Market research regarding Barnes heavy weight slugs for .22s
We at Surefire Casting are considering bringing to market some heavy slugs for the .22 airgun. We’ve been kicking some ideas around with Gary Barnes regarding what is feasible and worthwhile to pursue. What we’re thinking of is a slug that would be in the 50gr range for powerful .22s that have maxed out what they can get out of the commercially available pellet designs. We don’t have the time or resources available to investigate every .22 out there to see what it likes best or can handle so we’re asking for some help.
We would like to know what you think the optimum mass would be for a heavy slug. Should we look at 50gr as the target weight or would a 55-60gr slug be better? Is .218 the best diameter to size to? We understand that most of you will be using choked barrels so the slug will have to be designed to cope with that. Still, there might be some size that works better than others.
How about those of you with guns that use a magazine: what is the longest slug that your gun can load in the magazine without jamming? Would a “power round” that has to be single loaded be worthwhile?
Is a heavy weight slug something you would actually consider worth paying a premium for? Casting slugs by hand is not the way to compete with big companies that can use machines to make thousands of slugs while we wait for the lead pot to get hot! Is this even worth it? Would you pay $15 per 100 to get heavy slugs for your .22 airgun?
We have had pretty good luck with our .25 slugs and have lots of very satisfied customers. We’ve also had a bunch of calls for us to make a .22 version. We’re not sure given the limited volume if it is worth pursuing. If we go ahead with the .22 model, we’d like to make sure it fits as many of the powerhouse .22’s out there as possible.
If you have a powerful .22 that shoots the available pellets at or near the maximum velocity they deliver good accuracy, please chime in with your opinions or observations.
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ok sounds good, for now i guess ill buy a .25 bbl until something heavier comes out
Jerry:
If you guys ever go thru with this, I’ll have to test them for ya. 😉
Crowpopper,
Thanks for your interest in the .22 slug program. Right now we have decided to put this effort on hold. While we have several volunteers to test the slugs there has been little interest overall. Our best sense of the market right now is that actual sales would not justify the time and materials required to develop and market a quality product.
If we decide to proceed at a future date, you’ll hear about it here first.
any more info on relese of these things? i have a nice test platform if ya need someone to try em out 😈
Well, being a RAPID owner but, in .25, the problem with RAPIDS is that they have a MAGAZINE. That magazine can only fit and cycle pellets/slugs that are only so long. Hell, you can’t even load .22 predators in the magazine without it jamming. So when you guys are talking about 30+ grain .22 pellets/slugs, you loose interest with the rapid guys because of slug fitment.
Then they would also have to MEGA TUNE there Rapids to shoot the HEAVIER slugs.
Thanks for the update Jerry, I didn’t expect them to be ready to ship to me just yet, but you only have one more week to get them ready! 😛
on a more serious note, I can understand about the “still deciding” aspect but I think as you say alot of lurkers will poke their head up as they become available and a few reviews are posted, I know awhile back myself and a cupel others were messaging back and forth trying to find something heaver or in an air bullet that would fit and shoot well through our barrels, we could not come up with anything that worked well and I have not seen any of them chime in here but I’m sure they want some as well.
maybe you should talk Gary into building a .22 just to play with, there might be a nich in the market for that as well as a test platform for the new slugs you guys are going to be making 😉
keep us posted, and defanently count me in for the beta faze.
and to all you lerkers….. if you may be interested is some of these… Stand up and be counted!
Jerry, does anybody know or have a good idea of how many more .22 Cal. Condors their are than .25 Cal.?
ill be a volunteer i dont have my condor yet but am ordering it at end of month
keep me in mind i have a few problem racoons and feral cats to rid the neighborhood of and a nice heavy .22 will be nice
josh
gtbj,
I think we have a good handle on the dimensions of the slug and Gary might even have the shape figured out in his head. Don’t expect anything too quick though.
One thing we’re still trying to figure out is if the effort is worth it. My boys would surely like to make the slugs and earn some coin but this project would take time away from Barnes guns getting built. Not a ton of time mind you but significant time and time is precious for all of us! The .22 slugs would not service any Barnes guns and thus for Gary this project is really one that builds some name recognition and product awareness. Similar to the .25 project except that he builds .25s also so the .25 slugs will service his high performance guns.
