22 RD Monster comparison…..

[thomasair]

I haven’t had any RD Monster pellets for a while. Got 2 sleeves from a place far away and they got a 3 week tour of the west before arriving at my house. Half the tins had significant dents and dibgs…..one of them dented badly enough that I had to open them with 2 pair of channel lock pliers. The pellets in all of the tins are just plain ugly looking. The skirts are pretty thin and most are no longer round. I took a pic of 10 pellets randomly selected from a tin I was shooting today. You can see from the picture that nobody would want to shoot these in a match if they had something better looking.

I was mostly shooting N50 cards. Scores varied from 247-250 over 6 cards. Conditions ranged from near calm to 6-7 mph. I decided to visually sort some pellets. I selected 25 of the most ugly pellets with smashed skirts.

I shot one 25 shot group at 100y. After I shot the group and retrieved the target…I thought I probably should have shot 25 good looking ones too. Rather than walk back out and hang the target back up….I just shot at a nice clean ups label on the box that I had the target pinned to.

Here’s the pics of the results. I only had flags out to 50y…so I just watched them and multiplied my normal 50y hold by 4. About 2.5 moa was as far as I held off for both groups.

The ugly pellet group is about 1.25” wide by about 1.25” tall. The nice looking, round pellet group on the ups tag is about 2” x 2”….but 23 of the 25 made a real tidy group likely sub moa.

So which one is better? Well, the ugly pellet group is better…but maybe if I had took one more shot it could have easily been as big as the round pellet group.

One thing I can confidently say is that visual inspection for roundness doesn’t seem to help any in my particular gun. 

Mike 

 

[rsfrid]

I have been very disappointed in the quality of pellets recently, especially JSB. I weigh and head gauge them and weights vary from very low weight to very high weight. Head size is generally way larger than the size marked on back of can (6.35 25 cal runs mostly 6.38). I ordered some 25 cal pellets from Zan and they were pretty much flawless, so looks like our European/Crimean friends get the good stuff?

 

[thomasair]

These were from Zan. Hardly flawless.

This 25 shot 100y group right out of the tin. About the same size as the ugly pellet group.

Was hoping to get all 25 inside the scoring rings…but nope.

Mike 

 

[tibor]

to be honest.. disappointing.. if your serious about accuracy or competitive shooting..not acceptable..I had a little post a week ago why not usa made pellets..machinery to expensive..

if guess change the rules ..do away with pellets in competition and use slugs..problem solved.

 

[Michael]

Unfortunately the new Redesigns are a different design that the original as well.

Here's 3 different generations all with a different depth at the base. The oldest worked the best me far right groups. Unfortunately I've only got a few tins of thise left.

 

[thomasair]

That’s the problem with good pellets…they never last. That’s especially true if other people know you have some.

Mike 

 

[Centercut]

Yes, and it’s super interesting how JSB contradicted themselves. After shifting from the shallow cavity thicker skirt RDMs to the deeper cavity thinner skirt, they did THE EXACT OPPOSITE with the .25 King Heavy. And here’s the Funny? Insane? Ridiculous? part, their REASONING for the shifts was the same!!! All you can do is shake your head and smile…

i got a sleeve last week from PA and the cavities are so deep that the pin probe on my Red Wolf doesn’t push them in far enough and I can see the slight edge of the skirt overlapping the transfer port. 

 

[nomojo65]

So my take is don’t waste your time sorting the “good” from the bad or the “truly bad” from the bad, they shoot equally bad!. Typical of both good or bad pellets

 

[Centercut]

Sure. I’m still baffled by flyers. I think sorting by VISION alone probably is pointless. But what about weight and head size? When I sorted for RMAC I found some that looked ok but were 24.7 grains and 5.50 head size. Shot a few and the wouldn’t stay on the paper at 100 yards. 

 

[jeffhernandez]

This is so frustrating.

Initially I thought there were only 2 types of MRD, the old and the new ones but now I think there are multiple sub-types under the New design ones. Deep, deeper, shallow, not to deep not too shallow I guess



I am just wondering when can we see a different company make something similar to the MRD with better and consistent batches.

 

[Ghostranger169]

thomasair,

I have noticed similar results with different tins of the same "good shooting" batches of JSB MRDs. Most tins have what I would consider a high percentage of damaged skirts, but you wouldn't know it to look at the results on the target. Some "poor shooting" tins(from different "batches" of the "same labeled" JSB MRDs) have a noticably lower percentage of damaged skirts.

