Benjamin Dome – Pellet Sorting
It was cold outside and I got an itch to sort some pellets in arrival my Edgun. So I sorted 3 tins of Benjamin Dome .25 cal 27.5 gr with some help from my boys. Let me be the first to tell you this is BORING work. It’s kinda fun for the first 15 minutes. It’s tedious after 1 hour. But after 3 hours and 15 minutes you’ll find both your kids watching TV while you finish sorting the last 100 pellets in the 3rd tin all by yourself. If anyone here was planning on doing this….I just want to say, this is retarded! Unless you’re an FT shooter and you must have the very best….this is just plain dumb. But…if i start something (even if it’s dumb), I have an urge to finish the damn thing.
I first visually sorted all the pellets into 4 categories looking for Rejects, Plinkers, Hunters, and Match. This was based on skirt condition inside and outside, head condition, presence of a seam or ridges from the casting process. I have to say they were pretty good. Only 4 rejects out of 600 pellets. 50 that I separated as Plinkers. About a 150 pellets grouped as Hunters….these have good skirts and heads but may have the presence of a seam or some small flaws on the inside of the skirt. That leaves about 400 Match pellets that look near perfect to perfect.
I then decided to further sort the Match pellets. First by head diameter. Ok….there has to be a rule. If you state that your pellets are 6.4mm….AT LEAST 1 PELLET MUST BE THAT SIZE PER TIN!!!!! The pellets ranged from 6.267mm to 6.374mm. You would think there would be some a bit under 6.4mm and some above 6.4mm and most right at 6.4mm. SURPRISE!! I decided to group the pellets in 7 ranges. Anything above and below this range I threw back into the Hunter pellet category. Pellet ranges:
6.29-6.30mm….33 pellets
6.30-6.31mm….44 pellets
6.31-6.32mm….68 pellets
6.32-6.33mm….62 pellets
6.33-6.34mm….71 pellets
6.34-6.35mm….53 pellets
6.35-6.37mm….31 pellets
I’m not sure what you guys think, but that’s a large range….isn’t it? The only good thing is I now have a way to test my R3M to determine the best size pellet for my bore. I haven’t begun sorting the JSBs, but they are supposed to be 6.35mm as you all know. I’m hoping they produce some pellets from 6.35 to 6.40 so I have a greater range of head sizes to test. I will also weigh all these pellets later this week. Many have said weight is not of great importance but I want to do it at least once to see if they’re right.
More results to come.
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Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
Dear my Uncle H 😯 😯 T;
i do like all of your advises, i will follow up these all, the line i enlarged we (PCP owners) should take it as a BEST PCP’s PROVERB.
I’ve found the best formula is a three fold consideration:
1) Consider the shooter’s skills, as some of us will never group 1″ at 100 yards. Accept your limits, your “personal best”, and use that as your base measurement of excellence.
2) Find the pcp you personally shoot best, (that’s generally based more on the style of rifle…long gun, bullpup, carbine. than the brand of the gun. For example, some individuals can’t shoot a bullpup because of no cheek weld. Also, remember a regulator is going to make a serious difference here in POI consistency. Ask any re-loader what difference a few grains of powder can make in accuracy! It’s the same with consistent psi per shot!
3) Then find the specific brand/weight pellet you group best, over time, in that gun. When you start to see repeatable group consistency…stop and stay with that pellet brand/weight. Don’t fall for the sales hype. Find what groups best for YOU, and don’t change anything after that. Trust me, that pellet, properly placed, will kill anything it hits in the right place.
That will be “your” magic combination. Once you find it, stick with it, and you can only get better as time goes by.
The more variables you shove into that threesome, the more difficulty you will have in arriving at what works best for “you”. Stick to basics. First rule is get good, really good, with practice. Don’t waste time sorting pellets. You’ll spend time sorting when you need to be shooting, practicing breath control, consistent trigger squeeze technique, barrel cant control, and consistent grip sites on your weapon.
To gain consistency over time in group size, practice, practice, practice. Eventually you will note your groups are getting tighter and tighter. Then it wasn’t equipment that got you there…it was you that got you there. You mastered your weapon! You did not let the weapon, and all it’s possible variations, confuse and master you!
