Pellet washing - questions

I get better groups when I wash and sort

I shoot Crosman pellets from my HW springers and learned decades ago that hard lead CPLs will foul my bores rather quickly when shot "dry".
I found that proper lubing of CPLs (proper meaning only on the rifling surfaces) extend the time before requiring a bore clean and the bore cleaning chore is also easier.

As far as pellet washing is concerned, a few years ago I received a case of CPLs in the 1250 count die lot marked and dated boxes that had excess parting compound on them (or whatever the grey gunge was) and my fingers looked like they did after a shooting session with the cheap Crosman Premier Hollow Points (CPHP) from the 500 count tin that I bought at "WallyMart".........


For the case of boxed CPLs (a case is four 1250 count boxes) I washed the excess gunge off the pellets and then lubed them with Slick50 One Lube. This solved the "dirty pellet" issue, however washing and drying pellets was a hassle so I tried some JSB Exacts and H&N FTTs for a season. The Exacts and FTTs didn't need washing but their head sizes were so variable that more time was spent sorting into "size groups" than washing CPLs so my next order was for three cases of CPLs thinking that I would need to wash them. Well, the three cases ordered arrived on June 27, 2015 and were die "B"s dated Mar 20, 2014. Fully expecting to wash these pellets I opened a box and found that they were clean not requiring washing at all. I still lube my CPLs to minimize barrel fouling but it's a quick and easy process to dump a box of pellets into a plastic container after smearing around a few drops of OneLube over the bottom of the container and gently stirring the pellets. One lube will diesel if it gets into the prllrt cavity so I take care to only lube the rifling surfaces. Here is a box of CPLs being lubed...........


As a side note.......Lubing doesn't affect accuracy or velocity with my HW95 and R9, it only reduces barrel fouling. Here are a couple 50 yards groups shot with the HW95 and R9 using lubed CPLs while sitting on a bucket resting the gun on cross sticks.........

If bullets is good, why they wash?
I washed only bullets crosman. Bullets H&N and JSB always is clean.

I use jsb 18.and 24. whatever they are for the 22 and 25 I don't know that it makes any difference my groups are all the same whether washed or not. It does make a difference in the fouling of the barrel but not much jsb

Here my answers & thoughts:

Q) Is the lube used on them at the factory of bad quality?
A) I use JSB. Not at all. However I see some oxidation after sometime on opened tins.

Q) Your gun does not like lubed pellets?
A) My Fxs like lubed ones. 

Q) Is it the lead dust/shavings accumulation on the oily surface?
A) Yes. Everywhere including the skirt. When I wash - I use gasoline to remove the factory lube and shavings, followed by kitchen detergent and last step acetone before lubing - I see lots of dust and shavings coming out of the baths. 

Q) Do all of you relube them after wash?
A) I do. Otherwise they will oxidize in my pellet containers.

Then second-level questions..

Q) If i start using washed pellets, should I clean the barrel and get an oilless lead coating to the barrel? I’d predict the ‘mixture’ of the coating should be the same as with the pellets used.
A) I don't have experience on that. Since I use lubed pellets I season my barrels (10-15 shots) with the same lubed pellets. However, it makes sense for me, if you have different pellets alloys, to clean the barrel before shooting them.

I know there are people here that have experience and knowledge with these kind of things.
I have now ordered a pelletgage and trying to find some information of how to do the swap to the gage era.
Q) You will notice a great difference. I also use this https://www.trrobb.com/product/adjustable%20pellet%20sizer%20177 in conjunction with pelletgage. I now have tighter groups and increased accuracy and I don't clean my barrels as often as before.

Good luck.

Paio,

In an upcoming couple of weeks, I'm going to post videos on my complete process of washing, lubing, weighing, sizing, re-sizing using the TR Robb pellet sizer in particular, rolling them, and finally inspecting them. Stay tuned, hopefully, I'll have them all up around Christmas.
Tom Holland 
Assistant Match Director 
Eastern Suffolk Competitive Airgunners Association 
(ESCAA)
Long Island NY 

I certainly do not have the expertise many do here. but for what it's worth, this is my method.... I take every can (box) of pellets and role them in a terry cloth towel. This usually gets the majority of metal shaving off of them. Sometimes however I have to repeat the process. After they are reasonably free of shavings, I lay them out flat and put a light spray of Balistrol on them and role them in another towel. I have springers and pcp's and have had very good success with this process. Good luck.

"Xbowsniper"Paio,

In an upcoming couple of weeks, I'm going to post videos on my complete process of washing, lubing, weighing, sizing, re-sizing using the TR Robb pellet sizer in particular, rolling them, and finally inspecting them. Stay tuned, hopefully, I'll have them all up around Christmas.
Tom Holland 
Assistant Match Director 
Eastern Suffolk Competitive Airgunners Association 
(ESCAA)
Long Island NY

Click to expand...

Certainly! Please inform your channel so I can subscribe and get notifications. Below a couple pictures with my recent tuning on my TR Robb pellet sizer. Better grip for easier and faster sizing operation. I also polished the hole where I insert the pellet. 

I clean my barrel with WD-40 and as such, clean/lube my pellets with WD-40 (after washing them with boiling water and a dish detergent). Anyone have current or prior experience with the performance results on this or suggestions to do otherwise?

I'll try to do some chrony and 30yd tests on this, before and after but we're expecting snow tonight and I'm expecting my wife to be grief no matter when I do this...

Jeff, 
I wouldn't use WD 40 personally, it is flammable from what I've heard, so I don't know how true that is. If it's in a PCP, you can possibly get away with it. In a Springer, I wouldn't risk it. Just my opinion.
Tom Holland 
Assistant Match Director 
Eastern Suffolk Competitive Airgunners Association 
(ESCAA) escaaclub.com 
Long Island NY 

The propellant in a can of WD-40 is most definitely flammable. 

...and this is speaking from first hand experience using WD-40 and a lighter as a mini flamethrower in the early days. Heh

A while back I read post that "WD40 Specialist Water Resistant Silicone Lubricant" wouldn't diesel when used as a pellet lube so I bought a can and tried it even though the can stated "DANGER: EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE".



I sprayed some of THIS WD40 onto my "dedicated pellet lubing pan" and swirled some CPLs in the pan (same way I do when using Slick 50 One Lube, also flammable) and then shot the WD40 lubed CPLs through my .177 HW95. When shooting I indeed couldn't detect any dieseling.

Anywhoo....I really don't think there is a need to lube a springer bore itself since any "pellet lube" will be transferred to the bore when shooting.

Interesting. While my .177 R9 shot lubed but unsized CPLs very accurately without excess pressure needed to seat the pellets, the .177 HW95 I bought was a completely different "animal". While shooting unsized CPLs the accuracy was good, I also found that a "couple hundred pellet shootin' session" would give a
sore loading finger" due to the tight fit of a CPL to the leade. My solution was to make a simple pellet sizer the would only size the pellet head while "rounding out" and expanding the pellet skirt a bit. Here is a sketch of my concoction........


Here are a few pics of my pellet sizer that reduced a CPL with a 4.54mm head.........



I found that a CPL head sized to 4.48mm worked perfectly in my tight leade HW95 but one sized to 4.50mm worked well in both the R9 and HW95 without the "sore finger syndrome".
Using the sizer and ram I found that I could size a CPL about every 5 seconds while watching youtube machining vids (or whatever).........

Anywhoo.....I've made up several different sizers when trying to find the best fit for my springers...........