Hiw many size and weigh pellets??

[Solo1]

What I can’t seem to grasp is how with a brand new gun in this case 22 cal you can shoot a 5 shot group @50 that fits under a dime with 2 different kinds of pellets that are the same weight and then shoot 2 groups of slugs that might fit under a quarter , then move to 100 and get 1 1/4” to 1 1/2” with the slugs but 3-4” or worse groups with the pellets?
Oh and no wind

 

[XSUltimate]

I sort and weigh for major competitions and shoot from the tin for the day to day shooting and local matches. Some say it doesn't really matter but I look at it that I am removing variability in my shooting process. Reducing or limiting the amount of variation in my shooting process will ultimately give me a better chance of doing well. Have I done as much as I can to shoot the best that I can, for me that includes sorting and weighing. Head size is important as well as barrels do have a preference on size that they prefer and will reward you for that given barrel.
There are some who believe that if you have a good barrel and understand how to keep it performing at the top of its capability, you do not need to sort. I cannot disprove that theory, but I can say that none of the barrels on my rifles have shown me how to get the best performance possible or at least I do not know how to recognize those signs. Until I do, I sort.
P.S. I do use pellet gauge on a sample basis much like Nico.
Thx
Dan

 

[boomer mikey]

Have been playing with my pelletgauge for a few days and getting use to using it. Was showing it to a few other shooters and one claimed "nobody uses those stupid things" and that "all the top shooters don't worry about the head size".

At first I measured and weighed every pellet and then airgauged pellets for years only to find that the only thing that is important is to find the pellet brand and weight your airgun prefers... then purchase as many tins you can find and afford of that pellets
lott number.
bm

 

[boomer mikey]

I haven’t seen it mentioned for a while, but a while back there was frequent mention of “finding good lots of pellets” and then buying lots of them. What this tells me is not all tins of pellets are the same, some are better than others and even those totally against sorting search for the golden egg. My question is what do these shooters do with the pellets that don’t shoot as well as their “good lots?” So you would have competition type tins of pellets and testing/plinking tins?
Or am I totally wrong and it doesn’t matter, as long as the tin isn’t crushed they are all the same? Inquiring minds want to know….

My second, third, etc. tier pellet lott number pellets are saved for testing in the next airgun, barrel, tune, etc.

 

[boomer mikey]

I also have found that after several thousand great shots that some of my barrels/guns/tunes no longer like the lott number I'm using and prefer a different lott number of the same pellet.
For me half the job or more is finding the pellets for competition shooting. I have drawers and shelves full of pellets waiting for the next gun/barrel/tune to retest.
BM

 

[boomer mikey]

I also have found that after several thousand great shots that some of my barrels/guns/tunes no longer like the lott number I'm using and prefer a different lott number of the same pellet.
For me half the job or more is finding the pellets for competition shooting. I have drawers and shelves full of pellets waiting for the next gun/barrel/tune to retest.
BM

My best pellet sorting tool is an indoor shooting range... and a lot of testing. Let 10 or more cards scores and X counts with the pellet make the final pellet choice among the other pellets that look good.
BM

 

[BackStop]

I haven’t seen it mentioned for a while, but a while back there was frequent mention of “finding good lots of pellets” and then buying lots of them. What this tells me is not all tins of pellets are the same, some are better than others and even those totally against sorting search (sort) for the golden egg. My question is what do these shooters do with the pellets that don’t shoot as well as their “good lots?” So you would have competition type tins of pellets and testing/plinking tins?
Or am I totally wrong and it doesn’t matter, as long as the tin isn’t crushed they are all the same as some would have you believe? Inquiring minds want to know….

I still have several thousands of CPUM 10.5 boxed pellets that are simply the WORST pellets I have ever bought as far as mold artifacts and other aberrations/defects that definitely can and will/DO affect accuracy/precision. Although I have been able to sort through the worst of them and make them work at sub-moa levels... some of the time...

However, NOBODY should have to sort for the defects I have found in CPUM pellets with ANY pellet!

Relatively recently, I cleaned the barrel (Fortitude .177) and started trying other pellets (again).

Although the "good" (sorted) CPUM pellets still perform well, the JSB/FX pellets do much better with consistency.

Hell, all I have to do is look at them, EVEN without my glasses, to see the difference in quality!

