Does pellet sorting help?

Hi Firecracker, Great blog, Im surprised I haven’t stumbled across it before..
You a travelling a road I have just been down with my R3.. unstable pellets.
When my gun first arrived I tuned it to 930 because that was the word on the street.. it shot well, very well.. I didnt see one unstable pellet at all, I think I remember having a conversation with Ted (Teds holdover) about its superior barrel over his R2.5..
Then something changed.. at 100y my groups were no longer ragged holes, the pellets had some major cork screw problems. I have not changed a thing other than pellets, the barrel is always kept clean and my velocity always stayed set to 930fps. However my pellets supply did change, after shooting the first 2500 JSB 18.1 red label tins I ordered more and bought a new batch.. this is when things went bad..
This is when I found out the Spiralling pellets are directly related to head size of the pellets. I measured the older batch of JSBs at 5.50mm to 5.51mm and the new batch was 5.52mm – 5.53mm and my R3 hates them! 100% of these pellets are unstable at 930fps through my barrel.
I wound my speed down as far as 800fps and they were still unstable, not as bad as at 930fps but about 2 in 5 shots.
I purchase a 5.50 head sizing die and trailed the new batch pellets through that but that made no difference, It seems that it just took the sharp edge of the head and made even more surface area to contact my bore.. it also sized the skirts to 5.50mm which I see no advantage in doing..
I then ordered a box of 30 tins of Edgun 18.1gr pellets from the factory that I found measured 5.52mm – 5.53mm and my gun hates them too.
This began the search for smaller head sized pellets. After a good ring around session I picked up 5 tins of the old silver tin 18.1 gr JSBs that measured 5.48mm!
To my surprise my perfect accuracy has returned and no more spiralling pellets at 930fps! In fact I have now dropped my velocity to 920fps for a slightly better chrony string and also the smaller head sized pellets upped my velocity to over 950fps! (still stable though).

I know Ed says 18.1gr 5.52mm pellets are the best for his guns but I have found this isnt the case with my gun and yours looks to be similar. My bore prefers a smaller head size, 5.48mm to 5.50mm and for some reason this cant be achieved by resizing larger pellets.

I have just purchased more boxes of Edgun 18.1gr pellets all with different batch numbers. ( I retail theses pellets here in NZ) 1 box out of the lot measured 5.50mm so I have a good supply of the diet my gun likes now and spiralling pellets are nothing but a bad memory..
Unfortunately JSB dont offer different head sizes in the 18.1gr pellet, they offer a 5.50mm 5.51mm 5.52mm and 5.53mm in the 15.89gr range and test pellet tins but only a 5.52mm in the 18.1gr pellet however the batches do vary.

So yes slowing down your velocity with a tighter fit pellet can help but there is no need to slow them down if you have the correct head sized for your bore. Ed has custom L/W barrels made with a custom twist rate and bore size (like all barrels I’m sure there is std factory variance) made especially for the 18.1gr pellet At 900-930fps so there is no need to alter that. He has done years of testing to come up with that combo and it works well as long as you find the correct head size to suit your bore. Unfortunately until JSB offer multiple head size options for that pellet weight we are stuck playing lucky dip with various batches 😕

hmmm it doesn’t appear to have as much damage as some of the others. 😯 Is that why you picked it?

Second from left. 😉