Thomas Air Damaged skirts, does it really matter?

[igolfat8]

Recently I purchased several scratch and dent tins at the Midwest Airgun Show. I sorted several tins and set aside all the pellets with dented skirts. These were from JSB Monster Redesign “Shallows”. As you can see they are pretty beat up.

I took these to the range and shot them at 50Y through my Thomas HPX. I also had a tin of damaged MRD “Deep” 25.4 and figured they were good enough for practice. Then I shot pellets that I had sorted with no bad skirts. It was a steady 15 MPH wind so the groups aren’t the best but good enough to compare good and bad skirts. The Apolo Monster 25.4 pellets shot horrible. JTS and AEA 25.4 were meh.

Bulls 2, 3, 4 and 10 were shot with damaged skirts. The other bulls were shot with undamaged skirts.

You be the judge…

 

[HogKiller]

That's pretty much what I'f found, short of being crushed the bend skirts work well, some have said that the air pressure pushes them out in the barrel. I'm tending to believe that.

 

[L.Leon]

The groups from the pellets with the damaged skirts grouped better… You need to go bend some skirts on the undamaged tins…

 

[greg1978]

Looks like your zinging them right along!
I wonder if the speeds were slower if you'd have the same effect? Otherwise I'm not sorting anything, not a competition shooter here. I just like to shoot

 

[igolfat8]

I suspect lower speeds might be an issue but I’ve not tested that.

 

[Franklink]

Even low pressure guns blast that pellet pretty hard with pressurized air.

I'm in the obturation "fixes" bent skirts camp.

 

[Ranchibi]

Pretty good find Tim! Franklink has the same "obturation" I have witnessed....

 

[bigHUN]

This the same what I found.
Much worst inconsistencies from the pellet skirt bottom edge how the excess air catches it beyond the muzzle. Time consuming but polishing the skirts on printer paper will definitely change the perspective.

 

[Motorhead]

I had made years ago a SKIRT straightening tool that was made to make skirts round again without making them flared out or larger in diameter.
By playing with a Lathes compound angle finding the matching angle of skirts I.D. made up a few of these tools for the different pellets being shot frequently.
Still use a few of them to this day and am sold on the premise it helps accuracy and saves otherwise damaged pellets in general.

Light pressure and a twist Back-N-Forth your done recreating a pellet accurate in skirt dimension as it was produced.

 

[CoyoteGod]

I have noticed the same also due to the soft metal and high pressures, the pellet almost immediately gets reformed to the barrel diameter anyway. Unless it’s completely crushed, but then why are you nothing to shot it anyway, right? I really like that reforming skirt tool! I spend time sorting and weighing and would reform skirts for poops and giggles. Lol

 

[Hateful McNasty]

I got a thread or 2 on reshooting pellets that were shot in to my soft catch trap . Only damage to most of the pellets was head and skirt rifeing groves and slightly bent skirts that i did as said above from motor head just reshape them back normal . Some pellets got reshot several times no problems and pretty accurately. I fid get a few flyers but vs the amount reshot it was minimal. Daisy pointed had more flyers out of the tins fresh new ..lol

 

[GerryR]

Lee Precision - 90036 SIZING DIE KIT .225 These are for sizing lead bullets. You may have to modify the end of the punch to fit within the skirt, but it will round out and size the pellets. I do some reloading and have kits for what I reload. I made a sizing die for the pellets modeled after the Lee dies, the diameter ending up at .2245 and works quite well. I never tried shooting damaged or deformed pellets, so I don't know if there is an improvement or not; just thought it wasn't a good idea to shoot deformed pellets. ​

 

[MrP]

When I have recovered pellets that did not get crushed by impact the ballooning of the skirt was obvious - clear to see that the skirt was pressed flat against the barrel

 

[Melo]

