Ed, about your barrel specifications

Yes, that is good past 100 yards. The faster pellet is better for long range shooting.

Heres the proof… read Ed’s description

Having done numerous tests at various velocities with JSB 18,16,14 , and 13 grain pellets at close to 1300 Fps they all achieved MOA at 50 yds consistently on no/low wind days. You have to extend out to 100 to start seeing the pellets stabliity limits at certain velocities and its wind susceptibility factor.
The 16 is a very good substitute for the 18 if you shoot in very low to no wind areas. I believe a few indoor 100 meter tournaments have been won with Edgun and 16 pellet.
But if wind is a factor the 18 is far more stable pellet at longer ranges due to heavier head/ higher BC.

I can only confirm that. I have a standard LW barrel with the 450 mm twist rate in my Cricket and 16gr JSB pellets fly better than 18gr. MOA accuracy with 16gr JSBs at 50 yards in 10 shots at the speed of 912 FPS.

While I don’t know Eds exact barrel specifics I will give you my test results which others found similar and thus why the recommended 880-890 Fps range.
To date I have close to 140k pellets through my 22 ( still original orings FYI). Over 100k were with JSB 18s then after getting 25 cal I detuned the 22 cal to 20fpfe with JSB 13s for field target.
I shoot the 25 mostly nowadays since moving to Montana( hunting , appx 100k pellets ) as they don’t have local Field Target club here. I’ll reset the 22 back to using the 18s
But back to the story.
When I first got the 22 a few years ago I went through my OCD phase to optimize it. Broke it in well first .
Reg tuning, trigger polish,several hundred crony strings, etc.
I sorted the JSB 18s by head size into 4 groups (5.50, 5.51, 5.52, 5.53 ) and then subsorted by weight to within 1/10 grain of 18.13 grains.
I saw as much as 1 grain difference between lightest to heaviest pellet in numerous tins with .30 ish grain being normal variance from lightest to heaviest from 18.13 baseline standard.
Had a machinist friend make me a stainless bar with 4 precise holes to check head size quickly.
Each group chronied for tightest run then shot at 100 yards. Rinse and repeat.
Group after group after group tested at various speeds to find its destabilizing point.
The best fitting head diameter to barrel pellets could achieve MOA consistenlty at 1000 Fps.
The poorest fitting pellet group would achieve MOA consistently around 885 Fps.
My conclusion and recommendation after sorting and testing some 50k pellets with appx 12k making it into final 4 test groups is to set the rifle between 880-890 and shoot whatever JSB 18s are in the tin. You will get MOA groups ( 5 shots ) often and the majority will be just slightly bigger with an occasional baby flyer but Golf Ball groups at 100 will be normal.
If you are shooting competition and need the best accuracy by all means measure and weigh to find those 5.50-5.51 heads as close to 18.13 grains and set around 910-920 Fps. Buy 10k pellets and you’ll probably get 1500 that match your specs. Sell the rest and buy another batch to sort. Repeat. But if your a plinker/Hunter and can be happy with just a bit bigger than MOA with any JSB 18 from the tin then set to 880ish and have fun. Save yourself the time and expense of sorting.
If you want more power do what I did and get a 25 cal.
JSB 25s at 940 Fps gives MOA all day.

Like I said before (and posted the related head size test vid) the velocity has very little to do with the elliptical spiraling you sometimes see, it is more to to with the pellets head size it bore diameter.
Edguns barrels will still spit plenty of spiraling pellets especially if your bore is dirty/lead fouled or your pellets headsize doesn’t suit your bores diameter.
With a clean barrel I can shoot the 18gr Jsbs with my correct head size to 1080fps and it still wont spiral.

Ed’s school of thought for his design was to keep the 18gr pellet stable for longer even as it was slowing down out past 200 meters. He chose the 18gr pellet over the 16gr that he previously recommended for the Edgun R2’s as they were not only heavier but have a higher B.C meaning better ballistics for longer ranges and more suitable for a faster twist rate with its weight and balance/length compared to the 16gr that does best in the std L/W format barrel with the 1-17.5″ (1-450mm) twist rate.

