Hi everyone! In this short video, Donnie explores the efficacy of sorting pellets. Is it worthwhile? Is it useless? Watch the video to find out!
you would normally sort pellets for weight and head size and if you found a pellet with a damaged shirt you do one of to things
throw in the tin that is for plinking or fix the shirt and shoot it after sizing and weighing
so the video tell you damaged shirts on pellets don't shoot the same, REALLY, well that is real rocket science
maybe buy some better pellets to start with
you would normally sort pellets for weight and head size and if you found a pellet with a damaged shirt you do one of to things
throw in the tin that is for plinking or fix the shirt and shoot it after sizing and weighing
so the video tell you damaged shirts on pellets don't shoot the same, REALLY, well that is real rocket science
maybe buy some better pellets to start with
Just curious, but what pellets do you think are better than (JSB manufactured) Air Arms 10.3gr pellets?
-Donnie
Ya know, I don't shoot well enough to worry about a difference between 900 and 860 fps. If my dinner depended on pellet quality and the trajectory deviations of 40 fps, or if I was in the Olympics, or in some national competition with phat prize money, I imagine I would go crazy and scrutinize each pellet individually. But is that even necessary?
I read elsewhere that the world's best shooters sort by production runs (batches) - and buy sleeves of the batch(es) that worked best for them. I have also read that the typical variances of high end pellets make no difference for guys like me who ARE NOT Olympic competitors.
Furthermore, I can see how softer lead pellets could be squished anywhere or anytime after fabrication. Crosman Premieres suck in this regard. I have seen an interview with Richard Dixon (now retired from Predator) stating lead free pellets have far fewer deviates than lead because of their hardness. In fact, I have shot tens of 1000's of various GTOs and H&N Greens and I have yet to find a single deviate pellet. I know ... that seems like a bold claim ... your mileage may vary.
One thing I will say: if you do find deviate pellets, dump them. It is penny wise and pound foolish to try to repair them when they are pennies each. That is cost saving logic similar to retrieving "good" pellets from a trap and reusing them.
Bottom line for me: when I'm getting close to shooting same hole groups at 10m without a bench rest or bipod, then I may start sorting.
Go in peace good people !
@baker-airguns-donnie
The gold standard in .177 hunting pellets. It's not what I think. This was proven long before JSB hit the scene.
https://www.pyramydair.com/product/h-n-baracuda-match-177-cal-10-65-grains-round-nose-400ct?p=20
I'm a plinker. My Marauder and nitro piston Varmint shoot Grosman Premiers good enough for me. Never sorted pellets. Max range in my back yard is 25 yards. Have the old man shakes now so I just shoot bench rest. Shoot BR on the air conditioner for any tree rats that get on the bird feeders.
@baker-airguns-donnie
The gold standard in .177 hunting pellets. It's not what I think. This was proven long before JSB hit the scene.
https://www.pyramydair.com/product/h-n-baracuda-match-177-cal-10-65-grains-round-nose-400ct?p=20
Bro, I shoot Field Target and various Benchrest competitively.
Every match, the shooters declare their gun, scope, and ammunition.
WELL over 90% of competitors are shooting a JSB product.
Those might have been the cat's meow BEFORE JSB hit the scene...but not since.
Don't get me wrong, a gun likes what a gun likes....but MOST like a JSB product.
-Donnie
Competition: YES
Plinking/hunting: NO
@baker-airguns-donnie
"WELL over 90% of competitors are shooting a JSB product."............
I've often wondered why! Supposedly 4.52mm JSB Exacts I bought a few years ago were so inconsistent in head size that they would on occasion flip out of my .177 R9 leade when relatching the barrel. LOL, I had two dry fires during a THAGC match using suppposedly 4.52mm Exacts and would have had a third if I didn't SEE the pellet "flip out". The Exacts didn't group nearly as well as the die lot marked and dated boxed Crosman Premiers.............
I
Anywhoo....after the "2 dry fire match" I went on a week long session of actually measuring all the Exacts I had and sold them to another shooter........
With the demise of the die lot marked and dated boxed CPLs I've been searching for a suitable replacement and so far the 4.52mm 8.4 grain Air Arms domes appear to be a good replacement for both my "looser leade" Beeman R9 and the "tighter leade" HW95. When I bought my .177 HW95 I found that the leade was considerably tighter than my .177 R9 so I made up a pellet sizer that gave a pellet head of 4.50mm while flaring out the skirt a bit..........
It only takes about 5 seconds to size a pellet using the home made sizer so just for grinns I sized all the AA pellets marked 4.52mm and found that all but a few were actually "sized". I did the same thing with supposedly 4.50mm & 4.52mm JSB Exacts and found that quite a few pellets from the "4.52mm tin" simplu dropped through the 4.50mm sizing ring without any pressure on the "ram". The week long pellet measuring had pellets in the supposedly 4.52mm tin that were smaller than those in the 4.50mm tin and visa-versa.
A couple short 18 yard groups shot using the 8.4 grain Air Arms domes and the 8.6 grain H&N FTT look to be a promising replacement for CPLs from my two HW break barrels...........
Bottom line...........for me it really does help if I sort (or size) pellets to a consistent head size and weed out those with oval skirts, however so far the tins of H&N FTTs are consistent enough to shoot straight from the tin. The tins are printed 4.52mm however most seem to be a bit larger and it's my opinion that as long as the pellet head is large enough to be "sized" simply by pressing them into leade, they will all exit the barrel the same size ..........
