Pellet weight/shape consistency

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Ponz

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Apr 4, 2022
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Missouri, United States
I just finished inspecting, weighing and separating 1/2 tin of JSB EXACT JUMBO HEAVY DIABOLO .22 cal 18.13gr (about 268 pellets)
My Palmscale 7.0 only weighs to the tenth of a grain.

85 weighed in at 17.9/18
90 weighed in at 18.1
70 weighed in at 18.2
21 weighed in at 18.3/18.4

I had to reshape the skirts on about 30 of them.

Are these decent numbers for, allegedly, premium pellets that command a premium price? Is there a pellet out there with better quality control?

Now for the record: I'm not a professional target/match shooter. I shoot paper in the backyard and pesky squirrels.

Ponz
 
seems about right these days. this is my post earlier
beerthief said:
With all the tools available now for measurement of pellets, i wonder IF old pellets ? pellets that were produced lets say the 5th year in the pellet manufacturing time line of a company (JSB as example ) IF the pellets were of a more constant measurement ? Seems to me everybody is complaining now of size and weight of pellets in the same tin . Anyone have old unopened tins of Quality pellets ? Maybe 1990 ? 2001 ? is that old enough to qualify for what was a high Quality pellet ? or maybe too old in the industry where a pellet was a pellet . When in fact the pellets are the same ,but now we have access to measurement equipment ? or maybe i just drank too much coffee this morning ?
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It’s combination of both people having access to cheap jewelers scales and therefore noticing that the weights are off and probably the fact that manufacturers had to catch-up with demand and thus have been less vigilant in producing to spec. But in my opinion it’s a fair trade off in the short term. Which would you pick - no pellets or imperfect pellets at inflated prices? The choice sucks but one is worse than the other.

-Marty
 
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Ponz,
If you haven't already, I'd recommend you check out the AEAC JSB factory tour video of 11/26/19. It's my understanding when JSB conducts a particular pellet manufacturing run, a number of different machines, using very similar, but not exact, dies produce the pellets. A blend of pellets is then combined into the JSB brand product line. FX pellets, also made by JSB, generate from this same process, however, there is no blending, all are from one randomly selected die, machine or workstation, thus providing more uniformity. WM
 
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Ponz said:
I just finished inspecting, weighing and separating 1/2 tin of JSB EXACT JUMBO HEAVY DIABOLO .22 cal 18.13gr (about 268 pellets)
My Palmscale 7.0 only weighs to the tenth of a grain.

85 weighed in at 17.9/18
90 weighed in at 18.1
70 weighed in at 18.2
21 weighed in at 18.3/18.4

I had to reshape the skirts on about 30 of them.

Are these decent numbers for, allegedly, premium pellets that command a premium price? Is there a pellet out there with better quality control?

Now for the record: I'm not a professional target/match shooter. I shoot paper in the backyard and pesky squirrels.

Ponz
Click to expand...
 
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WorriedMan said:
Ponz,
If you haven't already, I'd recommend you check out the AEAC JSB factory tour video of 11/26/19. It's my understanding when JSB conducts a particular pellet manufacturing run, a number of different machines, using very similar, but not exact, dies produce the pellets. A blend of pellets is then combined into the JSB brand product line. FX pellets, also made by JSB, generate from this same process, however, there is no blending, all are from one randomly selected die, machine or workstation, thus providing more uniformity. WM
Click to expand...

I wonder if it is really a randomly selected die. Think JSB .30 "44.75" grain and then FX .30 "44.8" grain.

I have noticed the FX slightly outshoot the JSB (for groups) as well. Could be they're just always picked off the die that weighs closest to 44.8 grain?
 
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Ponz,
Those deformed skirts don't sound right. JSB has a small army of women who perform visual QA when sorting pellets. I've checked my four 500 count tins of JSB Jumbo Heavy .22 (18.13 grain,) not a bent skirt in sight. I ordered from ZANS Projectiles and even with DHL International shipping charges, I didn't pay close to $30 per tin. ZANS packaging is second to none, I always tell Zan, the flight data recorders and my pellet package would both survive a DHL plane crash. WM
 
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John, I'm not at all surprised by the weight variance but am surprised by the deformed skirt count. As someone mentioned, FX 18.13 pellets might have a bit more consistency to them. Don't know how badly deformed the skirts were but I'll bet that if you shot 2 pellets of the same weight, one with a deformed skirt, you might notice no difference at all in accuracy (if it's "acceptably" deformed, not smashed flat!)
Edit: forgot to mention that H&N makes a 18.13 gr pellet and Rangemaster too. They all shoot pretty much equally from my Bobcat.
 
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WorriedMan said:
Ponz,
Those deformed skirts don't sound right. JSB has a small army of women who perform visual QA when sorting pellets. I've checked my four 500 count tins of JSB Jumbo Heavy .22 (18.13 grain,) not a bent skirt in sight. I ordered from ZANS Projectiles and even with DHL International shipping charges, I didn't pay close to $30 per tin. ZANS packaging is second to none, I always tell Zan, the flight data recorders and my pellet package would both survive a DHL plane crash. WM
Click to expand...
Thanks for the tip on ZANS Projectiles. They come out to about $25 per tin delivered for 4 or more.

Ponz
 
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Ponz,
Back in January I paid $17.86 a tin, DHL shipping included, however, my shipping charge of $33.79 was divided by 8 tins, not just the (4) .22 (18.13 grain), since I ordered some other pellets. Guess there must have been a price hike. Member 18.13 has a point with PA, I'd consider that avenue, as well. I liked ZANS because availability was rarely an issue, especially with the .25 and .30 JSBs. I've used PA and packaging is very good. WM
 
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I think a lot has to do with the competition events of our hobby. You get folks that compete on the field target and bench test events start chatting up about chasing accuracy, posting up hole in hole target groups, well, who all doesn’t want that, right? So we source and use the same tools they use- scales, head sizing, etc, and now we are critiquing the quality control of pellet manufacturers in consistency.

In whereas before, we all just shot out of the tin, happy as can be getting 1/2” groups at 40 yards with the occasional fliers. Washing pellets? Who would’ve thought way back when

Edit to add-
I think the recent price hikes of pellets also drew more attention to them, like how we all are so quick to critique an airgun of high dollar that needs “things” we feel should’ve come with them for the price we paid.

I wonder how many people actually wash, head size check, and weigh sort Crosman pellets from Walmart? But we do with $18/tin Ammo
 
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