22 RD Monster comparison…..

[Richieg]

Here's what I found out on the FX branded JSB 25.39 pellets. I sorted 2 tins of 350 and YES it sucked.I used a pellet gage to ATTEMPT to head size them and all were either 5.55 or 5.56 head size. The majority were 5.55. The majority of weighed pellets in both head sizes were 25.4 followed by 25.3, then 25.2, 25.5, 25.6, 25.7. If you look at the picture. You can draw your own conclusions on the FX brand being MORE consistent than the JSB branded 25.39 redesigned. To ALL you other shooters

out there, don't bother sorting by head size or weight...it doesn't help or really even matter...See you at the range.

 

[Richieg]

The difference is that JSB probably has 50 different dies to choose from. The problem is that most retailers don’t really want you to know what die you are getting so the individual tins are not marked.

Mike

And there is the issue about trying to get a consistent batch and not alot can be done about it , UNLESS you have access to cases of pellets and know which die's seem to press the head sizes you are looking for and look for that die marked on cases. Surely that would never happen....

 

[Smitty911]

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.

View attachment 184146

Ok, how much for those tins you have left and the gun to go with it????

Smitty

 

[Smitty911]

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,
Just curious, what was the resolution of the Laser Micrometer? How many pellets did you go through? All from separate tins? Out of all the metrics you measured and probably sorted, there wasn't anything significant about how they performed?

I thought head and skirt size made the biggest difference with the same weight of pellet.
That's going to make it insanely difficult to isolate what works from what doesn't and have a chance at making good pellets.

Smitty

 

[thomasair]

The laser mic was accurate to about 12 millionths. The first thing you learn is that pellets are not round. Don’t like your size….just rotate the pellet some til you get what you want. I measured thousands of them….and what I learned was that it wasn’t worth measuring them.

Mike

 

[Smitty911]

The laser mic was accurate to about 12 millionths. The first thing you learn is that pellets are not round. Don’t like your size….just rotate the pellet some til you get what you want. I measured thousands of them….and what I learned was that it wasn’t worth measuring them.

Mike

Mike,
Thanks for the info. So what is the secret from those first Redesigned that were pellet on pellet and the latest barely doing 1 MOA?

Magic is not an acceptable answer.

I understand that Flow Dynamics is a complex issue, Pressure Areas, Shape, Speed, etc. But they had a pellet that worked at a certain speed and that's all changed? Shrug
Smitty

 

[BSJ]

Mike,
Thanks for the info. So what is the secret from those first Redesigned that were pellet on pellet and the latest barely doing 1 MOA?

Magic is not an acceptable answer.

I understand that Flow Dynamics is a complex issue, Pressure Areas, Shape, Speed, etc. But they had a pellet that worked at a certain speed and that's all changed? Shrug
Smitty

Bet it has something to do with this. https://www.airgunnation.com/threads/interesting-jsb-fx-10-34.1267826/#post-1270398

 

[thomasair]

I haven’t found that the new pellets shoot much different than the old ones. If they are all banged up….they can get a little funny.

 

[igolfat8]

This is an interesting thread to say the least. Mike I see you have done a lot of measuring of pellets. Have you measured the Brinell hardness of different batches to see if there is any variation there? If there is I wonder if that has any effect on the obturation and sealing of the pellet to the bore? H&N uses a harder alloy and they rarely shoot well in any of my rifles.

What is your opinion of push through sizing dies? Some say it’s not good to reduce the skirt size the same as the head size but if the skirt obturates then wouldnt that point be moot?

 

[Kim]

I gave up on BR (USARB) mostly because of pellet problems. From 2015-17 I had a few sleeves of .177 JSB that shot well. As they ran out I tested maybe 100 new lots, and not one lot shot well. I discovered JSB changed the tail indentation design - making it shallower - presumably to reduce rejects. But I think it made them front-heavy, and unstable in flight (unlike a spinning football). I emailed with Pavel at JSB and never heard back, presumably because BR is a tiny fraction of their customer base.

It wasn't fun anymore to work so hard to read the wind when every few shots were 9s or 8s because of lousy ammo.

I went to 10M air pistol and it is a whole different world. Even inexpensive pellets shoot 100X better than I ever will, and grouping is only a function of skill and practice. Ammo variable removed!

Arme Veche tests AP pellets here, and all the shots from the clamped air pistol would be 10s. Try shooting 10s with one hand using iron sights!

 

[whitefox545]

I gave up on BR (USARB) mostly because of pellet problems. From 2015-17 I had a few sleeves of .177 JSB that shot well. As they ran out I tested maybe 100 new lots, and not one lot shot well. I discovered JSB changed the tail indentation design - making it shallower - presumably to reduce rejects. But I think it made them front-heavy, and unstable in flight (unlike a spinning football). I emailed with Pavel at JSB and never heard back, presumably because BR is a tiny fraction of their customer base.

It wasn't fun anymore to work so hard to read the wind when every few shots were 9s or 8s because of lousy ammo.

I went to 10M air pistol and it is a whole different world. Even inexpensive pellets shoot 100X better than I ever will, and grouping is only a function of skill and practice. Ammo variable removed!

