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Similar weighted pellets vs. slugs?

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madeintheuk

madeintheuk

Member
Apr 19, 2020
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Washington depot, Connecticut, United States
Ok boys and gals. Convince me for or against!

As of late, a lot of the pellet batches I’ve been receiving have been in bad shape. Misshaped skirts, weight discrepancies, you name it. I’ve started to think that switching to similar weight slugs is going to increase my accuracy purely based on them being more uniform and less damaged.
Now I have no evidence to back this up, which is why I’m writing this post. Help me decide if I’m on the right path or not. Do I dump the 18gn jsb’s I’m using and replace with the 17.5 or 21gn nsa? Or do I keep buying pellets and hope the condition gets better?
 
First thing I would determine is if your barrel and power plant are intended for slugs. Do you want to do a lot of shooting past 50 yards or so? Questions you have to determine first. If your gun is OK for slugs and you want longer range shooting then really worth a look.

However.. For 50 yards and closer you can sort pellets by diameter and weight and get just as good accuracy. It's a bit tedious but having uniform diameters and weights pays off. If you do this with even Crosman pellets which are cheap to begin with you may be pleasantly surprised. I sorted a couple of tins of CPHP's (one 0.177 and one 0.22 cal). I eliminated about 5% for damage. But since they're so cheap to begin with it's not an issue (for me anyways).
 
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Others have offered great advice that I'd support. I'll add to that with saying if shooting past 50 yards, you have to recalibrate your scope dope, your usual holdovers or both, as slugs don't get pushed around like pellets by a long shot. You will also have to adjust because higher slug BC will get you higher velocities at the target, and less ammo drop.
 
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Chukar60 said:
Have you tried the FX pellets? I have seen a number of posts here stating they are having better success with those.
I am still working my way through tins of them I bought months ago, so have no idea how newEr production looks.
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I've had the opposite results. I've tried several slugs in different configs on my Maverick. Almost every slug has shot better than the Hybrids.
The Hybrids aren't bad, and I would bet I could tighten them up but NSA's in several weights, and the JSB Knockouts out perform them. The Knockouts are darn near almost as good as my pellets at the same tune other than turning the power wheel up one.
 
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The Knockouts for me were a nice surprise. If you are pesting, they actually open up much better than anticipated and their accuracy might have even been a tad better than the Zan slugs of the same weight. This part is pure conjecture, but to me the sound of a Zan slug hitting a starling or squirrel is unmatched. It is just louder and angrier than any of the other slugs I have tried.
 
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bunkeru2k said:
The Knockouts for me were a nice surprise. If you are pesting, they actually open up much better than anticipated and their accuracy might have even been a tad better than the Zan slugs of the same weight. This part is pure conjecture, but to me the sound of a Zan slug hitting a starling or squirrel is unmatched. It is just louder and angrier than any of the other slugs I have tried.
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I've tried various Zan also. The heavier ones were pretty good, not as good as NSA or JSB though.
 
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madeintheuk said:
Ok boys and gals. Convince me for or against!

As of late, a lot of the pellet batches I’ve been receiving have been in bad shape. Misshaped skirts, weight discrepancies, you name it. I’ve started to think that switching to similar weight slugs is going to increase my accuracy purely based on them being more uniform and less damaged.
Now I have no evidence to back this up, which is why I’m writing this post. Help me decide if I’m on the right path or not. Do I dump the 18gn jsb’s I’m using and replace with the 17.5 or 21gn nsa? Or do I keep buying pellets and hope the condition gets better?
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I would probably lean toward slugs for less damage in the box/tin. For more sturdy pellets have you tried the copper coated

H&N Excite Coppa-Spitzkugel?​

 
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douger said:
iv shot mostly pellets 16-18 gr so i have played few slugs but nothing pellet accuracy to me but im only shooting 50-63 yards
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I've played with slugs, nothing too heavy to require a special barrel, I've yet to get the accuracy that some get. Played with speeds, pressures, hammers, slug or pellet settings and nothing, go back to pellets and boom hole in hole in hole at 30 yards. I've got one more batch of slugs to try today RMR's, they are gorgeous. they look like they are machined. I haven't measured the diameters but I'm going to get really serious about it, I can check them to .0001", a random sample of 10 out of 500, well technically 490, shot a few last night. I may do more in the sample if it goes well.
 
