darts strike the target and fall out.  For years I used a square bale of hay, and you could get by with such.  The problem comes into play by moving it around to the different distances. Many times when using the smaller capacity practice darts, the darts will bury into the bale and be difficult to find and retrieve.   I shoot from an outdoor table with sandbags and have the mat on a dolly that can be moved easily to various distances.  Keep firearm safety rules in mind and be aware of your surroundings, especially down range. Know where the dart will stop if you have a ricochet or miss the target completely.

Other necessary items to have on hand before you begin will be some cleaning equipment such as a cleaning rod, bore brush, barrel swab or cleaning patches.  Powder solvent such Hoppee’s # 9 or Shooter’s Choice should be on hand if you have a cartridge fired projector, along with gun oil, rags, Q-Tips and perhaps some pipe cleaners.

There is a common tie among all dart projectors when it comes to the manner or procedure required to properly sighting one in.  The goal is to be able to hit the injection site you have chosen on the animal with the capacity of dart, or milliliter of drug required, at the various distances you would encounter; and to do so with the least amount of force. Just striking the animal slightly more than necessary to implant the cannula into the animal is sufficient to detonate the dart and make the injection.  This method will cause the least amount of impact trauma to tissue.  Excessive impact trauma results in forming a hemotoma under the animal’s skin.  This pool of blood will have to be absorbed over time and can tie up some of your drug, rendering the drugs less effective.  In addition, striking the animal too hard can cause your dart to bounce out.  If this occurs, not only have you bruised the animal, you have wasted your dart and your drug as it vents into the atmosphere.  If your practice dart breaks the fabric of the canvas target you are certainly hitting it excessively hard.

When a dart is flying properly for an injection, the flight pattern will have an arc to it.  In other words, when the dart leaves the barrel it will be gaining elevation on its path to the target and begin to descend and lose velocity before striking it.  The goal should be to have the dart strike in the last one-third of its flight.

I strongly advise the use of an optical sight on your dart projector.  As stated previously in another chapter, this is not for magnification purposes, but a reference point relating to the dart’s flight.  Use the practice darts, which already contain a medium closely resembling the weight of a live dart filled with medication. Choose a distance that most of your shots will occur at and choose a dart capacity that will most commonly be used.

With the projector placed on a solid rest, fire the practice darts at that measured distance.  There should be reference provided with cartridge and gauged CO2 projectors of suggested power settings for various distances using different size dart capacities.  This information is not set in stone.  It’s merely a starting point for you.  If the dart you shot hits too hard in your opinion, turn the power down.  If it hits too soft turn the power up.  The power control on the 196 and 389 cartridge fire projectors has the flow, or the power you are using, designated by the numbers on the control knob.  When you are viewing this knob as the projector is shouldered, the setting you are using will be the number at the top, or 12 O’clock position of this knob.  Be sure than when the knob is rotated to your setting of choice that you feel a positive “click”.  This will assure that you are not in between the settings.  If the setting is in between when the rifle is fired, there will be very little if any noise generated, and the dart you placed in the barrel will not have moved. Once you are satisfied with the dart’s impact energy, shoot a group of three or four darts.  You will find that these darts will make a “group.” Say at your distance, all the shots would strike within a four inch diameter circle, but are hitting eight inches below your point of aim.  It is time to adjust your optics.  Adjust them as to where the center of your group centers on the point of aim.  You have now reached the point where it is time to stop making adjustments. You have the most common size of dart “zeroed” for the most common distance you will be shooting.  You will not want to adjust the sight anymore after this point no matter what size dart or power setting you use.

