I have heard that use of heavy orextra heavy pellets in spring piston rifles can damage them. For example, using a pellet over 15 grains in a .22 spring piston gun. Is there anything to this?
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Use of Heavy Pellets in Springers
- Thread starter Polyphemus21
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I shoot 21 Gr H&N Baracudas in my Weihrauch HW97K with no issues at all and they are deadly accurate, prioduving +/- 16 ft lbs of energy.
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Too light of pellet can be bad, yes
To heavy of pellet?? Only bad thing I could see is if the pellet get stuck in the barrell. I may be missing something, so I will be glad to read what the experts have to say about it. An expert, I am not!
To heavy of pellet?? Only bad thing I could see is if the pellet get stuck in the barrell. I may be missing something, so I will be glad to read what the experts have to say about it. An expert, I am not!
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It has been mentioned that heavies can cause spring damage but I would like to actual proof by anyone that a heavy pellet was the definite and sole cause of spring breakage!
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No damage from heavy pellets. Springers however are generally more efficient with lighter pellets.
What cal and what pellet are you thinking?
What cal and what pellet are you thinking?
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I don't know if pellet weight will affect a gun with a .22 cal bore very much, however when my brother was shooting 10.5 grain CP heavies from his .177 R9 he got roughly 1/2 the spring life than he got after switching to 7.9 grain CP lights using Maccari aftermarket springs.
My brother liked the 10.5 grainers for squirrel hunting because they tended to be less affected by wind, plus they would drive "longways" through a squirrel to penetrate the vitals with proper shot placement. He also had excellent accuracy with the CPH as these two 50 yard groups show........
His .177 R9 was home tuned by myself and fitted with an oring sealed piston cap which gave him a respectable 14.4fps power level. As mentioned, I replaces his Maccari springs every other season (shooting about 10,000 shots per year) with CPHs, however he later found that the flat trajectory of a 7.9 grain CPL at 920fps trumped the benefits of the 10.5 grain CPH, however he did need to be more selective with his shots on squirrels. With the lighter pellet he had to wait till a more "broad side shot" was available than when shooting the 10.5 grainer because the 7.9 grainers wouldn't penetrate as deeply (i.e. no more using "long ways through the squirrel" hits.
Anywhoo......after my brother switched to 7.9 grain pellets I only replaced one spring, and that spring spent half it's "life" shooting heavies. I moved from West Virginia several years ago and haven't kept track of his "shooting frequency" since moving to NC, however I never did replace a Maccari Tarantula spring (hasn't been available for years) in 4 seasons after the switch to the lighter CPL.
My brother liked the 10.5 grainers for squirrel hunting because they tended to be less affected by wind, plus they would drive "longways" through a squirrel to penetrate the vitals with proper shot placement. He also had excellent accuracy with the CPH as these two 50 yard groups show........
His .177 R9 was home tuned by myself and fitted with an oring sealed piston cap which gave him a respectable 14.4fps power level. As mentioned, I replaces his Maccari springs every other season (shooting about 10,000 shots per year) with CPHs, however he later found that the flat trajectory of a 7.9 grain CPL at 920fps trumped the benefits of the 10.5 grain CPH, however he did need to be more selective with his shots on squirrels. With the lighter pellet he had to wait till a more "broad side shot" was available than when shooting the 10.5 grainer because the 7.9 grainers wouldn't penetrate as deeply (i.e. no more using "long ways through the squirrel" hits.
Anywhoo......after my brother switched to 7.9 grain pellets I only replaced one spring, and that spring spent half it's "life" shooting heavies. I moved from West Virginia several years ago and haven't kept track of his "shooting frequency" since moving to NC, however I never did replace a Maccari Tarantula spring (hasn't been available for years) in 4 seasons after the switch to the lighter CPL.
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To my knowledge, the most credible explanation for why too-light or too-heavy pellets are more stressful to a springer powerplant is made in Cardew's book "The Airgun: From Trigger to Target".
The progression is something like this:
1. A "too light" pellet starts moving too early which leaves an insufficient air cushion in front of the piston to help decelerate it, thus it slams into the end of the compression tube. This abrupt impact is stressful to both the seal and the spring.
2. A "just right" pellet allows the piston to come to a well-behaved stop at the end of the compression tube.
3. A "too heavy" pellet stays in place too long and the pressure builds much higher, causing the piston to bounce back off the cushion of air in front of it, forcing the front portion of the spring backward while the momentum of the back portion of the spring is still propelling it forward. That can cause coils somewhere in the middle to collide with each other. Meanwhile the elevated pressure simultaneously creates a greater temperature spike which promotes detonation of any trace hydrocarbons in the compression chamber, forcing an even more violent reversal of the spring and potentially cooking the seal.
I don't claim to know if the above is 100% complete and accurate but there does appear to be a more violent recoil when using super light or super heavy pellets in most springers I've shot. And it stands to reason that given the relatively long dwell time a pellet spends in the barrel, that these "extra vibrations" are not good for accuracy.