BSA hammer forged barrels run a 1-16″ twist (1-407mm) and also have great accuracy results out past 100 meters. They have a very different rifling profile to a L/W and I have found them far less pellet fussy or head size fussy than the Edgun barrels which were really only designed for the 18.13gr .22 pellet and the 25.4gr JSB Kings in .25cal.

Heres some bed time reading for you..

http://www.network54.com/Forum/79537/thread/1277268728/Pellet+spin+at+200+yards

http://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=75937.0

Here a post from Ed I copied on his forum back when he first released the R3 referring to the barrel work he did with L/W and JSB pellets.
I have edited it slightly for Ed as it was originally written by him in Russian and our translator friend “Mrs Google Translate” is sometimes not the best when translating Russian to English 🙄
Something he doesnt mention here is that he tested for a year many different barrel twist rates, bore diameters and choke dimensions before he finally decided on the one he has in the R3-R3M. His goal was to not only have a PCP that would just shoot well at 100 meters but shoot well past 100 meters.

ED:
Over the last year we had a lot of research. Including the barrels, the benefit of our close cooperation with the German company Lothar Walther allows us to not just buy media gross barrels, and ordered their blanks, what we want. During the year we “played” with a twist, internal diameters, grooves, finally, the material stems. Made to certain requirements for the R3, LW will now send blanks they make to our specifications.
I thank Gerd Walter, who when our conversation on IWA 2010 exhibition, though perplexed about “Why do you need all these different twists, pressure and so on, because everything is already invented and tested?” However, he did what we requested, including all new tools for the manufacture of our barrels.
It is clear that this is not easy and not cheap, but they “give” the results of which are paid for.
It’s one thing just to buy media gross barrels and quite another to make barrels to specific order. The price of our Lothar Walther barrel is 100% higher than of the price of the gross manufactured pig.
Now we even have the thread, chamfer and crown made at the factory LW. Everything is done at the LW factory, including polished internal bore, on manufacturing premium blanks.

Regarding the inner surface of the barrel, I must admit that we had to pay a little attention to it, it was necessary to periodically clean the barrel, and should be.
The new R3 bores are significantly smoother putting more dependence on accuracy.
On the older std L/W bores it was more noticeable with a dirty barrel, with just a few hundred rounds you could scrape up a lot of lead out of the barrel, literally scales settled on a patch, and now, after two and a half thousand shots a patch comes out slightly darkened, but scales of lead is out of the question.

The old gross manufactured barrel bore “cross cut”. Note the rough chatter grooves
and rough dragged un-polished steel from the older tooling of the manufacturing process ..

The new R3 Spec custom L/W barrel cross cut. It is easy to see where the long range accuracy begins…

This gives the user what he needs most – stability result of fire.
In addition, we have moved on to the threading the barrel to the breach, which in a positive way affected the bore, the bore deformed less than it was before. The threaded breach end area of the bore is opened up for the bolt probe and pellet leaving the entire length of the bore unaffected by clamping.
The Matador R 2.5 barrel could be clamped up too tight making a “choking” effect in two places where the barrel mounts clamp up in the centre section of the barrel.
Speaking of barrels and shooting results, it would be wrong to ignore the important question of how to weaponize the R3.
For today, in my opinion, only JSB pellets provide the necessary accuracy and stability of our shooting. Of course some people may say that I am speaking only for the reason that I have the exclusive rights to sell JSB pellets in Russia, but if you approach the situation from the other side – what I had to do to receive this exclusive right, why would I push this product if I was not sure about the quality of products JSB? I work with JSB pellets more than five years, I know well the business owners in the Czech Republic, I have testing with their bullets not just a business relationship, we are friends. And that’s the reason that I know these bullets, I know how they are made, I know people who make them, I know their attitude to what they do. Therefore, all of the experiments we carried out on my barrels were with these pellets and I set up the products under these pellets.