Suggestions for,cleaning, sorting, and lubing cphps...

[splitbeing]

Used to spray with ballistol, dry, repeat til clean, then shoot.  Not happy with this method as the ballistol wears awy the pellet a bit over time.

I recently discovered my .22s like the 14grain meisterkugelns, which are a bit pricey for my blood. So I'm thinking they might like 14.3 grain just as much. So far, seems like they do want a 14ish grain pellet.  Saw .22 cphps and got 2500 for $35. 

So looking for suggestions on cleaning and lubing.  Also interested in sorting tips. I have old school calipers. Any short cuts to sorting... call it shorting, perhaps?

[nervoustrigger]

I've noticed a benefit to tumbling CPHPs, the idea being not so related to cleaning but to releasing mold flashing and knocking down the parting lines.

https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=134454.0

I have not seen much improvement from tumbling higher quality pellets such as those from JSB, H&N, RWS, etc.

[Struckat]

I wash them in warm soapy water. Once dry, I have used a few different lubes. Lube is a big topic and I will let others speak to it.

The only real difference I found was how often I had to clean the gun. But a barrel polish made a much more noticeable difference.

I don’t shoot enough so the cost of other brands doesn’t hurt as bad.

[Lt. Dan]

For me, I decided that life is too short to deal with the dirty, low quality, inconsistent pellets that Crosman puts out so I stopped using them. Now I rarely see the need to clean my barrels. Win, win.

Looking back I didn't have many air rifles that primarily shot the Crosman brand of pellets.

[splitbeing]

I've noticed a benefit to tumbling CPHPs, the idea being not so related to cleaning but to releasing mold flashing and knocking down the parting lines.

https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=134454.0

I have not seen much improvement from tumbling higher quality pellets such as those from JSB, H&N, RWS, etc.

Thanks for the link, Jason.  Like Frank there, I also coincidentally use a dedicated metal strainer to clean the cphps. I will try using it more aggressively in light of your findings!

[splitbeing]

Dan and Kurt, something that got me was my lower fpe tuned 460 wants 14ish grain pellets. The meisterkugelns did well in it, but seeing 7$ tins of 500 pellets at a walmart got me.  I usually get h&n pellets from fieldsupply but they pnly have 5.53 ftts, which are too big for the 460.  Oddly, the cphps fit well. Groups are good enough and so I'm looking to make them better through sorting/cleaning (and now tumbling).  New to pellet sorting.

[Rico14]

I wash pellets in Dawn dish soap. Rinse and spread on  towel to dry. I spray them with White Lightning bicycle chain lube from Wally. I sorted one tin of
pellets by weight. No noticeable difference in group size between the 3-4 different weights I got. Stopped sorting as it’s too time consuming for the results I got. YMMV

[nced]

Used to spray with ballistol, dry, repeat til clean, then shoot.  Not happy with this method as the ballistol wears awy the pellet a bit over time.

I recently discovered my .22s like the 14grain meisterkugelns, which are a bit pricey for my blood. So I'm thinking they might like 14.3 grain just as much. So far, seems like they do want a 14ish grain pellet.  Saw .22 cphps and got 2500 for $35. 

So looking for suggestions on cleaning and lubing.  Also interested in sorting tips. I have old school calipers. Any short cuts to sorting... call it shorting, perhaps?

Years ago the bore of my brothers R9 got "really crudded up" from shootin hard lead Crosman Premier domes from the die lot marked and dated boxed Crosman Premiers and his normally tight 30 yard groups opened up to twice the size and no amount of pulled patches restored the accuracy. He took his bore scope (used to inspect his powder burner bores) and noticed that the rifling disappeared near the muzzle choke and all the pulled patches did was to polish the packed in lead! His solution was one he used with his muzzle loader by soaking the bore with Hoppes #9 and then scrubbing with a .177 cal brass brush after the soaking. After this treatment the bore scope showed the the rifling was again visible so after a few "fouling shots" his accuracy was restored.

After that fiasco decades ago we looked for a suitable pellet lube that woul keep the fouling from "soldering itself" to the bore. The first lube tested was FP10 and it did work well however it SEEMED that the lube caused the pellets to get a kinda "goopy surface" which fouled the bore rather quickly when the parting agent (seemed like powdered graphite) on hard lead Crosman Premiers mixed with the FP10. The next lube we tried was aerosol Slick50 One Lube and it worked perfectly. The lubed CPs maintained their shiny appearance, accuracy was maintained for at least one 1250 count box of pellets. After shooting about 1000 Crosman pellets the groups would contain a few fliers but cleaning the bore by pulling through a few tight fitting cotton patches to stop the fliers and accuracy was again restored for another 1000ish shots.

