Really appreciate the time and effort that you put into these video's Gary. I would like to suggest that you do a video on shooting a full HFT course with techniques and tips in various situations as you go around the course.
Hi Andy, once I've finished all the technique videos that's my plan. I'm going to do one with a pcp and one with a springer. I'm also going to do one in high wind if I can.
I've used ultrasonic baths in the laboratory so many times it's unbelievable. Use ordinary water, from the cold tap, from the hot tap, from a cooled kettle after it has boiled (softer water). Add a splash of washing up detergent. Run the machine. Rinse off in water. Drain and onto paper towel. If you now want them really dry, rinse in a little iso-propyl alcohol, which will absorb residual water and evaporate without leaving a residue. Drain and onto more paper towel. You're massaging oil into the pellets by hand, but you have an ultrasonic bath - dunk the tail of the bag into water in the bath, sorted.
FANTASTIC vid , might get me a sonic cleaner ( not just for pellets ) specially as you can get em for £20 , lube my pellets the same , EXCEPT , I put the lube in the bag first , and squish it about a bit , then drop pellets in , reason? , well when you drop the lube directly onto the pellets , a certain percentage gets caught up in the inner skirt and dosent displace , oh ! And I leave the bag all lubed up for next time ... great vid , very informative
Useful video, thanks, Gary. I just unearthed a 17 year old tin of AA Field Diablo pellets (opened). Despite their grey appearance they shoot just fine. As an experiment (having Googled "deoxidising lead") I rolled a small handful around in some plumbers' solder flux paste (the water-based variety). They were left for 30 minutes then rinsed in warm water and cleaned with a soft toothbrush to get rid of every trace of flux. They are much shinier and every bit as clean as your ultrasonically cleaned sample.
Great video Gary. Answered lots of questions! I used the lighter Air Arms Express pellets in my HW98 in a competition but will use the 8.44 from now on!
I've herd people say to avoid the Napier lube as it attacks seals etc. LT1 seems well recommended. With the sonic cleaner was there a basket for it too as the pellets surely shed their grime and sit in it when they are just lose in the cleaner only to pick up the dirt again when you tipped it out ? But weight, head size and pellets condition seemed the priority for sorting pellets 👍
From lots of testing my TX200 likes the lighter pellets of 8.3/4 grain! However as long as the pellet weights are consistent she's ok with 8.5 grain too. You just have to test! 😎
Hi Gary just recently got back into shooting absolutely love your videos watched them all and are very helpful for learning and tips keep up the good work.👍
That was great thanks for the interesting info I found it very helpful we rely on on pellet rifles for hunting table fair please keep up the great job deeply appreciated
Hi Gary Very informative, l have taken up air rifle shooting during lockdown and have .22 PCP. I now will start doing this. I also shoot and reload for centre fire f class and RF. l do more or less what you do with pellets when making Centre fire ammo. And that makes hell of a difference when shooting at 1/2 moa. Also subscribed Regards Terry.
@@garychillingworth Hi Gary The calibre are 308 win and .223 REM. Plus 22rf . The distances are from 25yds to 100yds and centre fire 300/500/600/900/1000.yds. The PCP his ideal for 22rf practice at a fraction of the cost. Many thanks for all you hard work on your videos, much appreciated in these trying times Keeping people amused and informed Regards Terry
Another great video, thanks Gary. Most car shampoo’s have some wax in them wouldn’t that act as a lubricant ? I also like to use a pellet sizer. One more thought, get yourself down to the Airgun Farm, would have been much easier indoors and out of the wind.
Thanks for all the work done in the video! This is very helpful to newcomers to the sport. Maybe airgun101 should incorporate this video into the archive at that site? Anyway, I’m directing people to this vid for pellet care instruction.
Gary ..some of the slightly bent skirts can be repaired with a clay dotting tool. Also some pellet manuf. have mold seams, I shave them off and and buff the area slightly....better accurcy..👍
You and one other RU-vidr debunked the lubed pellet theory. They don’t make it more accurate. Just keeps your barrel cleaner and less cleaning which in turn makes your rifle more accurate. If you clean your barrel regularly, unwashed pellets are fine. Thanks for the in-depth video.
