BB size not uniform

[airgunaut]

While picking up used BBs from the ground, a few times my fingers could feel that one BB was bigger or smaller than the others. Confirmed by my eyes. These are all standard Daisy "Premium Grade" BBs, not the match grade ones.

Anybody else notice this?

I can't really complain given the el cheapo price of buying them in a bottle of 6000. Just wondering if this variation within a bottle is common.

[Bicycleman]

While picking up used BBs from the ground, a few times my fingers could feel that one BB was bigger or smaller than the others. Confirmed by my eyes. These are all standard Daisy "Premium Grade" BBs, not the match grade ones.

Anybody else notice this?

I can't really complain given the el cheapo price of buying them in a bottle of 6000. Just wondering if this variation within a bottle is common.

At the price BBs sell for, I am surprised that they are all ROUND!  Hee hee

[maraudinglizard]

I use Hornady Black Diamond bbs in my bb guns especially the blow back pistols. I have no or very little jams with them. They are anodized and very consistent in size. If you want to really get serious with bb sizes, these work very well in sorting the sizes. I have several for pellets in different calibers.

https://www.pyramydair.com/product/hornady-black-diamond-steel-bbs-177-cal-5-1-grains-anodized-finish?p=1193

https://pelletgage.com/shop/ols/products/bbgage

[airgunaut]

Heh, 6000 BBs for about $17 equals 3 or 4 rounds per penny! When I get closer to using these up, I'll try some of the "expensive" ones. Given that the gun cost little and is marketed for plinking, I basically want to see if there's any inherent difference in how they shoot. Probably not by the time the other variables are thrown in. My own skills, the trigger characteristics, etc.

[airgunaut]

Interesting...when I look at Hornady's image of three BBs in a row, the rightmost one looks smaller! If I turn the screen upside-down, the same BB still looks smaller!

[Blowpipe Sam]

I have a Lyman digital reloading scale for measuring powder charges. Several years back I sorted lead shot by weight in an attempt to produce a better shot pattern.  Just for git’s and shiggles I weighed some Crosman and Daisy BB’s.  The variation in weight amongst both brands spanned almost 1 grain. That indicates a pretty good variation in diameter.

IMO The barrel is as important as the BB.  A friend’s early nineties production Pedersoli Brown Bess Musket would shoot six inch groups at fifty yards with a round lead musket ball.  My cheap Spanish Made Bess couldn’t put the same ball in twelve inches with all the coddling I could manage.

I have a pristine smoothbore Crosman 760 with a steel barrel and a recently acquired Air Venturi M1 carbine with a brass barrel.  The M1 is weirdly accurate with Crosman Copperhead BB’s and the 760 sprays them in no discernible pattern.

Go figure.

[airgunaut]

One grain variation out of, what, 5 grains average? 20%! My bottle of BBs does not state weight.

I had not considered barrels as a big factor, because they are not rifled. OTOH, there's still the exact dimensions and the degree of smoothness. OK, I'm not going to make a fetish of this with my particular BB rifle. It does what it should do within the short distance I shoot it at plinkish things. Actually, it's been better than I expected. 😃

[Blowpipe Sam]

One grain variation out of, what, 5 grains average? 20%! My bottle of BBs does not state weight.

I had not considered barrels as a big factor, because they are not rifled. OTOH, there's still the exact dimensions and the degree of smoothness. OK, I'm not going to make a fetish of this with my particular BB rifle. It does what it should do within the short distance I shoot it at plinkish things. Actually, it's been better than I expected. 😃

The spread was either .76 grain or .78 grain.  I can’t remember exactly so more like 17%.  The mass of a round ball increases according to an algorithm as its diameter increases so a 17-20% increase in mass isn’t a huge increase in diameter but it’s enough to affect accuracy.

[airgunaut]

Gits 'n' shiggles. Could be the name of a baby diaper. 😱

[TorqueMaster]

How long ago did you weigh those BBs?  What vintage were they?  That weight range is huge.
About 2 years I did a limited study on the available BBs  -- the weights for any given type varied by about 0.2 grains, around 3 to 4 percent of average weight. 

The Daisy 499B BB target rifle is an example of what is accurate -- very tight BB to Barrel fit -- but not so tight as to jam.   The BBs for it are a bit larger, but not to exceed 0.175"

Here's the condensed data:

[Blowpipe Sam]

How long ago did you weigh those BBs?  What vintage were they?  That weight range is huge.
About 2 years I did a limited study on the available BBs  -- the weights for any given type varied by about 0.2 grains, around 3 to 4 percent of average weight. 

The Daisy 499B BB target rifle is an example of what is accurate -- very tight BB to Barrel fit -- but not so tight as to jam.   The BBs for it are a bit larger, but not to exceed 0.175"

Here's the condensed data:

According to my reloading journal I weighed those BB’s in the winter of 2012.  They were some silver colored Daisy pellets of unknown vintage and some rusty copperheads.  The copperheads are probably the ones I recorded the data from but I remember that there wasn’t much difference in the two brands.  I wasn’t surprised at the spread since it corresponded to the variation I was getting from the bird shot I was weighing.  The spread I recorded was .76 grain.

[airgunaut]

How long ago did you weigh those BBs?  What vintage were they?  That weight range is huge.
About 2 years I did a limited study on the available BBs  -- the weights for any given type varied by about 0.2 grains, around 3 to 4 percent of average weight. 