As far as distances go…a good mil-dot scope will get you there. Zero your crosshairs at a specific range, I use 30 meters, then find out at what exact distance each mil-dot above your crosshairs will hit the ten ring. Set your “distance” targets at those exact ranges. Then practice, and practice some more. For variation, shoot each mil-dots specific distance target. You will be amazed at how quickly you can begin to judge distance doing this, especially if you use a known “reference item”, a life sized squirrel, or crow, silhouette, next to your paper bullseye target. It soon becomes automatic…a combination of muscle and visual memory from constant practice.
Never forget one thing: Accuracy is the child of Consistency!
It doesn’t have to be as complicated as we make it.
I shall use all of your advice Hoot. Can’t wait to start!
For years people have been weighing, sizing, sampling, experimenting with pellets, guns, pressures, scopes, etc. etc. I’ve never heard of anyone who came up with the perfect combination that worked for everyone.
I’ve found the best formula is a three fold consideration:
1) Consider the shooter’s skills, as some of us will never group 1″ at 100 yards. Accept your limits, your “personal best”, and use that as your base measurement of excellence.
2) Find the pcp you personally shoot best, (that’s generally based more on the style of rifle…long gun, bullpup, carbine. than the brand of the gun. For example, some individuals can’t shoot a bullpup because of no cheek weld. Also, remember a regulator is going to make a serious difference here in POI consistency. Ask any re-loader what difference a few grains of powder can make in accuracy! It’s the same with consistent psi per shot!
3) Then find the specific brand/weight pellet you group best, over time, in that gun. When you start to see repeatable group consistency…stop and stay with that pellet brand/weight. Don’t fall for the sales hype. Find what groups best for YOU, and don’t change anything after that. Trust me, that pellet, properly placed, will kill anything it hits in the right place.
That will be “your” magic combination. Once you find it, stick with it, and you can only get better as time goes by.
The more variables you shove into that threesome, the more difficulty you will have in arriving at what works best for “you”. Stick to basics. First rule is get good, really good, with practice. Don’t waste time sorting pellets. You’ll spend time sorting when you need to be shooting, practicing breath control, consistent trigger squeeze technique, barrel cant control, and consistent grip sites on your weapon.
To gain consistency over time in group size, practice, practice, practice. Eventually you will note your groups are getting tighter and tighter. Then it wasn’t equipment that got you there…it was you that got you there. You mastered your weapon! You did not let the weapon, and all it’s possible variations, confuse and master you!
As far as distances go…a good mil-dot scope will get you there. Zero your crosshairs at a specific range, I use 30 meters, then find out at what exact distance each mil-dot above your crosshairs will hit the ten ring. Set your “distance” targets at those exact ranges. Then practice, and practice some more. For variation, shoot each mil-dots specific distance target. You will be amazed at how quickly you can begin to judge distance doing this, especially if you use a known “reference item”, a life sized squirrel, or crow, silhouette, next to your paper bullseye target. It soon becomes automatic…a combination of muscle and visual memory from constant practice.
Never forget one thing: Accuracy is the child of Consistency!
It doesn’t have to be as complicated as we make it.
Thanks for the advice on the background…I will do so. I bought a very nice set of calipers. Accurate to .00005″/.001mm. Yes, Teds measuring device was much better. But, I have found that I can clearly measure within .008 with no difficulty. With patience .005 is very repeatable. In my purposes getting accuracy to .01 is plenty! These calipers can do that easy. My goal for this exercise is to take a tin, sort out all visually imperfect pellets, and then take all pellets in a +/- 0.02 sweet spot of the barrel and save them for things that matter. The rest I’ll just use ’em up for everyday shooting. Also, yes there were very small quantities outside the matrix…you are correct. I figured if I didn’t have at least 20 pellets it would not be enough to test it.
Now the big thing is where do I test this. I was planning on outdoors on a nice calm day. I was also planning on using supplemental lighting within 10′ of the target to help the camera at 240fps (gets pretty dark).
I got the 0.08mm from the number you posted in the matrix, not the extreme spread. I would assume that there was a very small quantity that were a full 0.11mm different from the largest pellet. So small in fact that you didn’t bother to list them. 😉
It should go without saying that the test distances should be at the long end of the pellet’s range. For 22 i’d looks at distances from 80-100 yards. For 177 i’d look at distances from 50-65 yards. Shooting indoors would be the best test obviously, even in low wind days there is enough air movement to produce some affect on pellet flight, shooting indoors gets rid of most of it but probably not all.
