First hunt with JSB Hades (gray squirrel)

[nervoustrigger]

Well it took me long enough but this morning I finally took the .22 Hades out to see how they do on gray squirrels.

But let me briefly back up to July when I ordered a tin to try.  At the time I was in the middle of testing a DAR .22cal.  The venerable 18.1gr domes were grouping great, and despite the favorable reviews I'd seen on the Hades, I was very skeptical of how they would fare.  My shelf is littered with all manner of fancypants expanding pellets I've accumulated over the years.  Most won't confidently hit the kill zone of small critters past 30 yards.  So imagine my surprise when the very first group with the Hades at 43 yards looked like this:



Could it be?  An expanding pellet that rivals the accuracy of a dome?  I was excited to get out and try them on small game...so I promptly forgot about them   What can I say, summers are busy with 6 kids ranging 2-14.

Fast forward to this past week.  A forum topic reminded me I needed to try them.  When I got home from work New Year's eve, I lit the target in the back yard with a flashlight and fine-tuned the zero. 

I set my alarm for 5:00am.  At 3:30am, I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep so I got up and made some coffee and readied everything and headed out at first light.  It was a cool 33°F and I figured that would kick these eastern grays in the pants to go out and forage.

It wasn't long before I saw the first one.  It became the recipient of a brain shot...the Hades went exactly where asked and the squirrel did the familiar catfish dance for about 15 seconds before coming to rest.  With the DAR sending them out at about 900fps, that's a confident passthrough and I really wanted to see how much it will expand if given the opportunity so I decided if I got another shot, it would be to the vitals.

Turns out there wasn't a lot of activity but eventually I spotted another.  He presented me with a nice shallow quartering angle so I carefully aimed to put it between his neck and front shoulder, putting the path through the heart and lung area and diagonally for almost the full length of the body.
 
The impact sounded like a fast ball popping the catcher's mit.  The squirrel tumbled and managed to run about 7 yards before running out of steam.  Tough critters.  On retrieving him, I could feel the pellet under the hide next to the spine.  In this photo, the tape measure shows the approximate path it took:



Using Chairgun, I'm estimating it had about 21fpe on arrival.  On inspecting the pellet, there was no evidence that any substantial bone was encountered, meaning the full energy dump was dissipated in about 4.5" of hide, muscle, and soft tissue.

The thing is, it hardly expanded at all.  Here it is in the jaws of the calipers next to an unfired one:



I have to say I'm underwhelmed.  That was it for the day so I'll have to try again later to see if the result is any different.  Accuracy is very good so they'll definitely get the job done but this limited experience hasn't convinced me they are worth the cost premium over the domes.

[ranchibi]

Jason, two excellent shots! For expansion, you might want to try NSA .22/17.9gr slugs as I think they would have better expansion and I think the DAR barrel is unchoked?

[guero_gordo]

Appreciate the review, been thinking about these for rats, but I'm always skeptical of expansion at these velocities.
I'd expect the Hades shape still did more tissue damage than a dome would have, but much remains to be seen.

[only1harry]

Excellent shooting Jason!  That's a very nice grouping at 43yds.

Harry

[Wayne52]

Great shooting on the squirrels Jason !!! I recently got a mag for one of the DAR 22's it's the first gen mag but in perfect condition.  I hope they release them and start selling mags for them as well pretty soon. I know there's several that are also waiting for their 2nd gens replacing the ones they sent back.

I've had my DAR22 as a signature pic for a while now

[dk1677]

Nice shooting Jason!

[A.K.A. Tommy Boy]

Hi Jason

Good hunting story.  Congratulations on a successful hunt.

I am glad that you were able to harvest some squirrels.



This was also an excellent review of JSB 15.89 gr. 22 cal. Hades hunting pellets.

I had virtually the same experience with them, while hunting with a Summit Ranger break barrel.

They were a good pellet for accuracy... but... very little expansion.

Here are a couple of links to my posts about the Hades pellet in that rifle.

