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Weighing pellets

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bearbar

bearbar

Member
Aug 19, 2021
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PA, Lebanon United States
Before I start doing weighing pellets, did anyone weigh pellets and come up with any results.

I would like to know if a weight difference of say .3 tenths of a grain in a 14.3 grain 22 cal pellet would make a difference in group size at 25 or 50 yards.

I have the scale that I can weigh to the 100 th of a grain.

I have separated regular bullets with some luck in reducing group sizes, and I did not know if this would carry over to the air gun world I am shooting a PCP Marauder air gun.

Thanks for any advice

Rod
 
I think it depends on your specific need, and the capability of you and rifle. At the highest level of BR competition, it might make a difference. I've tried sorting reloading components, RF ammo, and pellets by various criteria, and I've never found that weighing stuff made a difference that was worth the effort. The only sorting that I found worthwhile, was RF ammo by rim thickness. Since that affects head space and ignition, I guess no surprise. But, the best ammo was very consistent in this measurement, so probably an effort not needed. Shoot a few groups with the pellets culled, see if it helps. My guess, a visual inspection for damage might be the best manner or sorting, pellets get banged around.
 
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all I can tell you is that with JSB .25 cal 33.95's, I find about a 5% variance. Most are close, but plus or minus up to 2.5% is possible with a couple outliers outside that range.

Since 1/10 of a grain can make up to a 2 fps speed difference (from my testing), I tend to weigh in 1/10 grain batches. I think the last batch went from 33.2 to 44.7 grains. or a 1.5 grain spread is another way to look at it. The 18,3 grain .22 pellets seem to have about a 5% spread as well. Crosman premier domes same. Not like I've weighed hundreds of tins, but I have weighed more than a few.

My method is to wash, lube, then weigh.

Does it make a difference? Maybe. If just shooting critters in the back yard, probably not. If shooting benchrest at 75 or 100 yards, absolutely. I tested and it showed that 1 grain makes a 20 fps difference, so 1.5 grains could make a 30 fps difference. That equates to a vertical difference down range. Yes, my accuracy picked up after I started weighing.

Anything past 1/10 of a grain accuracy doesn't seem to make sense to me. 2fps is within margin of error, and doesn't make much difference down range.

Xbowsniper shoots field target (see youtube, Field Target Tech) and stated that his fliers went from a couple per match to 1 or 2 every other match when he washed, lubed, weighed, and rolled his pellets. 

Yes pellet prep can make a difference depending on what you want to accomplish.




 
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weight isnt going to matter much imo .. the difference will be in vertical impact point and it wont be much imo .. the 'real' issue is diameter, a fked up pellet will fly off for sure, but, weight may point to those in some if not most cases, again, without eliminating the size diameter different ones weighing them is an exercise in futility .. how i see it ..
 
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Here's a graphic representation of the weight distribution of a tin of JSB 44.75 gr. pellets.

JSB 44.75 weight distribution.1631109011.jpg

 
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For plinking and general shooting I don’t bother.

For matches I weigh and sort/roll. The weighing gets them in groups but the big part is weeding out the peewees and jumbos. Same for the rolling. It is taking the really undersized or oversized pellets out that makes the difference.
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instead of rolling why not use the pellet guage?

just asking
 
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I was against weighing and sorting and for years shot straight from the tin, even in competition - mostly .30 caliber. But with the .22 JSB RD Monster 25.4, shooting them at 975 FPS, I would get the occasional "flyer". Inexplicable. Usually low by at least an inch at 100 yards, sometimes 3 or 4 inches, and occasionally a foot or more. If this happens even once in a tournament it can ruin your chances. And it HAS happened to me at least twice in big competitions. So I started weighing them and keeping 25.4 and 25.5 grain, and then head sizing and keeping the ones 5.52+, and discarding the ones that fit in the 5.52 hole in the PelletGage. For the entire RMAC I had NO FLYERS, and even shot the highest score of the entire tournament on day 1 with a 229-8x. I'm a believer...
 
