Pellet sizers - Whats the truth

[littlejohn]

I can accept that the skirt of a pellet is shaped by the sheer volume of air behind it when fired, but to me its logical that oversized skirts may also cause excess drag in the barrel. On that assumption sizing appears valid for improving consistency and accuracy. However, I expect the reality is that it makes little difference if a pellet is sized or not at the powers and distances of legal air rifles. What are others thoughts. Worth it or worthless?

[Matou]

I have to resize certain pellets in respect to my .25 Tactical XL . . . simply because the barrel's too tight, otherwise my thumb'd be raw after 20 rounds.

[Sam Vimes]

It's not really the skirt that you are making consistent when using a sizer, it's the head of the pellet.
Whether it's worth the time and effort is entirely down to trial and error for the individual.
Some will say yes, some no. Same goes for weighing and batching pellets.

[Baxterbasics]

Absoloutely!

From extensive testing over the years, I find sizing DOES tighten up group sizes at 40/45 yards

[riddleofsteel]

I'm still very new to the air rifle/shooting scene so all I can say is that I've tried using three sorts of .22 pellets for my Crosman King RatCatcher and I'm very much in favour of using the Prometheus pellets with the (often) yellow plastic skirts. I don't know if they have some kind of pellet name but they are a pretty basic pointed design and at 15m distance with a 4x scope, I had little trouble putting 3 shots within the outer circle of an old dartboards bullseye. With a bipod I think I can do better but to most that'd probably be cheating!

Well that was before the rifle jammed but that's a whole new can o' worms! Lets hope its not the rounds that are at fault...

Best regards

Gavin

[Hsing-ee]

In springers at least, performance - both power and accuracy - can be markedly changed by the depth to which the pellets have been seated. In the 80s John Walthers (The Airgun Book) did a big experiment with a large number of break-barrel rifles and found that finding the correct depth to seat a pellet can yield good increases in power and accuracy. The throat of the breech obviously has a role to play, but the dimensions and texture of the individual pellet types also feeds into where exactly the sweet spot is. If a pellet is not seated deeply enough it may lose efficiency by being stuck in the breech too firmly, if it is seated too deeply it might provide too little resistance and launch before peak air-pressure has been reached.

This is one way in which the pellets are 'sized', by pushing them into the bore. The problem with the two or three commercial seating devices is that they were non-adjustable; people just had to push the pellets in and that was that. An adjustable one, or one which is made for an individual pellet/rifle combination might yield significant increases in performance.

Of course, Walthers was dealing with the dodgy pellets of the 80s, but it might still be a valid experiment for us tinkerers to have a go at; try making a small seating device from a small bolt, a couple of nuts and a washer (obviously file & sand a nice curve on the seating tip) and then try seating your pellets at various depths. You might shrink your groups and increase consistency for the price of a Kitkat.

[R. P. McMurphy]

Sizing made a noticable difference in both power and accuracy of my BSA Cobra Strike Magum.

[paul james]

I have used the TR Robb adjustable one for many years now in both spring and PCP's and wouldn't be without it, it all depends what you want out of your shooting? If you're happy plinking and informal target shooting then pellets "Out the tin" is usually all you need, if you're more serious and need to extract the very best from your combo they are certainly worth a try.

[Charlts]

I'm still very new to the air rifle/shooting scene so all I can say is that I've tried using three sorts of .22 pellets for my Crosman King RatCatcher and I'm very much in favour of using the Prometheus pellets with the (often) yellow plastic skirts. I don't know if they have some kind of pellet name but they are a pretty basic pointed design and at 15m distance with a 4x scope, I had little trouble putting 3 shots within the outer circle of an old dartboards bullseye. With a bipod I think I can do better but to most that'd probably be cheating!

Well that was before the rifle jammed but that's a whole new can o' worms! Lets hope its not the rounds that are at fault...

Best regards

Gavin

Give some dome heads like JSB's or Superfields a try and you might fing you're sticking them all in the inner ring. Those Prometheus things are a waste of time and money.