Updated $8.18 per 500 pellet can: RWS Supermag .177 wadcutter 9.3 grain

[nervoustrigger]

I got a UPS notification this morning that the 4 tins I ordered are coming from Green Supply Inc.  It’s rather hard to imagine a vendor packaging them worse than Amazon so I regard this as good news.  I’ll report back the results.

[superchikn]

Ordered 4 tins and will be here on Friday.  We will see.

[subscriber]

Mine were packed as loose cans in a box with 3 air pillows - normal for the few times I've ordered pellets from Amazon. All were dented and one was significantly crushed from the top. It was still worth taking the chance for me though.

That is a real pity.  At least you have seen amazon's pellet "packing" before; else I would feel very guilty for suggesting that deal was a bargain. 

[jepr]

Thanks subscriber, it was still a good bargain to me. I already had a good supply of "safe" pellets. The cost of these was 60% less than I just paid and with 80%+ of these looking good, I don't mind picking through them.  A couple of months ago, I ordered a rope dog chew toy from Amazon - it came securely shipped in a box 3x bigger than necessary but was packed tightly (stuffed on all possible sides) with crumpled packaging paper - agreed with others that this really is a lottery.

[nervoustrigger]

The tins I ordered arrived today in good shape.  It was dark outside when I got home so I set up the flashlight on the 25 yard target so I could try them out.  All 4 rifles I tried produced 5-shot groups that could be completely covered with a dime.  Can't say that has ever happened before with wadcutters.  Great deal!

[subscriber]

Glad to hear it, Jason.

Otherwise I was going to offer a conciliation prize in the form of cheap RWS Meisterkugeln (that seem consistently a little over 4.5 mm): 
http://www.cromwellsfirearms.com/index.php?route=product/product&filter_name=pellets&page=7&product_id=62995

[subscriber]

Even cheaper RWS pellets:  http://www.cromwellsfirearms.com/index.php?route=product/product&filter_name=.177&page=2&limit=100&product_id=15964

Some GECO are also made by RWS (otu of stock):  http://www.cromwellsfirearms.com/index.php?route=product/product&filter_name=.177&page=2&limit=100&product_id=88449

[Taso1000]

My two tins also were delivered today in excellent condition. 

I am pleasantly surprised.

They were at the bottom of a 6"x 6"x 5" box with lots of brown kraft packing paper on top so excellent cushioning.  The most they moved was about an inch side to side.  The tins have about 5 very light dings around their circumference.  Not enough to cause any damage to the pellets.

The There was a packing slip with Umarex as the vendor in the box and the ups label stated they were shipped by Amazon from Hebron, KY.

Much different than past Amazon pellet shipments where the heavy for size tins bounce around a huge empty box. 

I'd also like to note that one time I took a chance and ordered some returned Crosman Premier pellets in the brown boxes from Amazon Warehouse.  The pellets were in zip lock bags, inside their original boxes and wrapped in lots of bubble wrap.  Those made the trip extremely well.  But I don't know if an Amazon employee wrapped them up that well or the person who returned them to Amazon.   

Thanks,

Taso

[fv22]

Glad to hear it, Jason.

Otherwise I was going to offer a conciliation prize in the form of cheap RWS Meisterkugeln (that seem consistently a little over 4.5 mm): 
http://www.cromwellsfirearms.com/index.php?route=product/product&filter_name=pellets&page=7&product_id=62995

Great price for the Meisterkugeln's but the place is crazy on the shipping. Put 2 tins in cart and checked shipping was $18.00. More than doubled the price of the pellets. Can pay more elsewhere and get free or much lower cost shipping...

[subscriber]

Great price for the Meisterkugeln's but the place is crazy on the shipping. Put 2 tins in cart and checked shipping was $18.00. More than doubled the price of the pellets. Can pay more elsewhere and get free or much lower cost shipping...

I think you have to buy a lot more than 2 cans to make sense of that shipping charge...

I had two airguns in the basket to check shipping:  $28 for one, or two together (no difference); so you could probably add a few pounds to that shipment before it jumps to the next level...

[OldWestRanch]

 
I received 5 tins from Amazon yesterday and found all five beat to death. Cardboard box had no packing. I opened two tins and found many skirts damaged. I sent them back to Amazon for a refund today.

[subscriber]

I received 5 tins from Amazon yesterday and found all five beat to death. 

Ouch!

