bbs shot through a rifled barrel

[desertplinker]

I must admit without any empirical data that I have always been skeptical about bbs  doing damage to a rifled barrel. That being said, I was thinking of trying lead round balls out of my MK 177 Crosman just out of curiosity. This is a brand new gun, have not shot one thing through the barrel yet. What are your thoughts? Was planning on shooting at short range, maybe 20 yards max.

[Roadworthy]

BBs are generally made of steel, many with a copper coating.  This would not be good for rifling however they are also slightly smaller than .177 so some guns are advertised to use either.  I envision no problem with lead balls though they may be too small to catch the rifling.  Unlike a skirted diablo pellet they have no skirt to blow out and catch the rifling.  The BB or lead ball will probably not be as accurate as a pellet at any distance.

[Bayman]

Ever here or a screw ball or a curve ball? I never got the same accuracy with BBs as pellets in my old 766. I always considered it due to the spinning curve ball effect. Rifling still affects loose fitting shot. Snake shot through a rifled barrel spreads out further than a non chocked smooth bore. If you care about the gun i wouldn't shoot steel BB through it. Lead BBs wont hurt it but you won't get the same accuracy as pellets.

[Back_Roads]

 Lead BB's will give a slight accuracy advantage and more down range power vs steel BBs. The lead ones do ingage the riffeling enough to make some difference. Check with the big bore guys who shoot round ball

[lefteyeshot]

I have three Ekol ES66's. One full size and black, the other two are Compacts, one satin, one chrome. They are co2 bb pistols made in Turkey, kinda' of a clone of a Browning High Power. They have rifled barrels. All shoot real high and big groups with steel bb's. Someone else was talking about this lately. Got some Gamo .177 lead balls and they seem to shoot lower and tighter shooting at cat food cans off the back porch off the porch rail. Haven't had a chance to try off a bench at paper to see what they're really doing. Also tried the lead balls in one of my Crosman Vigilantes with an old 357 8 inch rifled barrel using the 6 shot bb mags. Seemed a little better.

I'll try to get out back with a bench and paper and compare steel and lead. Later.

[Habanero69er]

I’ve shot Gamo .22 lead round balls out of one of my 342s. They were pretty accurate at 25yds.
I definitely wouldn’t shoot steel BBs out of a rifled barrel. Especially not a brass barrel.

[TorqueMaster]

I saw a post somewhere with anecdotal evidence that decades of shooting (probably copper coated) steel BBs through a rifled STEEL barrel caused no visible damage and had no negative effect on pellet precision.  I would still generally avoid it, but the convenience of a magazine full of ammo at the ready vs single-loading pellets has its appeal. 

However...the other posters nailed the downsides and options.    My experience is the rifling does not help the precision of steel BBs, and can make it worse.  Short range (under ~50 feet) plinking at soda cans with such a combo can be lots of fun, though.   Might just as well be a smoothbore BB gun, though.

The Gamo lead balls are poorly formed spheres and some are bigger than BBs, I measured them as large as 0.179" (BBs are typically .171 - .174)  -- I have not tried them in the gravity fed magazines like a Daisy 35 or 880 has, but expect they would jam up in there eventually without weeding out the larger ones first.  The bolt magnet will not hold them.  If you plan to single load them, or use a pellet magazine, then why choose them over pellets?   

[Bayman]

I believe my cousins older wood and metal 760 had a smooth bore and it was more accurate than my rifled 766 with BBs. My 766 was more accurate with pellets. Not sure if it was the rifling that was the difference. They were two completely different guns built probably a decade apart.