Initial Pellet Sorting Results

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Sqwirl57

Sqwirl57

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Apr 13, 2020
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Shot 3x 10 shot groups today with my .22 Walther LGV to get a rough idea of what I could expect. Winds were blowing at 7-10mph and I was not as patient as I probably should have been while shooting these groups. I did notice an interesting pattern though. As the pellets got heavier, the POI climbed a bit. It seemed to be about 1/4" for every 0.1gr of increased weight at 30m. SHOT A COUPLE MORE GROUPS AND THE LIGHT AND HEAVY PELLETS HAD A VERY SIMILAR POI. EITHER IT WAS TENPERTURE RELATED OR IT WAS BECAUSE I WENT FROM 10X TO 16X BETWEEN GROUPS BEFORE. YOU'D THINK AN $800 SCOPE WOULDN'T HAVE THAT MUCH SHIFT AT 30M BUT I MAY BE WRONG. OOPS!

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This group was basically my "throw away" pellets. While the weight range seems excessive, 90% of this tin were 15.82gr to 15.88gr. In hindsight, I should have just tossed the extreme differences, which would explain that bottom left shot. The other 9 were all pretty neat.

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As you can see, when the average weight climbed .1gr, my group stayed decent but rose about 1/4" on the target.



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This weight range (16.2gr to 16.12gr) seems to have the most potential. Aside from 2 outliers, most of them basically hit on the same vertical plane. Given the wind conditions, I'm definitely not upset here.

I'm looking forward to continuing testing these pellets and sorting them to find the magic combo for maximum consistency from this gun. Maybe I'll cut the weight groups into smaller sections or maybe I'll start checking head sizes. Maybe both. So far its been a fun experiment though and look forward to what a calmer day brings.
 
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dgeesaman said:
I did similar testing with my .30 pcp. I found no improvement in group size.

That said, barrel and action harmonics are vastly different between springers and pcps. I imagine that springers could be more sensitive to pellet weight than pcps.
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If I were to give up the process as of right now, I'd probably only sort them in away that gets rid of the extreme weight differences and that would probably be "good enough". I'm a bit intrigued by the rising POI though so I'm going to keep at it and see what happens next time.

As a possibility, the POI shift could have been temperture related as well. I was shooting from my window so I was inside but the cold air blowing on the scope may have been the culprit.

I dont know though. I'm just going to keep testing these pellets and taking notes as I go. Hopefully I find some magic somewhere or at the bare minimum learn something new.
 
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I updated the original post. I feel like my testing could have been more precise here. I may have made the mistake of changing my zoom from group to group because a second set of groups showed no difference in POI between the different weights when set at 16x.

At least I learned something already even if it wasn't what I was trying to learn...
 
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MartyMcFly said:
I’ve noticed a higher POI on some of my springers too. I think that in some instances the heavier pellet leaves later in the shot cycle resulting in the barrel harmonics affecting the POI upward.

-Marty
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I updated the original post. I'm not so sure what I was seeing was actually based on anything other than scope error. Its getting too dark to try again though unfortunately. I'm pretty sure I goofed here though.

You are right though. This gun does like the Baracuda 18s nearly as well as these Norma 15.9s. The 18gr have a higher POI than the 15.9gr.
 
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I noticed the other day that my ES was pretty strongly a function of how much my guns like a particular pellet. With a pellet they like, all my P35s will have an ES under 10 for a 10 shot string and around 15 for a 30-40 shot string. They are all 800-900 fps so about a 2% ES. But with pellets they don't shoot as accurately the ES may be 30 or more. I think my measurements of ES are more dependably accurate than my group shooting. You might want to looks at ES for a 10 shot string or something to get a handle on accuracy of weight differences. I haven't done it but might sometime. I have a bunch of Crosman 10.5 grain sorted for head size, I might try measuring ES on them.

To be fair, I should also say that my P35-177 shoots Baracuda Power 10.65 grain pellets about as accurately as Baracuda Match even though the ES is twice or more as large for the Power pellets. But I'm only testing at 35 yards or less and the Hard Air article confirms my suspicion that the ES will make more difference at longer ranges. This is the only case for my 5 PCPs where a higher ES pellet shoots pretty well.

I have seen POI impact for the 4.51 head size Baracuda Match pellets I'm shooting versus the 4.54 Baracuda Power pellets. Not much, maybe 1/4 inch at 35 yards. But repeatedly the center of the group shifted. But the power pellets are copper plated too which may be playing a role.
 
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JimD said:
I noticed the other day that my ES was pretty strongly a function of how much my guns like a particular pellet. With a pellet they like, all my P35s will have an ES under 10 for a 10 shot string and around 15 for a 30-40 shot string. They are all 800-900 fps so about a 2% ES. But with pellets they don't shoot as accurately the ES may be 30 or more. I think my measurements of ES are more dependably accurate than my group shooting. You might want to looks at ES for a 10 shot string or something to get a handle on accuracy of weight differences. I haven't done it but might sometime. I have a bunch of Crosman 10.5 grain sorted for head size, I might try measuring ES on them.

To be fair, I should also say that my P35-177 shoots Baracuda Power 10.65 grain pellets about as accurately as Baracuda Match even though the ES is twice or more as large for the Power pellets. But I'm only testing at 35 yards or less and the Hard Air article confirms my suspicion that the ES will make more difference at longer ranges. This is the only case for my 5 PCPs where a higher ES pellet shoots pretty well.

I have seen POI impact for the 4.51 head size Baracuda Match pellets I'm shooting versus the 4.54 Baracuda Power pellets. Not much, maybe 1/4 inch at 35 yards. But repeatedly the center of the group shifted. But the power pellets are copper plated too which may be playing a role.
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You make some excellent points. Just ran 10 of each weight group to compare.

15.90-16.00gr

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16.02-16.12gr


20230227_202155.jpg

20230227_202132.jpg
 
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Doesn't seem to make a lot of difference, both ESs are very good. But the 16 and under ES is just over half of the ES for the 16+ grain. The groups also look similar but you liked the one with the slightly heavier pellets a bit more. Might be something to continue to evaluate. Maybe the correlation of ES to group size doesn't discriminate when both alternatives have good ESs.
 
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Sqwirlfugger57 said:
I updated the original post. I'm not so sure what I was seeing was actually based on anything other than scope error. Its getting too dark to try again though unfortunately. I'm pretty sure I goofed here though.

You are right though. This gun does like the Baracuda 18s nearly as well as these Norma 15.9s. The 18gr have a higher POI than the 15.9gr.
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It's always preferable (completely separate issue) to set your barrel harmonics (if doable) ... so the gun shoots it's "best pellet" on the mid-upswing of the barrel.
Hence, heavier or otherwise slower pellets will leave the barrel at a higher vertical point vs. the average pellet. This promote consistency.
 
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I got some shooting in today after work. Its fairly calm and the wind couldn't have been gusting much hard than 3-4mph tops when it was blowing.

I didn't do anything crazy but did shoot a few 5 shot groups each at 33yds and 50yds. My largest 50yd group was 0.83" while the best was 0.68". It's a 16.5ftlb spring piston air rifle. I really dont think I can complain about any of those groups.

At this point I'm pretty much sold on the whole sorting by weight thing. I didn't have even a single shot that I was questioning its placements on. If it missed a bit left or a hair right at 50, I knew it was a bad wind read. The vertical height of the groups are definitely smaller in comparison to when I was shooting these pellets unsorted.

I'll keep on experimenting with different batch weights from here on out and may dabble in head sizing eventually. Thank you to everyone who threw in their insight and experiences. It was greatly appreciated
 
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