4.49 or 4.50 - what should I use and why?

[Stuart_B]

Still have some serious doubts that manufacturers can make lead pellets down to .1mm. Always thought that was the idea behind many matching the batch number as the differences between one batch to the next of the same pellet run differently through the same gun.

[RobinC]

Still have some serious doubts that manufacturers can make lead pellets down to .1mm. Always thought that was the idea behind many matching the batch number as the differences between one batch to the next of the same pellet run differently through the same gun.

Stuart
O.1mm is only 4 thou (0.004 ins) in old money, the difference in the pellets 4.50 to 4.49 is 0.01 mm which is half a thou-ish (0.0005 ins). When I did my apprenticeship I was told that a good engineer can file to a thou, half a thou is not a difficult tolerance for a good machine. The difference of batches is only apparant when the dies have worn, dies are expensive, so they are then downgraded to a different grade, so a Geco die may have started life as an R10 die.

Batch testing is a waste of time with air pellets, top shooters will test the different makes, RWS and the Chinese ones Qiang Yuan and different sizes if available, but the different batches of each same make and size are so close as not to be worth the time testing.
Match air pellets are exceptionaly good quality, they far exceed .22rf ammo in quality and consitancy, to get close to match air pellets in accuracy you have to go to top level centre fire ammo, and I can assure you the degree of precision gone to, to get that accurate is massive, (I load match 6mmBR so I know) but its easier to work with as its bigger but it does require some very trick kit and a great degree of care to get it so.

With air the gun is the big factor, the consistancy of air charge via the valve, the quality and precision of the regulator, the barrel quality, is much bigger tolerances than the pellets. Any diferences in velocity are generaly pressure or mechanical variances, even from one identical gun to the next there can be diferences, its one reason why you will often see a world calss shooter with a model of rifle that has been superceded, its a good one and they have confidence in what they have. Nothing any one could make could be better than my wifes LG400 so to replace it accuracy would not be the factor. You will never tell the true quality of a pellet unless it is shot in a modern top quality match air gun, with expert resting systems, by an expert shooter or operator, with all else the group size is more luck.

Will the different sizes make a difference, can you tell? Well, when I shot 5 shot matches with My Steyr LP50e I initualy used JSB match pellets in 4.50 and had a bad batch with 4.50 and 4.49 mixed, you could clearly tell by the 4.49's being loose in the magazine. When I got suspicious I spent an intersting morning (NOT!!) micing up all the pellets in the tin, and yes you could see the diference. I benched groups from both and the group size was the same but the placement was different so I reverted to RWS R10's. Incidentaly on a visit to the Steyr factory (small village factory unit) I saw they had various makes and various sizes of pellets on the shelf, I was told they buy what ever the local shop has in stock!!

Walther only use RWS R10 and test all match guns with both sizes and the test sheet used is the tightest as long as both pass.

Have fun, and good shooting.
Robin

[Stuart_B]

Stuart
O.1mm is only 4 thou (0.004 ins) in old money, the difference in the pellets 4.50 to 4.49 is 0.01 mm which is half a thou-ish (0.0005 ins). When I did my apprenticeship I was told that a good engineer can file to a thou, half a thou is not a difficult tolerance for a good machine. The difference of batches is only apparant when the dies have worn, dies are expensive, so they are then downgraded to a different grade, so a Geco die may have started life as an R10 die.

Oops, decimal point fail

[zooma]

Oops, decimal point fail

Yup - ten times bigger than the difference between 4.49 and 4.50 pellets

..and maybe that is the 0.01 decimal point that makes no difference at all