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HogKiller said:
I've played with slugs, nothing too heavy to require a special barrel, I've yet to get the accuracy that some get. Played with speeds, pressures, hammers, slug or pellet settings and nothing, go back to pellets and boom hole in hole in hole at 30 yards. I've got one more batch of slugs to try today RMR's, they are gorgeous. they look like they are machined. I haven't measured the diameters but I'm going to get really serious about it, I can check them to .0001", a random sample of 10 out of 500, well technically 490, shot a few last night. I may do more in the sample if it goes well.
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I figured the same thing today. NSA 33.? and Knockouts are very good but I get quarter sized groups at 35 yards. Pellets are hole in hole. I don't really need to shoot slugs but have a hard time accepting defeat.....lol
 
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dens228 said:
I figured the same thing today. NSA 33.? and Knockouts are very good but I get quarter sized groups at 35 yards. Pellets are hole in hole. I don't really need to shoot slugs but have a hard time accepting defeat.....lol
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If we didn't want a challenge we wouldn't be shooting these things. I say I'm done with slugs then.....deeper into that pesky wabbet hole I go.
 
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HogKiller said:
If we didn't want a challenge we wouldn't be shooting these things. I say I'm done with slugs then.....deeper into that pesky wabbet hole I go.
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Ok, went through and did a quick measurements on the RMR pellets,, sample size of 25, weights were within .2 grains, 21.8 OR 22.0 pretty evenly split, dimeters were .2172, very consistent, the occasional .00002 deviation, but that's in the realm of me messing up, . OAL came in at .3402, again consistent. FX Hybrids were esencially the same on all dimensions, the ONLY difference is the RMR were longer, the FX were .3215 i.e shorter. I'm going to guess the longer ones make the BC better. Now the bad news, my Maverick .22/500 didn't love them, didn't matter one iota how fast I got it going up to 960fps, still went all over the place, .5" center to center. Now it could be my barrel or something in my gun, speeds varied quite a bit. I was using the standard barrel and hammer wright and probe, switched to the pellet side on the transfer port. Oh and I've got the CF liner BUT it's not glued on. I was not bench rested, just a bipod but I can generally get darn good groups with my pellets at 30 yards. Price was $60 for 500, not exactly plinking money.
 
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EmptyTin_Tim said:
What tune is that? I mean, what FPS do you shoot the 18.13s at and if the same tune then what does the 17.5 slug drop to?
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My RAW is tuned to shoot 18gr JSB's @ approximately 970fps and the slugs speed is around 20fps less or about 950fps. Also, the JSB Redsigned 25gr are approximately 100fps slower @ 870fps and only 3 clicks up from the 18gr @ 20yds. The slugs are 1-2 clicks up and 1 click left approximately.
 
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Ranchibi said:
My RAW is tuned to shoot 18gr JSB's @ approximately 970fps and the slugs speed is around 20fps less or about 950fps. Also, the JSB Redsigned 25gr are approximately 100fps slower @ 870fps and only 3 clicks up from the 18gr @ 20yds. The slugs are 1-2 clicks up and 1 click left approximately.
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Woah. That is some serious speed there! My Avenger is doing 18.13s at 876 ish right now. That's how fast your 25 gr are doing! I'm at 2k psi reg pressure and 2.5 or so HS but can go up with both. (Power plenum)

I wouldn't think a 18.13 would be accurate at 970 fps.. or at least that's what they say. 20 yards is like a quarter of what I normally shoot at though. What are your groups like further out? At 40.5 yards a 18.13 at MV 876fps zips thru a rabbit head and keeps going to the woods another 30 yards back. Bet your 25 gr wouldn't even care about anything in its path! Lol
 
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