Placed an order for a Cricket .25 last night, besides JSB king and polymags, which pellets perform well in the cricket? I have an assortment of kings, benji dome, h&n cuda 31g, hunter xtreme, and cuda hunter for my Mrod. Which of the jsb heavy shoot best ? Mk1 or mk2. How do some of the other h&n pellets like the grizzly stack up?
Cricket .25 pellet selection advice
- Thread starter j.quillin
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My Cricket liked the JSB 25.4 best, H&N 31 next and then the Benji 27.8. The heavy Kings were not out when I had mine. It did not, however, shoot the polymags to my liking. I would be interested also to see how the H&N hunter extreme and the Grizzlies do.
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That's something you'll have to find out for yourself. For some reason the same barrels might perform differently with certain pellets. Also some barrels of the same type like lubed pellets and some don't. It sounds like you have a good selection to start the process of finding the best pellet for your barrel. I would also add the jsb heavies (mk1 and mk2) to the list. These two out perform the 25.4 kings in my .25 wildcat. I'm waiting for better weather to test those two against each other. Good luck and happy shooting.
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I found the MK1's to be slightly better than the 2's. yet the gun still shoots the 25.39's accurately but very hot. They shoot better than the 31 grain grizzlies. Joe Rhea posted an amazing group with his gun using the grizzlies. I'm guilty of buying many different ammo I tried most of it in other guns, just never found the need with the crickets
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Each gun is different. Mine, for example, shot the JSB heavy 33.95s best with the Air Arms 25 and JSB 25 tied for second. The difference between all 3 was millimeters. If I remember 5 shot groups 5mm vs 7mm. I love that its not fussy. but the heavies stacked nicely. I have also found the MK1s shot better out of my 25s. But again that is my guns. My guns are also Rowe tuned guns.
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between having 2 Mrods (.22 and .25) ive done my fair share of crony and patterning of pellets. Still have a almost full tin of Benji domes because my .25 mrod doesn't like them much because JSB 25s work best then probably p-mags. Thankfully I live some where where I can set up 100+yds shots to see how my grouping is.
I did order a tin each of JSB heavies in MK1 and MK2, H&N grizzly 31g and Cuda 31g, and some Air Arms 25g. Between what I already have and what I ordered looks to cover a good portion of what people are shooting.
I did order a tin each of JSB heavies in MK1 and MK2, H&N grizzly 31g and Cuda 31g, and some Air Arms 25g. Between what I already have and what I ordered looks to cover a good portion of what people are shooting.
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Nothing shoots as well in my .25 Cricket as H&N Baracuda hunter extremes. Eun Jin 33g seem to do ok inside of 40yards if I sort them to remove the deformed ones.
The H&N's are lethal for hunting as well as being accurate - The trajectory is super flat so I have to adjust very little when shooting a different distances from the one I zeroed at. It's as close to point and shoot as I've had in an air gun.
You can set your hammer spring tension to fire different pellets well. I didn't touch mine since I got it and it probably puts out a little too much power to shoot some of the lighter JSB's well. I haven't found mine to be particularly pellet fussy. Benjamin domes were the only ones I tried that it really didn't like.
You may find initially that the pellet you used to zero your scope seems to perform best. I have noticed a slight shift in poi between pellets. This could easily be confused with a poor performer if you didn't rezero for each one you try...
Btw, I'm not sure the original polymags will fit in the Cricket mag. You may have to load them single shot. I know the Eun Jin 43g won't fit. The smaller Eun Jins are the largest that will fit in the mag.
There is some guy who is selling 3d printed single shot trays to use longer pellets in the Cricket. I just push them into the breach by hand on the rare occasion I feel like it.
You're going to have a blast. The 25 cal Cricket is awesome. You made a great purchase. Squirrels are nearly extinct in my neighborhood since the Cricket arrived. I've made shots that are well beyond my skill and experience with it.
The H&N's are lethal for hunting as well as being accurate - The trajectory is super flat so I have to adjust very little when shooting a different distances from the one I zeroed at. It's as close to point and shoot as I've had in an air gun.
You can set your hammer spring tension to fire different pellets well. I didn't touch mine since I got it and it probably puts out a little too much power to shoot some of the lighter JSB's well. I haven't found mine to be particularly pellet fussy. Benjamin domes were the only ones I tried that it really didn't like.
You may find initially that the pellet you used to zero your scope seems to perform best. I have noticed a slight shift in poi between pellets. This could easily be confused with a poor performer if you didn't rezero for each one you try...
Btw, I'm not sure the original polymags will fit in the Cricket mag. You may have to load them single shot. I know the Eun Jin 43g won't fit. The smaller Eun Jins are the largest that will fit in the mag.
There is some guy who is selling 3d printed single shot trays to use longer pellets in the Cricket. I just push them into the breach by hand on the rare occasion I feel like it.
