Damaged/Deformed Pellets...Are they safe to use?

[MTSharpShooter]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, I'm new to the sport and still learning.  I ordered a variety of .22 cal pellets for a new RWS 350 Magnum that I'll be receiving this week.  One tin of pellets (JSB Diabolos) was crushed and upon closer inspection I noticed that a good number of the pellets were deformed.  It is mostly the skirts that are damaged in some way.  Now, I don't intend to use the badly damaged ones obviously.  I've sent an email to the vendor and I'm sure he'll replace the tin.  But, it got me to thinking, can using a pellet that has a damaged/deformed skirt cause any kind of damage to the rifle?  I imagine the performance would be off, but would that be the extent of it?  Thanks guys!

[thekid]

With a powerful gun, not only will there be fliers, but the extent of the damage determines the amount of air blow by.
If the air blow (Pressurized Air) is significant enough, this will let the piston hammer home.
Which could lead to seal damage.
Any deformity....toss it.

[MTSharpShooter]

With a powerful gun, not only will there be fliers, but the extent of the damage determines the amount of air blow by.
If the air blow (Pressurized Air) is significant enough, this will let the piston hammer home.
Which could lead to seal damage.
Any deformity....toss it.

Thank you, pretty much confirms what I thought.  Pellets are cheap enough anyway that I would not want to risk damage to a nice gun like the 350 mag. 

[Lambchops]

In springers you really need the skirt to be near perfectly rounded, or else you might get too much air blowing around it, which is bad. You could always get a very blunt pencil  and fix the skirt out

[MTSharpShooter]

Nice idea with the pencil, hadn't thought about trying to salvage the ones with minor damage.  I don't know if it is just coincidence, but I've noticed that all of my JSB tins have a number of deformed pellets.  Yet none of my RWS or H&N pellets are deformed.  Maybe the German's do have better quality control 

[Lambchops]

MTSharpShooter, you're not the only one. My JSB tins always have messed up pellets too. I counted all of them once, and 312/427 of the pellets were dented.

[MTSharpShooter]

That's crazy!  I think I'm going to stick with the German made pellets from now on.  They seem to be of much more consistent quality.

[thekid]

You can't always blame the deformities on the manufacturer.

Jsb have very soft skirts. My buddy grabbed my brand new tin of Jsb's, and gave the lid a squeeze downward. I remarked, what the heck dude, you just wrecked my pellets.
Ya right, he said, upon opening the lid, sure enough everyone near the top had squished skirts, probably 30-40 pellets.
I had already confirmed the pellets were in good shape before he pressed the lid in.

Were roofers, so were use to handling things rough, but when it comes to my pellets, hands off.
I will try to pick up pellets locally if possible. Think of the travel they do to the store...PA, AOA, or any retailer, then have more hands touch it to be shipped to you.

The heavier skirted pellets may look like they have better quality control. Unless there are mold lines or distinctive tooling marks on the pellets, can't rule out abuse at the postal service/shipping service.
Just my thoughts.

[MTSharpShooter]

You can't always blame the deformities on the manufacturer.

Jsb have very soft skirts. My buddy grabbed my brand new tin of Jsb's, and gave the lid a squeeze downward. I remarked, what the heck dude, you just wrecked my pellets.
Ya right, he said, upon opening the lid, sure enough everyone near the top had squished skirts, probably 30-40 pellets.

Were roofers, so were use to handling things rough, but when it comes to my pellets, hands off.
I will try to pick up pellets locally if possible. Think of the travel they do to the store...PA, AOA, or any retailer, then have more hands touch it to be shipped to you.

The heavier skirted pellets may look like they have better quality control. Unless there are mold lines or distinctive tooling marks on the pellets, can't rule out abuse at the postal service/shipping service.
Just my thoughts.

Good points.  The JSB skirts look like you could look at them funny and they would bend.  To be fair to JSB, I think my tin was crushed in shipping, I can't believe they would have left the factory like that.  I wonder if the cardboard backing and plastic cover that the RWS and H&N tins come in protect them better?  I didn't find one deformed RWS Domed pellet in the entire tin of 250.

[Lambchops]

You can't always blame the deformities on the manufacturer.

Jsb have very soft skirts. My buddy grabbed my brand new tin of Jsb's, and gave the lid a squeeze downward. I remarked, what the heck dude, you just wrecked my pellets.
Ya right, he said, upon opening the lid, sure enough everyone near the top had squished skirts, probably 30-40 pellets.
I had already confirmed the pellets were in good shape before he pressed the lid in.

Were roofers, so were use to handling things rough, but when it comes to my pellets, hands off.
I will try to pick up pellets locally if possible. Think of the travel they do to the store...PA, AOA, or any retailer, then have more hands touch it to be shipped to you.

The heavier skirted pellets may look like they have better quality control. Unless there are mold lines or distinctive tooling marks on the pellets, can't rule out abuse at the postal service/shipping service.
Just my thoughts.

Technically, you could blame the manufacturer for its poor design of the skirt.

[oldpink]

The reason that JSB pellets are so easily damaged is that they use pure lead and because the skirts are relatively thin.
I believe H&N and RWS use just a bit of tin to alloy theirs, and we all know that Crosman alloys theirs with at least some antimony and probably just a bit of tin as well to make their pellets so hard.

[Willie Malay]

You can't always blame the deformities on the manufacturer.

Jsb have very soft skirts. My buddy grabbed my brand new tin of Jsb's, and gave the lid a squeeze downward. I remarked, what the heck dude, you just wrecked my pellets.
Ya right, he said, upon opening the lid, sure enough everyone near the top had squished skirts, probably 30-40 pellets.
I had already confirmed the pellets were in good shape before he pressed the lid in.

