I haven't been a "serious" AG shooter for very long, but I've been around long enough to know that many of you are on what seems to be a never ending quest to find the perfect pellet for your gun. This post will be an ongoing process, and as I progress through this journey, I will add more information/results. I encourage the members at large to contribute to my expedition by making helpful suggestions and questioning my methodology.
I thought I would share with you my journey and my findings along the way.
First, a little background:
This will not be absolutely scientific. I did not take statistics in school, and my background is in emergency medicine. Therefore, please don't expect large math equations and graphs.
All shooting will be done with an AGT Vulcan Gen4 5,5 (.22cal) Bullpup sporting a Schmidt Bender PMII 6-24x56 scope. Shooting will be off of a bubble-leveled Bald Eagle front stand and a rice filled rear bag. Gun cant will be marginalized by a Flatline Ops bubble level. Testing will be completed in an indoor range at a distance of 23 meters, and verified by laser range finder. Confirmation of zero will be completed prior to each day's shooting. There will be only one shot per bullseye. Pellets will be JSB Exact Jumbo Heavy Diabolo 18,13gr.
Where I started
If I'm honest, I chose the JSB Pellets simply because the Vulcan shooters indicate that they, and the AA Diabolo Field's, were the most accurate in their guns. I ordered a tin of the AA's, and was somewhat disappointed with the results. In addition, the skirt is much more thin on the AA's when compared to the JSB's. Because of this, a lot of pellets arrived to me damaged.
I do realize that at the end of the day, the JSB may or may not be my gun's true love. However, without testing, I will never know.
The first step in the process was to wash and dry the ~1000 pellets. They were carefully placed in a plastic container with a small amount of Dawn wash up soap and hot water. They were gently swirled for a few minutes, and then thoroughly rinsed with hot water. The pellets were then put on a cloth towel and completely dried with a hairdryer.
Following a good washing, the pellets were divided by head size using a PelletGauge. Pyramid Air indicates that their JSB pellets have a head size of 5.52. However, here are the sizes I found to be within two tins:
5.50
5.51
5.52
5.53
5.54
5.55
After head measuring, all of the pellets were segregated by size for the next step:
*NOTE: I purposely did not lubricate the pellets prior to the next step. I found that the lubricant caused the pellets to stick to the glass, and not roll consistently.
The tabletop "device" in the photo above is what I am using to Yrrah roll the pellets. It's actually a glass framed photograph in which I have taped two rulers to. The red ruler is to insure that I always start the roll at the same place, and the bluish ruler is to determine where the pellet stops. Once I figure out what size and head-to-skirt ratio is the best, I will build an actual table with the exact same dimensions. *TIP: a glass top is great to write on with a dry-erase marker.
To further explain the Yrrah method, I place a pellet on the glass top with the skirt facing me. Each pellet is placed on the exact same ruler marking (red & white ruler), and both the head and skirt are touching the ruler before letting go of the pellet. Any pellet that rolls away from the ruler askew is re-rolled.
The pellet then rolls in an arc due to the difference in head-to-skirt size, and stops at the bluish colored ruler. Where the head lands in relation to the ruler markings determines its segregation.
The "Yrrah table" is set to a 1º angle. I chose this as it is just enough to get the pellet rolling (in most cases), yet not so steep that the pellet slides on the glass.
Each pellet was Yrrah rolled and subdivided by final roll length. Any that fell out of the low or high-end of measurement were rolled a minimum of three times until a consensus was obtained. In addition, defective pellets (e.g. bent skirt, oblong, excessive short/long roll, "odd" sounding roll) were removed from the bunch.
After rolling, I ended up with 177 defective pellets (17.7%). By only a slight margin, damaged skirts were the most prevalent cause of elimination. The other major causation was head-to-skirt ratio being far too large or small.
Here are the results of about 6 hours of "fun".
The final step before shooting was to lubricate the pellets.
I had intended to use Powerpel Pellet Lube, but obtaining it stateside (and at a reasonable price) proved to be problematic for me. As an alternative, I decided to try "White Lightning Clean Ride" (WL) bicycle chain wax lube. After shooting around 500 lubed pellets, I can report that my barrel does remain much cleaner than shooting out of the tin. It does seem to improve accuracy, but only slightly. Gone are the days of black-coated fingers, and my chronograph shows an increase of 16fps with JSB Exact Jumbo Diabolo 18,1gr pellets.
The WL was transferred into an eye glass cleaning solution bottle. This bottle produces a nice fine mist. The foam pads of an empty pellet tin were liberally sprayed with WL and a small portion of pellets were added to the tin along with the foam pads. After putting the pellets into the tin, they were sprayed with one pump of the WL. The tin was then gently rolled for approximately 1 minute. *Note: it's important to shake the WL bottle prior to each use as it will separate quickly.
The pellets were then transferred from the tin into labeled plastic bags. The bags were left open in order to allow the WL to off-gass for 30 minutes prior to closure.
