Pellet ballistics .. 3rd attempt!!!

[P95Carry]

I tried to post this other night but screwed up cos too many pics per post .. lost whole post ...... promptly did same again!!

Rogelio mentioned in my thread on .22 ballistics .. using similar approach, if I'd post this stuff as well so .. here goes ........ in two doses probably .......

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I used modelling clay, very firm ..... to roll out ''sausages'' and then fire various pellets from pistol and rifle air weapons ..... this again remember was 21 years ago .. and only recently scanned the negs to make positives.

After the shot ... ''sausage'' was sectioned to show pellet channel and any expansion .. sorry, cavitation etc. I also scratched 1" reference markers on the section to give some scale. Remember ... effectively cos of clay quantity available .. walls were a tad thin so deformation maybe too easy.... however ... still I feel interesting visual results.

All fired from only 6 feet distance, to ensure a hit!

Starting with pistol ... this a Webley ''Senior'' ...... top barrel over spring chamber .. break barrel charging action ....... .177 cal ...

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Webley Senior - This was using a ''Lanes'' heavyweight pellet .. slightly round nose ... good pellet overall. Near 4" penetration and some cavitation.
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Webley Senior - this used a home cast spitzer pellet ..... it will crop up again. Looks good but . small driving band and little other bore contact meant it yawed a lot .. hopelessly innaccurate even tho penetration seems good .... yaw is evident.
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Now onto rifles ........

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Webley MkII .... 22 cal - I still have this very old rifle! It is a under lever cocking and tap loader .. good set-up IMO ... less chance of air leakage. Also had/has Parker hale target peep sights. This pellet was called a ''Superpoint'' ..... normal weight but quite effective .... 4 1/2" penetration and quite some degree of cavitation.
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Webley MkII .... pellet called a ''Silverjet'' ... a heavyweight and probably best pellet I ever used in .22. Excellent penetration if a tad less cavitation.
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Webley MkII .... and the dreaded spitzer . .22 version. Same probs . yaws like crazy tho penetration seems good. The ''channel'' shows its instability.
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OK .. lets get this posted successfully and I'll add more ... these pics are all very small file size (10k or so), kept at 8 bit grayscale, and so will hopefyully load fast for you.

 

[P95Carry]

Phase 2!! .... next rifle is a Wierauch HW35 in .177 cal .. break barrel. Nicely finished rifle, rather heavy and still have it . spring is somewhat ''tired''!

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Wierauch HW35 ....... std pellet ... good penetration - a full 5" and some cavitation.
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Wierauch HW35 ....... ''Lanes'' heavyweight pellet . this was my fave in fact for .177 .. good penetration and cavitation .. even took odd rabbit with this and MANY rats!!
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Wierauch HW35 ....... again the dreaded and crap spitzer .. oh my .... look at that yaw!! Even if penetration greater.
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Last rifle ... BSA (I think) ''Hawk'' ..... had two barrels but this was using .22 version ..... it was a twin spring .. very good ft lbs but not overly accurate . and recoil was quite significant. ....

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Hawk - with ''Superpoint'' ...... not quite 5" ..... good channel tho.... and clay appears ''bunched up'' ahead of pellet stop point.
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Hawk ... the ''Silverjet'' heavyweight . wonderful pellet ..... great channel all round .. accurate too and good for rodents.
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Hawk ... and finally .. the spitzer again!! Oh my .. see that yaw .. interesting tho by chance ... pellet all but exited clay .......
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There you have it . maybe many will not have seen what pellets can do thru clay . it does IMO help us remember that evenb pellet guns deserve respect ..... very close range fatalities have been recorded and i think too many eyes lost. Seems I have succeeded this time ........ all but 30 minutes taken .. hope worthwhile.

The four rules apply here as much as anywhere.

 

[Quartus]

hope worthwhile.

Very much so, in my book. Thanks for making the effort. Do you have any ideas of velocities?

The four rules apply here as much as anywhere.

Uh-yeah, that's a BIG 10-4!

 

[Sven]

Very impressive! A few notions:

-velocities would be very great, per above

-pictures of the pellets before and after (if they change) would be appreciated

-same for the guns used

and ideas - not to add to your workload:

-one might get interior volume readings by filling with liquid and measuring the water, before cutting. would require large enough piece of clay that medium is not pierced.

-maximum width of 'wound channel' would be interesting to record

-you could calibrate your medium by test firing with a known weapon and pellet before each testing, and compare to historical values.

mixing your own clay (is there such a thing as clay powder) would ensure consistent results if doing extensive testing, but i guess at that point why not just go to 'professional' media with all the accompanying preparation hassle.

Thanks again for this objective research!

-s

 

[P95Carry]

Hmmm ... all good points Sven .... but do remember, this ole fart played with this 21 years ago .. and having retrieved (at last) my neg librarty from outa the attic, found and scanned the stuff as a pure matter oif interest to presnt to ''the team''! I had no records unfortunately of velocities etc at the time .... or volumes of cavities etc this was purely visual.

I could right now actually test velocities .. well on the Webley pistol Webley rifle and HW35 .... the Hawk is long gone.! However, I do know for sure that springs will have ''tired'' and so maybe not quite as relevant as might have once been. If wanted tho I will chrono some pellets to see .. just ask.

Width of ''wound'' channel? ..... well - easiest here is to offer a piece of paper to screen image and mark it for width ... then check that thru 90º against the 1" marks I scratched on the longitudinal axis of sectioned clay.

