.22 Predator vs. .22 Crow Magnum vs. .22 Kodiak

Our first winter storm is coming in, the wind is blowing like hell and I can’t go out hunting or even shoot paper so I thought I would do a very un-scientific penetration test of my three favorite .22 pellets; Kodiaks, Crow Magnums and Predators. I didn’t use my calipers to measure for pellet expansion or wound channel width, nor did I measure penetration. Completely “seat-of-the-pants”.

I shot them into good ol’ GB brand duct seal placed at +1′-0″ from the muzzle (behind closed doors in my office with loud music playing to avoid anymore “What are you, 15?” looks from my wife than I already get.) The pellets where shot out of my Condor with it’s 12″ barrel installed (my favorite combo) with the PW set at 10-4. It shoots kodiaks at around 850 fps in this configuration.

Here are the entrance holes for the pellets. Again, measured only by my calibrated eyeball the Crow Magnums look like they start to expand almost immediately upon initial impact.

Close as I got to a penetration test. I expected the Kodiak to penetrate as well as it did, but I was surprised to see that the Crow Magnum almost matched it. If I had to guess, it was within 1/16 of the Kodiak! The Predator on the other hand, even with it’s “ballistic cone” dissapointed me in it’s penetration.

The Kodiak again did what I expected it to do, it kept it’s basic shape with little expansion. The Predator “ate” it’s ballistic cone almost entirely and it’s skirt expanded out to the point of seperating in to two pieces. The Crow Magnum pretty much duplicated the mechanics of the Predator with it’s skirt expanding into a seperate piece but what I found the most interesting with it was that the skirt actually buried itself deeper into the duct seal than the main body of the pellet! The Crow Magnum also expanded not only to a larger size than the Predator, but also in a more even and circular manor.

I know my Condor, with either the 12″ or 24″ barrel absolutely LOVES the Kodiaks. It groups the best with this pellet (especially out past 75+ yds.) and obviously carries the most energy past 50-60 yds. with it as well. I also know that on smaller game, even with the 12″ barrel it shoots through even rabbits at about the same yardage, leaving some energy wasted and not used to neatly dispatch my quarry. On smaller birds and such at shorter ranges around 30-40 yards the Crow Magnums actually remove large chunks of plummage with hunks of flesh still attached to them (or actually push feathers from the impact side out of the exit hole!).

The Predator’s only benefit in my actual field use of them is a little tighter group then the Crow Magnums produce out to around and little past 50 yds. or so. I have used them in my R1 from close to the time that they became available as it seemed to group better with them than it did with Crow magnums. I did at one time in the past spend hours at night filling the tops of Crow Magnums with parafin wax and then razoring them flush with the rim of the pellet in an attempt extract better groups from them from my R1. I seem to remember them shooting marginally better at best if at all, and haven’t tried that yet for comparison in my Condor.

Thoughts I took from away from my little un-scientific experiment as follows;

1. The Crow Magnum impressed me with it’s penetration as well as it’s expected expansion. My guess is that it outperforms the Predator in penetration due to it’s larger and more robust head. The rim forming it’s hollow point appears much thicker than that of the Predator (again, I did not mic. it).

2. I always wondered where the ballistic cone on the Predator went! I think that on any quarry with any kind of mass the cone most likely gets pushed into the head of the pellet, which then collapses around it, as seen here. I have seen it seperate on smaller, less dense game like birds. I would guess it does this from the pellet decelerating quicker due to it’s larger circumference and dished shape than the sharp plastic tip while traveling through feathers, light muscle, etc.

3. Larger groups not withstanding, Crow Magnums shoot “Minute of Rabbit” out of my Condor to around 60 yds. and I need to start shooting them more! The POI is pretty damn close to that of the Kodiak at such close yardages too. If I could take all of the real world variables out of rabbit hunting I would shoot Crow Magnums out to 60 yds. and Kodiaks past that. Kind of like I used to do for quail hunting with my Browning sporting clays 12 ga.-I would load the chamber with a low-brass #8 followed by another and then two high-brass #7’s -two large pattern mild shots for the first bust of covey when the birds and shots are close and two more for the tight-holding late flyers off to the sides presenting longer shots. I usually limited out most days and if not, it was because of my shooting and not my equiptment. With a single shot like the Condor, trying to applie the same taylored shot-to-shot approach is impossible to do.

4. When the wind is beyond what I feel a pellet can be shot accurately in……..I get pretty damn desparate to shoot!