Hard and Soft Pellets

[C3PO_1]

Hi,

Just read a great piece by Jim Tyler on how inaccuracy can be caused by using hard and then soft pellets in a rifle, and how cleaning the barrel is the solution. Is there a list of what lead pellets are hard and soft. Apparently JSBs and AAs are soft, but Ely Wasp, H&N Silhouette and H&N FTT are considered hard.

[CannonFodder]

Well that's a new one on me, and a very good point. I don't suppose you have a link to the article?

[angrybear]

Take a pellet out of the tin & squeeze the skirt, soft collapse under finger pressure, hard hurt before they crush flat

But once you've found the most accurate pellet for your barrel why the hell would you change it anyway ?

[SuffolkRifle]

But once you've found the most accurate pellet for your barrel why the hell would you change it anyway ?

Good point!

[BTDT]

But once you've found the most accurate pellet for your barrel why the hell would you change it anyway ?

Unless you give each pellet, especially softer ones, the opportunity to create its own leading from scratch, you'll never know whether you've found the most accurate pellet for your barrel.

[TonyL]

Thank you for starting this thread. After reading this excellent article, I was going to do just that, but related more to scrubbing the barrel. More later.......

As many of you will know, I'm a huge fan of Jim's. Correction.....I'm Jim's biggest fan and he has steered and influenced my enjoyment of our wonderful hobby for many, many years.

I can fully go with Jim's findings but I have a dilemma re switching pellets / cleaning the barrel. And I have what may be the perfect "example rifle" to tie in with Jim's theory in one of my 95s. It's a .177 and I bought it new when they first became available. I have never cleaned the bore. For many years I would only use RWS pellets, so it thrived very well indeed on Superdomes. Accurate and I was happy.

By 2013 I got access to a very good indoor range and 34 yards. In 2014, at nearing 20 years old (???), I fitted a V-Mach kit. Lovely. When I got to the range I tested with the 'Domes, as a "control". Good. I also tested JSB Exact 8.44 and 7.87 and also AAF. Good. But no better than the 'Domes, so that sort of made my mind up to stick with them. But I kept reading of how good the JSB derived pellets can be in terms of efficiency, firing cycle, ultimate accuracy if the correct batch was discovered etc......

Then I was given some boxed Crosman Premier 7.9s. The kind donor said that none of his rifles liked them. This 95 loved them. So they were the top pellet for accuracy for this rifle. Accuracy was good with the 'Domes and JSBs, but superb with the Crosmans.

Then I tried H&N FTT and they jumped to the top of the pile. Tiny, tiny one holers at 34 yards, rested.

A few months after that I tried some JSB Heavy outdoors at a blustery Quigley Hollow. Accurate and far less affected by the strong crosswind. I never got to try them at the indoor range, though.

And then, a couple of years or so ago, I tried the H&N Baracuda FT. Superb. As accurate as the FTTs on the indoor range and really good, like the JSB Heavy, in the wind.

So, this barrel has never been cleaned and it's had a variety of lead compositions down its barrel, including the harder Crosmans and H&N. Performance is good with just about every pellet and superb with the H&Ns.

So, as above, do I stick with them? Or am I missing out by not scrubbing the barrel and giving the JSBs a proper chance? With the lower start pressures, the promise of a sweeter firing cycle is tempting.

But......I have never, ever cleaned a barrel. Never felt the need. Mainly due to a fear of causing damage. I'd always thought that, if I were to be tempted, I'd use a cleaning felt that attaches to a rod. But, by the sounds of it, that wouldn't be enough to clear the harder lead deposits properly. A phosphor bronze brush is required. So, question to Jim......I'm guessing that one wouldn't just use the brush "dry". So would one use some sort of cleaning compound / oil? I still have some Young's 303 that I used to use to clean my shotgun barrels. Would that be any good? And then some light oil afterwards, followed by a drying patch / felts? Also, "scrubbing"?...I've always imagined that if I were to try to clean a barrel I'd make a pass (or multiple passes) from breech to muzzle. But the very word "scrubbing" would hint to me of multiple backwards and forwards movements to loosen the accumulated crud.

So, how to do it? What is the best practice? What would be the best products to use?

It would probably make a fantastic basis for a stand alone article of its own?

