Bad tin of Crosman Premiers mysteriously fixes itself with age

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C

Coldair

Member
Sep 24, 2018
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Hawaii
How can anyone explain this strange phenomenon?

Visited a buddy who has a Benjamin Discovery that shoots Crosman CPHPs in 22 caliber very accurately.

The 22 Domed Premiers usually shot almost as good but the CPHPs shot better in his gun.

Several years ago he bought a tin of Crosman Premier Domed from Walmart when they used to sell them and

they shot like a scattergun so he didn't want to use them and had forgotten about them in his open garage over the years

in a box that had gotten damaged by flood a few years ago. He didn't close the tin well and all of the pellets were completely

oxidized with a rough texture. He tried shooting them today and they stacked pellet on pellet. It was unbelievable!

How can this be explained?

CA
 
Hmm, that’s interesting. My first thought was the same as the others, that the oxide has “grown” its outside dimensions.



I recall reading some posts about a guy who found some old pellets that were oxidized and someone advised that he not run them through the barrel because the oxide is hard and may damage the rifling. I don’t know about the veracity of that warning though. A brief search shows the hardness of lead oxide as about 2 – 2.5 on the Mohs scale whereas steel starts at about 5. Maybe it was a brass barrel (3 – 4 Mohs).



Anyway like Brazos said, there are a lot of other possible reasons when years have elapsed. The rifle’s state of tune, barrel band placement, tightness of screws, the human element, wind, dirty barrel, the beginnings of a failed transfer port seal or bolt O-ring, slight clipping of the LDC (if present), etc. I’m sure your friend could pretty easily refute some of those factors but it would be practically impossible to rule them all out.



Still I’m inclined to think the oxidation has something to do with it. One of the big problems with Crosman pellets over the last 5 years or so has been pronounced parting lines where the two halves of the die meet. The oxide is hard but brittle so the “fins” may now be shearing off. Random rudders aren’t very useful for predictable flight path. I’ve had some success with vigorously deburring them in a wire strainer:



https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=134454



But the results still aren’t as good as the older batches:



https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=150013
 
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I should have been a bit more clear about the Crosman Premier Domes, he normally shot both of them, those Premier Domes and the CPHPs depending on what was in stock at Walmart so his gun was no stranger to shooting them both with decent accuracy until that last tin he bought then gave up using those types and mentioned to me no wonder Walmart stopped selling those types and just sold the CPHPs to this day.

I thought Walmart stopped selling them because the CPHPs were cheaper thus the better seller which made more marketing sense to me.

The CPHPs were typically just a little more accurate than the regular Crosman Premier domes in his gun. That last tin was definitely a bad batch and several years later it appeared to have fixed itself and the only reason he used them (oxidized and all) is that Walmart was sold out of the CPHPs and he was completely out of pellets and only then he remembered he had that bad tin somewhere and he told me his gun was REALLY HUNGRY to go shooting.

I guess he now knows how to fix bad pellets with age and the elements...

CA
 
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