Were roofers, so were use to handling things rough, but when it comes to my pellets, hands off.
I will try to pick up pellets locally if possible. Think of the travel they do to the store...PA, AOA, or any retailer, then have more hands touch it to be shipped to you.

The heavier skirted pellets may look like they have better quality control. Unless there are mold lines or distinctive tooling marks on the pellets, can't rule out abuse at the postal service/shipping service.
Just my thoughts.

So, you're blaming your buddy because you KNEW the tin could be easily deformed and the pellets easily deformed and yet you left the tin where someone could grab it? I have friends like you too who like to blame everything on everyone but yourself and can't take  one bit of constructive criticism yourself.

[Cliff]

Safe?   So long as they don't get jammed in the bore you can shoot 'em. But don't expect 'em to go where you point the gun.  They will have minds of their own.

[oldpink]

You can't always blame the deformities on the manufacturer.

Jsb have very soft skirts. My buddy grabbed my brand new tin of Jsb's, and gave the lid a squeeze downward. I remarked, what the heck dude, you just wrecked my pellets.
Ya right, he said, upon opening the lid, sure enough everyone near the top had squished skirts, probably 30-40 pellets.
I had already confirmed the pellets were in good shape before he pressed the lid in.

Were roofers, so were use to handling things rough, but when it comes to my pellets, hands off.
I will try to pick up pellets locally if possible. Think of the travel they do to the store...PA, AOA, or any retailer, then have more hands touch it to be shipped to you.

The heavier skirted pellets may look like they have better quality control. Unless there are mold lines or distinctive tooling marks on the pellets, can't rule out abuse at the postal service/shipping service.
Just my thoughts.

So, you're blaming your buddy because you KNEW the tin could be easily deformed and the pellets easily deformed and yet you left the tin where someone could grab it? I have friends like you too who like to blame everything on everyone but yourself and can't take  one bit of constructive criticism yourself.

Back off, or take your personal baggage to PM.

[herx77]

You would assume that pellet skirt deformation would mean expanded groupings....... not necessary true.
For instance,while doing adjustments to my HFT equipement prior to a HFT competitions,a fellow club member posed the question;"would deformed pellet skirts effect groupings"?
He was told in no uncertain terms to ........ disappear,however he then proceeded to show that a pellet he squeezed between his fingers still managed to hold a good group actually better than those taken straight from the tin and shot at the same range.
I have noticed that springers will "size" pellet skirts due to the initial blast of air to initiate that movement of the pellet down the bore.This goes someway to explain why "in my experience" springers tend to be not as pellet fussy as pneumatics.Having said that I have found that pneunatics will "correct deformed skirts",I use a softer lead pellet so It would not seem too suprising this happens.
Would I use less than perfect pellets at the worlds, you need all the advantages you can get,its dog eat dog there,but really nice chaps(at least after its over)
HERX77 .

[thekid]

You can't always blame the deformities on the manufacturer.

Jsb have very soft skirts. My buddy grabbed my brand new tin of Jsb's, and gave the lid a squeeze downward. I remarked, what the heck dude, you just wrecked my pellets.
Ya right, he said, upon opening the lid, sure enough everyone near the top had squished skirts, probably 30-40 pellets.
I had already confirmed the pellets were in good shape before he pressed the lid in.

Were roofers, so were use to handling things rough, but when it comes to my pellets, hands off.
I will try to pick up pellets locally if possible. Think of the travel they do to the store...PA, AOA, or any retailer, then have more hands touch it to be shipped to you.

The heavier skirted pellets may look like they have better quality control. Unless there are mold lines or distinctive tooling marks on the pellets, can't rule out abuse at the postal service/shipping service.
Just my thoughts.

So, you're blaming your buddy because you KNEW the tin could be easily deformed and the pellets easily deformed and yet you left the tin where someone could grab it? I have friends like you too who like to blame everything on everyone but yourself and can't take  one bit of constructive criticism yourself.

Blame no, if any one was to blame, it was me.
I knew it would happen, the guy has monster hands, should have taken the lid off first.

He went with me to the gun store. Leave pellets out, I don't think so, everything gets locked down here.

The whole point behind this, was to show, that if one person " even accidental" is rough with the tin, the pellets can get wrecked.
Now times that by, how many have to touch them during shipping.

[MTSharpShooter]

One curious thing I've noticed with my new Hatsan 125 Sniper (.25 cal) is that at the end of the day I find "slivers," for lack of a better term, of lead on my bench.  This is with JSB pellets that are in good shape with no deformities.  These can only be coming from the rifle as I grab each pellet individually from the tin.  Are the pellets being shaved as they exit the barrel or something?  I thought I read something about Hatsan barrels being slightly undersized for the indicated caliber?

[thekid]

Could be clippings.
If the pellet, is sticking out of the breach a tad, it will get clipped/shaving a sliver off the skirt.
If not, check the back of the pellet, before inserting into breach, check for shavings there.

[MustangMike]

if you have a gun that has a shroud with baffles i surely would NOT be shooting deformed pellets. any damage that causes it fly off path could take a baffle or 2 out

[pappa]

Just for damaged skirts, I keep a ballpoint pen with a large tip handy and just push it into the pellet firmly enough to reform the skirt. Works every time. I go through every new tin of pellets I get and do this up front so that I don't get unexpected surprises in the heat of the battle with a nutter.

It isn't always a squeeze that damages pellets in the tin. Just being dropped or tossed in shipment can cause a lot of skirt damage due to gravitational shock.

For my hunting rifle kept by the door or on the porch, I also dump as many pellets as possible into a Crosman belt pouch. It is really sturdy and handy and much more accessible and protective than a tin. I have 3 of these pouches just for the convenience of being able to quickly switch off for special critters like raccoons.