To Shape Or Not To Shape...That Is The Question

[Lightyear68]

As a recreational precision .22 rimfire shooter, I know how important ammunition is to repeating precise shots, but I'm new to the PCP world. With my rimfire rifle at the range I'm content shooting one ragged hole at 50 yards, and I'd like to get there in my 20-yard backyard range with my Gamo Urban. When I opened my first tin of JSB Exact Jumbo Diablo 15.89 pellets and saw most of the skirts were bent I was concerned. But should I be? I don't know what I don't know and am hoping for some guidance from the more experienced airgunners here. I read a lot of information, watched a lot of videos, and considered a lot of tools. After all that I narrowed my plan down to one of two strategies:

Strategy 1: Reshape and resize the skirt. I could buy into this if it results in better accuracy. Here's a video showing an affordable, easy method.

Strategy 2: Just shoot them as they are. According to Tom Gaylord (who seems pretty credible) in this Pyramid Air blog, Tom says most high-quality adult air guns have choked muzzles that squeeze the pellet by one-half of a thousandth of an inch at the muzzle. That automatically sizes all the pellets and negates any other sizing efforts.

Your thoughts?

 

[Sqwirl57]

Shoot them and see what happens. Here's some bent skirt testing I performed awhile back (copy and pasted from Reddit). Groups were done at 30m using my 10.5ftlb TX200:

Got bored and decided to run a quick test to see the effects of damaged skirts on accuracy. I was honestly a little surprised with the results.

Picture #2 includes two seperate 10x shot groups. The group on the left is just 10 pellets pulled at random from the tin and sent down range. The group measured 0.395" CTC.

The group on the right is with 10 pellets pulled from the tin but each skirt was examined for any defects. If none were found, they were sent towards the target. That group measured 0.318". Pretty solid improvement if you ask me.

Here is where it gets interesting for me though. Picture #3 was 10 shots with more than just a little skirt damage. You can get a rough idea of what these pellets looked like from the first picture. One of these pellets had both sides of the skirt literally touching in the center. I was expecting an 1.5"+ from this group. What I got was 0.621".... I can live with that any day of the week.

I guess the moral of the story is, don't waste "bad" pellets. I wouldn't use them for hunting or in a match scenario; but for plinking? All day.

 

[Lightyear68]

I couldn't ask for a better reply than that. As soon as the rain stops I'll hope to get those groups as well. Thanks!

 

[bigHUN]

Shoot them as is.
And I can add that you can get better accuracy if you increase the weight.
This year I shot about 6-7K pellets in .22 only, I bought couple tins each all different Brand and weights and I was looking (learning) which groups best.
I started with about about 15 grain - 18 -21-25 grain and here I stopped, this is the heaviest I can get from shelfs at my location, and I don't plan to make my own.
What I learned is that the most inconsistencies coming from friction inside rifling:
- either the barrel rifling start fulling (many high end shooters washing the barrels after 50-100 shots, and competition shooters even more frequently),
- the pellet head size consistency. A very small variation of OD makes a difference.
To make it short, I just started re-sizing my pellets, but unfortunately the winter hit my place and I am not volounteering freezing my bottom at least until the snow melts. I shoot my airguns in my gun club only.

 

[Lightyear68]

As I re-read the replies from sqwirlfugger57 and bigHun I'm inferring that I'll get ok accuracy by just shooting the pellets as is. But both of you confirm that you find more consistent precision by selecting pellets: either choosing unbent skirts and/ or head size.

So if I'm content with my shot groups I'll shoot as is. If my OCD kicks in and I want smaller groups it could help to reshape and group according to size.

 

[Sqwirl57]

As I re-read the replies from sqwirlfugger57 and bigHun I'm inferring that I'll get ok accuracy by just shooting the pellets as is. But both of you confirm that you find more consistent precision by selecting pellets: either choosing unbent skirts and/ or head size.

So if I'm content with my shot groups I'll shoot as is. If my OCD kicks in and I want smaller groups it could help to reshape and group according to size.

Correct. Absolutely use the best of the best if you're going for absolute best possible groups. You can experiment with head size as well as weighting to see what works well too.

 

[Lightyear68]

Here's my first 10 shots after zeroing at 20 yards with my new Gamo Urban. I picked good pellet skirts for these shots. The first five shots were grouped next to the dime for a .312 inch spread. Then one shot in each circle from left to right. Ran out of daylight, so will need to finish a whole target another day. Thanks to those who posted and got me started.

 

[Lightyear68]

I read a lot of posts about fabricated tools to reshape pellet skirts. This is what's working for me. I squeeze a pellet in small vise grip pliers which creates a nice handle and the right size for shaping. Gentle pressure and a few rotations is all it takes. I prepped a tin of 250 in 30 minutes while watching tv.