Excellent vid. Thank you for all your time. I have noticed that stated head size on tin doesn’t always tally with what is within. Go by batch number seems to work for me. Trouble is that I have too many rifles and far too many different tins. Very confusing! Need to be organised.
Great to see tests. However, if you could have done it inside, then you'd eliminate the random wind effect, and if you did it on a bench setup, you eliminate another factor. That way your testing would be far more reliable. Many thanks for doing this video.
Great reviews gary, I was thinking when you were doing the damaged heads and skirts that the pellets reform itself before leaving the barrel, like the pellet prob going into the back of pellet when pushed into barrel will reshape the skirt, Just a thought, what you think 👍
My experience is that head size does not matter. On your video it can be seen that with the smaller head the pellet did shoot in a different place but you have to adjust your telescope and all three will shoot in the same place. I usually buy 1 tin of 8.22 / 10.34 / 13.43 JSBs My 2 x AAS400 Classic 8.44 My 2 x AAS400 MPR 10.34 My AAS400 FAC 13.34 My AAS400 Custom HV 20ftlb 13.34| My AA200S 8.44 and 10.34 Then I come to test it in my air rifles, if they shoot according to my standard I buy everything from the same batch. For me the batch number is more important than the headsize. I have a head size measuring tool, with which I measure the head size and the head size that is on the tin is different from the sizes results that I get from my head size measuring tool.
All the years I done FT I never done any of that apart from making sure the pellets were not damaged and I never found any problems with them shooting straight. I'm not sure if doing all that work makes any difference.
I don't wash and lube, but I do weight. HfT is different to FT as we aren't shooting at a specific range as we can't dial. So, I will often be trying to squeeze a 40 and 45 yard aim point into a 35mm kill.
17:08 The claim that lubrication of pellets gives you more accurate shots, here is the reason - Many of the airgun owners do not know that they should service the airgun regularly, when it starts to shoot poorly they sell the airgun because there is something wrong. There are men who have told me that the AAS400 is rubbish he had one and it is very inaccurate. Now I tell them how I and my boys manage to be among the top 20 benchrest shooters in South Africa. We often win competitions. Then I found out that the pellet camber's o-ring was shot out, in other words there is no longer an o-ring in the barrel or it is not replaced regularly. Then you have to replace the o-ring and the airgun will shoot accurately again. What happens if you don't service the gun- By using the pellet to lube, you renew the structure of the o-ring. If you are shooting with dry pellets and it is past time that they should have been replaced you are going to shoot a plus one inch groups at 25m. With pellets that have lube on them you will shoot one hole groups again after about 5 shots.
Hi Gary, I wash and lube all my pellets by choice. When it comes to weighing them what sort of spread either side of e.g. 8.48gn, would you suggest? I currently select any pellet from 8.47gn to 8.49gn. The weighed pellets I use for chrono purposes and benchrest target shooting which is between 20 and 25 yards. I shoot (both Tony Leach tuned), either the AA TX200HC or Prosport. Cheers Kris
Another great vid Gary. I have a HFT500 can I ask where did you buy the hamster from and it’s make/model if needed please. Keep up the excellent work. Chris g.
Hi mate love your reviews but have probably missed a lot due to only recently started shooting, my question is have you or are going to do on bench rest competition?
When dropping the oil in the bag like that oil gets trapped in a selected few of the pellets skirts and doesn’t come out, and that causes dieselling, when using those pellets, which causes inconsistency
Hi Gary,you talk about the subject of the head size,what about the skirt size , will a small skirt size also affect accuracy.Which one is more important head or skirt size?
