Me and JSB and my move towards H&N and who will follow!

Hello, I understand H&N use a little more Antimony in their metal mix for a slightly harder pellet, not sure now this would (if at all) effect mushrooming (in a hunting scenario).

What I would add, if both makes work equally in any given gun, and cost around the same, use both, or what ever one can get their hands on.

good luck.

I shoot what the gun tells me it likes. I guess that makes me agnostic.

The pandemic has affected most suppy chains. The current political environment in the US is further exacerbating the supply of anything shooting related. Compounding the problem are the greedy buying hogs who are very willing to clean out a vendor's inventory of pellets, often before they arrive! So, between the economic cycle, politics, and selfish individuals, I expect the market will remain a mess for a while. 

Regarding JSB quality, can't say I have noticed any decline. The packing quality of the vendors is certainly inconsistent. My last shipment from PA was in very good shape, well packed as always. I received a shipment from another major seller recently that was terrible. The packing was loosely done, several tins were badly dented, so bad that a good many pellets had to be thrown away. I don't know if any up front discussion might encourage more care in packing, but it might be worth a try.

Spray1Mark,

Interesting Thread as I've been having thoughts along the same lines as you. I have used JSB pellets almost exclusively for a good many years, they do make great Pellets. However I've always been more impressed by the quality of the H&N Brand, clean and about as well formed as one could expect from a mass produced pellet ( I have also found the H&N to be a noticeably harder). I have always had the JSB's shoot just that little bit better every time I compared them.

That was when I was shooting BR quite heavily but now that I'm more interest in Minute of Squirrel, I'm beginning to believe the H&N's are just as good and if you consider the reduce mess ( and availability ) with the cleaner pellets they may even have a slight edge in desirability? After all it's not going to mean much to the pest whether it's stuck by 1, 3/4 or 1/2 MOA, especially at the distances I believe most of us would take a shot. Yes I know there are plenty of Uber Shooters out there that can hit a flea at 213 yards but I'm speaking more of us mere Mortals!

The deciding factor may well be availability as mentioned in a previous post, the Cupboards do seem to be bare quite often when checking with the usual Suspects. HeHe

Joe

I felt back in the 80's that the Beeman (H&N) pellets ruled, I didn't even know about JSB. I always shot things much lower powered than today's PCPs and the "magic" pellet was the Beeman Laser Sport. That wadcutter shot great out of anything! but I will admit the JSB 8.44 now wears the badge of magic pellet in .177 and the JSB 18.1 in .22. H&Ns aren't cutting it in my guns today. In fact Crosman CPHP's out shoot every H&N i've tried in my Air Arms .22.

Now I must address elh0102 on calling people selfish for stocking up on things when a shortage occurs or appears imminent: That seems like a wise and prudent move to me. to those with your reasoning I say, "you snooze, you lose" !

I am looking forward to the H&N 18 grain 22cal coming out. 

I felt back in the 80's that the Beeman (H&N) pellets ruled, I didn't even know about JSB. I always shot things much lower powered than today's PCPs and the "magic" pellet was the Beeman Laser Sport. That wadcutter shot great out of anything! but I will admit the JSB 8.44 now wears the badge of magic pellet in .177 and the JSB 18.1 in .22. H&Ns aren't cutting it in my guns today. In fact Crosman CPHP's out shoot every H&N i've tried in my Air Arms .22.

Now I must address elh0102 on calling people selfish for stocking up on things when a shortage occurs or appears imminent: That seems like a wise and prudent move to me. to those with your reasoning I say, "you snooze, you lose" !

Click to expand...

I shoot some H&N pellets and have had good performance overall from them, probably the same percentage wise as for success with JSB. As to the second part of your post, I agree with you completely. People are free to purchase or not, as much or as little as they like. Calling people "greedy buying hogs" or "selfish individuals" is, at best, narrow minded IMO.

for the guns i got anyway hn's dont really shoot well .. none of them lol ... back in the springer days now you could find an oddball hn that would agree with your springer better than most usually .. as far as going to hn in the pcps though, nah .. not unless i hafta .. actually my stratgy to skirt around this shortage crap is i bought a 177 gun, yeah even wallyworld does pretty good to keep 177's on the shelf .. so they can eat me with this pathetic 'im not gonna work and sit around with my hand out' shortage bs ...

Shhhhhh. Your giving away my new secret!!! I’ve been getting better accuracy with the h&n and have noticed the jsb of similar weight can have a pretty large velocity difference. I’m attributing this to the thinner jsb skirt and smaller head diameter

I just simply cant get h&n to group well in my guns. JSB 18.13 seem to just shoot good day in and day out, and I didnt have much issue when I did hunt with that pellet. As already stated jsb uses a higher lead ratio in their pellets so they are softer, I think this is a double edged sword in the fact that the softer lead will usually shoot better (and deform for hunting) but being so soft it is easy to damage the heads/skirts and cause issues. From what I know, the reason for the soft lead in JSB is so the skirts conform to your barrel and give a good seal, which is perfect but if you damage that head at all then your accuracy is gone! Even damage so slight that you wouldn't even notice without measuring can cause terrible results. 

FWIW I think your points 1 and 2 are directly related, I think they have had to rush things in the logistics and shipping part, all the way through retail and to our hands. I dont think JSB has changed on the manufacturing side, but just that companies are making sever. I think with the increased demand that they have had to make several smaller orders and getting what pellets they can when they can vs one or two giant orders per year. This causes an increased risk of shipping damage like I just spoke of.. then you have way more orders going out of the door from the retailers, and more hired help to help with the demand of online ordering during covid and this all leads to improper packaging and more damaged pellets. On the store front side, same thing.. they are making more orders from their distributors and more chances of damage in transit/stocking. 

I just bought a taipan vetran long. In 22 had 3 tons of 18 gen USB. But it doesn't like them.the head size is not marked on any of the tins. I had some of the 16 gr.jsb. and they shot good and a few as 18 gen. I think the head size is the culprit but not sure I ordered some barracuda match 21 gen hoping they like my rifel. We shall see

Just don’t tell everyone about the terminators and hunters! Most people think they are gimmick pellets? Terms are my favorite pellet at dairies and under 75 yds, they expand at low velocity and shoot great! Especially in .177. From pp700 to Fx wildcat to Crown, they surprisingly shot them beautiful! And the hunters actually expand . Hunter extremes are opposite, don’t shoot bad, can’t get then to expand at all. 
shoot a pigeon with one or a squirrel. I think you will be as surprised as I was, love em!

Wait!! They expand at low velocity??? On an actual living pest???? It sure seems I've read some state that it just isn't possible.

The political environment has nothing to do with it, the pandemic and greed do.
You can literally watch some marketplace seller on Amazon buy out Amazon's inventory and then list them on marketplace and ebay at 2-3 times the price or more, that's why when I see them getting close to being in stock, I buy 3 or more tines at a time and lock in the actual retail price before scalpers get them.

+1 on the 25g .22 pellet