Thank you very much for the informative and well thought out post.
I completely agree that the size printed on any tin of pellets is not necessarily reflective of the size of the pellets in the tin.
I usually find that they ALL differ from what is printed in both H&N and JSB products.
Typically, H&N seem to be larger that what is printed and JSB seems to be smaller.
Not always, but that seems to be a trend.
Regardless, this is one of the major reasons that I use a Pelletgage.
I do not size, but I do measure.
I've also never found 100% of the pellets in any tin to be the same size.
I absolutely always find variation.
-Donnie
@baker-airguns-donnie
If you shoot competitively then you should have a system in place. That's what you need to post, not the obvious. These videos are near click bait that offer no real information. I'm not sure why you are still using antiquated pellet technology in new guns too. You then rely on other forum members to do the legwork for you. This tells me if I bought a gun from Baker, their service would be questionable since they lack any thoroughness in their videos. From what I've seen, I imagine schooling the Baker folks, then doing the work myself.
@baker-airguns-donnie
The "issue" I have with using a "pellet gage" is that they sort by the fat dimension of a pellet head. I've measured quite a few pellet heads that are oval (often by .03mm) and not round.
As mentioned, "ovality" isn't an issue as long as the pellet head is large enough to be "ironed out" when pressed into the leade, however if the pellet heads are oval+undersized all the pellet gage is doing is sorting "by the fat dimension", however I do agree that using "holes in a plate" can be useful for sorting out the "most outsized fitters".
It does seem to me that head size is more critical than weight. Used to be most were concerned with weight only. The old Beeman push through sizers as most know, also had the undesired affect of resizing the skirt as well.
I bought the pellet sizers and the T Robb head sizers with the hope of experimenting with them in the future. As of now I have no experience with them. I do however have plenty of experience with pellet inconsistencies like most. Got them in .177 .20 .22 .25, and two precision scales. 1 scale has a decent 'center' calibration limit for .177 $ .20. The other has a decent center limit for .22 & 25. No doubt it will be time consuming when I'm able to open that can of worms but might even prove interesting.
It remains to be seen which will prove more fun -shooting straight from the tin or pellets with time invested. I suppose it depend on the type of shooting...
As far as which pellet is best, that will certainly depend on the gun at hand.
https://www.trrobb.com/index.aspx?pageid=2193616
I don't think Donnie's post/video was made for or intended for all you shooters that have it all figured out, but rather for those that might be on the fence about inspecting, weighing and the various method's of sorting pellets.
I was handed a tin of the very pellets in his video a few years ago after doing the whole "pellet" song and dance and having less than stellar results.
They worked better instantly and after another competitor taught me the fine art of inspecting them just like Donnie did in the video, as I pulled them out of the tin and put them right in the breach things got even better for me.
In my particular situation it's been working great and I'm not changing a thing.
Ray
I read through the comments before looking at the video. From some of the criticism, I half expected it to contain something controversial. Instead, he simply shows that a damaged skirt results in a drop in fps (poor seal?). That's helpful information for people who just shoot straight from the tin.
If you want to see a detailed description of one man's method for pellet sorting, check out the posts on the archive by YRRAH (Harry). And his long range targets, too.
As to weight sorting, I can see where that might give a benefit commensurate with the time invested, especially as digital scales are relatively cheap. Guys who shoot .22lr often do it. For example, CCI Green Tag "target" is nothing more than weight sorted CCI Standard Velocity.
I for one believe that Harry was a great story teller. That said, there is no doubt that hours spent sorting and sizing pellets has an advantage for the most precision shooters.
Just curious, but what pellets do you think are better than (JSB manufactured) Air Arms 10.3gr pellets
JBS branded 10.3gr pellets ....and FX 10.3 pellets are even better that those (made by JSB).
A good tin of pellets, that was not screwed up in shipping, or dropped on the ground and picked back up, will have 97% of the pellets with perfect skirts.
I used to wonder if it was better to reach into the tin, or put some into the lid on the foam and grab them that way,..like would my fingers bend the skirts on the .22's...
but I grab them out of the full tin now. I can look down and see round skirts, then I grab a round skirt and load it. It doesn't hurt the other pellets at all.
When I have to make 50 shots in a row, with 3 cameras rolling, a bent skirt flyer can cost me a whole segment of shooting, so I deal with that regularly. I have never sorted pellets, but I have also never loaded a bent skirt during filming a video or testing guns.
TOMCAT said the #1 thing you can do to improve accuracy is WASH your pellets. Your washing off the oil though, so you need to re-oil them, or in about 2 days they will oxodize big time. It happens almost overnight. I never tried it.
-Nate @ Airgun Channel
some guy in Poland sold me on eBay 6 tins of 25gr JSB where he had taken ALL his bent pellets and put them back into tins, then resealed them. Every single pellet in these look like they went through a grinder. I had ordered once and got good pellets, then I ordered again and got these. Opened them a year later. ...my Pellet Sizer became my Pellet Repair Tool. I am able to straighten these pretty much back to new with a couple passes through my pellet sizer
TTS Pellet Sizers (only availible on eBay)
I want to very much thank everyone who posted here!
I also want to repeat something else I said.
You don't NEED to sort pellets to enjoy an airgun.
You don't even NEED to sort pellets to do well with an airgun.
My only point is that different pellets do indeed act differently.
If you want to reduce the number of variables affecting your pellet's flight, then sorting is not a worthless endeavor.
-Donnie
