has anyone seen the new hybrid slug?
I watched a video from Airgun-101 which featured the slug. It’s a hollow-point with said BC of 0.08. Lots of shooting in the video. bit expensive at $15.00 per 100 slugs. I don’t think I should post a link here, so I’ll simply say it’s good to see this new twist for the community. I wonder if my Short can handle it.
darryl
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Get it all leaded up maybe it’ll shoot better fingers crossed lol!
So how bad could it be?
before and after photos
hello miksatx,
Sorry to be late in responding. My team lost again today, going 1~13 so far (go Bengals!! I don’t care where, just go!)
Yes, the H&Ns are longer than the NSA. The H&Ns weren’t difficult pushing through the choke at all. I would not describe the effort as “fairly hard”, but one could tell that the slug’s solid base had far less give to it like the much softer skirt on the AA pellet. It’s not an issue, or wasn’t.
Sadly, a lot has changed as of a few hours ago. JB Bore Paste is now the bane of my existence. I played with trying to find a happy medium between eliminating the choke’s feathering of the trailing edges of the pellet’s rifling marks (on the head and skirt) while still leaving deep enough rifling on the H&N slugs to impart that spin which produced that tiny 5-shot hole in my short little range in my basement. Consider this: My scope can’t focus less than ten meters,so I what shooting at a little blur.
Now? Well the feathering is gone from the pellets. But so are the little 5-shot hole groups. The slug is almost unrestricted going through the choke now, with the slightest of rifling marks showing. I probably should have stopped at 10 strokes, instead of going for 50. 🙁 Learn from me kids. All things in moderation. From now on that’s me.
Finally, it’s good to have a plan-B. If miksatx’s barrel can shoot the slugs, I’ll be made whole again. If not, then I guess I’ll go fish.
Meanwhile, I’ve got some Nielsen .2175 ( I measured .218) slugs for sale. Only a few shy of 400 in the bag.
thanks all,
Darryl
Ran out of .22 slugs. Just cast up a couple hundred hpbt. Setting up my resizer. My AirMax Dominator likes .217.
So are the H&N 21 longer then the NSA 17.5? How hard do the 21 push through the choke? If their still fairly hard I’d lap it abit more.
iride,
I remember Brian’s video where he demonstrated the Mutant Short with the Listone barrel. You bought a real shooter, for sure. Remember Endo? He tried several Listone barrels sent to him for evaluation. The company’s barrels were all over the place, iirc. Finally new development boss axed the effort (to market it’s barrels in the U.S.). Also, iirc, those barrels that did make here were individually tested to ensure their accuracy before being sold. That info in on the forum somewhere.
If your barrel is unchoked, it might be able to shoot slugs. If you’re shooting 5.51 mm pellets the H&N 21 grain slugsI’ve tried might be worth a spin for you, if you’re interested.
Darryl
A new twist. I finally got around to shoving pellets and slugs through the barrel. The pellet resistance was as I had already known, not much effort to get it going, but the choke was clearly defined by the increased effort (3x?). The H&N was a bit of a surprise in that I’d imagined shoving it was going to be easy due to it’s size and close in accuracy. But that was not the case. It took a little more effort to get going than the pellet. but it went through the choke without much trouble, but I also could clearly tell when it hit the choke. The Nielsen was an absolute no-go. I tried to gently tap it to get it going, but reversed it out, then tried it again. I tapped it with a bit more force, but quickly became concerned it would become stuck and not go beyond the breech. So I aborted the effort. The Nielsen at 5.55mm is just too large for my barrel. The composition of the lead must be harder than that of the pellet,as there seemed to be no “give” in the material, even to get it started. Still there was a curious “L” shape to the initial bite of the rifling into the Nielsen. When I looked at the H&N (all under my 22x eye loupe) the rifling looked normal, as I expected it would. Thank goodness the 24 fpe of the Short was enough to push the Nielsen along and out the barrel. Even the H&N slug showed mild feathering; not as badly as the pellet, but I could see it.
So, if the H&N shoots so well, I figure the barrel could use another lapping, just to make it’s new “food” easier to digest.
Opinions, anyone?
thank you,
Darryl
ps, kris, yes, friction!!
kris,
I can’t speak to friction with any authority, but only from my own perspective. I’ve mentioned here that the AA 18 pellet shows feathering on the trailing edge of the rifling marks (in both the head and the skirt). Our friend Endo has shared images of JSB 16 grain pellets (iirc) with no such feathering marks. Same barrel maker, different barrels (both Petr specials). So lots of variables there. Yet, my barrel prefers the AA heavy pellet over the JSB Jumbo-Heavy for best accuracy, even though the barrel has that “very tight” choke. So I’ve been guessing that the choke and the pellet combine for a high degree of friction along with very good accuracy Until I started dickin’ around the the barrel. Now, suddenly the AAs don’t shoot so great (what happened?!) and these new H&Ns seem to show a newly preferred pellet. Look a gift-slug in the mouth? Heck yes! Testing to follow, but given my measurements in an above post, I ask “WWDD?” 😀 Probably look at the rifling on the slug,and measuring the slug diameter, then maybe trying a slightly smaller diameter if it’s offered. YMMV. Maybe you can get by with a smaller diameter slug? I’m not being presumptuous, since I don’t know what slugs you’re shooting, so here’s a link to the Nielsen .25-caliber page 9maybe you’ll find a sampler there to try out): https://nielsenspecialtyammo.com/collections/25-cal
Please keep us posted if anything changes.