One thing that is certain is that there won’t be a Barnes slug marketed that doesn’t perform as advertised. Just like the .25s, there might be requirements such as minimum power or barrel length but if it goes to market, it will be a quality product. It takes a lot of work to design the slug, cut the cherry, cut the molds, do the field testing and then repeat the process if the first try wasn’t good enough. That’s a lot of work.
So, is it worth it? Will enough people buy Barnes slugs to justify the effort? I know that most of the customers will be lurkers on these forums and not reveal themselves until the product is out there for sale. That is what happened with the .25s (except for the folks that were spring loaded to crap on them before they had results!). We have a lot of folks that are repeat customers now but have never posted anything about anything including the slugs (even though I have had loads of emails from satisfied customers). With the .22 project we’ve given a bit more notice though and asked for input and the response has been pretty weak. That might be because lots of folks prefer to lurk until they have a need for help, or it might be because there just isn’t much demand for an expensive, premium heavy slug for high power .22 air rifles. It might just be that shooting Kodiaks accurately at high speed is as far as people want to go and paying for the next step in projectiles is just not of interest to them. (It could just be that folks don’t think they have any valid input but this site beyond all others certainly encourages invalid input/opinions!) We can’t know that answer so going forward with the project is at our risk. I say “our” but I really mean at Gary’s risk as he will be doing almost all the work!
We’re still kicking it around at this point. Maybe a letter writing campaign is in order? 😆
If we do go forward, we’ll be needing a couple testers besides ourselves. Any volunteers?
any news Jerry?????
I’m frothing at the mouth here 😛
Just for your info/reference ………
http://www.network54.com/Forum/530422/message/1231167263/RBT+Bullets
Walter,
Thanks for the numbers. The .216 across the lands is just what I expected but I didn’t think the grooves would be that deep. Not that .003″ is particularly deep!
I’ve been looking at a bunch of pellets that have sizes listed at various places (Straight Shooters has a great and helpful list) and .216 is a fairly consistent “head” size with any number of different skirts behind that. The skirt sizes don’t matter because skirts are easily collapsed to fit. The head size does matter because it is a solid part of the pellet and clearly designed to bore ride while the skirt engraves and seals. Yes, the head may engrave some nut clearly not a lot and stability doesn’t depend on it.
With a solid slug that’s not too long and using casting technology, we don’t have the luxury of bore riding the slug and just putting a big skirt on the back. We could just put a drive band on the back but I’m not certain that’s the best we can do. This is where I’m going to take the numbers to Gary and we’ll noodle out a design based mostly on his experience of having made a lot of airgun slugs and having found what works and what gets tossed on the scrap pile.
Savage,
Your points are well taken. I expect 40gr is enough as well. Of course we will target that but we’re not using CAD/CAM here so we’ll probably be off a touch. I need to look at quantity and shipping again. We started this business as as a way for my boys to earn some change while providing a service to Barnes customers getting them the custom slugs they need when they want them. Selling the Raptors at 220 gr made an easy shipping solution because they are heavy even for 50. Now with the .25s we sometimes get orders for just 1-200 and I cut the shipping down. The problem with smaller quantities is that packaging is still about the same effort and thus a higher proportion gets spent on stuff you can’t shoot. Shipping doesn’t go down much below the flat rate envelopes when you’re mailing lead and that means an even higher proportion gets spent on mail. And finally, I don’t get crap out of this deal (my kids get all profits, I just get what covers materials) and I don’t want to have to remember 80 different shipping schemes!
0.216″/0.222″ is the slug as it emerges from my HW barrel.
Walter…
Jerry, just for a point of reference. The el cheapo brand of .22 L.R. rim fire ammo I was shooting over the weekend has 36 grains. I really think 40 grains is enough, (in my opinion), almost twice as heavy as a Beeman Kodiak. Also,(I’m guessing here) the majority have stock power plants and the majority are going to want to see 900 Fps. or more. As to the sales end of things, how small of a quantity could you sell and it be worth the packing effort? Maybe if you sold them in boxes of 50 guys that want to try them would and shipping that small/light an amount wouldn’t cost too much. What do you think?
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Well, if you need something heavy for your .25, we are still offering the 7 and 9 rings slugs…