Qiang Yuan .177 domed pellets

[nervoustrigger]

Yeah it will be interesting to hear where they are actually made.  Their consistency suggests they may be from JSB but I don’t see any of the similarities that exist between JSB and Air Arms.  They’re noticeably longer (0.270” vs 0.240”), the alloy seems harder, the surface finish looks different, and the geometry inside the skirt is different than any I’ve seen from JSB.
 
About head size and its effect on accuracy, I’ve tried for years now to correlate a barrel to having a particular preference but at this point I’m convinced it’s a nearly useless predictor of what will group well.  Instead there seems to be a fairly generous range of head sizes over which a barrel may group well.  One batch of magic pellets will show the head thoroughly engraved and another batch of magic pellets show only slight burnishing where the head skates along the rifling.  I don’t know who coined the phrase but it seems that as long as the head is big enough to “ride the rails”, and therefore not subject to tipping off axis, it has as much opportunity to group well as any other.  At the other end of the extreme, I don’t want the head so big that it drags the walls (groove diameter).  In other words, the perimeter of the head between the rifling marks should be undisturbed.
 
The only consistent feature of excellent pellets I have found is that they are all sized as closely to each other as possible.  Perhaps what that means is if the heads are extremely consistent, so is everything else.  Weight, geometry, balance (lack of voids), absence of parting lines and flashing, etc.
 
So if I get a tin and measure a sampling and they all come in at 0.1765”(4.48mm), I know they have every bit as much chance of printing tiny groups as another tin that measures consistently 0.1775” (4.51mm).  Sure, the bottom end and top end of that range will vary a bit from barrel to barrel, I’m just saying most barrels don’t seem to need a specific ideal number.
 
And of course paradoxically, just because a tin is supremely consistent does not mean it will group well.  It might, it might not.  On the other hand, I’ve never had an excellent tin whose heads varied by 0.0015” (0.04mm) or more.

[nervoustrigger]

Okay I had a few minutes of daylight left when I got off work so I took out the SPA PP700S-A and the Crosman 2240 .177 HPA conversion to try a quick group with each.  Same distance as before, 30 yards.  The PP700 was looking good at first but had one that went wide left and ruined it.  It's detuned quite a bit to sub-600fps so it might have been the wind.  I'll try again under more favorable conditions.

The Crosman carbine put 5 of them in a 0.37" group (1.18 MoA).  That's great for a gun with a substandard trigger that I haven't shot in a while so that bolsters my confidence in these pellets.  Looks very  much like they may find their way onto the short list.