Arme Veche tests AP pellets here, and all the shots from the clamped air pistol would be 10s. Try shooting 10s with one hand using iron sights!

 

[whitefox545]

Kim, I agree with what you have found 100 percent I too have given up on benchrest shooting for the exact same reason as I have also exhausted my supply of good shooting JSB pellets. I'm tired of buying lot after lot only to find they shoot terrible. To me its no fun shooting a competition when you know a few misses are coming during a card that are no fault of your technique or the rifle. J.L.

 

[Centercut]

I totally gave up on RDMs after a few years of frustration with the .22 RDMs and "flyers". Switched recently to .25 Heavy for 100Y BR. Shot 3 tins last weekend and not one flyer, straight from the tin... FYI., I also noticed the occasional flyer from .30 JSB 50.1 pellets in my Delta Wolf, and have never seen .30 flyers when shooting the 44s.
While there are those that feel its never the pellet's fault, I can't discount my own eyes and my own experiences with the .22 RDMs. And yes, I know the difference between a "flyer" and a bad shot or a wind affected shot...

 

[thomasair]

You guys might be a little dramatic….lol. I’ve been doing this since 2013, and have always been able to find good shooting pellets…with fairly minimal effort. Things happen inside barrels that can bring on flyers. As time goes by, the method to keep the same barrel flyer free always changes. They require a shooter to be observant and fluid in their means of care. One thing I have noticed about BR shooters is that they are very rigid in their habits. If X cleaning routine got them good scores last year….they will not deviate from it even if it is no longer working today.

Since I’ve been shooting N50 using the 22 RD monsters I can honestly say that every lot of monsters I have gotten has shot well…. but If they are all beat up from shipping….of course you could see some bad ones once in a while. The purpose of this thread was to show how little difference there was between visibly damaged pellets and undamaged ones at 100y.

I shot about 600 JSB RD monsters straight from the tin at the N50 Nats this past weekend in the 12 cards I used a pellet gun. I had 2 shots that produced flyers ( a 7 and a 6). The 2 shots were also nearly back to back(separated by one shot). I’m 100% certain that it was a buildup in the barrel. I was unfortunate to have both flyers happen on record bulls. If I was thinking clearly I would have gotten off the card for 10-15 shots to make sure the barrel was clear…but I didn’t. I took one sighter after the first miss ,which was an x, and got back on to throw a second flyer in nearly the same spot. You can bet I got off the card for a while after that. After that card I stepped up my cleaning and never saw anything else odd. That barrel will surely require me to continue cleaning in that interval, (or maybe more), in the future if I want to keep the flyers at bay.

Mike

 

[BSJ]

The 'old' RDMs shoot little knots. I still have 150ish of the old design. Pellets from a newer design throw random 2-3" fliers. I can switch back and forth from the different tins in the same session. The old ones shoot great. The new ones don't. The only variable is the chosen tin.

 

[thomasair]

Yes, but that doesn’t mean that other barrels don’t shoot them all just fine.

Mike

 

[DellaDog]

Yes, but that doesn’t mean that other barrels don’t shoot them all just fine.

Mike

I respectfully disagree.

When you have a real shooter, like my Red Wolf is, and in controlled testing (25 yards, rest, no wind) and 95% shoot within 1 pellet width and then one flys 1” away- it’s the pellet.

 

[thomasair]

Probably not the pellet.

If I was interested in making other brands of guns shoot better….I would fix your gun to prove it to you.

I had 4 guys at my house for a few days before the N50 Nats. All of them suffered massive flyers that went sideways through the targets with a frequency of 3 or 4 occurrences per match. Lots of xs….and then a target ruining flyer. Easy to blame the pellets. One change to their maintenance procedure completely eliminated the fliers immediately. No machining, pellet sorting, or any other nonsense was involved in the fix. The same guys took home most of the medals.

The frequency of flyers through the gun I shot was 1/4 of 1% using unsorted pellets….and I’m 100% certain I could have improved that significantly with a modification to my maintenance procedure.

Mike

 

[Centercut]

Probably not the pellet.

If I was interested in making other brands of guns shoot better….I would fix your gun to prove it to you.

I had 4 guys at my house for a few days before the N50 Nats. All of them suffered massive flyers that went sideways through the targets with a frequency of 3 or 4 occurrences per match. Lots of xs….and then a target ruining flyer. Easy to blame the pellets. One change to their maintenance procedure completely eliminated the fliers immediately. No machining, pellet sorting, or any other nonsense was involved in the fix. The same guys took home most of the medals.

The frequency of flyers through the gun I shot was 1/4 of 1% using unsorted pellets….and I’m 100% certain I could have improved that significantly with a modification to my maintenance procedure.

Mike

Is that maintenance procedure classified, or can it be posted? In this case we should not have to worry at all about lot numbers and getting “good” lots of pellets since they are all competition quality. I’d love that…. Flyers at 100Y are somewhat different than half that distance.

 

[DellaDog]

I still don’t get it.

How does a barrel throw the flyer than return to pellet on pellet, consistently, for another 75 or so - then do it again.

It’s the pellet.