1.   https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=139029.msg155833733#msg155833733

2.   https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=164283.msg155833211#msg155833211


Best Wishes - Tom

[nervoustrigger]

Hi Randall, you’re correct that it’s an unchoked barrel.  I’ll give the NSA’s a try, thanks!
 
Guero, I agree with you on that, I was just surprised there wasn’t more expansion compared to some of the photos that had been put up online.  I know many of the examples were synthetic tests but I was thinking some were recovered.
 
Thanks, Harry!
 
Thanks, Wayne!
 
Thanks, Dave!
 
Tom, I appreciate that information and comparison.  I saw where you speculated they may need more velocity than the Summit Ranger is providing .  Pyramyd lists the .22 at 950fps but they don’t give the pellet weight so I assume that’s the mfg rating with a lightweight pellet.  Do you have an idea about how fast the Hades are leaving the Summit Ranger?  I’m guessing it’s somewhere around 750 – 800fps (20 – 22fpe).   Interestingly enough, the one I recovered looked about the same despite having a MV of 900fps.  Range was similar…30yds vs 25yds.

[A.K.A. Tommy Boy]

Hi Randall, you’re correct that it’s an unchoked barrel.  I’ll give the NSA’s a try, thanks!
 
Guero, I agree with you on that, I was just surprised there wasn’t more expansion compared to some of the photos that had been put up online.  I know many of the examples were synthetic tests but I was thinking some were recovered.
 
Thanks, Harry!
 
Thanks, Wayne!
 
Thanks, Dave!
 
Tom, I appreciate that information and comparison.  I saw where you speculated they may need more velocity than the Summit Ranger is providing .  Pyramyd lists the .22 at 950fps but they don’t give the pellet weight so I assume that’s the mfg rating with a lightweight pellet.  Do you have an idea about how fast the Hades are leaving the Summit Ranger?  I’m guessing it’s somewhere around 750 – 800fps (20 – 22fpe).   Interestingly enough, the one I recovered looked about the same despite having a MV of 900fps.  Range was similar…30yds vs 25yds.

Hi Jason

I do not have a chronograph so I can not give you an accurate pellet velocity from the Summit Ranger.
The pellet weight of the JSB Hades pellets are listed as 15.89 gr. in 22 cal.
I think that your guess of 750 fps is pretty close.
Best Wishes - Tom

[Danny]

In my experience, the Hades don’t expand as well as some other reliable rounds. Top on my list are Predator Polymags.  Those mushroom like crazy.  Another two I’ve had good luck with are H&N Terminators and Barracuda Hunter Extremes.  I get good accuracy with all three.

I’ve heard good things about FX slugs and NSA light weight slugs.  Both are on my list for testing when I need more distance.

[DLP]

These are a couple .25 Hades that I recovered from squirrels on my last hunt. The one on the right was recovered from the 2 for 1 shot I made. It passed through the head of the first Fox squirrel and stayed in the head of the second one. The one on the left was recovered from a Grey squirrel. It was a body shot at about 25 yards. The Flashpup is shooting about 860 fps. I didn’t keep a couple of the others that I recovered because they didn’t really look too impressive. So, mixed feelings on their expansion. I have yet to find any pellet that out expands the Polymags.

[DLP]

Here is the picture.

[JungleShooter]

Jason, the OP shared another squirrel shot on another thread.Same range, but shot with much lower power, and with a different pellet -- the Daisy Hollow Point (15.40gr).

Below both are in the same pic for comparison.

Note how the slower Daisy HP expands in actual game more than the faster Hades.
Usually, HP pellets expand better the faster they are on impact.
Which makes the difference in performance of the two pellets even larger....

Matthias

[EdinGa]

I've been really happy with the Daisy HPs in .22 and .177. Accuracy is decent and they definitely expand even at lower speeds. Too bad they don't make them in .25.

[mrbulk]

Congrats Jason, like I read somewhere on here, "new squirrel, for a new year"!

