Are we being ripped off with modern pellets? Testing the legendary 16 year old crosman premiers 

Hi Tommy, short history lesson .... by 2008 prems were well past their best. Prems peaked in terms of accuracy mid to late 90's and had the lions share of FT shooters using them, certainly in UK. With the boxed prems, most shooters went with the 7.9's and not the 10.5 as the heavier pellet was renowned to be the hardest pellet known to mankind and zapped power terribly to the point if you adjusted to shoot them just within the limit virtually everything else would give you problems. By 2000, Air Arms had started to bring in their own brand manufactured by JSB which was a game changer at the time, FT shooters migrated over to the AA branded pellets pretty much en masse and dropped the prems albeit from a few people who's barrels wouldn't shoot anything else. Crossman were actually doing a few brand variants of the prems - Boxed 1250 which were supposed to be the premium, then there was the crossman Accupel, tins of 500 yellow label. Rumour had it that when the prem dies started to wear they were then continued to be used for the Accupels, which always looked to carry more flecks of swarf than the prems. Then there was the original Webley Mosquito made by crossman (not the later webley mossys made by JSB) Personally I found the Crossman made Webley Mossys to be the best of the lot on my barrels, slightly looser in the barrels, less drag and kept speed when the gun was set for other pellets. I retried the current Accupel last year in my steyr when the JSB prices went silly. Basically in the tins were 2 distinct weights and 2 head sizes (and the seams down the middle of the heads!) After sorting the head size and weights, I shot one of the old park rounds just to see how they faired, ended up with a 58, so not too shabby, just a shame of the faff to sort the size and weight in advance as losing a couple of hours in prep for a tin is something I can do without. H&N do seem to be coming to the party again though, the Baracuda 8's are decent groupers, but do seem to lose it when you try and push the range out. Limit the range to HFT distance and they are pretty good in the oldest pro target, but fairly average in the longer barrel pro target and not usable in the SCR custom. I did use them at the worlds last year and managed to redeem a reasonable place after personally not being on the ball on day 1. Now being able to test at 50m indoors at the firearms club is a really good help. 50m without the uncertainty of wind gives sub par pellets nowhere to hide.

Back in 1995 I joined a field target club near Peterborough. I recall that nearly everybody there (including myself) shot TX200's in 177 using Premier's 7.9 grains. The Premier pellets had a very flat trajectory, but suffered with a very noticeable wind drift. It was something you learned to deal with. For quality and consistency they were unmatched at the time. They were so popular amongst club members, that the club would buy in bulk from a supplier. This meant that you could buy several boxes with all the same die number, at a discount price. I remember paying £10.50 per box..... The only down side to Premier was their tight fit. My TX200 after about 1200 shots (nearly 1 box), the groupings would expand rapidly, due to lead fouled rifling. Once cleaned and leaded back in, one ragged hole groupings were the norm. The old premier pellets were great 30ish years ago and I think they would match what we have today.

Your right we are getting royally ripped on pellet prices .

Excellent comparison Vid...Keep up the great work

I'm still using the cardboard boxed 7.9 Prems , mine are stamped 2017. They're still fantastic, I use them mostly in my springers. One hole groups at 25m with my custom Pro sport.

I still have a box from 2014 die L. They were hyped a lot back then so I bought a box and tried them in my springers. As I still have the almost full box you can guess they didn't impress me in any of my .177 springers then and I still try them for fun each time I buy a new .177. They were all from the same die and supposedly the same head size so more consistent. That might stop the flyers or cut back at least from the tins of Crosman Premiers. Problem was Crosman's just wouldn't group as well in my springers as the popular JSB's and H&N's. They are still the best pellet for the price hands down here in the US when not trying to one hole 5 shots at 25 yards. When I'm just shooting with the grandkids or breaking in a new gun I use the CPHP's at 7-9.00 a tin of 500. PCP's tend to be less pellety picky than break barrels.

I had a whole load of Brocock branded 7.9g Crossman made pellets 3/4 years ago that ran very well in most of my guns, billy bargain at £5 a tin. Best heavy pellets I ever shot were FX 10.4g ones made by JSB, ran so well that I bought 10 tins, reckon Giles regretted the sale as they went oos in UK soon after.😀

The boxed pellets used to all come from one die, so the weight consistency was great. Before the Crosmans it was RWS Superdomes & H&N FTT's that were the biz in early FT days.

I noticed the seam was very prominent on the newer tins. I hoped the spin rate would normalise this extra fin but it certainly doesn't breed confidence

Always a great watch. 👍 Thanks

An excellent post 👍 I found this particularly interesting as I have some very very old .22 pellets eg. Bisley Pest Controls etc and wondered whether they might do more harm than good to use, as in tucking up the barrel or whatever. For the hell of it I might now just give them a go. Cheers

Hi there great video as normal, I’ve always found that the old boxed 7.9g premiers would out shoot their 10.5 big brother. The 7.5g give fantastic groups throughout most of my rifles but especially liked by my Air Arms 410 and my FWB 124 Sport. Regards Mick.

Great channel great content

Nice vid, thanx

Funnily enuf, I have just bought a box of these to try... will be an interesting experiment to compare groupings. I also have some old H&N pellets to test

Hello, really nice idea and amazing you found some old Crosmans. We can get Benjamin branded pellets here in France, will try some soon. Just been pellet testing with the Gamo 10x Magnum .22 and the Crosman Ultra Mags have so far come out the best at around 25mtrs. Surprising and pleasing as they are half the price of JSBs.More testing to come at 40mtrs or so, but the pellets look well made and no ridge lines or deformations so far, at least in this batch. Keep em coming. All the best Keith

I still have some boxes of the 7.9s that shoot very well in my Venomac mk2 TX200. The 10.5s also shoot well. Both are quite a snug fit and require frequent barrel cleans, but top notch consistency. You can still buy the 10.5s but the 7.9s are long gone.

