making pellets?

[G-Smith]

I have seen that corbon made some dies to make pellets, but what I can find they didn't seem to shot that good. I was wondering if someone else had been trying to make some? I would be looking for .22 about 20 grains and .25 at about at about 45 grains.
G-Smith

[Baja_Traveler]

Thats the problem with pellets - it seems that air rifles are even pickier in what they like than anything we normally cast or swage for.
When I got my new PCP air rifle I went through 10 different pellet designs before I found the one it really likes. Unless I have a mold or swage die made exactly like that design, I'll only get mediocre accuracy results at best.
There is actually a group buy here for a .22 pellet mold, but there is no way I'm dropping a hundred bucks on an untried (in my rifle) design...

[MIBULLETS]

I heard that they will work fine if the skirt or rear portion of the pellet is thin enough to expand and slug up well on firing.

[G-Smith]

Yea I'm on that group buy, if enough people sign up.

[NoZombies]

I didn't make them, but I've got a set of dies to swage a .25 pellet from soft lead. have a set for a .312 pellet as well. Now I just need the air guns to shoot them in...

The dies I have produce a "pellet" with a fairly large, rounded hollow base. a fairly long ogive, and a clear step between the main diameter and the forward nose.

I assume that pellet forming dies shouldn't be much harder to make than other swage dies, since other than "core" forming, all processes essentially happen with a single die, base punch and nose punch. Different base and nose punches would allow for different forms, all on the same diameter.

[SquirrelHollow]

Thats the problem with pellets - it seems that air rifles are even pickier in what they like than anything we normally cast or swage for.
When I got my new PCP air rifle I went through 10 different pellet designs before I found the one it really likes. Unless I have a mold or swage die made exactly like that design, I'll only get mediocre accuracy results at best.

I went through the same thing for 3 different air rifles.
One of them (.22) ended up liking RWS "Magnum" pellets, for reasons I've never understood (it's a stupid pellet design, which has since been discontinued). But... it took trying about 15 different designs, before I got there. Now, I'll have to start searching again, when I run out of the current stock (~75 pellets).

The other two (.177) saw 12 different kinds of pellets (and the full RWS line), but ended up liking the cheapest, low-grade **** you can get your hands on:
Rifle 1 liked.... 7.4 gr Crossman plain-box wadcutters
Rifle 2 liked.... 7.8 gr Daisy "Hollow Points"

Biggest similarity between the Crossman and Daisy pellets? A thin, but reasonable skirt that can fill the rifling grooves quickly.


Those experiences, alone, would keep me from ever spending money on a set of swage dies or a mold for a pellet. I'd only have about an 8% chance of it working acceptably.... on a good day.


Edit: I'm not going to bother fixing the word that the forum profanity filter decided to block out above. But, I assure you, it was not a profane word. .... Stupid software and a stupid word list, apparently....

[rbuck351]

I recently bought a high powered spring gun and it's absolutly the pickiest thing I've ever shot. It has a 177 and a 22 barrel. The 177 will shoot most flat nosed pellets. The 22 will only shoot RWS match. With anything else it's a shot gun. I would never consider buying a mold unless I could try some of its pellets first. I made a sizer for my Lyman 450 that slightly reshapes the Crosman Premiure HP and they shoot ok but still not like the rws match. Even the RWS Hobby don't shoot very well.

[martin]

Dear Group,

I too swage 22 cal pellets from a set of Corbin dies. The experience that I recently had was "eye opening".... I made up a batch (about 100) thin skirted pellets and proceeded to test them at about 30 feet across the basement. The groups were abou 6 inches and as they say "in a shotgun pattern".

I then tried a few commercial pellets and found them at first to not group well but then they began to tighten the groups after about 10. Looking and testing a little more, the primary difference seemed to be that my pellets were "unlubed" and the commercial pellets had lubercant on them.

I sprayed some oil on my pellets than tested them again with amazing results. I can now shoot single hole groups with my pellets at 30 feet.

I don't know exactly why the lube would make that much difference but it does in my air rifle.

Just food for thought.....

Martin