Thank you nced! This is some very helpful information and I'm sure it can be successfully applied to .22 pellets also. A couple questions... If the heads on my pellets are less than 5.5mm, would a pellet head sizer even help? Where did you get your pellet head sizer? Thanks again for your help.
Eumel, that’s is a good point about the striations on the pellets. I did not see that on my battered smartphone . Indeed it points to something wrong with the barrel, and I agree it’s most likely happening where the leade steps down to the bore. Many low- to mid-range barrels have not been tapered or deburred in this important area. Paul, there are a couple of photos of this issue shown in the accurizing link in my sig. I also saw the same type of problem with a barrel that had damaged rifling near the muzzle. That was the only time so I’m not inclined to think it is very common, but easy to spot with a flashlight so it’s worth a look. If you’ve already got it sent off to Travis, I’m sure he’ll get it fixed up.