Are pellets sensitive to the day of the week?

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Bill_in_TR

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Silly I know but sometimes I swear it is true.

Have ever had times when two (or more) pellets do this to you? Pellet A shoots very good on day one. Pellet B shoots terrible that day. Then a day or two or three later pellet A shoots terrible and pellet B shoots very good.

Same weather, temperature and wind conditions both days. Same rifle and shooting setup. Same bench, same rest, etc.

If it wasn't for the fact that one of the pellets shot really well on each of the days I would blame the poor groups on the shooter. I haven't tested extensively enough to see if pellet A prefers Monday, Wednesday and Friday while pellet B prefers Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday or some other combinations.

Has anybody else ever encountered this head scratching situation?
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You may be right but that doesn't seem to be the case. I just recently received a new Diana 280 via Hector Medina. He did a wonderful job tuning it and it is really smooth and quiet with a nice shot cycle. No twang whatsoever.

So I have been putting a fair number of pellets through it trying to determine what it likes best. It actually shoots several different pellets pretty well. But with about 300 or slightly more pellets through it I have been paying close attention to my hold.

I could be doing some subtle hold changes but I don't think so. I am not talking about an odd flyer either. The groups are either tight or they are more spread out.

Drives me a little nuts.
 
If you can come up with any reasonable explanation how a piece of lead could know what day of the week it is, I would be more open to the idea. :D

Then we could try to work out how a piece of lead would be able to react to that knowledge.

Remember, that weeks are entirely a human construct. They don't relate to any underlying natural phenomena like years (1 revolution around the sun), or days (1 rotation of the earth with respect to the sun) do.

I can tell you that I've personally seen people unintentionally affect testing results with ammunition. For example, I've seen a person who thought a particular type of ammunition was inaccurate be unable to shoot good groups with it but then shoot very well with it later when they didn't know what kind of ammo they were shooting.
 
Hey folks. Maybe I should have stuck in some smiley faces. At 74 and having been a shooter for more than fifty of those years I have a pretty good idea of who/what to blame when my shooting results aren't easily explained. This was intended to be a little bit of a chuckle. I've seen people on these forums blame all sorts of stuff when their pellets don't go where they want especially with spring piston rifles. With my less than perfect eyes and reflexes at my age it is much more comforting to blame the mysterious forces in the universe for my shooting problems. It was just the strange sequence of recent shooting results that made me scratch my head.
 
I find that my holds tend to be the major issue with consistent pellet impacts, especially at longer ranges. I tend to cant to the right if I'm not paying attention, and can watch the pellet loop right.
I have had a few days where I was seriously questioning everything, and have completely torn apart my guns to find nothing worth. Swapped scopes, changed pellets......and most of mine haven't been Springer's lol. Sometimes it's just like that, I usually attribute it to a loose trigger nut that missed diagnosis.
 
People sure are, sometimes it can be the same day of the week just a different time in the month...
 
Bill_in_TR said:
Silly I know but sometimes I swear it is true.

Have ever had times when two (or more) pellets do this to you? Pellet A shoots very good on day one. Pellet B shoots terrible that day. Then a day or two or three later pellet A shoots terrible and pellet B shoots very good.

Same weather, temperature and wind conditions both days. Same rifle and shooting setup. Same bench, same rest, etc.

If it wasn't for the fact that one of the pellets shot really well on each of the days I would blame the poor groups on the shooter. I haven't tested extensively enough to see if pellet A prefers Monday, Wednesday and Friday while pellet B prefers Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday or some other combinations.

Has anybody else ever encountered this head scratching situation?
View attachment 950976
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Cheap Pellets can have lots of variations in shooting. Different non consistent weights, bent skirts etc. And every single Pellet Rifle I have prefers certain pellets. I start a gun off with a Pellet Sampler from SS. I already have many tins of top quality pellets so will just go down the list and use a chrony. Want accuracy out of you rifle? Buy top of the line pellets.
 
