Another heavy pellet test - Rabbit Magnum II .22 cal

[Ribbonstone]

Have to really be invested in making these shoot well, and have a lot of them on hand (as they can become Rabbit III's or discontinued at the whim of the H&N).

I do like a challenge....but at the end of the maze, there should be some cheese.

[nervoustrigger]

Yeah I agree, Robert.  The motivation for going to such lengths should be for the fun of it, with no expectation that it will be successful but knowing there will be a satisfying sense of accomplishment if it is.
 
Depending on what the push test shows, I may just see if I can take a block of aluminum and drill a #3 (0.213”) and then open it up 2 or 3 thousandths without making it too badly out of round.  It wouldn’t be durable enough for long term use but I expect it would be sufficient for forming a few dozen pellets for testing.
 
Anybody want to guess how long it would take to remove 3 thousandths with a flap sander made from a small dowel and some 320 grit wet/dry paper?  I won’t wager a number but if I did, I bet the actual time would be that number times four.

[Ribbonstone]

Quest are fun...keep the mind occupied much better than the mind-numbing offerings others pass off as entertainment...but Quest tend to be obsessive/expensive (they'll nickle-n-dime you to death)/ and once achieved, soon abandoned.

[thermo269]

For me it keeps me from doing the honey do list that always seems to grow over the winter, It never has a end.

[nervoustrigger]

Okay, here's a picture of pellets pushed through two different barrels, an unchoked barrel of unknown origin and a choked .22 Lothar Walther.  They were very tight in both barrels, needing in excess of 15lbs to start into the rifling and maybe 2lbs to move them down the bore.  The no-name barrel clearly has a sharp leade judging by the lead fins trailing off the skirt.  The LW looks pretty decent but the force required to get it through still suggests to me it would benefit from being sized down a bit.

[thermo269]

Thats what i measured on the skirt when i gave H&N the same measurements they replied that it imposable to get an accurate measurement with calibers. That my measurements was off.

[thermo269]

Here is the email they sent i did missquote what was said in the email about the china rifles. Just found the email.

As far as i can see the dimensions of are bullets are ok. the rear part is the sealing and has to be larger as the front (=headsize).
It is not possible to get proper measuring results in measuring the rear edge of a "Diabolo"-shaped pellet with a caliper.

Additionally we test all our pellet lots before packing. In this case we use a 40 joules weihrauch HW 100 PCP rifle for test shooting.
Problems could occur when using spring powered rifles because of the short "chamber". That is the reason why we recommend  to use these in PCP rifles only.

In your case i'm not sure about the reason in particular (we have no China-made rifles for tests).

My read is that your rifles all have a short and steep chamfer in breech area while these bullets need a flatter chamfering to fit proper.

Sorry but i have no solution at the moment.

With best regards
Peter Schmidt

[nervoustrigger]

impossible to get an accurate measurement without a proper jig

Well, I can see where they are coming from a general perspective…pellet skirts are typically very easy to bend with a caliper or micrometer and they are frequently out of round to begin with.  Not so with these, though!  These do not bend anything like that so it’s pretty easy to get a reasonably accurate measurement with nothing more than a caliper.    And it’s also a very forgiving dimension for typical pellets.   Most folks are shocked if you take, say, a tin of really good-grouping JSBs and put down a few groups and then deliberately bend the skirts a bit between your thumb and forefinger and repeat, the difference is scarcely detectable.
 
But really I think a precise number isn’t necessary to recognize something isn’t quite right.  Anyone that’s chambered these in a few different barrels will immediately recognize that it takes an abnormal amount of force to seat them.  Playing devil’s advocate, maybe H&N would say that’s completely by design.  But at some point I hope they would have the awareness to ask themselves, if the overwhelming majority of people can’t get them to produce any sort of useful groups, shouldn’t we look into it?

[thermo269]

impossible to get an accurate measurement without a proper jig

Well, I can see where they are coming from a general perspective…pellet skirts are typically very easy to bend with a caliper or micrometer and they are frequently out of round to begin with.  Not so with these, though!  These do not bend anything like that so it’s pretty easy to get a reasonably accurate measurement with nothing more than a caliper.    And it’s also a very forgiving dimension for typical pellets.   Most folks are shocked if you take, say, a tin of really good-grouping JSBs and put down a few groups and then deliberately bend the skirts a bit between your thumb and forefinger and repeat, the difference is scarcely detectable.
 
But really I think a precise number isn’t necessary to recognize something isn’t quite right.  Anyone that’s chambered these in a few different barrels will immediately recognize that it takes an abnormal amount of force to seat them.  Playing devil’s advocate, maybe H&N would say that’s completely by design.  But at some point I hope they would have the awareness to ask themselves, if the overwhelming majority of people can’t get them to produce any sort of useful groups, shouldn’t we look into it?

Agree 100%. Like i told them the only rifle i did not have much problem was my break barrel. When i did get it into the QB it blow a pin hole in the transfer port the other pcp was about the same lol. If i would not have tested the other PCPs i would have thought something was wrong with my rifle. They could just fix the problem or just state it on the product. I know all pellets are not made equal but heck never had a pellet this hard to chamber.

[Deckard1973]

I did a review a few years ago.

https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=96587.msg902712#msg902712

[thermo269]

I seen them years before never ordered any high end pellets was not really big into pcp's until the real ammo stock and prices started going out the door then i turned to my air rifles to keep sharp while saving money.

[nervoustrigger]

Thanks Deckard, I wasn’t thinking they had been around that long.  Well, seeing as how they were hard loading for you in Sept 2015, that pretty reasonably answers the question of whether they could be changed and improved, assuming H&N has researched it some time in the interim. 

[Deckard1973]

Thanks Deckard, I wasn’t thinking they had been around that long.  Well, seeing as how they were hard loading for you in Sept 2015, that pretty reasonably answers the question of whether they could be changed and improved, assuming H&N has researched it some time in the interim.

No worries!

Yeah, I had high expectations for them and the JSB Monsters . . . not so much.
But, reading through your thread, and the fact the JSBs have a few new heavy offerings and the redesigned Monster, I might have to break down and give those a go.
Meanwhile, I should find something to plink with the Monsters and Rabbits I have on hand. 
Maybe some NUAH. 

[Relentless Holiday]

Thanks for saving me the ten bucks.   ... Take that one off the list to try.