Reusing BBs (and accuracy with Daisy 499b)

[katfisch]

Can you effectively reuse steel BBs — they should be fine, right? I mean… STEEL! Daisy recommends using only new clean BBs in the 499b, but hey, they sell BBs for a living, so we have a right to be skeptical.

Test: Shot 10 Daisy Precision Max BBs into a (steel) Altoids tin at 5 meters, rested, Daisy 499b — only shoots about 240 fps.
Then collected and reshot the 10.

The BBs looked fine (the Altoids tin took a beating), but, man, the used BBs were no longer close to accurate.
New BBs group size: 10mm
Used BBs group size: 35mm

Take home lesson: Don’t reuse BBs if they hit anything hard (like another BB in the trap) if you care about accuracy (sorry I doubted you, Daisy).

 

[Moe M.]

Good question, allot of air gun shooters reclaim their BB's and Pellets and shoot them again, one of my sons (adult) is a rabid air gun fan and got me into it when Covid shut the world down and the cost of shooting firearms and places to shoot went out of sight, he's one of those guys that collects his used ammo.
We have a 10 meter air gun range in the basement for winter fun, we shoot replica air pistols that shoot BB's and .177 cal. pellets, our pellets trap is an aluminum trash barrel filled half full of compact seat cushions and has a heavy cardboard face that we affix our targets to, the barrel is suspended from the overhead joists.
The cushioning does a great job of catching the BB's and Pellets without allot of deforming, every now and then my son cleans out the barrel and sorts the BB's from the pellets, he reuses the BB's but collects the pellets for recycling, personally for the amount of money saved and the low cost of BB's and pellets I don't bother, I just shoot new ammo.
My BB pistols have smoothbore barrels, the pellets pistols are rifled, shooting used and often dirty ammo can eventually damage barrels that will affect accuracy, which is why I shoot new ammo in my pistols and in my pellet rifles.

 

[katfisch]

Good question, allot of air gun shooters reclaim their BB's and Pellets and shoot them again, one of my sons (adult) is a rabid air gun fan and got me into it when Covid shut the world down and the cost of shooting firearms and places to shoot went out of sight, he's one of those guys that collects his used ammo.
We have a 10 meter air gun range in the basement for winter fun, we shoot replica air pistols that shoot BB's and .177 cal. pellets, our pellets trap is an aluminum trash barrel filled half full of compact seat cushions and has a heavy cardboard face that we affix our targets to, the barrel is suspended from the overhead joists.
The cushioning does a great job of catching the BB's and Pellets without allot of deforming, every now and then my son cleans out the barrel and sorts the BB's from the pellets, he reuses the BB's but collects the pellets for recycling, personally for the amount of money saved and the low cost of BB's and pellets I don't bother, I just shoot new ammo.
My BB pistols have smoothbore barrels, the pellets pistols are rifled, shooting used and often dirty ammo can eventually damage barrels that will affect accuracy, which is why I shoot new ammo in my pistols and in my pellet rifles.

I have an airgun enthusiast friend who has a rule — discard any pellet dropped on the floor — because any grit picked up by the pellet might damage the gun’s rifling. Similar reasoning to yours for not reusing ammo. In my case, the Daisy Precision Max BBs ($0.002 per round) are far cheaper than the paper targets I’m shooting them through.