I'm puzzled about pellets being sold with heads differing by .01". I just got some H&N FTT which my .22 RWS 34 doesn't like. But just now I noticed they're sold in 3 different head diameters but only .01" apart. If you measured the bore with a digital caliper would that give an indication of which pellet might work best? I wouldn't think a hundredth of an inch would make much difference with a soft lead pellet but it must in order for H&N to go to the effort to sell 3 different sizes.BTW, I'm looking at accuracy, not FPS.
I've measured the heads of JSB Exacts and H&N FTTs and found that the markings on the tins aren't very representative of the actual contents. I've actually made a couple pellet sizers for my own use and can verify that .01mm is such a tiny measurement that the only way I could "sneak up" on it was to ream undersize and lap to final dimension.Personally I believe that as long as the pellet head size is larger than the leade in the barrel it really doesn't make much difference what the size pellet head since the pellet will be sized when pushed into the leade. The issue comes when the pellet head is smaller than the leade so there is less force required to cause the pellet to "pop the leade" than the previous pellet which can give a flier. IMHO....as long as the fir in the leade is consistent (and the pellet isn't undersized) you'll get good accuracy assuming that the pellet is compatable with the gun in the first place.I first started measuring pellet heads after getting a large variation in pellet fit with the H&N FTTs and more than normal "unexplained fliers". After sorting the pellets, even though I don't put much faith in the "4th decimal" I found that the sorted groups were accurate, except the sorted groups with the smallest heads. I had the same issue with the tins of supposedly 4.52mm JSB Exacts when I found that the pellets in some tins were almost all undersized! At one FT match I had two dry fires shooting 4.52mm Exacts and I found out what was happening when a third loose fitting pellet flipped out on my break barrel leade when "latching up" and I caught the flipped out pellet as it fell!After that episode I sold the remaining 8 tins of Exacts and ordered three cases of CPLs because the 7.9 grain Crosman Premier pellets all have larger heads than other pellets I've used which is why they are always "tight fitters in the leade". The large CPL pellet heads makes it possible for me to push the pellets through a homemade pellet sizer and end up with all pellets fitting consistently tight at 4.50mm in my newer HW95 which has a tighter leade than my R9.As a side note.......the difference of .02mm pellet head size (about .0007") can be felt when loading a pellet in the leade using finger pressure!
I've measured the heads of JSB Exacts and H&N FTTs and found that the markings on the tins aren't very representative of the actual contents. I first started measuring pellet heads after getting a large variation in pellet fit with the H&N FTTs and more than normal "unexplained fliers".
I think my .177 caliber R9 showed me that she much prefers an AA 4.51 head size pellet over an H&N FTT 4.5 head size pellet or a 4.52 JSB Exact. More tests to follow....when it quits raining.
Wow! Impressive piece of work. I wondered if a "pellet sizer" might be a DIY project I could do but I guess not. At least this exercise has showed me that it's not worth trying a different H&N FTT head size since they're nowhere near precise enough to hold the size tolerance advertised. If I want to get H&N to shoot better, I'll have to measure and sort all 500....which won't happen. Much easier to switch to something else.