Weighing pellets but *NOT* .177's for use in FT / HFT ---> .22 and larger cal

Thoughts? I can see weighing for FT / HFT as the name of the game is pretty tight tolerance for accuracy to knock down targets and the guns are frequently "tuned down" for accuracy vs power - ie; not necessarily for making small critters dead.

.22 and larger calibers though - ARE typically meant to make small game dead - be it vermin / pesting or small game for dinner. Obviously we need accuracy and consistency but with bigger, heavier lead flying out of the end of the barrel, with more air pushing it out at higher fps . . . . just how critical is the actual weight of the pellet?

Bored, nothing on TV, plus I'm waiting on a part to come in for my .177 that I plan on using for FT next year I just decided on a whim to weigh a tin of JSB 15.89's that I use in my .22. I've never even washed, let alone weighed .22 pellets before - just shoot 'em straight out of the tin and for the most part - they're pretty damned consistent. There are of course the occasional flyers but for the most part - they all pretty much go where I put the cross hair. I didn't go through the entire tin but I did make it through 3/4 of it and the lack of consistency was a bit of a bummer. According to the label - they're supposed to be 15.89's. In actuality they run the gamut from 15.5's on the low end to high 16.20's. Of the 300'ish that I looked at and was sorting into two empty tins - almost half of them were "out of spec" - and by that I'd given them ( I'm thinking ) a pretty generous acceptable range of 15.8 - 16.19 "in spec" weighting. Anything under 15.8 or heavier than 16.20 went into the "out of range" tin.

But - with these bigger, heavier pellets . . . and the fact that you're just needing to put them into a kill zone - they don't have to be super, pin point accurate like you'd like to have in FT / HFT - does it really matter?? Do any of you sort and weigh heavier "hunting ammo"? Just curious.
 
I’m very new to air gunning and just plink in my back yard. But when I’m lucky I get to shoot a rat or even mice. I started weighing my pellets a while ago. Crossmans were really dirty and I pretty big spread in weight difference. Now I’m shooting .22 cal H&N FTT. I don’t wash them but I do sort by weight. I don’t have a specific weigh for shooting. I just start with the lighter ones and work my way through the batch up to the heavies. For me its a simple task to eliminate one more margin of error. 
I think I’ve taken about 6 mice at 19 yards 
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and head shots on ground squirrels at 20 yards. All with my Prod 

 
Agreed, FT and HFT shooting requires every advantage that you can get and sorting pellets (weight and head size) is a good way to minimize the variables. Accuracy is consistency and sorting helps. 

I don't do FT/HFT but I sort all my calibers for six special situations...

- I use sorted pellets when I am looking for the best pellet for the gun and want to clearly identify the best head size.

- I use sorted pellets when I am sighting in the gun because I want the optimum zero rather than an average that unsorted pellets will give.

- I use sorted pellets when I am tuning for barrel harmonics 

- I use sorted pellets for serious target shooting when I am trying for my best groups.

- I use sorted pellets for hunting to get my best shot placement.

- I will also sort a sample (usually 50 pellets) from each tin as a quality check. If the sample is not up to snuff the whole tin might get sorted.

My "special situations" comprises a small percentage of my total shooting and most of the time the pellets from my "quality check" samples will cover the needs. For plinking, casual target shooting and pesting I shoot straight from the tin.

Sorting is not too bad/tedious for me, I have an organized setup which make the job pretty fast and easy to do... I'd guess that weighting and sizing takes 10-15 seconds per pellet.

Personally, I think sorting is worth effort as I can see the difference in my groups. I still get the occasional flyer but I suspect that that is caused by a pellet axis to bore axis misalignment when loading from a magazine. Could be that I am wasting my time chasing ghosts but shooting requires focus and I shoot more confidently with sorted pellets. Works for me.

Hank