Hello my dear friend, There are 3 main reasons for the pellet that is slightly smaller than ideal for the barrel falling faster after it reaches terminal velocity… The first is that the pellet has not benefited from the full power of the air pressure in the barrel. The second is - as you rightly said it has increased yaw in its initial launch and that wasted energy results in a faster drop due to loss of kinetic energy down range… And the third is due to decreased gyroscopic stability due to not gripping the rifling as efficiently…. If you test at 45 yards you should expect to see spiraling of these pellets if the power of the air rifle is set closer to the transonic speed…. At speeds of 800 - 900 fps these effects are minimal as you have demonstrated…. On a side note… Heavier pellets only fly “better” in the wind due to greater gyroscopic stability - IF the power is low and the twist rate of the barrel is slow (less than 1:17) then expect heavier pellets to do much worse…. To offset that most competition match barrels have a 1:16 or even faster (example 1:12) to allow for shooters to shoot heavier projectiles with higher power…. Using Miller’s Rule of Recommended Rifle Twist for given projectile we learn that twist rate is directly proportional to weight of projectile and inversely proportional to caliber and length…. A 0.177 is therefore inherently more gyroscopically stabilized at the same power and rifling than a 0.22 of the same rifling and PE…. Therefore if you are limited by law to 12 FPE then a 0.177 is the better choice for targets up to 45m…. Cheers, Dr. Matthew Grant, Captain of the Landak HFT Shooting Squad, Indonesia 🇮🇩.
What would be a good video......how to use a scope in layman's terms ....for younger shooters,so cleaner kills ......nothing worse,than the younger shooter's wounding a animal(not deliberately).....just haven't got the knowledge of experienced shooters....just a thought 😊
Like the video but would have liked to see more shooting. 3 pellets doesn't tell you anything... Also on the head sizing test different batches of JSB shoot differently and you need to rezero for them. Going from 4.53 to 4.51 and not rezeroing your gun but then claiming they shoot low because of bad fitment is not a real test. Maybe that 4.51 batch just zero differently and need a few more clicks of elevation. These 4.51/4.52/4.53 labels are nonsense from JSB. I've got Die 48 pellets with the exact same batch numbers but they are labelled 4.51 and 4.52, if you measure the pellets they are also never accurate to their stated size. It's just marketing fud and any effect you see from shooting different head sizes are because you're shooting different batches of pellets and that's it. Also on that section pellets don't tumble, the skirt design means the centre of drag is behind the centre of pressure and they stabilise like a shuttlecock. They do however have a barrel roll effect in the air as they loose a bit of stability and it's this that causes them to land low. This barrel roll effect means they have effectively covered more distance than a pellet that flies true and they drop a little low as a result. Tedsholdover did a video on this when he reviewed a FAC HW100 in .177. The gun shot too fast for the pellet, you could see the barrel roll effect on his slow motion video. It's very interesting.
I think what he meant about the head size was when you have a tin and wonder y sometimes they shoot different it might be because u have picked a different head size out the tin.
well my experience says it does make a difference. My AA s510 shoots a tighter group with 451 than 452 in JSB and AA. But it does really like QYS 9.56 gr with no head size shown.
Ho Phill. Thanks for taking the time for the great response. I fully understand that 3 pellets is not enough, however, the video was already 35min long. What you see on film is the final bit, all the testing and practice is done off camera, so, I normally go into the video knowing what will happen. The thing is, it doesn't always work out and as I said, we don't fake things. My hft500, likes a 453, 451's do not work in that gun, they drop low or to be more precise, the drop between 40 yards and 45 yards with a 452 is 8mm and with a 451 its around 13mm I will check out the video you suggested, it sounds interesting.
Gary.. Theory about light/ heavy pallet should go lower/higher. In theory it should the opposite you say. Heavier, bigger chunk of lead was pressed in the die, so it is fullfiled better, means it should have slightly bigger diameter, more it will seal the barrel, higher will have velocity. This makes much bigger impact then difference in weight itself. You can actually measure diameter difference betwen most heavy and lightest. Pellet manufacturers tend to be more on the safe side and push in smaller lead chunk than to big, which would mean damaging the tooling and little more lead flow over betwen two parts of a die, and that is hard to get of. But theory is one thing, real world another thing.
Sorry Gary but I find this clean/dry/lube episode a bit long winded !! I use a bowl with a few drops of washing up liquid together with warm water (not boiling) agitate VERY gently (we do not want to cause ANY damage to the skirts of the pellets/slugs by hand for a few minutes before rinsing & draining them onto paper towels, then renew towels & place pellets/slugs on it dry gently with hair dryer then coat with a very thin & fine spray of silicone oil. JOB DONE The use of silicone lube will protect any 'o' rings, DO NOT USE any oils/lubrications that contain petroleum products. these will destroy 'o' rings very quickly.
