Rifle pellet weight.

[Bart49]

Does anyone know why most pellets for pistol are around 7 gns and riffle ones around 8.2 gns. I find my rifles are accurate when set up for the 7 grn ones.

[AC99]

I have for years used RWS Hobby 7.0 gr in both my FWB P44 air pistol and FWB 300s air rifle with acceptable results for my standard of 10m match shooting. Other club members also use RWS R10 pellets (also 7.0 gr) but I think it is all a matter of what pellet weight/type suits your gun.
Some match shooters go to extreme lengths to find a pellet which gives the best results.
I do not recall ever trying 8.2 gr pellets for either pistol or rifle shooting so really cannot contribute anything more.

[Bart49]

Pretty much what I have found. I am using Rws Basic in my Walther lpm1 and 200 and in both my rifles Feinwerkbau 600 and Diana 75. Just what suit I suppose.

[RobinC]

The barrel on the rifle is longer and generaly is a slower twist, the weight is matched for optimum accuracy to the barrel length and twist and the muzzle energy, the 7 gn is ideal for pistol, the 8.2 gn for rifle. Obviously both will work in either but for perfect accuracy although you will always find exceptions they are generaly more accurate in the gun they are designed for i.e. 8.2's in a rifle.

On a pistol where the 10 mt target has an 11 mm ten ring, even at the highest level a 1 mm here or there makes little difference, unless of course you have just shot with in a mm of the line, then it makes a big difference!

The rifle 10 mt ten is only 0.5 mm across, and at the top level is scored in tenths, i.e 10.0 to 10.9, so its critical to have precise accuracy from your rifle/pellet combination, and thats also where the size 4.50 mm or 4.49 mm comes in. A small variation in a rifle in digital scoring is the diference bewteen a 9 and a ten.

Even with the best pellet matched to your rifle it's rare to get perfect accuracy, when training at Mec in Dortmund my wifes Walther LG 400 special was tested, and with RWS R10, 8.2 gn, 4.49 mm it shot a perfect ten shot group (non group?) of all ten being 10.9's.

From the cheapest to the most expensive, air gun pellets are all very cheap compared to any other form of shooting, but there are differences in performance, some are bigger than you may think, for the sake of a decimal point of a penny why use the cheapest? My advice is for peace of mind for target shooting always use the best.

Good shooting and Have Fun.
Robin

[zooma]

Good advice - Thanks Robin

[Fierynick]

I know of a few people who are using heavier pellets in Air Pistols, in particular Quan Yiang and H&N Finale Match Rifle. They have adjusted the velocity on the pistol until the pistol shoots a 10 shot group so tight that you can only just push a pellet through the hole.
I believe that the Steyrs prefer heavier pellets... they also like slower pellet speeds, but i don't know if these two factors are related.
I bench-tested my Morini last week for a different reason.... the skirts on the H&N Finale Match were so soft that i was getting an awful lot of pellets out of the tin that were bent out of shape. I tested my pistol with H&N then with R10. There was very little difference if any.... however that R10s are a nice hard lead, with nice thick skirts and I'm yet to find a defective one!
The other reason to test the pistol was to give me100% confidence in the pistol before a big match abroad. I know have total peace of mind,and know that any naff shots are errors in my technique.... i can also claim credit for the good ones!

[Bart49]

Thanks Robin for a very informative answer. It seemed to me that there had to be a technical reason for the heavier pellet weights sold as specifically for rifle. With regard to using cheaper pellets some of us need all the practice we can get and are not good enough to notice any difference in accuracy.
Thanks again Bart.

[Bart49]

Thanks for the info Robin.I thought there had to be a technical reason for the different weights.