I think if repeating this today, I would get similar material but plenty of it ... each time a test is carried out .. I'd do as before, and reform the clay once more into a new ''sausage'' ..... all pretty time consuming of course!

Oh and ....... the pellets ... well with many the pellet was still where it stopped .. never retrieved any to take pics of same but in general - they were just somewhat truncated.

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Quartus ....... velocities .. well, ref what I posted above on Sven's comments. All I remember was that in the cases of HW35 and Webley MkII, both were approximating 12 ft lbs of energy .. the pistol? Not at all sure. Mind you, I did do some tests a few months ago and I think posted here, not sure ... and calculated energies. The figures were seemingly pathetic ...... and yet we all know, a pellet can do damage.!!

The twin-spring Hawk was above 12 ft lbs i think but not maybe by much despite it seeming more ''gutsy''!

I think I still have some pellets left, even now - same as in tests ... except spitzers - which I abandoned!!

 

[Rogelio]

Very interesting....although human muscle is WAY harder than clay....(from personal experience) I must admit that until today I payed very little respect to air guns - I used to play war- and now looking at you photos I think that an unlucky shot can be very dangerous...

Thanks for the illustration, tomorrow I will be looking all over for a couple rats!

 

[P95Carry]

Rogelio ..... re your questions via PM ..........

First .. the spitzer pellets .........

''I know I have some somewhere'' - famous phrase .... I think it will take some while to track any down so .. here is a quick line dwg I did in CAD, just to show what I meant. Oh and . again, I ''know'' I have those old moulds ...... ''somewhere'' - but cannot locate right now.



Now this is basically a bullet (pellet) described as ''conical - conoidal'' ....... it is pointed and a plain base (not boat-tail). These pellets came outa the mould (.177 and .22 identical except for dia) - with a slight base ''rim'' ... very slight .... and usually also had a sprue tail that needed trimmed.

Problem was ... the only real bearing surface to pick up rifling was that rim and a very minute amount of back end . after that the dia decreases progressively as you go toward tip. This meant VERY poor maintainance of the pellet's long acis as it went down the barrel .. almost always exiting it seemed with some degree of yaw . and so very unstable and thus inaccurate too. Does that help any.


I could not find a specimen of all pellets used that long ago for tests but here are a few I do have around .. some are relevant to pics of clay tests.



OK, working here from right to left ......

''Superpoint'' in .22 cal .... made by Dynamit Nobel (RWS is the same)

''Hustler'' in .22 cal ...... made by a UK Co called ''Scalemead'' (not too different from the ''Silver Jet'' ones I used to use.)

A standard round nose ''waisted'' in .177 made IIRC by Webley.

A more recent .177 (7.9 grn) made by ''Copperhead'' .. I use these now . and they seem pretty good .. bought from WalMart.

Then the ''Lanes'' heavyweight referred to in tests . an excellent pellet . plenty of weight up front. Forget weight without weighing. Doubt I can get more of these . pity.

Finally .. ''just 4 fun''!! A RWS target wad cutter .177 pellet . with inverted small pistol primer stuck on and onto that a BB stuck. When this hits something solid ... it goes ''bang'' ... simple amusement!


That web site you gave the URL of (http://www.pyramydair.com/cgi-bin/pellet.pl?pellet_id=237 )....... those 15 grn heavyweight hollow points points ''look'' excellent .. but I have slight doubts as to whether the bearing surface may not be too much. Friction is the enemy of air weapon pellets and soaks up a lot of power. Spin is wanted but not drag - which is why ''waisted'' pellets so much the norm ... just driven by head and skirt.



I would tho be most interested to be able to evaluate them.

Hope this all assists.

 

[Sven]

Finally .. ''just 4 fun''!! A RWS target wad cutter .177 pellet . with inverted small pistol primer stuck on and onto that a BB stuck. When this hits something solid ... it goes ''bang'' ... simple amusement!

Coolest thing I've seen all day. WEEK, even.

 

[Rogelio]

Thanks for the info P95, I guess I will be doing some experiments myself!! Thanks again

 

[Rogelio]

I have been surfing the net for some info on how to "tune up" my old gun (I have a emotional relation to it, so buying a new one is out of the question!), and all I can figure is to get a scope, scope mounts and get a harder spring!!

Now, lots of folks use muzzle breaks on their .177's....what are those for?? Some guys claim to have homemade ones...good for anything but looks??

 

[P95Carry]

Bit of extra weight on barrel . so maybe a tad more stable but otherwise .... cosmetic!! Well, all but!

 

[sm]

Chris,
Very informative, thanks!

 

[444]

Beeman sells their muzzle brake basically to provide increased leverage for cocking and to cover up the front sight dovetail if you removed it for a scope (if I remember correctly).

Yesterday, I was at a friend house and he dug out an old Sheridan 5mm pellet rifle out of the shed. The stock finish was all gone, but it seemed to shoot OK. His father in law was there and said, "that really hits with some velocity". Ah, velocity; so I ran out to my truck and got out the chronograph. It seems that 10 pumps gives you about 650 fps. Father in law also got a bird.

 

[krept]

good stuff!

 

[Gray_Fallen]

Very very cool post.
I've never spent a lot on it, I.E. expensive guns, exotic pellets, etc. but have been an air-gunner for about 12 years (since I was 6! Learned to shoot airguns first) - always have had one or two around, still have a few - my favourite is probably my single shot Crossman pump pistol.
Never wanted to get hit with one, but its very cool to see these photos into the modeling clay. Great idea, an great tests - thanks for making the effort to share them with us.

Love the pellet with the primer on top - done similar myself before, always fun.