I believe the best shooting ones(out of my barrels) have a thinner(perhaps slightly larger diameter because they provide a bit more resistance when chambering) walled skirt, which makes them more prone to damage within the tins, but also tend to give more consistent results upon shooting. I have noticed the same thing while comparing the "good shooting" older .25 King Heavy MK1(thinner walled, slightly wider skirt) to the newer "poor shooting" .25 JSB King Heavy MK1(thicker walled skirt), which look and shoot very much like(poorly) a .25 JSB King Heavy MK2 out of my barrels.

Perhaps because the skirts are thinner, they seal better within the barrel. Or maybe the cavity or weight distribution is different. The difference in both of these instances(MRDs thin wall vs. thick wall AND King Heavy MK2 thin wall vs. thick wall) is definitely visible in the targets down range at 50 or 100 yards out of my barrels.

 

[CampFussell]

Airgun manufacturers have stepped their game up, time for pellet manufacturers to do the same!

But heck, the pellet manufacturers can't even keep up with demand as it seems?

 

[thomasair]

I just thought it was interesting that the jacked up pellets shot about the same.

Jimmy….I’m thinking that a company that sells all the product it can make is not likely going to get too worried about doing anything better. I think their focus will be to do it faster, unfortunately. Much of the trouble, anyway, is getting it from there to here without beating it up. I bought about a dozen cases of pellets one time and they loaded them on a pallet with one strap. By the time the truck got to me, there was only 1 case left on the pallet and the rest were spread around the back of the truck with varying degrees of damage.

I’m more and more disillusioned with competitive pellet shooting these days. It’s a lot of work to find decent pellets. A guy can make perfect slugs at home for 1-3 cents a piece with a minimal investment….plus you can actually shoot respectably in about any wind.

Mike

 

[CampFussell]

I just thought it was interesting that the jacked up pellets shot about the same.

Jimmy….I’m thinking that a company that sells all the product it can make is not likely going to get too worried about doing anything better. I think their focus will be to do it faster, unfortunately. Much of the trouble, anyway, is getting it from there to here without beating it up. I bought about a dozen cases of pellets one time and they loaded them on a pallet with one strap. By the time the truck got to me, there was only 1 case left on the pallet and the rest were spread around the back of the truck with varying degrees of damage.

I’m more and more disillusioned with competitive pellet shooting these days. It’s a lot of work to find decent pellets. A guy can make perfect slugs at home for 1-3 cents a piece with a minimal investment….plus you can actually shoot respectably in about any wind.

Mike

Mike the two sleeves of 13.4 gr JSB's I got from you back in 2016 were the best I've got my hands on so far. I'm sad they're gone and haven't found any that can touch them so far.

Yes, with supply not being able to keep up with demand, it will be a while before we ever see quality pellets again.

Fuss

 

[thomasair]

Ghost ranger….I don’t know the answer. I spent a lot of time on a 100x optical comparator and a laser micrometer trying to find commonalities in good shooting pellets. Every time I thought I found something significant…I would come across another pellet that had all the things I was looking for, but shot like crap. Unfortunately, I’m now inclined to believe that it’s the not so obvious things rather than the obvious that make things go bad.

Mike 

 

[thomasair]

Jimmy….I still have a small stash of those pellets just in case I ever get the itch to go to a big 25m match again. I probably won’t, though. I’ve never seen 13.4s like those come around again either.

Mike 

 

[nomojo65]

It’s frustrating, the best pellets and best barrel combo I ever had was Jsb 13.4’s and a LW 12 groove. It was the first true Br rifle I bought and won a couple events and thought this is easy compared to CF Benchrest! Didn’t know at the time that I had probably the best combination I would ever own.

I purchased another 4 tins of a different lot I presume? and never shot that well again, been chasing the Rainbow ever since, I have seriously tried everything that I could think of to get back to that level. Head Dia. Seating depth based on inner skirt pocket depth. Flaring heads, flaring skirts, sizing, washing, lubing etc. etc. even made my own seating depth tool! To no avail, either my gun hated them or loved them with not much in between.

Even though I bitch, it’s still fun because I know others are going through the same trials and tribulations. I can pull the gun out and shoot in my back yard without packing tons of crap up and go to a “GOOD RANGE” 25 miles away! 

let’s have fun enjoy the capabilities of our fine rifles and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Joe

 

[Ripper]

Unfortunately the new Redesigns are a different design that the original as well.

Here's 3 different generations all with a different depth at the base. The oldest worked the best me far right groups. Unfortunately I've only got a few tins of thise left.

<img src="

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Wow, what a difference. I keep hearing people like the older JSB’s better. I’m glad I stocked up a few years ago. They won’t last forever though

 

[CampFussell]

I guess they call them redesigns because they are never designed the same way twice? LOL They are always redesigned into something inferior?

 

[2L8]

I have a call to the distributor of JSB to help with an answer.