Looking for some .22 testers…

Gents,

I’ve been working on .22 heavies for a while now. As most of you know (I did post it afterall), the first attempt at duplicating the .25s in .22 did not work out well. The slugs produced did not size well and shot worse.

I wasn’t all that happy about that but i also wasn’t all that motivated to work on .22s as they promise to be a never ending pain in the …

Nonetheless, having spent hundreds of dollars on a custom mold and sizing dies, I figured one more shot was warranted. I asked Gary to shave the mold about .020 to alter the slug profile and bases as well as make the shorts easier to load and fire from the magazine guns. He also went through every element of the molds and handles making sure everything was square and tight.

The result seems to have turned out well. Timmy has cast and sized (and Dad has cleaned and examined) a test run of slugs that looks promising.

What we need now, before we put these up for general sale and permanently affix the family name to them is some proper testing. If they work well, they become product; if not, the mold goes into deep storage and the .22 project is shelved.

Now, before I go further, I should explain some of the issues I’ve had with other slugs and testing: I have sent literally hundreds of dollars worth of slugs out for test. I’ve sent everything from .22s to .50s out to a great number of folks who have promised to report back in great detail on the performance of the slugs. Sadly, the promises have rarely been kept. Some of the slugs that were no good returned comments to that affect with little detail and some of the slugs that were great returned similar but positive comments that were still of little value. Unfortunately, most of the testers never replied at all! Now don’t try to to guess who they are because most of them are regulars at other forums but the fact is that most of the guys that want to test slugs and be known as authorities on the subject feel no need to ever complete a report. I’ve come across this too many times to repeat the process again. It takes a lot of effort to come up with a new slug and to give them away for free and never hear back from a volunteer tester is frustrating.

I’ve been thinking about why the above is so and have come up with a thought: the guys that never reply or send a one sentence response don’t have any skin in the game. They have the slugs and they have no bill to pay and nothing to lose other than pissing me off. If they don’t actually shoot the slugs for a year, it doesn’t matter to them. If they never reply, it doesn’t matter. In at least one case, it doesn’t matter if I provide them with a couple months worth of shooting, they still won’t reply!

Not all of my testers have been vague or no replies (some have been great), but enough have that I figured I’d better change my way of getting test results.

Here’s my new plan: The volunteer testers will pay the retail price and shipping for the slugs, if they provide a proper test report, I’ll refund the money. I’m the judge of what’s a proper test report but I’ll provide that criteria here. I figure that having money on the line means the tester has some “skin” in the game. Blowing me off is also blowing off money.\
Does that make sense? Seems reasonable to me. Take the test slugs and not do a test and you just became a customer of an untested product. Take the test slugs and return the promised report and you got some free slugs…good slugs or not.

So what am I looking for? I need testers for 2 classes of .22 slugs: 30gr slugs that fit in the magazine guns that can’t take the longer heavy pellets (there are heavier .22 pellets than our new slugs but they are too long for Rapids and other “magazine” guns) and 45 and 52 gr slugs for the power shooter. The 45 and 52 are made expressly for the Condor and modified Talon shooters who make big power and are overdriving the smaller pellets.

I need a few testers that can do controlled tests for accuracy and velocity. The testers have to have a chronograph so I know the speed the slugs were shot at and they have to have a camera to record their groups at a known range. I’m looking for an actual test report!

The testers will buy the test sample and when they send me the test report I’ll refund the purchase price and the shipping they paid. That means they will have provided a test report for the cost of shipping them the slugs. They will have time and effort in the game and I will have paid for the costs of production and transport. Oh, they will have got to do some shooting too! Seems fair to me!

So, what is the subject of the test? Here they are, better than before I think!:

Slugs at .218

Slugs at .217

Slug ready to ship

BTW, I know these are not all perfect slugs. I deliberately decided to let some flawed slugs pass as we will never be perfect and I’m looking for repeatable results. The slugs in the pictures are now in the bags. I’m aware that some of the slugs have little defects. If the slugs spray all over, it’s not because of the tiny defects, if they all group in one hole , the defects don’t matter. If they do well but have a couple fliers now and then, we’ll work on the defects!