[nervoustrigger]

Just a heads up, these pellets seem to have an abnormally large skirt.  They measure a full ten thousandths larger than the head (0.187"), so for mag-fed rifles that have an O-ring in the barrel, you may notice a hitch when closing the bolt.  That's the skirt squeezing through the O-ring so they will probably cause premature wear to the O-ring...but they're accurate so I'm not going to fret over it.  Just wanted to mention it.

[subscriber]

Well Jason, the skirt is at a shallow angle to the O-ring, so it should just cam it out of the way.  The extra 0.005" of O-ring deflection should be easy enough to accommodate.  Much easier, than if it were the wadcutter head that was oversize...

If the pellet skirts were rough across the direction of travel, then they very well may chew or fatigue O-ring prematurely.  The pellets seem smooth to me.  Then again, everything looks smooth close-up, unless I have on my reading specs

[nervoustrigger]

Indeed, I agree about the geometry.  However my concern isn't so much with the potential to tear or cut a breech O-ring as much as it is to prematurely wear it out by way of abrasion.  The additional effort to close the bolt on the Plinkster, for example, is significant enough to at first make me check to make sure the head wasn't catching on the leading edge of the receiver.  The force necessary to get the skirt past the O-ring is that pronounced.  The degree to which that occurs will surely vary from rifle to rifle but I wanted to mention it because it was so drastically different than every other pellet I've run through it.

[subscriber]

The Powemag pellets I got from amazon, have head diameters on the small side (first can of five I opened):  Around 4.48 mm.  They seat very easily in my new Slavia springer's breech and seem to shoot OK, but are smaller than typical for RWS Mesiterkugeln, it seems.

Hope the pellets you guys received are better, or at least good out of whatever launcher you are using.

[nervoustrigger]

Thanks, that prompted me to check a few (20) and they came in with a very tight spread.  Most of them (15) measured right on .1770" (4.50mm) and the remaining five measured .1765" (4.48mm).  That's as tight as the best JSB tins I've ever gotten.

There is no date code or batch number on the tins.

The 4.48mm does not concern me.  Over the years, my experience has been that anything from 4.47 - 4.53mm has about an equal probability of grouping well across a variety of rifles, even many of which do not have a choke.

Hopefully yours will group well.  Actually some of the best wadcutters I've gotten were some RWS Basics that measured 4.47mm - 4.48mm.  They would flirt with MoA at 25 yards, not something I expect from a wadcutter...

[nervoustrigger]

Last night I took a tin and tumble washed them and applied some White Lightning dry wax, and this morning it was cold and windy but I wanted to get back out and test these pellets some more. 

The first group looked very promising.  Before shooting another, I waited for the wind to pick up and fired the shot you see there in the center.  Yep, it looks like the wind is really pushing it around even at only 25 yards.  The second group wasn't as good but again it was just horizontal stringing.



Then a couple of hours ago I noticed the wind had died down and tried a couple more groups:



Yeah, these are going to be pure poison on the chippers and squirrels.

[subscriber]

Jason, do these pellet group to a new POI, left-to-right, compared to what you used to sight in?

What are you shooting them from, and at what velocity?  Certainly, they are cutting clean tight clusters in those targets.

Do you know at what range these wadcutters groups would open in more than linear fashion?  If these are .25" at 25 yards, would they be more than .3" at 30 yards?

I wonder if airgun wadcutters legendary poor grouping at 50 yards isn't just due to them spiraling, from having lost so much forward speed, while still spinning as if they were near the muzzle?

The Supermags are heavier than Meisterkugeln, but I am yet to see anyone talk about using them on squirrels beyond 30 yards.

[nervoustrigger]

The rifle is zeroed with JSB 10.3gr domes and the RWS Supermags group a bit to the right which is a characteristic I've noticed tends to hold true with wadcutters.

It is a regulated QB79 PCP conversion that is tuned to 850fps with the JSB's (16.5fpe).  I didn't chrony the Supermags but extrapolating it out they're probably running about 880fps.  Not generally regarded as a good speed for wadcutters, and their poor BC sheds velocity quickly.  At 30 yards, the JSBs have lost just a little over 20% of their energy whereas the RWSs have lost almost 50%!

I tried just one group on my 43 yard target and it went about like I expected.  Completely unacceptable for small game.  I didn't measure it but it was more like 1".  3 were almost cloverleafed but the other 2 were way off.  In my experience, wadcutter groups tend to open up disproportionately past 25 yards.  Sometimes they'll hold dimes at 30 which is my personal benchmark for small game/pests.  I've yet to find any wadcutter that is acceptable past 35 yards however it's hard for me to say how much of that is the fault of the pellet and how much is my marksmanship.