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Arzrover

Arzrover

Member
Nov 28, 2017
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Arizona, United States
I'm not a 30 cal fan but recently acquired a couple of special barrels to try out. I have a small stock of 30 cal projectiles but won't last long at the rate I'm going.

Sooo... I decided to check out the 4th of July sales at a couple of places and was ASTOUNDED to see these things going for 14 to 17 cents per pellet... JSB and JTS... Now I know there are discounts to bring this down some but still... this is crazy... that's twice what 25 cal pellets are...🤔

I went to Midway to check out some rimfire ammo and found a LOT of decent offerings for 8 to 12 cents per round with good match ammo being around 20 cents and super duper as high as 47 cents. This truly is crazy as a reasonable quality round being below 20 cents but contains 40 grains of lead(some even plated), a brass case, powder AND primer...

I'm fully aware of economy's of scale, demand and supply, etc... but really?

I just checked and NSA offers slugs from 10.6 cents to 18 cents per round... the 18 cents being for a 65 gn slug...

Looks like I won't ever be a 30 fan...

Bob
 
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With the latest .30 pellets producing such high BCs, it seems the .30 is the cool new thing for long range pellet comps, and rightly so because they're theoretically much easier to shoot in the wind.

But man o man am I sad to see this happen.

You point out the first, which is price. But there's also the air expenditure. And finally, the greater fpe. It goes against the whole reason I enjoy airguns (doing more with less). And that doing more with less is two-fold. I shoot in much greater volume than I can with firearms, and can shoot in many more places than I could with a firearm.

.30 is opposite of all the reasons I love airguns.
 
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Gerry52 said:
Check out AEA Dead Center pellets. Not QUITE as expensive & great performance. I love my .30 but ONLY use it for hunting, never paper punching unless absolutely required. Glad my gun doesn't shoot slugs! Keeps things as economical as possible.
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i cant get them things to stabilize with the velocity i have the U1 set to for FPE
using my slugs. even if i slowed it down, my power also would go to .25 status.
i need the knockdown power.
 
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IMADMAN said:
I have a couple of .30's, I mostly just plink. I've been using .300 round balls. I also have a few molds in .30 so it keeps the cost down.
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Ballistic products sells swaged roundball that i use in my rex .357. Not going to win any prizes for accuracy but sure is fun and much less financially stressful.
 
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Yeah that's partially why I parted with my 30 cal. 30 has a lot of thwack for hunting though. Does it kill better/faster than 25 - ? I'm not sure.

I'm sold on Altaros 25 cal 60gr slugs for what I like at UFT comps and long range, as well as NSA 29gr 25 cal slugs for plinking with power inside 200Y. ALT is expensive and worth the price but the NSA not too expensive on sale, though the BC isn't very high.

Then 17 cal and 22 cal using pellets at normal airgun distances. I had been camping back in the wilderness of Wyoming recently and it was fun just shooting tin cans with sub 30 fpe pcp's inside 80Y! I even shot the BB guns a fair amount and they are still fun.

Probably will never own a 30 cal airgun again - but never say never, right?.
 
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coastal drifter said:
guess I'll stick with .177 and .22. most my shooting is back yard plinking.
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I have some 0.30 cal barrels for my Leshiy and about 40kg of pellets and slugs. But I haven't mounted a .30cal barrel to try it out. 0.22 does most of what I'm looking for. Being quieter doesn't hurt, either.
 
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delooper said:
0.3 cubed divided by 0.25 cubed is about 1.73, i.e. you can probably expect 30-cal projectiles have about double the mass of 0.25 cal projectiles, so double the price makes sense, as it's largely material costs. The mark-up from 1.73 to 2 is probably due to lower production numbers.
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Which is why I included the 65 gn NSA's for only 18 cents per round. Still not logical to me.
 
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Franklink said:
With the latest .30 pellets producing such high BCs, it seems the .30 is the cool new thing for long range pellet comps, and rightly so because they're theoretically much easier to shoot in the wind.

But man o man am I sad to see this happen.

You point out the first, which is price. But there's also the air expenditure. And finally, the greater fpe. It goes against the whole reason I enjoy airguns (doing more with less). And that doing more with less is two-fold. I shoot in much greater volume than I can with firearms, and can shoot in many more places than I could with a firearm.

.30 is opposite of all the reasons I love airguns.
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I agree with all that plus so far, it's not as good as any of my others and MUCH more difficult to control. So far, the 56 gn Zan's seem to have a decent bc... 0.061 ... compared to the JSB 50.1s at 0.047 in the same conditions. Those plus the 44 gn JSB's seem to REALLY blow a lot in the wind or are just bad in this barrel. Seem decent but not extraordinary at 50, though.

Still prefer 22 and below for most of my plinking... 😃

Bob
 
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If looking for high BC, the slugs are the better choice. High BC .30 pellets make sense for competitions that only allow pellets. Then it’s worth paying the extra. But they still won’t match the slug’s BC. Outside of that, pellet shooting is better in .177 caliber and maybe .22, especially for shorter distances. My opinion.
 
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Man I been thinking about getting into .30 for competitions since that’s what everyone is shooting it seams. But this is all great points for as much as I shoot. I’m curious to see if you prefer shooting the .22 over .25 for competitions? I know you’re not competing much like you were, or at least I don’t think so. But I really am trying to decide which one is better in the wind. I’m getting a 0.072 over 50 shots out of a 1.16 twist liner with 33.95 mk2 at 960fps and also a 1.17.7 barrel same pellet getting same bc at 930 ish fps. I don’t currently have any .22 barrels to test side by side.
 
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