Washing your pellets

[TonyL]

There is much to be recommended for washing pellets and treating them carefully. I don't hold with the idea of tipping them all out at once into a cleaning solution, but rather I do them one at a time whilst wearing surgical gloves (a) to avoid the possibility of corrosive skin products affecting the surface of the pellet and (b) to avoid the risk of picking up any germs from the people who made and packaged the pellets.
A rinse in acetone followed by a polish with warm beeswax imparts a healthy lustre to each pellet, but one should always take care to ensure that the area inside the pellet skirt is clean in order to avoid possible imbalance of the pellet inflight. Easy enough on .22 pellets (I use cotton buds for this, one per pellet) but on .20 and .177 pellets I have found that feathers from a pillow, when attached to a wooden cocktail stick, are ideal for dealing with the smaller area.
I've been doing this for the past ninety-five years and have not yet managed to miss a barn door at ten yards, so for me yes - washing pellets is most worthwhile and to be recommended to anyone who wishes to extract the best performance from their Webley Junior.

Did you start drinking especially early today then, Mike??

[severnsider]

Did you start drinking especially early today then, Mike??

Drinking Tone? Drinking? No time for that Sir! Not with an evening of pellet-polishing to look forward to. If I crack on I might just get five done before midnight

[lensman57]

There is much to be recommended for washing pellets and treating them carefully. I don't hold with the idea of tipping them all out at once into a cleaning solution, but rather I do them one at a time whilst wearing surgical gloves (a) to avoid the possibility of corrosive skin products affecting the surface of the pellet and (b) to avoid the risk of picking up any germs from the people who made and packaged the pellets.
A rinse in acetone followed by a polish with warm beeswax imparts a healthy lustre to each pellet, but one should always take care to ensure that the area inside the pellet skirt is clean in order to avoid possible imbalance of the pellet inflight. Easy enough on .22 pellets (I use cotton buds for this, one per pellet) but on .20 and .177 pellets I have found that feathers from a pillow, when attached to a wooden cocktail stick, are ideal for dealing with the smaller area.
I've been doing this for the past ninety-five years and have not yet managed to miss a barn door at ten yards, so for me yes - washing pellets is most worthwhile and to be recommended to anyone who wishes to extract the best performance from their Webley Junior.

This will not do. You forgot to irradiate them with Neutron beam, if you do not do this the pellets will not have two heads. One @ 4.52 and the other @ 4.53mm.

A.G

[Silver Captain]

Hehehehe very good A.G

[Zomboid]

I mentioned to my wife that some shooters do this... she said if she caught me washing mine I'd be off to the therapist!

[snock]

no they can't be bothered to even get the head size and weights correct so why would they worry about some swarf.

Because swarf and bits are of so little consequence that it would be pointless trying.

...yet hundreds of grown men wash their pellets regardless...

[firestarterUK]

Usually wash through with water to take any bits if Stafford but then I give them a coating of ballistol. This seems to help the pellets not get oxidised again.

[max headroom]

This ^^^ plus seal them individually then run them through a vacuum autoclave to assure they are 100% sterile

do you have to take the animal food out of the autoclave first?

[original45]

if you are going to wash pellets i suggest not using household washing up liquid as this in most brands contains salt
car shampoo does not

Will try this one thank you for sharing tip

[xbow]

Will try this one thank you for sharing tip

This is what most folks at my old club used to use. The type with the wax in it also supposedly lubricates the pellets and stops oxidation. It only takes a few minutes to wash a tin of pellets and when I’ve done it with JSB’s there was noticeable crud left behind.

[Steyr]

On the odd occasion that I do wash the pellets, I just leave them in the Ultra Sonic cleaner with warm water and a drop of house hold washing up liquid. The residue is mostly a small amount of metal shavings . I have stopped lubing them a while ago as I found no advantage in my PCPs and Dieseling and inconsistency in my springers. If they go through with the legislation and ban Lead then we might have to look into alternative ways of lubing as Lead itself is one of the best lubricant metals available but I doubt that Tin has this property.

A.G

Might be worth examining pre and post utrasonic bathed pellets. My inderstanding that ultrasound can cause pitting in lead.

[Septic]

Some pellets are pre-lubed but not all, lead itself is a kind of lube which is why it used to be added to petrol, but your friend is mistaken about the oil content.

I tip out a new tin on to kitchen paper, if there's lots of swarf (bits of lead) then they get a wash & lube if not then in to a small plastic bag with a couple of drops of lube & just swirl hand to hand for a few minutes to mix & back it to the clean tin.

No idea if it makes a difference but who cares I feel better for doing it.

.
The couple of oil drops do make a real difference... lead was used in petrol not as a lubricant, but to cushion the blow of the valves hitting the valve seats, which is why old engines designed for leaded fuel are now often fitted with hardened valve seats and run on unleaded... Lead certainly feels like a slippery metal.. But It is also the main cause of barrel fouling in airguns, and is only used for pellets because it’s heavy, but soft, and allows the rifling to do it’s job.. So the lube is used because it helps keep the barrel clean, by preventing lead build up...

[Susube91]

I got some BSA interceptor pellets .22 and the tin was full of swarf at the bottom, so washed them in a colander and dried the, in the airing cupboard, no swarf since

[thumbhole]

Better to wash your hands at the moment rather than pellets.

[Born Again]

I did a test some years ago with JSB Exacts, I found that pellet lube did improve grouping very slightly, but only if the amount of oil was very very small. My method was to put 2 drops of oil into a ziploc freezer bag, rub it around to spread the oil all over the inside of the bag then carefully add a tin of 500 pellets and gently turn them for a minute to distribute the oil. Put the pellets back in the tin. Most of the oil is left in the bag, the amount on the pellets is tiny.

If I put more oil onto the pellets the accuracy was much worse than unlubed.