Airgun Pellet Flight

Velocity - Accuracy – Value. And the search for efficiency via good
engineering.

Note: The subject matter here concerns reality. Our intense

commitment to marketing has distorted American law into politics -
that concentrates upon illusion, and momentary opinions instead.
Basically, attempting to add “whistles and bells” in the hope of
politicizing natural laws, is just another futile attempt to lure
humans to act like lemmings i.e. leaping into the sea of BS. Again we
have another attempt to point the finger at a democratic majority
demanding the insanity of overruling engineers in order to make them
build dangerous automobiles (for example), and then patch the danger
with somewhat successful kludges to raise things to the next level of
more engineered kludges; without ever really fixing the basic problem
of a public; that lives for excessively brainwashed SPEED!

Velocity - Accuracy - Value

Some things to look for in an airgun.

By Tom Gaylord
exclusively for PyramydAir.com. © Copyright 2003 All Rights Reserved

VELOCITY AND PELLETS

It seems fantastic that an air rifle can launch a pellet faster than
1,200 feet per second (f.p.s.), but some powerful rifles can.
However, just because it's possible to do it doesn't mean that it's
also desirable. In fact, it isn't. To understand why, you must
understand how a modern pellet works.

Diabolos

The classic diabolo pellet has a pinched waist and a hollow skirt.
The shape of the nose can be round, pointed, flat or anything else.
The skirt can be thick or thin - long or short. All these variables
affect the flight of the pellet somewhat, but the basic diabolo shape
is what affects it the most. These .22-caliber Benjamin-Sheridan
pellets are very similar to Crosman's Premier design.
Most top-quality pellets are made with a pinched waist - a so-
called wasp waist. The correct term for this design is diabolo. A
diabolo pellet is stabilized (prevented from tumbling) by the high
air drag on its tail. A hollow skirt plus the pinched waist work
together to produce this drag, plus a forward weight bias keeps the
nose pointed in the right direction. Where a conventional rifle
stabilizes the bullet by spinning it rapidly, a diabolo pellet will
even be reasonably accurate in a smoothbore gun. It works exactly
like badminton "birdie" and for the same reason - a high-drag skirt.
Most modern pellet rifles and pistols are rifled which does cause the
pellet to spin on its axis in flight, but the rate of spin is too
slow to stabilize the pellet by itself. When the pellet leaves the
muzzle it starts slowing down very rapidly. It will lose more than
half its muzzle velocity within the first 100 yards of flight. If the
pellet was shot at a speed above the sound barrier, it will also be
destabilized by passing through the sonic pressure wave it created.
The sound barrier varies, but it usually remains near 1,100 f.p.s. at
sea level on a normal day. When a pellet goes faster than the sound
barrier it makes a sharp crack, which is the "breaking" of the
barrier. It will be less accurate than if it were shot from the same
gun at 900 f.p.s. or less, where the sound barrier is not a problem.
While 900 f.p.s. is quite a bit below 1,100 f.p.s., there is great
turbulence whenever the sonic barrier is approached. For this reason,
knowledgeable shooters never allow their pellet rifles to shoot much
faster than 900 f.p.s. If they buy one of the supermagnums that do
shoot much faster, they use the heaviest pellets they can find to get
the muzzle velocity back down.

Match King Boat Tail

Missiles that travel faster than the speed of sound slow down
much faster than missiles going slower than the speed of sound. To
retain their velocity, supersonic missiles must be very aerodynamic,
while slower missiles are less aerodynamic.

On the low end of the scale, Olympic target airguns seldom shoot
pellets as fast as 600 f.p.s., yet they will outshoot almost any
other pellet gun at short ranges. The target air pistols are nearly
as fast as the target rifles - ranging from 450 f.p.s. to 580 f.p.s.
Both target rifles and pistols shoot wadcutter pellets with flat
noses that cut perfect holes in target paper. Wadcutters are the
least aerodynamic pellets on the market, but since the target guns
don't shoot very fast, it doesn't matter. Most hunters want a rifle
that will shoot a large heavy pellet accurately at 750 to 900 f.p.s.
Most general shooters - the so-called plinkers - want to shoot at 600
to 900 f.p.s. with a rifle and 350 to 550 f.p.s. with a pistol. High
velocity does not mean high quality or accuracy. If fact, it might
mean just the opposite. The diabolo pellet is designed to give the
greatest accuracy at speeds well below the sound barrier, so select
your airguns accordingly.
The boattail pointed bullet is designed for supersonic flight at all
times. This is a Sierra MatchKing, which is one of the top target
bullets in the world. It is made of a copper jacket around a lead
core with a tiny opening in the point. They come in all popular
calibers, but this .30 caliber 168-grain bullet is what made the line
famous. It's used for long-range target shooting, primarily.

