The Bent Skirt Experiment

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manabeknives

manabeknives

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Apr 1, 2015
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San Diego, California, United States
I have often read when people are sorting their pellets, that they toss aside any pellet with a bent or damaged skirt. I heard of others that say that these irregularities to the skirt makes no difference in accuracy of the pellet. 
I really wanted to find out for myself, so I made a little experiment.
I took 5 pellets and crushed their skirts with a pair of pliers so they looked like this


Next I used 5 normal pellets to shoot as a comparison. Out of the 10 shots, the target looked like this..


Now, can you tell me which row was shot with the bent skirts?
It was row #2 shots 6-10
I can't see a difference....Can You?
So the next time you open a tin of pellets and see bent skirts....don't throw them away....shoot them

Mike Manabe
 
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"Rocky_in_TX"
What gun? What barrel? What make of pellet? What speed? What distance?









Click to expand...
Hello Rocky,
The Rifle I was using is a HM1000X in .22 caliber using JSB 18.1 jumbo heavies. The speed is 945 FPS at a distance of 13m
EDIT-I tuned down the speed so that the rifle was shooting at 890 FPS...the results were the same.
 
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Mike, 
Great idea! Thanks for sharing! :) I always throw mine aside for chrony work or plinking. 
I'm with CampFussell, though. I'd like to see this experiment run at about 50yds. I'd do it myself if I wasn't at work. 
I'm wondering if your probe is re-shaping the skirts. It would be interesting to see a bent pellet that was loaded and then backed out or, just a peek inside from the back. I think the distance is important because they could be spiraling due to the damage and that might not show up at such a short range.
eg. I bought a rifle and it was tested at a 15 yd indoor testing area. The results looked great! However, I thought I had issues when I tested it at 25, and I knew I had issues when I stretched it to 50. I had a clipping issue and it didn't show up with the short range. 
Good thinking Mike! 
 
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I performed the experiment again at 13m, using a HM1000X shooting JSB 18.1 Jumbo Heavies, but this time I reduced the FPS down to 890. I thought people might think that shooting the last group at 945 was too hot.
so here are the pellets


and again I fired 5 normal pellets....here is the target...targets 11-20 were used


Targets 16-20 were shot with the bent skirts

 
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cool beans, Mike. I hope Harry from down under see's this post, and adds his input to the discussion, as I know he has done similar tests in the past. For the most part, I will discard a pellet with a deformation on the head, and shoot the ret - unless I am setting up for competition of any sort. May just be superstition on my part, but like to think the extra effort is worth a point or two ;-)
 
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I actually shoot all of my pellets and put down the occasional fliers down to my own inadequacies and not bad pellets. This is one reason I go back and use my springers every now and again, to try and make sure I get my breathing and other things correct, when I get good on the springer I then go back to my PCP guns. I think the PCP's are so easy to shoot and so accurate we sometimes get lazy and relax our breathing, hold and trigger squeeze. 
The results posted do surprise me though since some of the skirts are so badly bent I would have thought it would have effected the flight because it is no longer a perfect shape and would disrupt the airflow around the pellet, obviously not the case, unless the distance was too short to allow this to really effect the flight, maybe at 50 yards it would start to make a difference? It would be nice to see the same tests done at a longer distance, like another poster suggested, good test and results though, I was somewhat surprised by them, Neil.
 
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I just spent half an hour structuring a reply and lost it!
So forgive me for just referencing two old studies that I consider somewhat relevant.To summarize my experience: Beyond 30 to 40 yards damage becomes more apparent in group sizes and my SM videos show spiral flight often beginning about there.
Damage to heads opens groups more than damage to skirts. 
Some reading:
My method of re-constituting damage to skirts for longer range accuracy.
http://www.network54.com/Forum/79537/message/1419202501/

http://www.network54.com/Forum/79537/thread/1304207072
I'm unsure how referencing my research as reported in another forum is received here, so just let me know if it is not welcome.
Kind regards to all, Harry.
 
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Not so with my experiment. I used a Speedy Pellet Inspector on a fresh tin of .177 cal AA 10.3 gr pellets and culled out the ones with bent or deformed skirts. I then shot 10 shot groups with my TM1000 at 25 yards to see the difference. The first target on the left was shot with round skirts, the second was with the rejects, and the third (right hand) target used pellets right from the tin and not inspected. Excuse me, but I mis-labled the targets as JSB pellets, but they were AAs. As you can see, the group size with reject or bent skirts is larger and would probably result in more 9s on a BR target and lose you the match. I'm convinced that you need to eliminate pellets with deformaties for match shooting and save the rejects for informal target practice.

 
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I'm convinced that you need to eliminate pellets with deformaties for match shooting and save the rejects for informal target practice.
Click to expand...
thank you for sharing your results. That's some fine shooting
And I agree with you. I would never use such a misshapen pellet during a match. I would use them for practice.
The point I was trying to get across is that the bent skirt pellets needn't be thrown away. They weren't as accurate as the inspected pellets you shot.....but they weren't off by very much and look like they beat the out of the can pellets .



Mike Manabe
 
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