Shame on you Crosman!

 

[boomer mikey]

Want to buy my 10.5's cheap?
I can tell you've been at this at least as long as I.
bm

 

[boomer mikey]

I don’t do anything….just shoot from the tin. I’ve won a thing or two.

I can also tell you that Jeffrey Hernández (2022 EBR Pro ,2021 sportsman winner and highest ever scorer) doesn’t head size, either. He weighed his pellets this year. I doubt that did anything for him, though.

Mike

I've followed Mike's airgun posts when he built his first air rifle from scratch, including his own design for the regulator. I cannot imagine anyone that has tested more pellets and the various ways used in an attempt to improve their ability to make better scores. I also cannot imagine anyone that has shot more benchrest scorecards. When Mike offers his opinion... I listen.
bm

 

[boomer mikey]

What I can’t seem to grasp is how with a brand new gun in this case 22 cal you can shoot a 5 shot group @50 that fits under a dime with 2 different kinds of pellets that are the same weight and then shoot 2 groups of slugs that might fit under a quarter , then move to 100 and get 1 1/4” to 1 1/2” with the slugs but 3-4” or worse groups with the pellets?
Oh and no wind

Slugs have a higher Ballistic Coefficient so they have higher Velocity at 100 yards

bm

 

[nervoustrig]

Group dispersion cannot improve with distance except as a matter of chance. In other words a 1/2” group at 50 yards won’t somehow become less than 1” at 100 yards unless luck bestows favorable winds that happen to push the cluster close together.

Regarding why pellets tend to fall apart at a distance in no wind, one fairly common reason is that many airgun barrels have an excessive twist rate that promotes them going squirrely once their velocity has decayed substantially. But also, a true no wind scenario is a suitably rare thing for any outdoor setting spanning 100 yards that it should be viewed with some skepticism. An imperceptible 1mph shifting wind can change a 1” group into a 3” or 4” group at that distance.

 

[nervoustrig]

A smart man reminded me there is a phenomenon associated with spin-stabilized projectiles that can help damp out an initial instability after it has traveled some distance. My mind was on pellets when I made the above reply so I wasn’t thinking about slugs but that could very well be a contributor to the scenario where group size does not diminish proportionally to distance.

 

[Centercut]

A smart man reminded me there is a phenomenon associated with spin-stabilized projectiles that can help damp out an initial instability after it has traveled some distance. My mind was on pellets when I made the above reply so I wasn’t thinking about slugs but that could very well be a contributor to the scenario where group size does not diminish proportionally to distance.

Interesting... I'd love to see the ballistics on that one. Damping out minor initial instability is one thing, preventing the group size from getting proportionally worse with distance, but how do the projectiles know to "return to the middle" so that group size doesn't increase with distance?

 

[nervoustrig]

I imagine you’re familiar with the terms epicyclic swerve or coning, referring to a projectile that begins its flight path with a spiral that gradually damps out over some distance. That is, a starting conical path that shrinks until there is no longer a spiral. I don’t think the behavior is claimed to produce a perfect return to the middle, only approximately so, because it converges toward the center line of the spiral.

In a carefully contrived scenario where groups were printed at the distance where the spiral is at its maximal size, then again at a greater distance after the spiral has completely collapsed, it would be possible to actually get smaller groups at the greater distance. However, I have doubts it works out that way in most arbitrary real-world conditions because of other factors like wind conspiring to create greater dispersion at a distance.

 

[bigHUN]

In perfect tunnel = no wind- conditions my 3d brain can imagine tuning a gun for pellets spiralling into coning - for a one long and fixed distance only.
Theoretically possible but the practical side would lock you indoors with that gun.

 

[nervoustrig]

For what it's worth, esteemed ballisitician Brian Litz published a short article in 2021 concluding that this behavior accounts for only a small effect

https://appliedballisticsllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Epicyclic-Swerve.pdf

so I'm skeptical it alone could explain any apparent improvement of angular dispersion at long distances.

 

[Centercut]

I imagine you’re familiar with the terms epicyclic swerve or coning, referring to a projectile that begins its flight path with a spiral that gradually damps out over some distance. That is, a starting conical path that shrinks until there is no longer a spiral. I don’t think the behavior is claimed to produce a perfect return to the middle, only approximately so, because it converges toward the center line of the spiral.