I completely agree with you. I have a pretty decent selection of H&N, JSB, Air Arms and RWS pellets. Most of them are their higher end pellets over $12 per tin. I don't have any of the super premium stuff that they sell by the tin of 200 or 300.

Strangely enough three of my guns all like the H&N Finale Match Light at 7.87 grains.
 
I spent a lot of time finding the right pellet for my springer, the Beeman Kodiak Double Gold. I bought a lot five years ago. Now the numpties seem to have discontinued them and I'm down to a tin or two :(
 
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It's probably the pellet itself. Some pellets are not consistent, like Crosman Premiers. One day my Hatsan 95 will shoot one hole groups at 18 yards with CP's, then the next it opens to 1". Sure enough, some CP's are snug when loading, others are not.

RWS Super H Points, on the other hand, seat consistent and shoot consistent. Not bashing CP's, they are great pellets for the price.
 
Actually Crossman CP's in the "BROWN" Box are well know to be premium pellets.
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I haven't sampled the latest production, but when you buy the .177 Crosman Pellets in the 1250 count cardboard box (they come in either 7.9gr or 10.5gr weights) you get two benefits.

1. Every pellet in the box comes from a single manufacturing die so the uniformity is excellent.
2. They are packed pretty well so they haven't banged around against a hard container in shipping before you get them and they tend to be in very good condition.
 
I usually buy match pellets. You can get .177 with different head diameters. Some guns like them tighter then others.
 
My pellet inventory is mostly H&N, some JSB, some RWS and a couple tins of Air Arms. I haven't found those head size labels to be very reliable. I have some JSB's supposedly 4.52 that fit looser than H&N's that are supposedly 4.50. I tend to just test a tin and if a particular pellet does shoot well I order more of the same.
 
Bill_in_TR said:
My pellet inventory is mostly H&N, some JSB, some RWS and a couple tins of Air Arms. I haven't found those head size labels to be very reliable. I have some JSB's supposedly 4.52 that fit looser than H&N's that are supposedly 4.50. I tend to just test a tin and if a particular pellet does shoot well I order more of the same.
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My pellet inventory is pretty similar to yours with a fair bit of CPHP and Meisterkulgelns thrown in.

For most of my rifles H&N is very good and repeatable. I am however finding JSB and Air Arms (which I think is rebranded JSB) to be excellent as well.

I find CPHP to be excellent for the money until you start tossing them way out there 30-60 yards where I find they get erratic.........as does the shooter which complicates things. :(

I have found Meisterkulgelns to be excellent in all the pistols.

The biggest thing I notice pellet to pellet is groups will print in different locations, much like firearms.

I still think YOU are the variable in question as pellet guns, especially springers as you know, are a wicked fickle mistress and make you WORK for it. A little tired one day? Too much caffeine? Slightly less attention paid to grip or trigger pull? Any number of MINUTE changes can play hell with my shooting. Honestly that is some of what I enjoy about them.

I also have several rifles and pistols and shoot whatever grabs my fancy and my brain usually has to reaclimate to the little idiosyncrasies of each.

All in all I have never found pellets from the same tin to shoot RADICALLY different day to day barring those individual outlier pellets (too light, too tight etc. ). That said I have my “BIG BUCKET O’ CPHPs” that is about 6-8 tins dumped into a single container so that can’t play a little hell with consistency of course. But that is user induced.
 
I am not that much of a data collector. I test until I find something that works well in a rifle and then that is pretty much what I shoot. As a matter of fact I have a few tins hanging around that I have no use for. They haven't shot well in any of my airguns. I use them occasionally for tin can destruction. And they are all decent quality pellets.
 
I have been having fun walking over and grabbing the rifle, loading a pellet and firing at a target. Just one shot - shooting offhand. My "group" has been created over days with single shots. Been pretty happy with my JSB Exact Jumbo Diablo .22 15.89 grains. So far, I haven't seen much variation day to day/shot to shot.
 
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