Choosing the Proper Airgun Pellets

by Tom Claycomb

We all know that it is imperative to test a lot of ammo to find what shoots the most accurately in our big game rifles, right? We test different manufacturers, bullet weights and designs. We must do the same with our air rifles.

A while back I was setting up a Mossberg Patriot Revere .30-06 with a Riton RT-S MOD 5 4-16x50 WIDE FOV scope. I planned on this set-up to be a shooter. But, after testing several brands of ammo, I couldn’t get the results I wanted. Finally, the 13th load I tried hit paydirt. Accuracy! The point of this little story is to remind you to persevere and test as many pellets as necessary to get accuracy in your air guns!

Like I said in the first article in this 9-part Airgun series, in the beginning I could not get my air rifles to shoot better than a 1 ½” group at 15 yards. Switching to a higher quality rifle improved things significantly, but precision accuracy didn’t come until I’d also tweaked my pellet selection. As the photo above suggests, there is no shortage of air gun pellets! So you don’t have to buy and try all of them, here’s what I’ve uncovered…

Based on my extensive tests, JSB makes the most accurate pellets. Sig Sauer and Crosman fight for second place. But not all pellets shine in all rifles. And pellets from some manufacturers just never seem to toe the line. Why? Weight, shape, and consistency.

Airgun Pellet Designs

Dome tipped or Diabolo pellets shoot the most accurately for me. Looking at them you wouldn’t think that they are aerodynamically stable, but the skirt stabilizes them in flight much like the fletching on arrows. I’ve found that whatever pellets shoot accurately for me in one gun do so in my other guns. So, pellets 1, 2 and 3 rate the same in all of my airguns. This suggests the pellets have more to do with accuracy than the rifles. More reason why you should sample many.

What about those fast, deadly looking polymer tipped pellets? You’d think with those points they’d fly faster and farther, be more accurate, and penetrate better thereby having better killing properties. I initially thought that, too, but discovered otherwise. Consistently for me, the dome shaped Diabolo pellet has proven the most accurate and hardest hitting.  

The biggest problem with polymer tipped pellets that I’ve tested is inaccuracy. They just aren’t as accurate as the Diabolo pellets. Some might shoot faster, perhaps even penetrate farther, but so what if they don’t hit the kill zone? Again, accuracy trumps all.

Another downfall of the polymer tipped pellets is that they won’t work in airguns that use a rotary magazine. They tips protrude too far and jam. They can work fine in single-shot break-barrel airguns, but not those that utilize a rotary magazine. I commend the industry for experimenting and trying to make new designs, but the polymer tips just aren’t fitting into my world.

What about the semi hollow point pellets? I don’t think that an airgun spits out pellets fast enough to make a hollow point perform and expand like they do in your trusty ole’ 30-06. But I just received some .22 cal. hollow point slugs from JSB to test. They might expand fine. They look like the pellets that I used when I took the UMAREX .50 cal. Hammer axis deer and hog hunting last year. I dug the slug out of the axis deer and it had mushroomed and performed great, so stay tuned. Some of these new hollow points might expand better than I think.

Moral to The Pellet Accuracy Story

Shoot good pellets or you’re going to be frustrated with poor accuracy from your airguns. Some people say “buy the more expensive pellets for hunting and buy cheaper ones for plinking.” But even when I’m plinking, I expect to hit what I’m shooting at. Don’t you? 

This is the kind of 3-shot accuracy you want from your air rifles at 15 yards.

ODD SIDENOTE

One time I was testing out a pile of UMAREX airguns and pellets to do an accuracy comparison on them. As I was shooting, I set aside all of the pellets that had bent skirts. Everyone would assume that air would escape around the edge of a dented skirt, thereby losing power and accuracy, right? I certainly did. But imagine my surprise when my testing revealed that the deformed skirt pellets shot almost as accurately as the perfect ones! What was going on?

I sat down and thought about it. Here’s all that I could figure out. It had to be one of two things.

1. The force of the air blew the skirt back into its original shape before it left the barrel thereby not affecting the accuracy.

2. The bolt on the PCP pushing against the rear of the pellet pressed it back to its original shape.

Conclusion

Bottom line: Based on my extensive tests, I believe you’ll find the round nosed or dome tipped pellets will shoot most accurately. So start with those. And don’t be afraid to invest in the higher priced ones. They’re usually worth it. Finally, don’t be afraid to try others. You never know what a particular air rifle will prefer.