[trick cyclist]

I know of a few people who are using heavier pellets in Air Pistols, in particular Quan Yiang and H&N Finale Match Rifle. They have adjusted the velocity on the pistol until the pistol shoots a 10 shot group so tight that you can only just push a pellet through the hole.
I believe that the Steyrs prefer heavier pellets... they also like slower pellet speeds, but i don't know if these two factors are related.
I bench-tested my Morini last week for a different reason.... the skirts on the H&N Finale Match were so soft that i was getting an awful lot of pellets out of the tin that were bent out of shape. I tested my pistol with H&N then with R10. There was very little difference if any.... however that R10s are a nice hard lead, with nice thick skirts and I'm yet to find a defective one!
The other reason to test the pistol was to give me100% confidence in the pistol before a big match abroad. I know have total peace of mind,and know that any naff shots are errors in my technique.... i can also claim credit for the good ones!

One thing I did find with the R10 pellets is that the tin of 4.50 I measured had a larger head size variation using a 'pelletgage' than a tin of 4.50 H&N Finale Match. Both shoot equally well (or badly) for me - I'm not good enough to notice!

[Fierynick]

Really? How much of a variation was there? I found R10 went well in my Morini, but it was a very Heath Robinson 'bench' that I constructed!

[trick cyclist]

I didn't keep a record of the variety, just had two eggboxes, one for each brand of pellet, with the head sizes ranged in order. The R10 box had four different head sizes from the nominal 4.50, the H&N had only two, 4.51 and 4.50, with the vast majority of my sample being the latter (50 pellet sample, if I remember).

Course, when I shot the blighters, the different head sizes made not the slightest difference to my accuracy - but then I'm lucky if I get them all in the nine ring! Still, it was one of those things that I felt I needed to try, and if I get much better (more practice), I may have another try at it.

[nige346]

My LP2 defiantly showed a preference to R10 rifle when bench tested but the 5 shot groups from R10 pistol were also far better that I could shoot freehand with a 5 shot group being a lot less than 1mm bigger than an individual pellet, I also tried Geco's and again although a very slight increase I could certainly not shoot a group as tight freehand. The most expensive I tried were JSB match where there was a significant difference, even with velocity adjustment I was unable to get the group anywhere near the R10 or Geco's, trial and error and bench testing is the only real method of determining what suits best, I shot a comp at my club some time back and forgot my pellets, I ended up using Geco's and remember thinking it would be awefull as only had cheap pellets which would be no where near as good as my usual R10's (This was before I group tested any pellets), I went ahead with a "It don't matter, I'll just shoot for fun" attitude & ended up with one of my best scores so in reality to my mind for most club shooters the difference is more in the mind than the actual pellets, there is a difference in many of them but in most it is very very slight and will have little affect on results, when I can shoot 5 pellets through a 5mm hole on a regular basis I'll probably have a different opinion....... for piece of mind though I do still buy and shoot R10's

[RobinC]

I would recommend RWS R10 in what ever weight and size that suits your rifle and pistol as the "safest" choice for quality and hence accuracy. I know Walther use them exclusively for testing.

When I was at Steyr in Austria a couple of years ago they had various makes on the shelf in the test area, when I enquired, I was told we buy what ever the local shop has on the shelf!

We banned Geco from being used in club rifles as they fouled them excessively, accuracy was difficult to judge as they were being used by lower standard shooters.

I'm hearing concerns on H&N since the change of owner but as we don't use them I have nothing to substantiate that, I did have problems with JSB, but it was with 4.50 and 4.49 in the same tin, both accurate but with different POI's so stopped using them.

Quang Yuan are very good quality and perform very well, only available in rifle weight, but they do shoot superbly well in pistols and we have several internationals using them in pistols.

A rifle shooter I'm close to uses R10 8.3 4.49 matched to her rifle, when she ran out un expectantly she used the basic yellow tin of RWS Meisterklugen 4.50, 7gn, given out at last years Brits, she shot her lifetime PB! Still went back to R10's though.

You pays your money and takes your choice! What ever the make, all the top makes are more accurate and consistent than the top .22rf ammo!

I repeat, even the most expensive air pellet brand is cheap shooting compared to .22rf, and massively less than centre fire, for self confidence buy the best that suits your gun, rifle or pistol.

Good shooting
Robin