Darryl
In my .25 I found that due to friction slugs give 5fpe less than similar weight pellets.
So there will be lot of friction
At least these seem to be light in .22
I would not be looking at the pellet skirt but the head diameter.
I just measured the skirts, base of the pellets and slugs. I measured each one several times on a flat surface where I could lay my caliper on a flat surface and let the jaw close gently on the pellet/slug:
AA 18 grain pellet: 5.73 mm / 0.225″
Nielsen slug: 5.55 mm / 0.218″ (close to the 0.2175″ stated on Nielsen’s website).
H&N slug: 5.51 mm / 0.217″ (as stated on the specs)
If anything, I see that the barrel prefers the smaller-diameter slug’s size of 5.51 mm. Is there less choke friction? I thik my next step is to remove the barrel and shove the two slugs through it so I can examine the rifling marks left on each. I guess the H&N slug will show the slightest, more shallow rifling marks. I also need to shoot a few across the chronograph, and test for distance next (weather permitting).
miksatx (and everyone),
I’m sorry I forgot to mention my basement distance. It’s just shy of 30 feet, or a couple feet shy of 10 meters. One thing I’ve found out through the years by shooting down there is that the smaller the groups are down there, the better the chance the groups will be of outside at 30 yards. It’s not 100% guaranteed, ever. So while the H&N groups look very promising (the most promising of the 3). Only real-world distances will tell. For me that’s 30 yards. For those who have longer distances available (and I admire you for that), add a few grains of salt to what I say here.
What’s that old say? ” In God we trust; all others bring data”. Try a tin, or bag, of slugs and give them a spin in your Mutant. It’s too cold and wet here to do any shooting for discovery purposes. I’ll measure the base of these new slugs and report back here
miksatx, thanks for the ask. I was thinking to add the distance, but got OCD’d by the other stuff I wanted to pass on. 🙂
OCDarryl 😀
PS: you can tell by how the Nielsen slug, and the AA pellets are grouping that the barrel still needs some additional work. I hope I haven’t screwed it up. IN the past, the AAs grouped like the H&Ns are performing, so maybe I already screwed it up, and don’t realize it yet. That the H&Ns shoot good from the same barrel says something, but I don’t know what.
What distance you shooting?in the above photos. Looks like they are shooting pretty dang good.
The new H&Ns arrived today. A short view:
1-they are lightly lubricated,and loaded into the breech with as little effort as the AA pellets
2-They seem more stable in the magazine in spite of the lubrication
3-Even with a sick barrel, they shot ok. You be the judge.
4-I’m still basing power and fps using the fpe measured from the 18 grain Air Arms pellets. I think it’s wrong and I can hardly wait to get some rounds across the chronograph, but meanwhile, these are (said to be) flying at 721 fps.
NOt sure when I’ll get at this again, but I’m glad I bought these slugs if only to satisfy an itch. Remeber I’m using Petr’s mystery barrel from the Czech Republic (not the CZ barrel maker we all know and love, but a different company over there).
have a great weekend everyone,
Darryl
The slugs arrived today. 17.5 grain, and shorter than the AA 18 grain pellets I shoot in the Short. They are a snug fit in the breech when cocking the gun, but if you tilt the magazine backwards the slugs are liable to fallout (because there is no waist for the o-rings to tightly grab like they grab the waists of the diabolo pellets. That snug fit requires a bit more effort, like three times more. It caught meoff guard at first,but I got used to the effort quickly enough. Sorry I didn’t check the retirement, but Nielsen’s site says it’s .2175 (5.52(45) mm. I suppose it’s the lack of a skirt compared to the skirted pellets so no give when you shove it in.
In shooting the slugs indoors, (in my basement), I noted a similar grouping pattern to the AA pellets. It’s my barrel, which is in need of seasoning at least, since I just did the JB bore paste thing. We’ll see. I have a CZ barrel coming next week, thank you miksatx.
So I’m down to 394 slugs left. According to PA’s calculator, these slugs are moving at 791 fps/24.3 fpe, based on the same fpe for the 18 grain AA pellets (780 fps). Room to grow. Speed rectifies! 😀
Darryl
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miksatx, I’ll run some more pellets through it. Maybe the pellet accuracy will come back, after leading it up a b it. The choke is light now and leaves a light impression on the slugs. More definition of the rifling on the pellets. Plan-B is what I’m looking to now. You know the first thing I’ll do is to shove an H&N slug through it (after I run a patch through it).
Darryl