You're going to have a blast. The 25 cal Cricket is awesome. You made a great purchase. Squirrels are nearly extinct in my neighborhood since the Cricket arrived. I've made shots that are well beyond my skill and experience with it.
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My 25 Cricket shoots the 25 gr JSB,s at 960-970 fps and the 34 gr JSB,s at 860-870 fps. They were the most accurate pellets at 100 yards. The 31gr. Barracudas were almost as accurate and the 28 gr Benjamin were less accurate in my rifle.
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I'm pretty stoked about having a new gun. After converting my Mrod to a bullpup it was so much easier to carry around the woods. But like anyone that steps up from a Mrod, I was seeking a better shot count, more fps, more accurate and lighter gun. Few guns fit the bill once you're looking for a bullpup. Wildcat and Cricket being main choices and really considered the Vulcan but its even harder on the pocket book than the Cricket.
My targets being mainly little douglas squirrels, chipmunks, and the occasional crow that dare land in the tree tops. Any thing past 50yds off hand is a challenge to hit with the mrod. Its better when posting up againt a tree or attaching my sitting bipod. But adding a bipod to and already 11.5 lb gun just makes it harder to carry when stalking in the woods. But the mrod has been the demise of many squirrels that dared bark at me in the wood.
The Cricket will be here Mon, and the pellets and optic Thurs. so by next weekend i can start shooting if the Pacific NW weather decides not to rain. Even so can always set up for crony work. What i plan to do is make a my home made "shoot-n-see" targets out of a poster board. That way i can pattern all the pellets all on one poster sized target for a nice side by side comparison. This is also a useful tool for gauging hold over and or drop of different pellets to the pellet you're sighted in with. it can be used to change our sight in too when switching pellets as long as there is no external factors effecting your original sight in. hope i can create some good data for all
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Here's some initial pellet groups. Haven't ran anything across the crony yet to get FPE. My biggest surprise being the Benjamin domes and biggest let down was the poly-mags. Ignore the POI changes. I removed the barrel to clean it and forgot to remove the barrel locator screw. So I took my scope back off after sighting it in and kind of forgot to re-zero. Seems that removing the scope affects vertical POI more so than horizontal POI.
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Congrats on your new Cricket. I've heard nothing but great things about it. Happy shooting!!!
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So far I'm more than pleased with my purchase. between the mods for my .25 mrod and building a .22 mrod, I should have just bought turn-key hot rod like the Cricket. Only think I don't like thus far is the Mag loading and little leaver to engage the mag rotation cam. But its new and i'll grow to accustom to it.
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I find my Cricket to be very sensative to any tweaks that you make. Taking it out of the stock and putting it straight back causes a poi shift. I would advise that you set it up how you like it and then leave it. I can clean my barrel fairly easily without removing it too.
On the performance of the Benjamin domes, it could just be the way the scope was zeroed if you didn't redo it for each pellet. It could just be that your Cricket works better with them too. People always say how each gun is different....
I feel the same about my Cricket. I wish I would have just skipped all of the cheaper ones I bought before and just got the one I wanted straight away. You always waste more money when you try and save it for some reason.
Unless you are particularly skilled and have a well stocked machine shop, diy jobs are rarely as good as proffesionally made stuff. You often see people trying to sell their custom Marauders for $1000+ based on what they put into it. I often wonder if anyone actually buys them. For me the temptation with a day job comes from the outrageous prices people charge for air gun products vs identical products made for other markets.
You will get used to using the Cricket mag indexing system. Other than remembering to flick that switch when you reload, it operates much like any other side lever gun. The main issue is how delicate it is so being light-fingered when operating the lever is a good idea. It's a $40 part to replace when out of warranty. I just got a new one in the mail from Kalibrgun. I'm tempted to make a mold of it so I can make more next time it breaks...
I found that lubricating the indexing components (a little) makes it feel much nicer. It even sounds nicer when I cock it, like precision equipment.
On the performance of the Benjamin domes, it could just be the way the scope was zeroed if you didn't redo it for each pellet. It could just be that your Cricket works better with them too. People always say how each gun is different....
I feel the same about my Cricket. I wish I would have just skipped all of the cheaper ones I bought before and just got the one I wanted straight away. You always waste more money when you try and save it for some reason.
Unless you are particularly skilled and have a well stocked machine shop, diy jobs are rarely as good as proffesionally made stuff. You often see people trying to sell their custom Marauders for $1000+ based on what they put into it. I often wonder if anyone actually buys them. For me the temptation with a day job comes from the outrageous prices people charge for air gun products vs identical products made for other markets.
You will get used to using the Cricket mag indexing system. Other than remembering to flick that switch when you reload, it operates much like any other side lever gun. The main issue is how delicate it is so being light-fingered when operating the lever is a good idea. It's a $40 part to replace when out of warranty. I just got a new one in the mail from Kalibrgun. I'm tempted to make a mold of it so I can make more next time it breaks...