We also learned that the Slick50 One Lube would cause the guns to diesel if it was spritzed directly on the pellets and it got into the hollow pellet skirt!! The solution was to sptitz a bit of Slick50 One Lube onto the bottom of a dedicated pan, smear the residue on the pan bottom creating a thin film of lube. Then a box of CPs are dumped into the pan and gently stirred with the fingers to distribute a FILM of lube only on the pellet "rifling surfaces". A few years ago the boxed Premiers would have excess parting compound and swarf in the box so those particular pellets would be washed with hot water and dish detergent, then dried before lubing............


Years ago I used to sort my pellets by weight and head size however I found this to be a waste of time with my shooting skills............

I found that as long as the pellet head fits the barrel leade snugly the minor variation in pellet head size didn't matter because each pellet would be "sized exactly" when pressed into the lead. The problem with pellet head size came if a "loose fitting in the leade" pellet were shot because it would most likely be a flier. I bought a case of 1250 count 7.9 grain Crosman Premiers and discovered that all 4 boxed had a lot of gunge and swarf mixed with the pellets requiring washing & drying before lubing. This prompted me to try the supposedly 4.52mm JSB Exacts. I ordered 8 tins from Pyramyd Air using their "buy 4 and pay for 3 deal". Well, those Exact head sizes were "all over the place" with many undersized heads! During one Field Target match using the supposedly 4.52mm pellets I had a "dry fire". Shocked that I forgot to load a pellet I continued the match. Then I had a second dry fire and was really puzzled and would have had a third dry fire (not good for a springer) if I didn't notice the loose fitting Exact flop out of the barrel leade when I relatched the barrel! I then sold the remaining 9 tins of Exacts to a fellow shooter.
 
 

[splitbeing]

Thanks you for the lesson regarding head size. I've noticed that while most of the cphps fit well and snug but not too tight in the 460, sometimes there's a loose one.  I think trying to get the loose ones out is worth a try. They can then be discarded and I can see if there is an impact on groups.

This might save me from sorting efforts or ventures.

[nced]

Thanks you for the lesson regarding head size. I've noticed that while most of the cphps fit well and snug but not too tight in the 460, sometimes there's a loose one.  I think trying to get the loose ones out is worth a try. They can then be discarded and I can see if there is an impact on groups.

This might save me from sorting efforts or ventures.

I tried the CPHPs a few years ago and found that the head sizes varied a lot even from the same tin. My brother also tried them and found a large discrepency of "fit in the leade" but he also found that when the "loose fitters" were removed the CPHP was as accurate as a good fitting die lot marked and dated boxed Premier. However when he found that about 1/3rd of the tin was discarded after the sort making the CPHPs pretty expensive "per shot". Other than CPHP head size variation there was also a lot of "dirt" (parting compound?) on the pellets dirtied my loading fingers........

[Ike the GSD]

Do you guys think the Hornady One Shot case lube would work? "Photo of One Shot Case Lube
One Shot® Case Lube
One Shot® Case Lube with DynaGlide Plus® technology is a micro-penetrating high pressure dry film. It contains no petroleum, teflon or other synthetic silicone so it will not contaminate powder or primers.

5 oz. Aerosol Item #9991
10 oz. Aerosol Item #99913

[TorqueMaster]

Not a lot of experience here, but very interested in improving consistency with CPHPs.

They do seem to be very dirty -- only pellet I use regularly that seems to build up nastiness that requires cleaning to get precision shooting back from any pellet sent down the barrel. 

I have noticed some load requiring a harder shove, some give no resistance at all.  I've associated a bit more velocity variation and fliers from the loose loading ones.  Tighter ones seem less of a problem.

I am not going to micrometer them all.  I have sorted by weight -- still quite tedious -- and some are lightweights way off the usual SD.  Probably good candidates to be some of the easy loading peewees / fliers I want to avoid. 

So is there a quick simple cleaning method and a quick way to weigh them just to sort out the uber-lights?  I've seen some automated setups that use gravity to sort copper pennies from zinc ones...but that's a 9 grain difference, not 0.1 or 0.2 grains...

[Back_Roads]

 In the past a member here was rolling pellets over a glass plate, the ones with deformities rolled in circles, the ones that rolled straight were the keepers.