[quote author=SpiralGroove link=topic=82839.msg156323608#msg156323608 date=1651720197]
[quote author=michaelthomas link=topic=82839.msg795281#msg795281 date=1423240357]
I'll throw my 2 cents in here and assure everyone it will be worth every penny. ;D I pretty much do nothing but shoot competitive air rifle benchrest. I do not know of a more particular bunch of guys. I used to sort pellets by various methods.....rolling, optical comparator, and laser micrometer. The last two methods were accurate to .0001 and beyond. The first thing you notice with the laser mic or the 100x comparator is that there is no such thing as a truly round pellet. About the best you can hope for with a tin of JSB's is .01mm out of round....with most being worse. When taking roll sized pellets and double checking them on the laser mic.....I found that the out of round really screwed with the results that were being obtained. For those that roll pellets.....simply squashing the skirt very slightly will make the pellet roll to a completely different place. The circumference will stay the same.....but it rolls different. I always pushed my pellets through a die to size the skirts consistently prior to rolling to combat this, but it really didn't work according to the laser mic or the comparator. Long story short on rolling......the pellets that were classified by rolling were not actually the size graduations that I thought. I tested them in their respective group sizes....and always seemed to find a particular group that shot the best. I have no real explanation for that. I quit rolling pellets when my friend beat me 2 matches in a row with pellets out of the tin. He was too lazy to sort, and refused to do it. I then advanced to using the 100x comparator or the laser mic to take 2 position averages 90 degrees apart. Still very time consuming. I shot every sort size range individually and kept track of the results. Then one day, I took the smallest pellets and combined them with the largest from the sort and shot some cards with those. So these were the all the pellets that were grossly different than the majority on both ends of the scale. Strangely enough.....I shot just as well over a 3 card average compared to any other size group I tried. The sorting phase in my shooting history has been a lot more complicated than I care to write.....it would take a book to get it all down. I have gone from ignorance to staunch belief to indifference over my time shooting benchrest. I can give one particular case that casts great doubt on the entire head sorting thing for me. I have a particular lot of JSB 8.44's that shoot averages of 250 18-20x indoors with an average head size of .1782". They are fantastic pellets that would lead someone to the conclusion that my barrels like larger head sizes of 4.53 or so. I also have another batch of JSB 8.44's that average exactly the same scores, but are .1770 in average head size. I also have tons of other batches that are the same head sizes as these I mentioned......and every other size you can think of that come no where near the performance of the other two. How does that compute if head size is what matters? The above example tells me that head size may matter.....but it's certainly not the only thing that matters....and maybe its not nearly as significant as we thought. I can also tell you that I have weighed pellets til the cows came home.....and could not find any conclusive evidence that weight sorted pellets improved my scores at all. It should be noted that I only shoot JSB's or AA pellets. Maybe weighing is beneficial for the more widely varying pellets like the crosmans. I quit sorting pellets completely last winter, and so have the other guys that shoot my bench rifles.....and still somehow we have managed to set 14 new national benchrest records in the past year. All with pellets straight out of the tin. I have 55 yards indoors where I can shoot off a dedicated bench and a machine rest with a rifle that is extremely consistent. Without those things, I think it would have been very, very difficult to arrive at the conclusion that I have. Right now.....I buy a tin of every batch of a particular pellet I can find. I shoot a few cards with each one indoors. If I find a great shooting tin, I order all I can of that particular lot. That is the extent of my sorting these days. This has drastically simplified my shooting life.....but has not yet changed my performance. Please know that I am in no way knocking anyone that finds benefit to pellet sorting. If it works for them.....there is no reason to quit doing it. I'm just sharing my personal experience in the matter. Mike [/quote] I wish I would have read this before buying my pellet testing gauges 
.
I wondered why Mike was so anti-pellet sorting .... he already sorted, pellet sorting .
Now I know the back story .............. .
[/quote] ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Since I bought my two RAW HM1000x's, I've gotten more serious about long range shooting (specifically 100 yards). However, I really don't plan on entering any events or competitions per se .... or aspire to have a camera on my gun to watch pellets travel out to my target. I shoot to relax, have some fun and tinker with airguns - period. Unfortunately, my German heritage will not let me settle for anythings else but very, very close to MOA at 100 yards - we've gotta have goals.
I do subscribe to the
Motorhead philosophy of cleaning my barrel thoroughly, the Bob Sterne philosophy of getting my ES to 1%, increasing my gun's efficiency as much as possible, finding the optimal set-point for a given pellet, harmonic tuning of the barrel/pellet. These appear to be basic (supported) scientific ideas.
Mike has described above, his findings about bench rest shooting at its highest level. His proficiency cannot be disputed. He has said roughly, basic steps need to be taken to test and buy the best pellets possible for your barrel, and that's it. Now, I know his basic methodology is likely pretty comprehensive (by semi-amateurs), but short of doing any pellet sorting or sizing.
His findings
seem to be based on bench rest shooting out to 50 yards, not 100 yards (he may have test out further).
Unfortunately, were often shown videos of pellets spiraling when shot out to 100 yards. These are shown by many Big names (maybe marketing) in the air-guning business.
Question:
How do we avoid this when shooting PELLETS at 100 yards? Is this an area where pellet sorting does have some merit or do we just need to do a better job on the basics, ie Cleaning/refining the barrel, selecting better pellets or just eying pellets for gross, problematic issues?
HELP .................. Anyone