I’m curious what kind of calipers you used for measuring the pellets. You show a number down to 0.001mm. Typically if a caliper has a resolution of 0.01mm it is only accurate to 0.03mm, calipers accurate to 0.003mm are insanely expensive… The matrix you posted has size segments at 0.01mm. I’d also be curious to know if a slight deformation of the pellet from measuring could equal 0.01mm. It appears that you have some nice equipment, which certainly will help figure out what size pellet your barrel will like.
The sorting you have done could be wildly rearranged if your accuracy in measurement is even as little as +/- 0.02mm. 😯
Oh and it’s the equipment not you if we are looking at spiraling pellets, i’m 100% certain of that after shooting several hundred 10 shot groups indoors (fifteen tins plus). I entertained making a vise to attach the action and barrel that would not move from shot to shot. Then as I watched the pellet spiral down range I realized that no matter how well the rifle was held, if the pellet barrel combination was whack then it wouldn’t make one shit of difference how well the aim point was held.
I was weighting 177 pellets (10.34 grains) to an accuracy of 0.02 grains. That is 0.1% of the total weight of the pellet (one tenth of one percent). Not a whole lot really. I did not see that much change in group size when sorting for weight.
Head size obviously has more affect on accuracy than weight. But if we are talking 0.05mm (0.00195″) difference in pellet diameter then even the slightest deviance in barrel manufacturing tolerances (choke making, button size, forging blank size, etc, etc) could have as much affect on accuracy as a pellet could. This would make it near impossible for two barrels to use the same pellets.
What we don’t know is if there is a linear affect on barrel diameter to pellet size. If a barrel likes 5.55mm pellets does it begin to spiral pellets (as they get smaller or larger) more quickly than a barrel that likes 5.50mm pellets? This kind of knowledge isn’t around since people usually only have one rifle of a certain make with one barrel, you’d need two barrels from the same manufacturer to test. And it’s tough to get the pellet sizer that Ted has (what I would consider the gold standard of pellet measurement).
0.05mm is 0.7% (seven tenths of a percent) of a 6.29mm pellet diameter. I believe Ted was using 5.55mm pellets, even so 0.05mm is only 0.9% (nine tenths of a percent) of a 5.55mm pellet. Ted does mention that the tighter pellets were more likely to spiral than the loose ones, I don’t believe he did much testing with the smaller pellets to verify how much they spiraled compared to the tighter ones.
When you do your testing try using a dark background behind your target and have the sun 90 degrees to the side or biased behind you. This will help make any spiraling stand out more clearly then if you used a light background with the sun closer to being in front of you. I was shooting my 177 at a dark background at 75 & 100 yards and the spiraling stood out really well. 😥 Certain batches of the AA & JSB pellets were better than others, the CPH pellets were making what looked like 6″-12″ loops at 75 yards… 😯
If you really want to fuck with your mind, if the pellets spiral, then shouldn’t they spiral in the same hole at the same distance all things being equal (head size, weight, etc)… 😐
Well first off the difference between the smallest and largest pellets were 0.11mm. Still, a very small number…I agree. But, I have seen in Teds videos that a 0.05mm variance does in fact make a difference. These pellets had 2 times that variation. It also impacts POI. At 25 yards I don’t think you can tell anyone of them apart, but at 100 yards Teds videos captured pellet sizes that his particular barrel just didn’t quite accept (flyers – 2 out of every 5 shots if I’m not mistaken). Still this a very Anal undertaking…..like I said in my post….retarded endeavor! I started this thing, now I gotta finish it. For hunting and plinking out to 80 yards (which will be 95% of my shooting) it won’t make a rats ass bit of difference. BUT…I really want to know what my barrel likes as I push my limits further and further out. If I want to push 125+ yards I really want to know if it’s ME OR MY TOOLS. I intend to do a lot of video to find the head diameter that works best.
