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Best .177 hunting pellet?

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peaceful_ruler

peaceful_ruler

Member
Dec 30, 2021
586
419
PA, United States
I’m in a quandary. My most accurate and highest coefficient pellets are all 10-11 grain domed pellets. Out of my HW97K @ 14 fpe, however, they blow through birds so easily that if it doesn’t hit perfectly I will sometimes get fly offs. Especially on frontal shots. I’ve noticed that these domed pellets have zipped right through every bird I’ve shot with little discernible expansion. What’s your favorite, most accurate .177 hunting pellet? Thank you!
 
The best hunting pellet would be your most accurate consistent pellet. Even though I have hunting pellets, I grab the 10.3 domed fx/jsbs when I go out for squirrels. Why ? Because my gamo magnum is most accurate with those and I can hit a squirrel in the head with that almost every time. My hunting pellets might do something weird, and hit centermass instead, letting the squirrel escape to perish somewhere where it can't be harvested. So the best hunting pellet is your most accurate consistent pellet.
 
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It always is the pallet that my rifle likes best regardless of design. And candidly it’s almost always a domed palette, usually made by JSB. A lot a lot of times when the feathers fly, it’s a clean miss. 

If you’re looking at relatively short range, I would find a good wadcutter that shoots well. I would think they’d be fine out to 30 yards. That’ll give them a good whack. I would use one of the heavier 10 m wadcutter pellets.

my lowered power Springers usually like either 7.9‘s or 8.4s. They do tend to ventilate rather than expand. But there’s not much in a bird to have something expand.

I bet you would enjoy a 20 or 22 in that scenario.

mike 

mike
 
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My same reply from your other post: 

You're already using the best pellets. 



There's not enough energy at play here for things to work like an expanding powder burner bullet. 



Penetration and accuracy are the only things you have on your side with air rifles. There is no "shock" or "knockdown" with these power levels. Just put it where it will do it's best work and that's it. 



There's a lot of bird that's not kill zone from the front. Just saying.
 
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thats not been my experience as long as theyre moving out at 1000+ .. if it hits bone theres pretty explosive damage . you have to actually hit something though lol .. a soft tissue pass through hit likely wont stop something with any pellet ..
Click to expand...

Out of my .177 springer I'm probably only getting around 800ish fps with a 9 grain pellet. I'm looking for recommendations of good hunting pellets that hopefully cause the most damage at those speeds. 
 
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What distance are you hitting them? At 20 yards or less, I make head shots and they flop around but don’t fly off. I’ve shot as far as 37 yards with 12FPE in the chest, if they don’t die right there, they fly 15 ft and fall out if the sky. Sometimes on blackbirds I see feathers falling off on the hit, but they fly away out of view and I don’t get a recovery to see if it was a gut shot or something.

The best accuracy I get on a HW97 4.5mm 12FPE is H&N Baracuda Match, I think they’re 10.6gr, I don’t have a tin with me to see.
 
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My HW100 is tuned for 11 fpe. Given that power level, I don't think the pellet design makes a bit of difference. My rifle shoots the 10.3 JSB very well, so that's what I use. My main critter target is the gray squirrel, and it's deadly. Depending on distance and wound path, sometimes it passes through, sometimes not. Since it's mostly yard pesting in town, I have to assume a pass through and limit my shots accordingly. 
 
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I can highly recommend the terminators, they shoot significantly better than the destroyers out of every gun I have tested out to 50-60 yds, that design expands significantly and you can actually find the pellet, at around 880, they will not make it through a crow ever and about double there diameter. .5 groups at 50 are not unheard of.

for 25 yds or under, the crow magnums are nasty, but they don’t shoot all that great after that, domed pellets do shoot the best, but they do not expand at all, therefore a lot of your energy potential is waisted,

if you are going to shoot over 50? The hades are the next best as they do slightly expand but not as much as a lot of people think and there bc is much less than the domed equivalent, the domed pellets will pass through at least 2 starlings at 100 yds going 880 fps as I have killed 2 or 3 starlings with one shot flock shooting in the masses at that range as an example. So choose your ammo for the purpose right? Just my experience IMO,

good luck
 
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