[bear air]

Great shooting Jason and nice write up on the hades pellets. I'm surprised to see how little expansion there actually was. However I have had nothing but stellar results with the hades pellets. I look forward to following this thread and seeing others results with the hades pellets. Thanks Jason.

[JimD]

Good shooting and thanks for the story.  I tested the pellets I had on hand out of my Prod.  It was shooting less than 700fps at the time (less than 800 fps now).  My only two pellets I thought might expand were the Crosman 14.3 gr hollow points and Metal Mags (about 17 grain).  Only the Metal Mags expanded.  I was testing in wet phone books.  They still penetrated like the 14.3 grain domed and hollow point Crosmans. 

I use 14.6 grain copper plated H&N domed pellets because they are the most accurate.  I've only killed 5 squirrels so far with my Prod.  Two were pretty solid brain shots although I put a finisher in one of the squirrels because he was still breathing.  The shot was a little high on his head.  Those were Crosman hollow points.  I hit one pretty hard in the front half of it's body.  It couldn't climb, I think I got the off side shoulder.  He ran into a neighbors yard and I lost him.  Another one was up a tree and jumped straight up at the shot, ran along a limb and tried to jump to another large oak but didn't make it.  The reaction to the shot and the fact that he fell during the leap between trees are why I think I hit him.  But he also got to a different neighbors yard and was not recovered.  I hit the most recent one about like your shot, I was aiming for head and he either moved or I was off a little and hit his shoulder when he was facing me and the pellet went back into his guts.  He didn't run but looked like he might so I shot him again, this time in the head.  It entered under the eye and went out his chin - so not a solid brain shot.  That one put him down but he was still breathing so he got a finisher.  I increased the energy of my Prod from it's original 12 to it's current 17 fpe during these incidents.  I am thinking the higher energy plus the path straight through the vitals might have helped a little on the last one versus the two that got away.  But it might have just been luck.  I hung the second recovered squirrel by his tail and tried a little real world penetration test.  That was at 14 fpe.  The copper plated H&N and 21.3 grain Barracudas both stopped with their head out the off side but the skirt still stuck in the skin.  I'm hoping the slightly higher power will result in pass throughs.  This was at 20-25 yards.  The finishers point blank go right through.

Anyway my experience is that placement is the big deal.  My gun shoots the metal mags pretty well but I haven't tried them on squirrels yet.  I have trouble believing the expansion is going to stop a squirrel with a body shot and with a head shot I also do not see how it will help.  I like the idea of plenty of penetration for when the pellet doesn't go quite where I intended.  Seems like it adds margin. 

[nervoustrigger]

Hey thanks guys.  However I should probably point out this New Year's Day squirrel celebrated his one year anniversary a few days ago.  Matthias and I got to talking about the Hades pellets elsewhere and he took the liberty to document the expansion photos into the annotated picture.  Thus the necro bump to this thread.

But to offer a bit of an update, I've tried the Hades in several rifles in the intervening months and have seen good accuracy in most cases so that's a great sign, but I remain unimpressed with their expansion on live game or pests.  And given that I have long since settled on using brain shots nearly exclusively, they would pretty well need to open up like a flower to make me a convert.  And while the Daisy hollow points seem to deliver on the promise, they've hardly been available since mid-2020.  I haven't dug much for them but they seem perpetually out of stock on Amazon and Pyramyd doesn't appear to carry them.  They were at a runaway price of $7 a 500ct tin at the time and if they come back anywhere close to it again, you can believe I will stock up.

[EdinGa]

Once I discovered how well the Daisy HPs did, I stocked up. I should be good for years to come. $7 was a steal that I just couldn't pass up. Most of my shots are inside 35 yards, and they perform well at those ranges.

[JungleShooter]

Eventually, Daisy will get them back in stock.... 😄 
Here, for $7:
https://www.daisy.com/product/daisy-22-caliber-precisionmax-hollow-point-pellets-500-count/


I finally got a can of these to Peru.I still need to test them, but for expansion they seem to have very good characteristics:
Large hollow point cup
Deep HP cup
Soft lead
Light weight (for high impact velocity)

Matthias