Finding a great barrel sounds much easier though. 😀 And in the long run probably much less expensive too. 😆
Glad you reinforced my decision not to sort a long time back unless I see some significant damage on a pellet which I just chuck. 😛
Not to be a total dick… 😆 But here I go anyways. 😆
But your talking about 0.08mm or 0.0031″. Half the thickness of a thick human hair, or the thickness of an average human hair.
If you look at the size difference between the largest measured pellet and the size the tin is supposed to be you are looking at 0.03mm or 0.0012″ which is in all likelihood less than what your calipers are accurate to unless you happen to have a set of calipers that cost a few hundred dollars.
I weighed a few hundred pellets (took for fucking ever) and shot groups. They averaged the same size as just randomly selecting pellets from the same tin. I so wanted to believe it made a difference and I am loathed to admit it didn’t.
Fuck, on some of the groups I even grabbed five pellets from the heaviest and five from the lightest (indoor testing at 50 yards, 177 caliber) to see if there was a difference and the group size didn’t change from the groups where all the pellets had the same weight…
Not trying to shit in your drink or anything, but i’d bet if you shoot them in groups keeping the head sizes the same you won’t see that much difference in the group sizes… And that is shooting indoors from a very solid rest.
I’ve stopped wasting my time with trying to figure out crap pellets and am now looking for a barrel that likes the pellets. Will be testing a 1:30 twist custom LW barrel in 177, a Benchmark two groove barrel in 22 and a ST barrel in 22 for field target competition next year.
What would you end up doing if you found that for each range of head size the weight varied by as much as 0.075 grains? 😕
Interest to see what you come up with when you do your test groups though. :8:
The Benjamin Domed and Webley Accu-Pell Domed shot better out of my .25 Cricket than the JSB 25.4 kings. I have not chrono’d my gun, but the paper it came with said it was shooting the JSB at 975 FPS. I am going to turn it down a bit when I get home to fool with it. Are you guys shooting that hot or did you turn yours down? Has any one else tried the Accu-Pells? They almost look identical to the Benjimin except for inside the skirt.
Did I mention, being from Texas, Just how much I hate COLD! I’m freezing my ass of here!!! Grrrrrrrrrrrr! = Brrrrrrrrrrr!
I shot several tins of the Benj’s in the .25, and they shot OK. But not the accuracy of the JSB’s ror me. A shame, as I would have liked the extra weight. The Kod’s were no where near as accurate as the JSB’s in my gun.
Knife
I sorted pellets for a bit but then stopped for just pesting/hunting. I will for shooting groups to see how accurate the gun can be but then give it up.
It’s unusual for us to get much snow before the end of the year. I just took this picture our my breakfast room windows (its a hexagon room).
I have only had one 200 tin of Benjamin´s (domed) to try out and those shot good in the Cricket. I have now received a good patch of EdGun .25 cal and those look indeed nice and uniform. Not one distorted skirt or anything although the tin has travelled first to and then again from New Zealand to Europe – the last time just as one lonely tin without protection from other tins. I was scheduled to test shoot them today at the range but the damned weather, being snow mixed with rain and chilly as hell, decided today it´s not the day. I may be able to try them out on an inside range during the week but we´ll see.
Nevertheless – the Benjies i´ve had have worked well. Never measured any of them though ..
+1. I have pretty well switched to all JSBs as well for domed pellets (even though I have thousands of H&N Kodiaks and other stuff) for the best consistent performance (as much as we complain about them). You will find the Crosman stuff varies as the dies wear in consistency. I also throw in the Edgun, AA, and FX pellets where those companies own their own JSB dies and the pellets are still made by JSB.
But anyway I will be looking forward to your results.
It does sound tedious.
I like those Benjamin domes but they have not shown the accuracy of the JSB 25.4 in two different .25’s. A Daystate Air Ranger and FX Elite. You can add Beeman Kodiak to that list as well.
But anyway I will be looking forward to your results.
It does sound tedious.
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Wow, you guys are something else.
Do this after all of hoots advice ( nice write hoot) 😎
roll them
crossman premier die c dont think this is a whole box
crosman premier die a (same not whole box )
crosman premier ultra mag, this is a whole tin of 500 except what has been shot out of it
cros hollow point
these roll off of my clip board straight into these containers, very quick very effective.+
500 in less time than one vodka an juice 😆