H&N quality slipping

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rsfrid

rsfrid

Member
Apr 27, 2021
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3,597
Cadillac, Michigan, United States
Just got a load of 22 cal 18.13 gr H&N pellets and proceeded to weigh them for sorting. First two tins — not a single pellet made 18 grains. They were as low as 17 grains. I went back and reweighed and older batch to double check my scale and sure enough, they were right where I had labeled them. I'd say the with the price increase and the drop in weight (to save on lead?) I will not be buying H&N ever again.
 
its the same with everything right now ...its stretched as thin as ice all over with everyone thinking the situation is temporary and trying to keep up appearances .. so pointing the finger at one place misses that point, that its 'everywhere' ....
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I agree it’s across the board. I opened a tin of JSB 18’s yesterday to do some testing with the Cayden and the tin is probably about 25% damaged pellets, bent skirts. I’ve never gotten a tin of JSB’s in this poor of shape before. Shipped from PA in their normal awesome packaging with JSB .30s that are undamaged and no outward damage to the tin itself. 
Ugh.... too bad we aren’t making our own quality pellets in the USA.
 
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Have been using H&N pellets since 1980. Over the years I have found that whenever H&N starts a new, major run of pellets with new dies, they are never the same weight as the prior run. However, whatever the new weight, they are quite internally consistent and well made. For me, it is a lot easier to adjust to .01 or 02 weight difference between old and new runs than it is to put up with tins full of pee wees, bent skirts, swarf etc.

They are still good quality pellets.
 
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People seem to miss the point here. H&N specs this pellet as "18.13 grains". Not 18. Not 17. But 18.13 as if the pellets are supposed to weigh 18.13 grains! Why not just label them "approximately 17-18 grains" because that's what they are. Same for JSB and FX.
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Right on brother ,paying crazy prices,and not getting what it should be is rubbish,
 
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In almost 40 yrs of serious airgunning I have saw this many times from pellet mfgrs. A new pellet comes out and everything is great, but after a few years quality starts slipping until they become a poor quality pellet. Then another mfgr comes out with a hot little pellet and so on down the line. I well remenber how great the Beeman pellets were, then failed, and along came Crossman and we know wherevthey went, then came JSB and now about time for their quality to start dropping. In between all these there have been other pellets that came and went. Might as well just keep buying and testing until the next hot pellet hits the market. When you find one, buy a bunch and hang on to them.
 
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In almost 40 yrs of serious airgunning I have saw this many times from pellet mfgrs. A new pellet comes out and everything is great, but after a few years quality starts slipping until they become a poor quality pellet. Then another mfgr comes out with a hot little pellet and so on down the line. I well remenber how great the Beeman pellets were, then failed, and along came Crossman and we know wherevthey went, then came JSB and now about time for their quality to start dropping. In between all these there have been other pellets that came and went. Might as well just keep buying and testing until the next hot pellet hits the market. When you find one, buy a bunch and hang on to them.
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I've not been at this seriously for anywhere near as long as you, but even in that short time I believe what you say is true. The only thing that is consistent in this world is change and that change is not always for the better.
 
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The first batch of the H&N 18 pellets that I bought were all run through the Pellet Gage. Out of 400 pellets, 89% were 5.51 head size (understanding that they show 5.52 head size). I would state that at 89% consistent head size is EXCELLENT compared to any other group of pellets I have checked. Very consistent.

My experience is as stated, ALL of the manufacturer's are NOT that consistent with ANY of the usual (read older 'standards' that everyone seems to like) manufacturer's. I like H&N pellets, they have for the most part performed to my expectations, which is fairly high.

Bad batches occur, it's understandable after putting out millions of pellets, they're not all gonna be perfect. Would I like ot have all of them perfect? Of course, but I realize there are industry standard acceptable tolerances. Maybe it's just the times we are living in right now.

My 2¢.

mike
 
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I asked rsfrid to provide me with the number of the production. With this information I picked out the retention sample from this lot (Remark: 40,000 pellets = 200 tins are one lot) and weighed 20 random pellets on our precision scale.

The mean value was 17.99 grain and thus actually 0.14 grain or 0.77% below the nominal weight. That is almost at our lower limit for the mean weight.
The lightest and heaviest pellets deviate from this mean value by -0.3% and 0.37% respectively. That is a normal deviation.

In summary: Yes, the pellets of this lot are actually lighter, but in our opinion still within acceptable tolerances.

Best regards

Jörg
H&N Sport
 
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I know that H&N pellets are much more uniform in size, weight, shape “especially in inner skirt depth” from lot to lot than JSB. I’m not saying your barrel will shoot them as well as JSB or the other way around.

One thing I know for sure is if your barrel does like them, it will probably like them from lot to lot with out much concern, which you cannot say for JSB. It’s always a crap shoot! I swear they use slightly different dies on purpose to keep us hoping the next batch will be the magical pellet that shot so well and won that match for you 2yrs. ago!
 
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