Very interesting video. I agree that the consistency of the pellet manufacturing is one of the big keys to consistent shooting and for me that is where the 'innovation' will be in improving the quality of the pellets being supplied. People are easily sold a gimmick though, so that seems to be where the pellet manufacturing is heading, and to some extent rifle manufacturing itself. I have always wondered about getting something like a presslug and forging my own pellets to see if there is any improvement in quality.

Great video tilly. One thing I would love to see you do is exactly same content but with sub £500 pound rifle to see difference in accuracy with pellets.plus it would be interesting to see comparison between high end rifles and lower end. Just think it would be really interesting to compare. Regardless love all your content.

I have both crosman and Benjamin the Benjamin have smaller groups

Great video as always... Nice comparison shame the new prems not as good as the old ones 😢 great video though

In the old days I think the pellets had more lead content they seemed softer and gripped the rifling better I’m going back to the 70s in my bsa mercury all we shot as kids was marksman or if we had a bit more money bulldogs all in .22 nice comparison

Now you've done it!😮 Got me thinking about jury rigging a slow speed media tumbler( tin can,bolt,play sand and drill) blooming 'eck👌👌👌👌👌👌🥴

Also struggled with those 10 crosmans

You can still get the boxes for under 40 in the USA wich people always claimed to work better than the tins (some claimed it was a single die a bit like the new Benjamin option) but I don't know if the molds are getting old which might explain the extra flashing The fact that they are easier to load might because of the oxidation but lead tend to get harder with time so who knows

Got about 10 boxes of Exact from 2008 aswell, but wasn't testing them yet :P

I have a very old tin of Premier Magnum in.22. Not sure when I bought them but they were £1:66 so they must be a good age. I’ve only had 3 .22 rifles during that time and they have been rubbish in all 3, that’s why I still have them 😂. They have just been in a screw top tin and there is no oxidation on them whatsoever and they look very well made but sadly don’t seem to perform in my guns.

I recently finished off a box of 7.9s, die 4. I found Accupells just as good in certain rifles but they're a sloppy fit in HWs. The prems worked better in my 90 and 98. After extensive testing inc JSB, SDs, Bisleys etc I found H+N FTT 4.52 work best in my 98 and S400. FWIW, I was using the Accupells in a Theoben Olympus and a Daystate Huntsman 2. I wonder why they stopped making the cardboard box prems?

Yessir your are right. Here in the states Benjamin and cromsman pellets are basically the same. However i e had much better results eith the crosmsn and yes they both way the same fourteen point three. Hope this helps. Cheers!

A good comparison I have played the video back at the start. And the ink on the old box of pellets looks like it is (4.6) is that possible. I have also seen on the Wasp pellets in .22 the ( blue tin of old number 2 is for 5.6) and the new one's in the purple number 3 tin is 5.5 are different . SO OLD SCHOOL 177 thou = 4.4958mm and if it is 4.6mm = 181.102 thou which is close to 3/16th fraction old school well it's 3 1/6 is 6 1/2 thou more but with shrinkage when being made if HOT would make it correct. So next rifles of old would they have had more pronounced rifling.

Crossman, jeezzz zzz remember my son buying me 2 boxes of them ( qty1250) a few Xmases ago.. Wouldn't probe into the breach from the magazine (. 20 cal in weihrauch) had to size every damn one of them ( £10+ for sizer) finger kept getting pinched when sizing, was throbbing like a blind cobblers thumb when I'd finished.. Was snipping crescent shaped slithers off the skirts.. Ain't shot em all yet, still got box and an half.. Mediocre groupings at best even after sizing..

I bought crossman premier and crossman domed. The domed were cheaper and better

I tried the crosman premier piranha .22 as local shop out of JSB hades , big mistake , all over the place ,certainly not going to hunt any greys with them

Hi after your review of that compressor i bought one (with the same issues but no problem for me), do you do any maintenance on yours & if so what?

I didnt realise that your prems were 10.5 grains till right at the end of the video .i thought they were both the 7.9 grn ones and wondered why you were comparing them to jsb heavies and they had the same drop . I didnt even know 10.5 grn used to be available in boxed prems .

I see u using a compressor .I am going to by the hills compressor soon .I am unsure about how much Moisture goes into guns on a fill even with an external Moisture trap. best to have a day carbon bottle and fill that . cost is another 200 on top.I use a cheap compressor to top up and it works but the water is a pain and sadly my metal bottle date stamp is unreadable

A 16 year old pellet better than modern day stuff...😮 how the hell does that figure?

first mistake was running .177 bore in the first place...unless youre in the uk where the airguns have to be under 12fpe as long guns i guess 177 becomes a bit of a workaround but its just such nightmare ballistics with 177 compared to .22 and .25 for other common small bore airgun sizes

Die 2 ?

Just looked at my stuff and found a box of Die 1 10.5gr march 16 2021 and got a nother box of Die 1B 7.9gr pellets 1250 count I remember in the early 2000's there was 7.9 supper points that were Die1 production worked really well they were very tight but the accuracy was really good then Crossman stopped making them in Die 1 I don't know if it was a test run or what but I wish they'd make em again. .22 pointed pellets they were really accurate and well made around 1998-2003 they went to shit after that. Now I have to buy tins and test batch by batch to find a tin that has a good head size to them to get them to work well out at 70m. Benjamin Die1 or press1 10.5gr tin of 500 the first and last time I seen them they were selling for $30 a tin bloody expensive for a tin of 500. Even the boxes of 1250s 10.5 go for $50 a box now before I was paying $25-$30 a box