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Easy, both 7s on that card (its posted on IG) were left of the bull, and would have been 9s or 10s if I had read the wind correctly... Its very hard to get "good" tins of pellets, especially with all the shortages. I had sorted some old 350 count tines of FX branded JSB RDMs, and out of 350 pellets only ended up culling 40 or 50 that didn't meet the criteria above. And then I bought a sleeve of the ones made more recently, and had to cull about half of them. Definitely a difference. During that sort I had pellets from 24.7 to 25.8 grains... And some head sizes that were 5.50mm...

When I say I was burned recently by flyers I meant at a fairly large tournament in July (about 40 shooters, so twice the size of the recent N50), and in the finals had a flyer that went lower than the 4 ring, and ended up with a "3", which dropped my score from 2nd (if it was a 9) to 8th. So even if its just for peace of mind, it still makes sense to me for the confidence you need to win...

RMAC cards on this post...

https://www.airgunnation.com/topic/centercut-at-rmac-day-1-and-2/?view=all&referrer=1
 
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Mike ….I guess I was referring to your comment about not reading the downdrafts correctly in the finals. How do you determine if you misread the downdrafts and got a low shot or if you got a flyer that resulted in a low shot.

For myself…flyers can be any direction that seems incongruent with what the flags are saying at the time. I understand that you don’t use flags…so it’s a great curiosity as to how you can see the wind and assess certain missed shots as pellet flyers and others as misreads of the wind or downdrafts. 

Maybe at your big match in July….you just misread a downdraft?

Mike 
 
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Mike ….I guess I was referring to your comment about not reading the downdrafts correctly in the finals. How do you determine if you misread the downdrafts and got a low shot or if you got a flyer that resulted in a low shot.

For myself…flyers can be any direction that seems incongruent with what the flags are saying at the time. I understand that you don’t use flags…so it’s a great curiosity as to how you can see the wind and assess certain missed shots as pellet flyers and others as misreads of the wind or downdrafts. 

Maybe at your big match in July….you just misread a downdraft?

Mike
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I wasn't discussing the finals above. My gun had developed an o-ring leak (valve pin 90 duro polyethylene seal ring}, and my speed had dropped off from 975 to about 935 fps, but poop happens, and the pellets weren't tracking like I expected. My problem, no excuses... I've shot enough with that gun that I can recognize when a pellet doesn't fly correctly, and usually can see them tracking to the target. The one in the July match was a big corkscrew, no doubt it was a flyer, and the shooter next to me (that came in first) was watching through his scope since he had already finished. We just looked at each other and said WTF at the same time... ;)

And I've used wind flags since I bought the ones that you suggested last year, I thought you knew that? Although most of the shooters don't use them at 100 yards, and the winner, 2nd and 3rd didn't use wind flags, just the "spray and pray" 100Y BR method. For the benches on the left in the finals, we were getting a wind over our right shoulder that the benches on the right side were not getting due to tents and obstacles blocking that direction wind. Luck of the draw...

Just a question for you. Do you think there is ANY situation where the pellet can be bad and cause a flyer, or is it ALWAYS the shooter...?
 
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I’m my own testing at 100y…lighter or heavier pellets than an established baseline did not produce ups or downs any more than the baseline itself. Light pellets did not always go higher and heavy pellets did not always go lower. I could establish no clear connection to the vertical based on a weight variance of even 1/2 gr on a 25.4 monster.

Mike
 
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There is SOMETHING other than the shooter causing flyers with all the batches of MRDs that I've tried. I couldn't get rid of it with the one small sorting by weight experiment that I tried though, perhaps the head sizing noted by Centercut is the ticket. 

My long ranger gets around 45 shots per fill, and I can absolutely count on at least one shot per fill being screwy, and not shooter induced. What I call a "flyer," hitting far away from where it should or was expected. 

