Should you sort pellets? (the final answer)

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I sort for competitions which have been few and far between lately then have a shoot out between the extreme heavy and the extreme lite ones and at 80yrds there is a vertical poi difference
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I don’t sort, wash, weigh anything. I seem to do ok in competitions at high levels. I know lots of other guys that are as high as it gets to being at the top of BR and Field Target that don’t do anything, either…despite it constantly being said that you must to be at the top. 

Mike
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I would never be so bold as to tell anyone else what they should do.

I would, however, provide physical evidence that differences in pellets can (and do) lead to quantifiable differences in both velocity and accuracy.

There will be a "Part II" to this video that will address accuracy coming soon.

As I did in this impromptu video, I'll again be providing physical evidence.

Something that can be quantified and measured, and repeated by anyone else willing to invest the time.

I place very little stock in anecdotal evidence.

Perhaps you all just shoot better than the rest of us?

Perhaps Thomas airguns are magical in some way that makes all kinds of different pellets act precisely the same?

That may or may not be true, but I have heard no argument and seen no evidence that what I've presented is untrue.

I mean no offense to anyone about anything by posting any of this.

And SURELY not everyone would notice any effect by bothering with sorting.

As I've said elsewhere, you don't NEED to sort pellets to have fun with an airgun.

Nor do you NEED to sort pellets to do well with an airgun.

My only point, to which I've provided physical evidence and anyone with a chronograph can try for themselves, is that differences in pellets DO matter to pellet velocity.

From this we can safely infer, will also affect accuracy.

If it didn't, why do we bother putting regulators in our guns?

To what degree it will affect accuracy will be addressed in the upcoming "Part II" video.

I very much enjoy and welcome discussing this, and thank all who have posted.

-Donnie



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I'll go with these two. It floats my boat.
 
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I only use my pellet rifle, .177 Benjamin Fortitude Gen2, for pesting in my yard using CPUM 10.5 pellets.

Although the prevailing wisdom is that the "brown boxed" Crosman pellets are better, lately I have found that the tinned CPUMs out-perform the BB variety. Note, all of these pellets were purchased around 3 years ago (about 20,000+ of them, BB and tinned, when the prices were good).

I sort for obvious defects and find that the BB pellets have MANY more defects than the tinned ones. Also, even after sorting for defects, the tinned ones have WAY LESS flyers!

Since I don't sort for weight or head size, I don't know what the difference is there. The defect(s) in the BB pellets is usually "leafs" of lead inside and/or around the pellet skirt. I assume this will cause spiraling, but have no video evidence to support that. I'll try and salvage those culled pellets one day.

In any case, before I stopped trying to fix the Nova Vista Freedoms I have, they were able to shoot these same pellets, BB and tinned, with extreme accuracy/precision WITHOUT sorting!

So, as is always said, some guns shoot well with many pellets and some guns need that "magic" pellet.

For now, I am happy with the 1 MOA or less I get with the tinned CPUMs out to ~40 yards with the Fortitude. I used to get the same out to 60 yards (as far as I had available to shoot from my property across a neighbor's property with permission, new neighbor put up privacy fence) with the Freedoms and I think I probably could have done some 100 yard 1 MOA shooting with the Freedoms if they didn't have so many other problems. (sigh)

Anyway, if you have a gun that shoots 1 MOA or less straight out of the tin, then count your blessings!

If not, then at least sorting for obvious defects may help. It definitely won't hurt! (grin)
 
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Donnie you have opened a can of worms and have stated some pretty strong statements. 


But no Evidence. Let’s see the target. 


Bob Stern has stated that a 20 FPS variance has no bearing on accuracy. He didn’t qualify the range. So maybe that’s what you need to do. 


dollars to donuts that target was hole in hole, that’s why you don’t see it.


again I shoot .257 and you can see weight and some pretty ugly looking bullets. Oblong hollow points come to mind. Yet at 150 yards they hit same spot.


a teaser video ain’t enough the people demand a chrono charts targets hardairmagazine maybe needs to push on this but it’s hard when they’re advertisers sell pellet clean and sorting products. 


Olympic shooters aren’t sorting per Steve’s JSB factory tour video.


I think we need to at least qualify and say for bigger calibers no discernible difference. 


Baker Airguns is a great company and I love the videos keep up the good work. 
 
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Donnie you have opened a can of worms and have stated some pretty strong statements. 


But no Evidence. Let’s see the target. 


Bob Stern has stated that a 20 FPS variance has no bearing on accuracy. He didn’t qualify the range. So maybe that’s what you need to do. 


dollars to donuts that target was hole in hole, that’s why you don’t see it.


again I shoot .257 and you can see weight and some pretty ugly looking bullets. Oblong hollow points come to mind. Yet at 150 yards they hit same spot.


a teaser video ain’t enough the people demand a chrono charts targets hardairmagazine maybe needs to push on this but it’s hard when they’re advertisers sell pellet clean and sorting products. 


Olympic shooters aren’t sorting per Steve’s JSB factory tour video.


I think we need to at least qualify and say for bigger calibers no discernible difference. 


Baker Airguns is a great company and I love the videos keep up the good work.
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Don't you worry.

There's a Part II in the works that will address accuracy.

This video only addressed velocity, and I most definitely presented evidence to support my hypothesis.

My hypothesis being, pellets that are different act differently.

The experiment definitely supported that hypothesis so far as velocity is concerned.

Part II will test the same hypothesis, only the experiments will measure accuracy.

Stay tuned.

-Donnie


 
Upvote 0
Donnie you have opened a can of worms and have stated some pretty strong statements. 


But no Evidence. Let’s see the target. 


Bob Stern has stated that a 20 FPS variance has no bearing on accuracy. He didn’t qualify the range. So maybe that’s what you need to do. 


dollars to donuts that target was hole in hole, that’s why you don’t see it.


again I shoot .257 and you can see weight and some pretty ugly looking bullets. Oblong hollow points come to mind. Yet at 150 yards they hit same spot.


a teaser video ain’t enough the people demand a chrono charts targets hardairmagazine maybe needs to push on this but it’s hard when they’re advertisers sell pellet clean and sorting products. 


Olympic shooters aren’t sorting per Steve’s JSB factory tour video.


I think we need to at least qualify and say for bigger calibers no discernible difference. 


Baker Airguns is a great company and I love the videos keep up the good work.
Click to expand...


Don't you worry.

There's a Part II in the works that will address accuracy.

This video only addressed velocity, and I most definitely presented evidence to support my hypothesis.

My hypothesis being, pellets that are different act differently.

The experiment definitely supported that hypothesis so far as velocity is concerned.

Part II will test the same hypothesis, only the experiments will measure accuracy.

Stay tuned.

-Donnie

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Looking forward to seeing the results. Seems you've pretty clearly demonstrated a "difference" already.
 
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