Is lubricating pellets necessary?

I am going to do what ever I have been doing from now on. I switched from 4.5 to 4.52 pellets and went from straight out of the tin to washing and lubing .
Then I cleaned the barrel.

I went to the range this morning early with no wind. I forgot I cleaned the barrel and was setting up the sight in range with paper targets every five yards . Right away I noticed my range card was off at 10-15 yards. So I checked the zero at 25 yards. It was three clicks high. That’s when I remembered I cleaned my barrel. I’m about to change my whole air tube and regulator so I figured I would just sight in the gun from 10-60 yards.
After adjusting the elevation the gun settled into the same dope card I had built . But after cleaning the barrel it is shooting higher. I’ll chronograph it later.

But during the sight in. It has never shot like this before and it shoots fantastic. Definitely better with a clean barrel and lubed pellets.

This is a group from 50 yards. Right to left I held cross hairs on the six. Then moved up a mil line and aimed at the four. Then when I could see the POI I did it again with one line on the three. Then I put over five shots above the three using the number3 as the aim point. And it did this every five yards. There were a couple flyers as the wind picked up. But I even put a pellet in that had a damaged skirt and it did not make any difference at all.

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This is the chronograph spread . I always get a SD of 3 now it is 1 and it is shooting 15 fps faster than before.

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Just opened this thread and I’ll put my 2 cents in. I went through my phase of “prepping pellets” weighing, sorting by head size, sizing, lubing etc. I even went so far as to change the flare on the skirt and “increase” head size!. I spent alot of precious time trying to get that consistency and precision for any advantage in 25m br. Bottom line… your barrel either shoots that specific pellet or not! Now what I did find is this example, you have different lots of the same pellet say JSB 13.4’s different lots will shoot differently in your barrel “different die’s, different presses, pressures, die wear etc. you get the picture!!!”
Find the lot your barrel likes (which you probably just stumble on to) then try “TRY” to buy as many as you can!.
If you’re looking for precision just remember these are pellets not bullets and you are going to have those random flyers, velocity spreads etc. that you can truly never eliminate.
If you’re shooting under about 900fps lubricants are not going to stop fouling only add more variables to your accuracy!
My 2 cents worth!
 
I am dialed in now with the 4.52 lubed pellets and today a shot almost a full tin checking the sight in from 10-60 yards.
Yesterday a prepped a new tin. Same lot but different tin. I’ll be at the range real early and test the new tin. I’m interested to see if anything changes. If so I’ll buy eight tins and mix them all together . Lube clean and sort them. Then clean the barrel between big batches .