Document your work and make a trajectory chart as you proceed.  I always list the dart capacity at the top of an index card, and have a separate card for each size dart.  An example of one of my charts is pictured at the end of this chapter.  I use five yard increments of distance.  Let’s say you used a 7cc dart and now have it zeroed at 20 yards.  Again, you have picked this capacity as the one that you will most often use, and the 20 yards is the most common distance that you will be doctoring your cattle at.  Move your target to 15 yards, turn the power on the projector down, and shoot another group.  If it does not zero out, but is striking plenty hard, measure the group you have and reference where you need to “hold” your aiming point in relationship to where the practice darts are hitting.  In other words, if at 15 yards your group is striking four inches lower than where you are aiming, write down under “hold” (+) four”.  When you get out in the field and want to make a perfect injection, you will be holding the sight four inches higher than where your dart is going to hit at this distance.  The same is applied for negative hold.  If groups are hitting above your point of aim, your hold should be that distance held below the injection site.  You should reference this in the hold column of the trajectory card as (-4) inches.

Now that you have the 15 and 20 yards completed with the information you can move the target to 10 yards, 5 yard, then out to 25 yards, so on and so forth until your group sizes are no longer practical for your application.

When you are satisfied with your first choice of dart capacity, repeat this procedure with another dart size you may require and make a trajectory card for it.  Again, you do not want to make any adjustments on your optics. You will most likely find that at certain distances with certain power settings your projector will zero itself out again.  If it does not, it’s no big deal.  That’s because you have a reference point of where to aim to hit your target that is established by your “hold” column of information.

On 500 pound or larger cattle, my stopping point is an eight inch group.  If all my shots are contained within this perimeter at any range, I feel comfortable in making a suitable injection into the critter’s neck.

As an example, when I’m using a 10cc dart out of my model 389 and have to make a 30 yard shot, I need to hold 10 inches high.  My gun is shooting a four inch group at this range.  What I do is place my crosshair or red dot about 4 inches above the crown of the steer’s neck and drop the hammer.  The dart falls the four inches to the neck and strikes six inches below the top of the neck.

If you are going to be serious about being proficient with your equipment, I would strongly recommend using a rangefinder.  Misjudging the distance five yards at the longer distances can mean the difference between a job well done and a complete miss.  It doesn’t take many misses when using Draxxin to overcome the cost of a rangefinder.

Should you not be starting out with a rangefinder, that doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t obtain one some day.  That is why it is important to use measured distances in yards when you are sighting in the projector.  Five of your steps do not mean the distance is five yards.  If you encounter distance judging problems and do acquire a rangefinder, the trajectory data you recorded in actual yards for your projector will be right on when you do use a rangefinder.

There is one very important point I have neglected to make.  Pick a day to sight your projector when there is absolutely no wind!  Proper dart velocities are well below that of an arrow shot out of a bow.  Wind can wreak havoc with your information gathering.  I will touch on wind and moving targets in the “Making the Shot” chapter of this publication.

After your gun has been sighted in and zeroed under the most ideal weather conditions possible, it doesn’t hurt a thing to use the practice darts to practice in less than ideal conditions that you could possibly encounter out in the pastures.  Again, this subject will be touched upon in the above referenced chapter.

On one last note regarding cartridge fire projectors; you should clean the barrel about every twelve or fifteen shots while you are shooting your practice darts.  A clean barrel can shoot much differently than a fouled barrel.  You don’t want to use a freshly oiled barrel.  Your new projector should have dry patches run through the barrel before sighting in to remove oil applied at the company.  You should also fire a couple of blanks to blow excess oil out of the chamber and pressure cup of the projector before you start trying to group darts.  While sighting in the rifle, I’ll only dry brush and dry patch the barrel in between the twelve to fifteen shots, and only use the powder solvent and oil when I stop for the day.  There is a happy medium as to how clean the projector should be for optimum performance.  If a slick oily barrel is used, darts have less friction to overcome as they travel down the barrel.  If there is too much crud in the barrel, the dart will exit at a slower velocity and your “groups” could be less than desirable.  Having said that, you don’t want to store or let the projector sit for long periods of time without oil on everything.  When you do store the projector, one of the worst things you can do is to leave it in a closed gun case.  Any moisture present will be trapped inside with your gun, and with no air circulation, it will most likely come out with rust all over it when it’s taken out two weeks later.