I'm still not saying that I'd definitely do it, but the reluctance is diminishing a little........

[C3PO_1]

I tried to clean the barrel of my HW100 and ****-ed it up ... losing a deal or something.

[TonyL]

I have sometimes read of people upsetting / dislodging probe seals on some PCPs. Also, if the barrel is in situ, I have read that the operation is better undertaken with the gun upside down so as not to allow ingress of any gunge, oil, cleaner into the transfer port?

[angrybear]

Unless you give each pellet, especially softer ones, the opportunity to create its own leading from scratch, you'll never know whether you've found the most accurate pellet for your barrel.

While I appreciate full well that you've forgotten more than I know on the subject of airguns, I have never felt the need to "lead in" a barrel.

I can hand on heart state that I have never noticed any great change in the accuracy of a pellet from the initial 10 shot test, & I include switching between lead / lead-free.

Possibly it's because I do not shoot huge pellet numbers, as a predominantly PCP shooter I don't plink away at targets, it bores me, once I know the scope is zeroed that's me done,
& out hunting obviously I'm not going to take any shot I'm not 100% confidant of.
So it's quite possible none of my barrels have yet reached the point of being "leaded in" to a particular pellet

Out of interest what sort of numbers would you say are required to "lead-in" ? I'm guessing a soft pellet would be less than with a harder pellet.

[BTDT]

I tried to clean the barrel of my HW100 and ****-ed it up ... losing a deal or something.

Phosphor bronze brushes won't hurt steel barrels, but they will lacerate o rings. With hindsight, perhaps I should have mentioned this, but as I was writing an account concerning three springers, it didn't occur to me.

Out of interest what sort of numbers would you say are required to "lead-in" ? I'm guessing a soft pellet would be less than with a harder pellet.

I put twenty or so pellets through the rifles before returning them to the owners.

[BTDT]

Thank you for starting this thread. After reading this excellent article, I was going to do just that, but related more to scrubbing the barrel. More later.......

As many of you will know, I'm a huge fan of Jim's. Correction.....I'm Jim's biggest fan and he has steered and influenced my enjoyment of our wonderful hobby for many, many years.

I can fully go with Jim's findings but I have a dilemma re switching pellets / cleaning the barrel. And I have what may be the perfect "example rifle" to tie in with Jim's theory in one of my 95s. It's a .177 and I bought it new when they first became available. I have never cleaned the bore. For many years I would only use RWS pellets, so it thrived very well indeed on Superdomes. Accurate and I was happy.

By 2013 I got access to a very good indoor range and 34 yards. In 2014, at nearing 20 years old (???), I fitted a V-Mach kit. Lovely. When I got to the range I tested with the 'Domes, as a "control". Good. I also tested JSB Exact 8.44 and 7.87 and also AAF. Good. But no better than the 'Domes, so that sort of made my mind up to stick with them. But I kept reading of how good the JSB derived pellets can be in terms of efficiency, firing cycle, ultimate accuracy if the correct batch was discovered etc......

Then I was given some boxed Crosman Premier 7.9s. The kind donor said that none of his rifles liked them. This 95 loved them. So they were the top pellet for accuracy for this rifle. Accuracy was good with the 'Domes and JSBs, but superb with the Crosmans.

Then I tried H&N FTT and they jumped to the top of the pile. Tiny, tiny one holers at 34 yards, rested.

A few months after that I tried some JSB Heavy outdoors at a blustery Quigley Hollow. Accurate and far less affected by the strong crosswind. I never got to try them at the indoor range, though.

And then, a couple of years or so ago, I tried the H&N Baracuda FT. Superb. As accurate as the FTTs on the indoor range and really good, like the JSB Heavy, in the wind.

So, this barrel has never been cleaned and it's had a variety of lead compositions down its barrel, including the harder Crosmans and H&N. Performance is good with just about every pellet and superb with the H&Ns.

So, as above, do I stick with them? Or am I missing out by not scrubbing the barrel and giving the JSBs a proper chance? With the lower start pressures, the promise of a sweeter firing cycle is tempting.