I found that lubricating the indexing components (a little) makes it feel much nicer. It even sounds nicer when I cock it, like precision equipment.
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Zebra are you using a bore snake to clean your barrel? I usually don't go to that extent to clean, but have to say, it's super easy to remove and reinstall the barrel. As far as having to resight a scope, I've become pretty proficient at the process. Usually only need 3-4 shots if I'm on paper. I just accepted that any time I did any little thing to my Mrod I'd have to rezero.
Most of the groups I shot in that photo where with out adjusting the scope. Wasn't super worried about being spot on because I'm not hunting with it yet. It's just a loaner 3-9x I took from my .25 Mrod I plan on selling. The 3-12x that's going on the cricket came with more flavors pellets right before I left to work today.
I really don't regret my Mrods but trying to make it as good as a higher end gun money pit. It's definitely a good intro to pcp and learning to tune them. Most I ever did for self mods was using my drill press to open up the gauge block and valve for more volume on the low pressure side of the regulator.
This is my first side lever gun, so
that's good to know about the indexer. What type of lube are you using on the internals? There a special trick to engage the came with out rotating the mag off the detent a little?
Most of the groups I shot in that photo where with out adjusting the scope. Wasn't super worried about being spot on because I'm not hunting with it yet. It's just a loaner 3-9x I took from my .25 Mrod I plan on selling. The 3-12x that's going on the cricket came with more flavors pellets right before I left to work today.
I really don't regret my Mrods but trying to make it as good as a higher end gun money pit. It's definitely a good intro to pcp and learning to tune them. Most I ever did for self mods was using my drill press to open up the gauge block and valve for more volume on the low pressure side of the regulator.
This is my first side lever gun, so
that's good to know about the indexer. What type of lube are you using on the internals? There a special trick to engage the came with out rotating the mag off the detent a little?
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He's a fresh group of .25 H&N grizzly 31gr. 12 shots @ 50 yds.
interesting observation... has same POI as JSB kings i used to sight in with. Expected POI to be lower with the heavier pellet.
selection of pellets for this weekend if the rainy Pacific northwest cooperates. hope to get some crony results too.
I have a 22x28 poster board "shoot and see" i made up just for comparing pellets.
interesting observation... has same POI as JSB kings i used to sight in with. Expected POI to be lower with the heavier pellet.
selection of pellets for this weekend if the rainy Pacific northwest cooperates. hope to get some crony results too.
I have a 22x28 poster board "shoot and see" i made up just for comparing pellets.
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was able to shoot some groups as well as chronograph some pellets. Left me with a few head scratchers too. The grizzlies i shot a few days ago grouped really nice, but shot horrible today, and the Poly-mags shot horrible the other day but shot a much nicer group today. Only pellet i didnt shoot was the AA field 25.4. Will try them another day. As is the gun is shooting from about 240 to 120bar for 48 shots. Doing 6 shot groups let me shoot 8 kinds of pellets on a fill.
50yds
100yds
50yds
100yds
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Very interesting. Seems Jsb king and king heavies are clearly the winners at 100 yards. Poly mags have also shown good performance. I think you have just found the best pellets for your cricket. Have you chrony any of these ?
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My results from chrono from 50yd shoot. I did some indoor chrono testing the night before and got roughly the same results within 10fps of each of those. I did run some patches between shoots also to try and make things evenly as possible.
JSB kings 24.4gr avg=919.9
benji domes 27.8gr avg=891.2
H&N Cuda Hunters 27.47gr avg=898.9
JSB heavy mk1 33.95gr avg=819.6
JSB heavy mk2 33.95gr avg=824.4
H&N Cuda 31.02gr avg=859.6
H&N Grizzly 31.02gr avg=812.2
H&N Hunter extreme 28.4gr avg=894.8
Poly-mag 26gr avg=915.4
Most interesting deviation being the H&N grizzly 31gr. Clearly much slower than the H&N Barracuda of the same weight and the JSB heavies clocking a higher speed. But that pellet even though its slower is keeping more of its energy further out with its much higher BC.
JSB kings 24.4gr avg=919.9
benji domes 27.8gr avg=891.2
H&N Cuda Hunters 27.47gr avg=898.9
JSB heavy mk1 33.95gr avg=819.6
JSB heavy mk2 33.95gr avg=824.4
H&N Cuda 31.02gr avg=859.6
H&N Grizzly 31.02gr avg=812.2
H&N Hunter extreme 28.4gr avg=894.8
Poly-mag 26gr avg=915.4
Most interesting deviation being the H&N grizzly 31gr. Clearly much slower than the H&N Barracuda of the same weight and the JSB heavies clocking a higher speed. But that pellet even though its slower is keeping more of its energy further out with its much higher BC.
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