4.49 or 4.50 - what should I use and why?

[Cones]

Just a little more practical evidence that it does not really matter at 10m.


Guess which pellets in my LP10E?

http://i699.photobucket.com/albums/v...1478Custom.jpg

Yes, the cheap ones. Geco's

http://i699.photobucket.com/albums/v...1477Custom.jpg

The nines are all me, not the pellets.

HTH

Mark

[silvershooter]

Nice shooting.That would do me, I will stick with the cheapo pellets.

[zooma]

Nice shooting Mark, and based on that evidence a reasonable conclusion from Silvershooter to stick with his choice of budget pellets (Hobby)

- but this only shows that good results can be had from less expensive pellets, and that in itself is a very useful reference for us all, and one that Mark has already eluded to in his previous contribution to this debate.

However, the question as to why the manufacturers bother to measure and pack their premium grade pellets of the same type in tins certified to be 4.48, 4.49. 4.50 or 4.51 etc still remains a mystery to me, and even more so when the results we have seen tend to suggest there is firstly no practical reason for the manufacturers to do this, and even less practical reason for the shooters to buy a certain size when they can all work as well as each other - not to be confused with weight or brand that may suite one type of pistol or rifle better than another - or maybe this (weight of pellet) is another "can of worms" to discuss here?

I am guessing the Geco pellets (as usd by Mark) are nominally 4.50, but the tins have no labels on the underside to confirm this? (sorry, I have never used them, so I am only guessing).

[Cones]

Thanks,

That was my best ever 10 shot card.

Yes, the Gecos are not marked for head size.

I suspect the 4.49 / 4.50 designation is more to do with which machine or which die set was used to form the pellets.

I know it is not so critical with a 10m pistol, but even the same make and head size can make a huge difference to the groups at longer ranges with an air rifle. That is why it is often important to get pellets made from the same batch number. With JSB Exact the batch number is written on the same label as the head size.

I suspect with a pistol the only way to check for that TINY improvement between pellets at 10m would be to clamp the pistol and then test fire it at say 25 yards indoors? But I still think the shooter will always be the weakest part of the whole system accuracy.

HTH

Mark

[silvershooter]

Hi zooma, I just measured about 20 Gecos, all were over 4.5 ,some would not pass through at 4.6, btw Gecos are even cheaper than Hobbys.

[zooma]

Methinks I will try some Gecos for myself in my P44 and see what happens - they are certainly worth a try.

[zooma]

Having "dug-out" the old 300S with a view to using it after a rebuild, I have bought a 601 to use during the "down-time" I am expecting to be without it. ( it should be here early this week).

So now for the first time I am interested in a slightly different slant to this debate that has been mainy focused on pellets used in pistols.

I am guessing the Geco/Hobby argument and recommendation is not so strong for use in my new rifle activety as I believe heavier pellets could be better suited - and maybe the 4.50 size could actually be better than the smaller 4.48 and 4.49 sizes?

Any thoughts on using 4.50 R10 Rifle or 4.50 JSB Yellow's?

[silvershooter]

Methinks I will try some Gecos for myself in my P44 and see what happens - they are certainly worth a try.

As they say in the discount stores "Why pay more ?".
An experienced shooter at the club was coaching me, I was using his Matchgun MG1, I thought I had put a pellet in the breach the wrong way, he said it would not matter it would only make a couple of mms difference.

[j_potter]

couldn't help but notice that the target's dated the first of april

[Cones]

It is.

But it was shot in the evening.

Thanks

Mark

[Cones]

Hi,

Just to add to the discussion a little more.

I did four ten shot strings over the Combro chronograph last night with two different types of pellets.

The first two strings with a 1/4 full air cylinder


Geco

480
487
483
482
493
483
489
488
480
486

R10

496
498
496
500
497
494
493
495
493
496

I then did this again with a full (200Bar) air cylinder fitted.

Geco

477
473
481
478
483
485
483
487
487
481

R10

495
490
487
493
491
490
494
492
492
489

As you can see the Geco's are very slightly slower through the pistol than the R10's are.

Both have the same stated tin weights. But I suspect the R10 is fractionally lighter and this gives the increase in FPS.

The test was done just as a matter of interest to see how the LP10E regulator performed with a full then nearly empty cylinder fitted. As you can see there is hardly any difference!

As I had the two pellet types I though it would be a good test of the variance.

The largest shot to shot change (Gecos) looks to be 11fps which is only 0.022% of the highest (493) velocity reading from that 10 shot string.

On the R10 the largest shot to shot change is 6fps which is only 0.0121% of the highest (495) velocity reading from that 10 shot string.

So yes the R10 looks to be more consistent, but the improvement is only 0.0099% of the velocity range.

You need a bigger sample size to give precise results, but this is enough to convince me that the quality is good enough on the low cost option.

Again with rifles on the far smaller target, this can add up to be way more important than it is with the 10m pistol.

Thanks

Mark

[zooma]

Thanks Mark, have you ever conducted any similar type of tests using the various claimed size options from the same pellet type by any chance?

It would be good to see if any difference could be measured in pellet speed by the use of say a series of 4.49 R10 pellets as opposed to a series shot with the 4.50 size of R10 pellets ( or the 4.48 or 4.51 etc).

The suggestion to be gained from this thread so far is that this declared "sizing" by the manufacturers is a waste of time as it makes no difference at all, but maybe it can affect the speed of the pellet more than we think?

[zooma]

Following the "good vibes" about the GECO pellets I bought some last week and noticed they no longer come in the tin with a blue lid - but now have a new red coloured lid.

Maybe this is simply new packaging and I was concerned that I had bought the new pointed GECO pellets by mistake, but on opening the tin I found them to be the target "wadcutter" type sure enough, so they are the type I wanted - but have they changed in any way?

Has anyone noticed any difference between those in the new and old packaging?