In a carefully contrived scenario where groups were printed at the distance where the spiral is at its maximal size, then again at a greater distance after the spiral has completely collapsed, it would be possible to actually get smaller groups at the greater distance. However, I have doubts it works out that way in most arbitrary real-world conditions because of other factors like wind conspiring to create greater dispersion at a distance.

Agree, plus when you look at actual test data that “coning” is almost always just a small fraction of the projectile diameter. The spiral on a .22 slug or pellet for example might be 0.02 inches, not large enough to affect group size. There’s a guy on here @azuaro I think that posted very good data about this a few years back.

 

[Solo1]

Slugs have a higher Ballistic Coefficient so they have higher Velocity at 100 yards

bm

I was refering to group size know about bc difference but most people with a new gun complain about getting better groups from pellets not the other way around especially since the pellets group better at50

 

[jeffhernandez]

This is a very interesting topic.

I would like to first say I am not an expert on this topic, neither on some others, always still learning.

As Mike said I did weight my pellets but only to try to get rid of some very lighter or very heavy ones. For example, as I use the MRDs, so I take everything from 25.2 to 25.6 gr, all the rest was dismissed.

As some of you know, I live in a foreign country, so finding good pellets is a very hard task. One time I bought some and got them shipped in a plastic sleeve and that made me think all the tins in that plastic sleeve would be the exact same, unfortunately for me I was wrong.
The pellets travel a very long way before they arrive in my hands and a lot of times I get very beaten pellets.

I do have those head measuring devices but I get very inconsistent results (not talking about the scores here) while trying to measure or sort by head size. Sometimes I get for example, one pellet goes by the 5.51 and not by the 5.52, then after I ended sorting all I just took all the same (supposedly) heads and put it again thru the same hole all and got some of them not fitting or some went thru a smaller hole, so that made me think the heads are not properly round. I stopped doing that.
For us that shoot the MRds is very hard to find consistent pellets. I have heard 25 and 30 cal are more consistent in that matter.

I understand many people sort pellets in different ways and if that gives you good results on the scores I guess you don't change what already is giving you that thing we all look for, the best consistency.

One funny thing is that one week before traveling to EBR this year, during my last day of practice I shot a 238 card at 102 yards and that was straight from the tin. I had never before shot a score like that in a practice. I re-sealed that tin and that was the one I used on finals. Will I ever be able to have a tin like that in my hands, only God knows

 

[okieairgunner]

This is a very interesting topic.

I would like to first say I am not an expert on this topic, neither on some others, always still learning.

As Mike said I did weight my pellets but only to try to get rid of some very lighter or very heavy ones. For example, as I use the MRDs, so I take everything from 25.2 to 25.6 gr, all the rest was dismissed.

As some of you know, I live in a foreign country, so finding good pellets is a very hard task. One time I bought some and got them shipped in a plastic sleeve and that made me think all the tins in that plastic sleeve would be the exact same, unfortunately for me I was wrong.
The pellets travel a very long way before they arrive in my hands and a lot of times I get very beaten pellets.

I do have those head measuring devices but I get very inconsistent results (not talking about the scores here) while trying to measure or sort by head size. Sometimes I get for example, one pellet goes by the 5.51 and not by the 5.52, then after I ended sorting all I just took all the same (supposedly) heads and put it again thru the same hole all and got some of them not fitting or some went thru a smaller hole, so that made me think the heads are not properly round. I stopped doing that.
For us that shoot the MRds is very hard to find consistent pellets. I have heard 25 and 30 cal are more consistent in that matter.

I understand many people sort pellets in different ways and if that gives you good results on the scores I guess you don't change what already is giving you that thing we all look for, the best consistency.

One funny thing is that one week before traveling to EBR this year, during my last day of practice I shot a 238 card at 102 yards and that was straight from the tin. I had never before shot a score like that in a practice. I re-sealed that tin and that was the one I used on finals. Will I ever be able to have a tin like that in my hands, only God knows

Man what great information. Thank you so much for sharing. I really enjoy the .22 mrds but like you stated I just wish they would make them more consistent and just all around better. I truly believe is jsb would go back to the old style or even change existing molds there would be a bunch of people coming back to the .22 mrds.