In my next post I will be reporting on the results of shooting. Most likely, I will only get through one head size per update. I haven't decided how many pellets of each group I should shoot, and some of the groups have but a few pellets.
Cheers!
I thought I would share with you my journey and my findings along the way.
First, a little background:
This will not be absolutely scientific. I did not take statistics in school, and my background is in emergency medicine. Therefore, please don't expect large math equations and graphs.
All shooting will be done with an AGT Vulcan Gen4 5,5 (.22cal) Bullpup sporting a Schmidt Bender PMII 6-24x56 scope. Shooting will be off of a bubble-leveled Bald Eagle front stand and a rice filled rear bag. Gun cant will be marginalized by a Flatline Ops bubble level. Testing will be completed in an indoor range at a distance of 23 meters, and verified by laser range finder. Confirmation of zero will be completed prior to each day's shooting. There will be only one shot per bullseye. Pellets will be JSB Exact Jumbo Heavy Diabolo 18,13gr.
Where I started
If I'm honest, I chose the JSB Pellets simply because the Vulcan shooters indicate that they, and the AA Diabolo Field's, were the most accurate in their guns. I ordered a tin of the AA's, and was somewhat disappointed with the results. In addition, the skirt is much more thin on the AA's when compared to the JSB's. Because of this, a lot of pellets arrived to me damaged.
I do realize that at the end of the day, the JSB may or may not be my gun's true love. However, without testing, I will never know.
The first step in the process was to wash and dry the ~1000 pellets. They were carefully placed in a plastic container with a small amount of Dawn wash up soap and hot water. They were gently swirled for a few minutes, and then thoroughly rinsed with hot water. The pellets were then put on a cloth towel and completely dried with a hairdryer.
Following a good washing, the pellets were divided by head size using a PelletGauge. Pyramid Air indicates that their JSB pellets have a head size of 5.52. However, here are the sizes I found to be within two tins:
5.50
5.51
5.52
5.53
5.54
5.55
After head measuring, all of the pellets were segregated by size for the next step:
*NOTE: I purposely did not lubricate the pellets prior to the next step. I found that the lubricant caused the pellets to stick to the glass, and not roll consistently.
The tabletop "device" in the photo above is what I am using to Yrrah roll the pellets. It's actually a glass framed photograph in which I have taped two rulers to. The red ruler is to insure that I always start the roll at the same place, and the bluish ruler is to determine where the pellet stops. Once I figure out what size and head-to-skirt ratio is the best, I will build an actual table with the exact same dimensions. *TIP: a glass top is great to write on with a dry-erase marker.
To further explain the Yrrah method, I place a pellet on the glass top with the skirt facing me. Each pellet is placed on the exact same ruler marking (red & white ruler), and both the head and skirt are touching the ruler before letting go of the pellet. Any pellet that rolls away from the ruler askew is re-rolled.
The pellet then rolls in an arc due to the difference in head-to-skirt size, and stops at the bluish colored ruler. Where the head lands in relation to the ruler markings determines its segregation.
The "Yrrah table" is set to a 1º angle. I chose this as it is just enough to get the pellet rolling (in most cases), yet not so steep that the pellet slides on the glass.
Each pellet was Yrrah rolled and subdivided by final roll length. Any that fell out of the low or high-end of measurement were rolled a minimum of three times until a consensus was obtained. In addition, defective pellets (e.g. bent skirt, oblong, excessive short/long roll, "odd" sounding roll) were removed from the bunch.
After rolling, I ended up with 177 defective pellets (17.7%). By only a slight margin, damaged skirts were the most prevalent cause of elimination. The other major causation was head-to-skirt ratio being far too large or small.
Here are the results of about 6 hours of "fun".
The final step before shooting was to lubricate the pellets.
I had intended to use Powerpel Pellet Lube, but obtaining it stateside (and at a reasonable price) proved to be problematic for me. As an alternative, I decided to try "White Lightning Clean Ride" (WL) bicycle chain wax lube. After shooting around 500 lubed pellets, I can report that my barrel does remain much cleaner than shooting out of the tin. It does seem to improve accuracy, but only slightly. Gone are the days of black-coated fingers, and my chronograph shows an increase of 16fps with JSB Exact Jumbo Diabolo 18,1gr pellets.
The WL was transferred into an eye glass cleaning solution bottle. This bottle produces a nice fine mist. The foam pads of an empty pellet tin were liberally sprayed with WL and a small portion of pellets were added to the tin along with the foam pads. After putting the pellets into the tin, they were sprayed with one pump of the WL. The tin was then gently rolled for approximately 1 minute. *Note: it's important to shake the WL bottle prior to each use as it will separate quickly.
The pellets were then transferred from the tin into labeled plastic bags. The bags were left open in order to allow the WL to off-gass for 30 minutes prior to closure.
In my next post I will be reporting on the results of shooting. Most likely, I will only get through one head size per update. I haven't decided how many pellets of each group I should shoot, and some of the groups have but a few pellets.
Cheers!
