Viper pellets

[monkeywrench]

Anyone remember the "Viper" pellets of the early 80's

which looked like two pointed heads stuck on top of each other

[jonnyone]

If I remember right, they were supposedly developed for very high velocity- I think the claim was they were quite stable in flight and had good accuracy.

However, I also recall )I think), this theory or claim was rubbished by some tests in AGW. The pellet was quite short as pellets go and they were not as stable as claimed due to this.

I may still have a couple round here somewhere. They were nicely made though.

Dave

[I. J.]

Weren't these sold by M.A.G. ?

ATB
Ian

[webman]

I've got an old MAG (Manchester Air Guns) price list from the early 80s which has Viper 0.177 pellets at £1.85 for 500. As a comparison, Eley Wasp were £1.10 and Marksman were £0.60 for 500. My own recollection is that the accuracy was reported as rubbish (to be polite), so they didn't survive for long. They were made by Bimoco (Germany) and were
out of production by 1984 (John Walter's Airgun Book 3rd Edition).

Ian

[Hsing-ee]

The design was supposed to be revolutionary, the principle being that the flat tip of the pellet would produce a stabilising spiral vortex of high-pressure air (this was supposed to be the reason why flat-head match pellets were more accurate than roundheads or pointed pellets), while the sharply curved head of the pellet would take care of penetration & velocity retention at long range. The main problem with the design is that this means that the front driving band and the rear skirt are very close together, making for a very unstable pellet - the greater the distance the more stable the pellet generally - look at some JSBs if you don't believe me. Also, the tip of the pellet may have been flat on the .22, but on the .177s I had the pellet was not made well enough to have a proper flat tip, the ridge from the stamping of the pellet making it a kind od stepped shape.

They were not disasterously inaccurate, but they were nowhere near as accurate as a good cheap pellet like the RWS Hobby or the Eley Wasp. Pellet quality was far poorer in those days than it is now, and the better made pellets like the H&N Match and RWS Meisterkulgen were vastly superior to other types. The only non-match pellet that seemed to be any good was the H&N Pointed pellet, provided you avoided the ones with dodgy tips. The Silver Jet, a Japanese pointed pellet, was also supposed to be accurate but I could never justify the expense of buying them. Both the Silver Jet and H&N Pointed were very long pellets, with a large distance between front and back driving bands, which may have contributed to their stability.

I was very disappointed with the Viper, as it was supposed to have been developed with a wind-tunnel and lots of clever maths, but then shot like a Marksman waisted pellet from the bottom of the box. Interesting shape though.