But......I have never, ever cleaned a barrel. Never felt the need. Mainly due to a fear of causing damage. I'd always thought that, if I were to be tempted, I'd use a cleaning felt that attaches to a rod. But, by the sounds of it, that wouldn't be enough to clear the harder lead deposits properly. A phosphor bronze brush is required. So, question to Jim......I'm guessing that one wouldn't just use the brush "dry". So would one use some sort of cleaning compound / oil? I still have some Young's 303 that I used to use to clean my shotgun barrels. Would that be any good? And then some light oil afterwards, followed by a drying patch / felts? Also, "scrubbing"?...I've always imagined that if I were to try to clean a barrel I'd make a pass (or multiple passes) from breech to muzzle. But the very word "scrubbing" would hint to me of multiple backwards and forwards movements to loosen the accumulated crud.

So, how to do it? What is the best practice? What would be the best products to use?

It would probably make a fantastic basis for a stand alone article of its own?

I'm still not saying that I'd definitely do it, but the reluctance is diminishing a little........

I'm not advocating that everyone should scrub their barrels, Tony. The first rule of airguns is 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and, as you're 100% satisfied with harder pellets, best stick with them

The three TX200s I wrote about were 'broke' insofar as they would not group with the owner's preferred choice of pellet which, as they are HFT shooters, was soft JSB manufactured pellets.

[TonyL]

I'm not advocating that everyone should scrub their barrels, Tony. The first rule of airguns is 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and, as you're 100% satisfied with harder pellets, best stick with them

The three TX200s I wrote about were 'broke' insofar as they would not group with the owner's preferred choice of pellet which, as they are HFT shooters, was soft JSB manufactured pellets.

Thank you for that, Jim; understood and appreciated.

An article on barrel deep cleaning would still go down well though, methinks.

[Phil Russell]

Very interesting comments. Many years ago I used .177 Superdomes in my 77K and later, when I got a s/h S400 I switched to 8.4 AAF for both rifles. I found accuracy with both rifles to be very good. I did need a new zero for the 77k though.
Sometime later I had a dodgy tin of AAF (well it seemed that way ... poor accuracy that was then corrected by opening a new tin) and moved on to JSB 8.4. I admit I have not trawled through several other pellet makes in search of anything better.
But, to get to the point: the comments about soft and hard are very interesting but would it be possible to rank pellet makes in order of hardness? A few have been mentioned but the differentiation between hard and soft seems a bit subjective. Is there a definitive test that produces actual values e.g 1mm deformation at a force of X? A list of pellets according to hardness could be useful.
Maybe it is a case of searching back through Jim's publications ... or even getting Gary Wain to compile a list?
Cheers, Phil

[C3PO_1]

Just to be clear - I messed up my HW100 several weeks ago trying to clean the barrel and indeed it was an O-ring that seemed to have failed....so way before this article came out. At least it gave me an excuse to get the full HW100Tuning treatment

[TonyL]

Very interesting comments. Many years ago I used .177 Superdomes in my 77K and later, when I got a s/h S400 I switched to 8.4 AAF for both rifles. I found accuracy with both rifles to be very good. I did need a new zero for the 77k though.
Sometime later I had a dodgy tin of AAF (well it seemed that way ... poor accuracy that was then corrected by opening a new tin) and moved on to JSB 8.4. I admit I have not trawled through several other pellet makes in search of anything better.
But, to get to the point: the comments about soft and hard are very interesting but would it be possible to rank pellet makes in order of hardness? A few have been mentioned but the differentiation between hard and soft seems a bit subjective. Is there a definitive test that produces actual values e.g 1mm deformation at a force of X? A list of pellets according to hardness could be useful.
Maybe it is a case of searching back through Jim's publications ... or even getting Gary Wain to compile a list?
Cheers, Phil

As you say, that would be quite interesting, Phil.

Of pellets that I've had experience with (obviously just talking lead here), latterly, yes, the JSBs are soft. Prior to that, the RWS Hobby has always come across as being "soft" to me. The Superdome seems similar-ish to me, being of darker appearance and ribbed. Meisterkugelns, R10, H&N FTT and Baracuda FT, Crosman Premier.....I'd say harder. And, of course, the good old Eley Wasp. Guessing there will be some correlation where softer ones are darker and the harder ones shinier? Then again I could be talking total cahoonies?!!!