WHAT ABOUT SOLID PELLETS?

Okay - if hollow-tail wasp-waisted pellets aren't accurate above the

sound barrier, what about solid lead "pellets?" Several brands of
these interesting "pellets" are now available, but do they give the
accuracy you require? Another name for these solid pellets is
bullets, because that's exactly what they are. So what works for
bullets also works for solid pellets.

These are both .22-caliber pellets. The 30-grain pellet on the left
is a solid lead pellet from PelletMan. The lack of a hollow skirt and
a wasp waist means this pellet has to spin faster to stabilize in
flight. Than means it must be shot faster than a normal pellet. It
has a cupped base, plus there is a larger-diameter driving band
around the base to take the rifling and seal the bore. The Crosman
Premier diabolo on the right weighs 14.3 grains.
As it turns out, .22 long rifle ammunition, which fires a 40-
grain lead bullet, is ALSO less accurate if the bullet goes
supersonic. Why? Because when it is just barely supersonic, as most .
22 LR high-speed ammo is, the bullet gets tossed around by its own
sonic wave. To get around this, a bullet has to be extremely
streamlined and it needs to be shot at several times the speed of
sound. So, if you can get your solid pellets out the muzzle at 1,400
f.p.s. and faster, there may be an advantage. Less than that and you
are tossing away accuracy. That's why all .22 rimfire target ammo is
subsonic. Learn from the target shooters and stay well under the
sound barrier. If you do shoot solid pellets, remember that they must
go faster to stabilize because they don't have the high drag of the
hollow tail. The spin imparted by the rifling must stabilize them.

BUT DOESN'T A FASTER PELLET DROP LESS ON ITS WAY TO THE TARGET?

Yes, it does. It also wanders all over the place instead of tracking
along an accurate path. So you can either hit your target with the
slower pellet or you can miss it with a faster pellet that doesn't
drop as much - it's your choice. Back in the late 1800s, men shot at
1,000 yards and even out to one mile with bullets that barely went
supersonic, if at all. They had to judge the range more than shooters
do today, but their rifles were very accurate. The bullet that hits
the target does more damage than the one that misses at high
velocity.
velocity for only a few yards makes no difference. The damage was
done. The extreme buffeting caused when the pellet reaches and passes
transonic speed, then slows back down and goes through it again is
more than enough to destabilize it and cause groups to open.
Sales go crazy!
However, the other side of the coin is that high velocity sells guns.
A company that advertises their gun shoots 1,000fps and higher
attracts lots of attention and, yes, sales. In fact, so much
attention has been given to 1,000fps that it is now seen as the
marketing kiss of death to advertise anything less. Some companies
have gone to great lengths to tout ever-higher velocities without a
thought being given to accuracy. Special lightweight, lead-free
pellets are now selling well partly because of the velocity boost
they give to the guns that shoot them. Again purchasing a quality
airgun that is light for hunting, and quick position shooting,
without a lot of paraphernalia, or concern for objects that are 200
yards away. One that cocks easily so that teaching younger siblings
the true adventure of shooting sports, instead of ego blossoming.
This Diana 25 smoothbore was made in World War II.

Today’s blog falls under the heading, “It’s not always a good idea to try everything.” Back when we
were exploring the Diana 25 smoothbore airgun, we saw how incredibly accurate it was with certain
pellets at 10 meters.

This 10-shot group of JSB Exact RS pellets was shot at 10 meters. The extreme spread measures just 
0.337 inches between centers! It made us all wonder just how accurate a smoothbore pellet gun can
be.
When I backed up to 25 yards, however, the groups opened up to between 2.5 and 3+ inches for the
same pellet. Obviously, the pellet needs to be stabilized by both the high drag of its diabolo shape and
by the spin introduced by rifling. Drag, alone, is not enough to stabilize the pellet at ranges beyond 20
yards. [My mechanical limit for humane kills, and was true in archery distances over 25 yards needing
helical pitch for vanes. Apparently flight is affected by aerodynamic bubble theory that is broken up by
changing surfaces.]