Daisy Daisy 880 bb vs pellet OFFHAND (and 499b)

[katfisch]

Never thought I'd shoot steel BBs through my rifled Daisy 880 barrel, but after getting a Daisy 499b and being impressed by it’s accuracy with BBs, I just had to give it a whirl — rifling be d#@&3d (what can 10 BBs hurt at 500 fps?).

I have to say, it's nice to be able to chamber BBs so quickly and easily with the 880 (compared to fiddling with loading pellets, upside down and backwards half the time), but at 10 meters, standing, offhand (I’m no Olympic shooter, to be fair), the groups were not even groups — only 6/10 BBs were on the paper with >3” ctc.
Switched to Vogel wadcutter pellets, and the group was 0.7” best 9 of 10 shots).

Cranked the Daisy 499b peep up 20 clicks (to keep it on the paper) and got a 0.9” group (9/10 with the same Daisy Precision Max BBs).

Lesson learned — stick with pellets in my particular Daisy 880 to get any kind of accuracy.

 

[marflow 777]

yes if only my sausage fingers could load my 880
there is no reason everyone doesn't have one

 

[bf1956]

Never thought I'd shoot steel BBs through my rifled Daisy 880 barrel, but after getting a Daisy 499b and being impressed by it’s accuracy with BBs, I just had to give it a whirl — rifling be d#@&3d (what can 10 BBs hurt at 500 fps?).

I have to say, it's nice to be able to chamber BBs so quickly and easily with the 880 (compared to fiddling with loading pellets, upside down and backwards half the time), but at 10 meters, standing, offhand (I’m no Olympic shooter, to be fair), the groups were not even groups — only 6/10 BBs were on the paper with >3” ctc.
Switched to Vogel wadcutter pellets, and the group was 0.7” best 9 of 10 shots).

Cranked the Daisy 499b peep up 20 clicks (to keep it on the paper) and got a 0.9” group (9/10 with the same Daisy Precision Max BBs).

Lesson learned — stick with pellets in my particular Daisy 880 to get any kind of accuracy. View attachment 434288Cool! Nice pellet sizer, what size die?

 

[katfisch]

That's a Beeman Pell-Size and the die size is not marked anywhere. It'll knock a skirt down to 4.52mm (from 4.70) per my calipers, but doesn't touch the heads on most of my pellets.

 

[katfisch]

Daisy 499b at 5 meters, standing offhand (yeah, I know).
Doesn't get much funnern'n this!

 

[Sawney Bean]

Daisy 499b at 5 meters, standing offhand (yeah, I know).
Doesn't get much funnern'n this!

View attachment 434682

Have you ever shot any rested groups at 10 yards with it? I’m just curious as to what the best accuracy BBs and the 499 are capable of.

I’ve done it with a Barra 400e and it makes me think that group size is a bit of a flawed way of measuring accuracy, at least with BBs. What I found was that about 90% of the BBs were hitting in a circle less than 1” wide, while the remaining 10% were flying wild and opening the overall group up to maybe 2.5”.

The 400e has a pretty good reputation as being an accurate BB gun, but so does the 499, so I’d be interested in seeing how they compare.

 

[katfisch]

Have you ever shot any rested groups at 10 yards with it? I’m just curious as to what the best accuracy BBs and the 499 are capable of.

I’ve done it with a Barra 400e and it makes me think that group size is a bit of a flawed way of measuring accuracy, at least with BBs. What I found was that about 90% of the BBs were hitting in a circle less than 1” wide, while the remaining 10% were flying wild and opening the overall group up to maybe 2.5”.

The 400e has a pretty good reputation as being an accurate BB gun, but so does the 499, so I’d be interested in seeing how they compare.

With Daisy Precision Max BBs (the recommended BB for this gun), rested on a sandbag, I'm getting 0.5“ groups at 5 meters, and 2” at 10 meters. That's about right if I understand the “inverse square rule” (groups should expand by the square of the distance, i.e. the group should be 4 times larger at 2 times the distance). Interestingly, I'm often shooting smaller 5-shot groups offhand at 5 meters, vs rested groups — maybe luck, but maybe cuz the Daisy 499b is a springer (although a weak one) and doesn't like to be shot off sandbags (???). Being a cheapskate, I love the fact that I can buy 5 of these good quality BBs for 1¢ at my local Walmart, and can shoot endlessly with no remorse.

 

[katfisch]

Never thought I'd shoot steel BBs through my rifled Daisy 880 barrel, but after getting a Daisy 499b and being impressed by it’s accuracy with BBs, I just had to give it a whirl — rifling be d#@&3d (what can 10 BBs hurt at 500 fps?).

I have to say, it's nice to be able to chamber BBs so quickly and easily with the 880 (compared to fiddling with loading pellets, upside down and backwards half the time), but at 10 meters, standing, offhand (I’m no Olympic shooter, to be fair), the groups were not even groups — only 6/10 BBs were on the paper with >3” ctc.
Switched to Vogel wadcutter pellets, and the group was 0.7” best 9 of 10 shots).

Cranked the Daisy 499b peep up 20 clicks (to keep it on the paper) and got a 0.9” group (9/10 with the same Daisy Precision Max BBs).

Lesson learned — stick with pellets in my particular Daisy 880 to get any kind of accuracy. View attachment 434288

I tried some lead Beeman Precision Rounds (4.50mm lead balls) in my Daisy 880 (loaded individually, like pellets) — no tighter groups than with the smaller steel BBs — a sad shotgun pattern. The lead rounds will not roll down the barrel of the excellent accurate Daisy 499b, by the way, so don’t bother trying, or have a rod available to get the ball out of the barrel.

 

[Sawney Bean]

With Daisy Precision Max BBs (the recommended BB for this gun), rested on a sandbag, I'm getting 0.5“ groups at 5 meters, and 2” at 10 meters. That's about right if I understand the “inverse square rule” (groups should expand by the square of the distance, i.e. the group should be 4 times larger at 2 times the distance). Interestingly, I'm often shooting smaller 5-shot groups offhand at 5 meters, vs rested groups — maybe luck, but maybe cuz the Daisy 499b is a springer (although a weak one) and doesn't like to be shot off sandbags (???). Being a cheapskate, I love the fact that I can buy 5 of these good quality BBs for 1¢ at my local Walmart, and can shoot endlessly with no remorse.

I actually shot multiple groups using a bipod and a back bag and a 7x scope and felt really silly doing it. It pretty much eliminated the human error part of the test though. It sounds like your results jibe pretty closely with my own. I've used Daisy BBs, Copperhead BBs, ASG Blaster and Daisy Match Precision Shot. I think ASG Blaster is about the best I have shot, but the difference isn't very significant and in the future I'll probably just buy whatever is cheapest. I've yet to try those copper plated lead BBs though and I can see how those would be less prone to careening off.