Lo siento, el inglés no es mi lengua materna y uso Google Translate.
Internet está lleno de vídeos de personas que intentan demostrar cómo las deformaciones de los perdigones afectan la precisión; pocos vídeos realizan realmente la prueba científicamente.Vídeos basura que sólo te hacen perder el tiempo, o un salvavidas para los tiradores perezosos que quieren la salida fácil y para que otros les den información que, por pura lógica, no pueden or want.
Un pellet sólo necesita tener:
Peso consistente.
Perfecta concentricidad entre la cabeza y la falda.
El tamaño de la cabeza debe ser lo más idéntico posible.
La aleación no debe ser ni demasiado dura ni demasiado blanda, para que pueda ajustarse y replicar el estriado del cañón.
Y las faldas no deben estar terriblemente dañadas. Un ajuste perfecto entre la cabeza del balín y el cañón es más importante que una falda dañada. El ajuste de la cabeza copiará y guiará el balín a través del cañón, saliendo en línea recta. Su concentricidad lo hará volar en línea recta, y su falda sellará el paso del aire al cañón y le dará el empuje de salida. Si el plomo es demasiado duro y el faldón está muy dañado, no cederá al chorro de aire y no se sellará correctamente. Por otro lado, si el plomo es relativamente más blando, cederá al chorro de aire y se sellará mejor. Es pura lógica, no hay que andarse con rodeos. Ahora bien, si clasifica los pellets uno por uno y descarta los que no te gustan por cualquier motivo te da confianza, adelante. Aquí hay un video grabado en un laboratorio, usando baja potencia y probablemente a 10 metros. Los resultados a esa distancia son muy claros. A mayor distancia, mayor apertura de los impactos.

 

[Yogi_Rides]

From my experiences the difference in accuracy from a deformed pellet is negligible. I am sure if you are shooting competitively there could be sufficient variance to cause issues. Then again if you are shooting competitively I am reasonably certain we be having this convo, you would use perfectly formed pellets just for peace of mind.

 

[jps2486]

Would you use these in match competition?

 

[igolfat8]

Sorry, English is not my native language and I use Google Translate.
The internet is full of videos of people attempting to demonstrate how pellet deformations affect accuracy; few videos actually perform the test scientifically. These are trash videos that just waste your time, or a lifeline for lazy shooters who want the easy way out and want others to give them information that, by pure logic, they can't or don't want.
A pellet only needs to have:
Consistent weight.
Perfect concentricity between the head and the skirt.
The head size should be as identical as possible.
The alloy should be neither too hard nor too soft, so that it can conform to and replicate the rifling of the barrel.
And the skirts shouldn't be terribly damaged. A perfect fit between the pellet head and the barrel is more important than a damaged skirt. The fit of the head will copy and guide the pellet through the barrel, exiting in a straight line. Its concentricity will make it fly in a straight line, and its skirt will seal the air passage to the barrel and provide the exit thrust. If the lead is too hard and the skirt is badly damaged, it won't yield to the air jet and won't seal properly. On the other hand, if the lead is relatively softer, it will yield to the air jet and seal better. It's pure logic; there's no need to beat around the bush. Now, if sorting the pellets one by one and discarding the ones you don't like for whatever reason gives you confidence, go ahead. Here's a video shot in a lab, using low power and probably at 10 meters. The results at that distance are very clear. The greater the distance, the greater the impact aperture.

Thank you your comments and posting that video. It was very interesting to watch.

 

[manabeknives]

Would you use these in match competition?

NOPE

 

[igolfat8]

NOPE

Even though they shot great just seeing them before hand would certainly make me not shoot them in a match just in case I had a weird flier, I'd have a reason to blame it on other than the wind or ME!

 

[Franklink]

Would you use these in match competition?

NOPE

Even though they shot great just seeing them before hand would certainly make me not shoot them in a match just in case I had a weird flier, I'd have a reason to blame it on other than the wind or ME!

Interesting thing to note here is the very real placebo effect seen by competitive shooters in their preparation.

Personally,bive found better luck sorting barrels than I have found sorting pellets. And to a lesser extent, sorting by pellet lot has also been a worthwhile endeavor. Some tins of pellets are just crap. Nothing visually amiss, but they shoot poorer than "good" batches.