The Daisy 499B BB target rifle is an example of what is accurate -- very tight BB to Barrel fit -- but not so tight as to jam.   The BBs for it are a bit larger, but not to exceed 0.175"

Here's the condensed data:

Whew! Thanks for working on that. I never saw a similar comparison chart anywhere.

[TorqueMaster]

Whew! Thanks for working on that. I never saw a similar comparison chart anywhere.

Thanks, I hoped it might be of some use to us fringe airgun nuts, if they can find it.

I had seen similar studies, but not as complete -- I was wanting to build a really precise BB smoothbore "rifle" -- and wanted to start out by seeing just how uniform the ammo is.  As it shows, they all seem to have about the same variance.  The exception is the Daisy Match 0.1720, which appear to have upped quality control a notch, but so far in my limited actual testing, don't seem to give much if any edge. 

A precision barrel made for the 0.1720 max size BBs might do better than the Daisy 499B with it's 0.175 BBs, if the more consistent ammo matters. Not sure who's buying those -- at 4-5x the cost of regular BBs, I doubt many use them regularly.

[desertplinker]

speaking about the 499, when I went through my 499 bb rabbit hole period, I found that changing out shot tubes made a difference, I suppose if someone had three or four shot tubes and measured them internally it might help, I just shot different tubes and selected the most accurate, I was using the zinc silver high grade Daisy bbs. I also have a Daisy model 35, on two pumps gives greater FPS than any of my red ryders and is pretty darn accurate for a smooth bore bb gun.

another experiment was shooting bbs at higher velocity. All my very unscientific attempts at bbs approaching 400 fps the accuracy fell off as the speed increased.

I know it's not much but all I got on bbs.

[Blowpipe Sam]

I have experimented with patching BB’s and loading them from the muzzle using an old B3 and a brass cleaning rod for a ram rod.  Short range accuracy improved but the patch introduced too much variation in velocity for good long range accuracy.

[lillysdad621]

we also went the way of experimenting with different BBs, Which in fact are different in size from .170 to .176 and also come in different weights (5 gr to 5.61 gr for the Beeman BBs). We found that the daisy BBs were more consistent than the Crosman, and of course the avanti precision shot trumps all of them. But as far as velocity in which accuracy deteriorated, 550 fps was my find. I built a PCP 2240 with a smoothbore barrel and at that speed the BBs were more erratic in flight. We also built a 499 with a tune and a RR spring and were slinging daisy BBs at 400 to 405 fps quite accurately. In fact. at 5 m. they were as accurate as the slow going ones with the original spring...

[Doug Wall]

First of all, I don’t believe that your fingers can tell the size differences involved here. Hard Air Magazine did some extensive testing of size and weight uniformity of BBs a few years ago ( I did the testing). You can do a search on the HAM site for the three part series. If I remember correctly, the Crosman BBs were the worst, and the Avanti BBs were the best.

[Methuselah]

I have a Lyman digital reloading scale for measuring powder charges. Several years back I sorted lead shot by weight in an attempt to produce a better shot pattern.  Just for git’s and shiggles I weighed some Crosman and Daisy BB’s.  The variation in weight amongst both brands spanned almost 1 grain. That indicates a pretty good variation in diameter.

IMO The barrel is as important as the BB.  A friend’s early nineties production Pedersoli Brown Bess Musket would shoot six inch groups at fifty yards with a round lead musket ball.  My cheap Spanish Made Bess couldn’t put the same ball in twelve inches with all the coddling I could manage.

I have a pristine smoothbore Crosman 760 with a steel barrel and a recently acquired Air Venturi M1 carbine with a brass barrel.  The M1 is weirdly accurate with Crosman Copperhead BB’s and the 760 sprays them in no discernible pattern.

Go figure.

^^^^^^^^^^
THIS!

I was measiring some 3 or 4 samples three times each with a micrometer last night because I'm fixing to look over a 2100 and noticed some were better than others and the copperhead that were much older were better than newly purchased.

Data's at home so can't be more specific at the moment,  but wholeheartedly agree with Captain C, each barrel is an island unto itself

[airgunaut]

First of all, I don’t believe that your fingers can tell the size differences involved here. Hard Air Magazine did some extensive testing of size and weight uniformity of BBs a few years ago ( I did the testing). You can do a search on the HAM site for the three part series. If I remember correctly, the Crosman BBs were the worst, and the Avanti BBs were the best.

These odd BBs had been shot. I didn't compare any fresh BBs looking for differences. It was a case of picking up used ones on the ground to discard when I could literally feel the difference first and only then looked at them side by side.

I may grab a few new ones at random and look at them, just out of curiosity.

[Methuselah]

First of all, I don’t believe that your fingers can tell the size differences involved here. Hard Air Magazine did some extensive testing of size and weight uniformity of BBs a few years ago ( I did the testing). You can do a search on the HAM site for the three part series. If I remember correctly, the Crosman BBs were the worst, and the Avanti BBs were the best.

These odd BBs had been shot. I didn't compare any fresh BBs looking for differences. It was a case of picking up used ones on the ground to discard when I could literally feel the difference first and only then looked at them side by side.

I may grab a few new ones at random and look at them, just out of curiosity.

Believe it or not, we can feel movement as small as a micron, that's one millionth of an inch