The optimum weight will of course depend on the particular rifle's powerplant. If you want to get a sense of the optimal weight range for yours, what you can do is chronograph several pellets that span a range of weights. For example in .177, that may be 7gr up to 10.5gr (perhaps higher for a monster springer). What you'll typically find is that very light and very heavy pellets produce less energy (FPE) than those in the middle. And what people often find is that their magic pellet is one that is at or very near the max energy. Logically it is also an indication of where the power plant is working most efficiently, and less prone to piston bounce and vibration. More of the spring's stored energy is going into propelling the pellet.
With that said, I'm an advocate of thinking of a mainspring as a consumable. Hopefully it's a long lasting one, but a consumable nonetheless. And if you look around you'll find examples where the owner was careful to use only medium weight pellets and had his spring fail in a couple thousand pellets. And then other examples where the owner used heavy pellets and the spring is still going strong after 10,000 pellets. The implication being there are other factors that can play a bigger role in a spring's longevity so from a practical standpoint it doesn't make a lot of sense to obsess over an ideal pellet weight.
When you find an accurate pellet for your gun, just shoot them and enjoy it.
The progression is something like this:
1. A "too light" pellet starts moving too early which leaves an insufficient air cushion in front of the piston to help decelerate it, thus it slams into the end of the compression tube. This abrupt impact is stressful to both the seal and the spring.
2. A "just right" pellet allows the piston to come to a well-behaved stop at the end of the compression tube.
3. A "too heavy" pellet stays in place too long and the pressure builds much higher, causing the piston to bounce back off the cushion of air in front of it, forcing the front portion of the spring backward while the momentum of the back portion of the spring is still propelling it forward. That can cause coils somewhere in the middle to collide with each other. Meanwhile the elevated pressure simultaneously creates a greater temperature spike which promotes detonation of any trace hydrocarbons in the compression chamber, forcing an even more violent reversal of the spring and potentially cooking the seal.
I don't claim to know if the above is 100% complete and accurate but there does appear to be a more violent recoil when using super light or super heavy pellets in most springers I've shot. And it stands to reason that given the relatively long dwell time a pellet spends in the barrel, that these "extra vibrations" are not good for accuracy.
The optimum weight will of course depend on the particular rifle's powerplant. If you want to get a sense of the optimal weight range for yours, what you can do is chronograph several pellets that span a range of weights. For example in .177, that may be 7gr up to 10.5gr (perhaps higher for a monster springer). What you'll typically find is that very light and very heavy pellets produce less energy (FPE) than those in the middle. And what people often find is that their magic pellet is one that is at or very near the max energy. Logically it is also an indication of where the power plant is working most efficiently, and less prone to piston bounce and vibration. More of the spring's stored energy is going into propelling the pellet.
With that said, I'm an advocate of thinking of a mainspring as a consumable. Hopefully it's a long lasting one, but a consumable nonetheless. And if you look around you'll find examples where the owner was careful to use only medium weight pellets and had his spring fail in a couple thousand pellets. And then other examples where the owner used heavy pellets and the spring is still going strong after 10,000 pellets. The implication being there are other factors that can play a bigger role in a spring's longevity so from a practical standpoint it doesn't make a lot of sense to obsess over an ideal pellet weight.
When you find an accurate pellet for your gun, just shoot them and enjoy it.
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The heaviest I’ve shot in my Octane Elite 22 is the JSB Monster 25.39. It’s slow at 640 FPS and the FPE is a tad low at 23. The H&N Sniper Magnum 17.9 has a much more respectable velocity of 791 FPS and gives me a higher FPE at 25. I don’t think real heavy pellets hurt it, but if the velocity is pretty slow and the energy is diminished, then I’d opt for something lighter that would likely be a better performer.
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I have been using JSB 15.89g and Air Arms 16g for around 4 years and have had excellent results and no damage to my .22 springers. I was using 14. something prior to this but I find better accuracy with the heavier pellet after 45 yards,
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All that does make sense. I've always found good firing behavior in 22cal springers with pellets in the 14-16 gr range. And in 177cal the sweet spot probably in the 8-10 gr range. I'm talking about springers classified as "magnums".
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That right there pretty much sums it up doesn't it?The pellet that takes the most energy away from the rifle is the one that's going to be easiest on the spring. That is almost always a middleweight pellet.
I'm not the master air-gunner that so many people on this forum are but I usually test middleweight pellets in any rifle first.
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After over 35 yrs of springer tuning I can say with confidence that the cause of spring failure is not from to light or a to heavy pellet!! Tuning should give the best firing behavior and smooth shot cycle as possible for that particular rifle. If the pellet weight is actually causing excess stress on the spring you are going to feel or notice it in the firing behavior long before the spring fails. Having tuned hundreds of springers, there are some that prefer different pellet weights to make the gun smooth firing and energy efficient. Yes...I can take a very light pellet and make it shoot over 1000 fps, and yes it will damage the spring but before that a person should realize how nasty the firing behavior has become, it can jar your jawbone, and rattle your teeth. Same with a suoer heavy pellet, it will cause piston bounce and cause excessive double recoil and accuracy will be gone!! So....to sum it up...if your gun is tuned to be smooth shooting with a nice comfortable shot cycle and is indeed accurate, that pellet weight will not cause spring failure!! If your gun jars your teeth and cant hit the broad side of a barn then continued shooting could cause premature spring failure along with creating other problems..
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