Pellets for the "oldies"

[Papa g]

Just a thought, pellet choices are at a minimum for us with old 5.6 airguns, we have :- rubbish wasps, the quality defiant vintage & I believe john knibbs supplies limited amounts of marksmen 5.6 (always seem to be out of stock!) so there we have it really! Now the reality of it is that there must be millions of vintage British airguns all over the world so there must be some kind of demand,what would it take for the makers of wasps to smarten up their act & give us a product that matches the original eley wasp? Could milbro bring back the Caledonian in the vintage 5.6? Lincoln Jeffries produce more of the old 5.6 marksmen, surely some of the old dies must still be around!? Fair play to pax for bringing out the defiant, they can obviously see that there is the demand so come on pellet manufacturers give us more options for our "oldies".
Regards Graham

[Hsing-ee]

Milbro Caledonian? Gosh, never thought I would hear a request for some of them.

I haven't tried this BTW, but a sizer which flares the pellet skirt slightly might work to adapt 5.5mm pellets to these oldies. Pellets usually seat on the skirt, and a soft pellet like JSB would probably be adaptable. A ball-bearing and a hole in a piece of steel would do the job, as well as providing happy manual labour while you or you Significant Other is watching Strickly.

[hwtyger]

Being old english doesnt mean to all shoot best with oversized pellets.
I use FTT 5.53 in my .22 mk3.
And, allthough not old, also in my 5.56 Tempest.
Before revision, the mk3 liked JSB 5.53 best.
FTT is also available in 5.54 and 5.55 headsizes

[gingernut]

Milbro tr work well in my old .22 rifles and pistols.
Cheap too.

[oliver13]

It's always worth trying RWS Superdomes, they work well in my older BSA's despite not being an actual 5.56 - go figure.

[harry mac]

Even the older British guns tend to favour quality rather than size (ooer!). I've found that modern German pellets outshoot the older 5.6mm every time. Old Wasps, if you can find any are often the best out of the pellets, but even they are knocked into a cocked hat by either RWS Superdomes, Hobby, Superfield, or H&N pointed.
Not one of my British guns prefer British pellets over one or the other modern German offerings. That includes Diana 25 & 27, Webley MKIII, Hawks Mk1, 2,& 3; Osprey, Vulcan. BSA Meteors, Airsporter Centenial, the list goes on.
Nostalgia's a fine thing, but the only British pellet which even came close to any of the German offerings was the old Wasp

[slug-gun]

Milbro Caledonian? Gosh, never thought I would hear a request for some of them.

I haven't tried this BTW, but a sizer which flares the pellet skirt slightly might work to adapt 5.5mm pellets to these oldies. Pellets usually seat on the skirt, and a soft pellet like JSB would probably be adaptable. A ball-bearing and a hole in a piece of steel would do the job, as well as providing happy manual labour while you or you Significant Other is watching Strickly.

It's the HEAD size which is important, not so much the skirt, hence why the Defiant Vintage work so well in rifles with the 5.6mm .22 barrels.

[oliver13]

It's the HEAD size which is important, not so much the skirt, hence why the Defiant Vintage work so well in rifles with the 5.6mm .22 barrels.

True, but but I've found the domes work as well as the Defiant Vintage in terms of group size at 20M with the guns I've tried them in, if you wanted to shoot at longer ranges then I don't know. That's why I've got several sleeves of one & half a box of the other - just in case...

Defiants are beautifully made, but you do pay for it & the domes are quite economical - but still, if it works best in your gun then that's what you have to get.