That 1 or 2 per 40-50 shots has been steady, through a couple different batches, FX and JSB branded. And has been a problem for Extreme FT matches, as well as the paper punching I've done with the gun. 
 
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So in essence your answer is No, its never a bad pellet, and always the shooter and a misread of the wind? I've shot from the tin before in practice where a shot went a full foot low... Wasn't a wind shift, and gun was shooting at same speed as always. I'd call that a flyer due to a bad pellet... So without a doubt, there are or could be bad pellets in some tins that cause a variance outside the norm. I do agree with you that a small weight variance more than likely doesn't show up much, but a small head size (and there are small head sizes in some tins) can make a difference in how the pellet behaves... IMHO of course.
 
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I actually believe flyers are caused by transient conditions inside the barrel more often than any other reason. I call this lead tracking. Every shot deposits something or picks something up. The deposits don’t seem to harm things radically in a short time…but the shots that remove the deposits left by previous shots in one swoop can go terribly wrong.

Sorting has never produced long term improvements for me…and the Lord knows I have tried. I even believed it was doing me good until it didn’t. Over time I realized the ups and downs averaged out to be the same and I had actually made no tangible improvement to my average. When I was sorting and had a flyer I automatically attributed it to something else. Most guys sort because they can’t prove it doesn’t help. They also cannot prove that it does…but cannot mentally bear to take the chance. Every person I know that was a die hard sorter (and finally gave it up) admits that their scores did not falter once they quit….and I know a lot of them.

Mike 





 
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Cole…I’m 100% sure you could not sort out that flyer. The problem is in the barrel.

About 5 years ago I had some custom polygons made that could not be beaten at 25m benchrest in their first month of use. Not long after that they would still shoot high x 250s…but would interject a sideways pellet every couple cards. There was nothing that could be done to prevent those once the cycle began. Many of the guys that owned one believed they could sort those flyers away. Nobody ever could. If they bought a new barrel they would have about a month of heavy use before it would start the ugly sideways flyer routine. I spent a lot of time with a borescope shooting one pellet and scoping….one more, scope again. I watched a lead deposit develop at the choke and when the lead deposit was stripped off in one shot….you got your big flier. Turn it would go on to shoot xs until it built that deposit up again. Sometimes the deposit would be very slight and would disappear in a shot with no flier. But every time it got large and was stripped in one shot you got something atrocious. Every time. The only solution was to cut off the choke and re choke it lighter. The problem was that they didn’t produce the same accuracy. I still know of one guy shooting one of these barrels and he sometimes gets an astounding 3 card agg…but usually he will have a great run that gets spoiled by one awful shot. He is an avid sorter and simply believes that he missed one bad pellet in his routine.

Mike 
 
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Cole…I’m 100% sure you could not sort out that flyer. The problem is in the barrel.

About 5 years ago I had some custom polygons made that could not be beaten at 25m benchrest in their first month of use. Not long after that they would still shoot high x 250s…but would interject a sideways pellet every couple cards. There was nothing that could be done to prevent those once the cycle began. Many of the guys that owned one believed they could sort those flyers away. Nobody ever could. If they bought a new barrel they would have about a month of heavy use before it would start the ugly sideways flyer routine. I spent a lot of time with a borescope shooting one pellet and scoping….one more, scope again. I watched a lead deposit develop at the choke and when the lead deposit was stripped off in one shot….you got your big flier. Turn it would go on to shoot xs until it built that deposit up again. Sometimes the deposit would be very slight and would disappear in a shot with no flier. But every time it got large and was stripped in one shot you got something atrocious. Every time. The only solution was to cut off the choke and re choke it lighter. The problem was that they didn’t produce the same accuracy. I still know of one guy shooting one of these barrels and he sometimes gets an astounding 3 card agg…but usually he will have a great run that gets spoiled by one awful shot. He is an avid sorter and simply believes that he missed one bad pellet in his routine.

Mike
Click to expand...


Very interesting. Makes me wonder.
 
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