Single shot vs magazine fed accuracy?

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bdzjlz

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Jul 11, 2016
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Terre Haute, Indiana
I own four Air Arms S-410, S-510 rifles, in .177, .22, and .25 calibers. All are magazine fed and all seem to be superbly accurate. In my reading, I have seen some reports where single shot rifles with feed trays are consistently more accurate than magazine fed, eliminating any chance for pellet distortion due to the magazine not being perfectly aligned to the bore?

Any experience with this to validate one way or another out here on the forum?

Thanks.
 
My BSA Buccaneer gets more flyers from the last 3 or 4 shots from each mag. It's the same spring loaded, self-indexing, clip that is found on the Gamo Coyote and Urban. At 25 metres, the first 5 or 6 will go through nearly the same exact hole. With the last 4 or five, I will get maybe 2 or 3 through the same hole and a couple maybe opening the group up to 3/8-1/2 an inch. Now and then, I might get a flyer up to 1-1/2 inches. I only use JSB pellets straight from the tin and only discard anything that is obviously misformed. I can only assume that there is some misalignment with the lighter spring tension with the almost empty mag so single loading would totally eliminate this variable. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to single load this gun without a tray so I haven't bothered to test this theory. 
 
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I have found that my FX Royale 400 has shot tighter groups when loaded single shot....rather than pushed through a spring powered magazine....

My Logun Gladiator MKl with the simple round push-through magazine shoots no differently single loaded...

BSA Superten shoots best single loaded... it too has a spring powered magazine where, like the FX, the pellet drags on one side against slight spring pressure trying to rotate the mag....the pellet probe appears to prevent the magazine from causing the pellet to drag but I assume the pellet drags some as the probe goes in and the pellet moves out....however slightly it drags single loading gives me better accuracy.

All these guns are superbly accurate with the magazine ...notably slightly better single fed.
 
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The AA400-510 series magazines being mechanically advanced instead of spring wound , as long as QC was there ( seems almost 100% good with that rifle line) is a better design
as you pellets and not get bent/distorted by spring pressure.
Try an RC machine AA clip, really excellent QC on their old units.
Personally I have had little difference between groups single shot and clip feed an pretty much every clip rifle I've had, then again I do like a single shot best for all airgunning, RC single shot tray for the AA410. Does AA even offer a single shot tray these days?

John
 
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From experience, I am a firm believer that the single shot tray is more accurate than a magazine...... at least in my WFTF Marauder.
When a magazine is loaded, it does so under spring pressure. Every time the magazine is indexed, it pounds the next pellet, slightly flattening the skirt, which is undesirable. This happens with most pellets, but when using Crosman Premiers, you can get away with it, because the Premiers are made from a much harder alloy than the rest, and resist deformation due to that fact.

Tom Holland 
 
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Daystate mags don't impart spring tension on the pellet. My .25 doesn't even have an o-ring in the mag, pellets fall out if you tip it down when loaded. I have seen little difference between single shot and mag group size with my renegades. The marauders I have are a different story, I would imagine the same can be said for any spring loaded mag that uses the pellet as a retainer. The rotating action of a mag may deform the skirt to some degree on any gun but enough to be seen at reasonable ranges?
 
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