The secret behind JSB accuracy
I think I made a huge discovery, I think I found the secret behind one of the most accurate pellets.
It all started when I was playing with a JSB pellet and going nuts asking it why are you so straight? It then jumped out of my hand and fell hitting the floor, hard.
I picked it up and to my amazement I found the skirt on the pellet bent it’s strange how soft these pellets are, a bit too strange. I did a finger nail test on the pellet and I can scratch it pretty easily, I tested other cheap pellets and they were alot harder than the JSB.
I tested some pure lead that I had and it was harder than the JSB pellets.
I think that the JSB are made of a lead-tin alloy, just like the alloys they use for soldering.
Sure the pellet dimensions are important for determining accuracy, but I think that’s what makes JSB pellets unique.
What do you guys think?
All Replies
I had a few tins of 4.52 and 4.53 and didn’t see any difference between the two in terms of accuracy…
I don’t have the time to measure or weigh them either.
I test five pellets per tin at 45 yards to determine if the tin is good or bad.
Here is a great video from Ted, (Ted’s Holdover). He documents pellet spiraling. He attributes the spiraling to oversize pellets.
This is the next video he referrs to in the first:
Ya I know, you have already seen it. Personally, I’m not ready to measure my pellets. So far, my requirements aren’t that demanding. The rats and ground squirrels think my pellets are just the right size. 😉
Yup… I program an run a cnc lathe for a living.
I work in inches so that is what my brain sees. Lol
Except when it is in a pellet discussion talking about 5.52 measurements of pellets. (couldn’t resist busting your balls) 🙂
Would that be – .004 – Perhaps?
I don’t mean to bust your balls, but those zero’s matter. LOL
Don’t worry – you didn’t. Think metric. .04-.05mm is correct.
ahh… .04 mm = .0015748 inches
That makes sense now. Here in the US if one sees .04, it usually
is inches.
Would that be – .004 – Perhaps?
I don’t mean to bust your balls, but those zero’s matter. LOL
Don’t worry – you didn’t. Think metric. .04-.05mm is correct.
ahh… .04 mm = .0015748 inches
That makes sense now. Here in the US if one sees .04, it usually
is inches.
Well I have some information to throw into the mix.
I have been testing new and old JSB pellets.
About half the new and half the old pellets work well in my USFT.
Today I tried the old and new pellets that my USFT doesn’t like in my new EdGun.
It liked them.
And to make things even more complicated it liked the pellets the USFT liked but not as much as the ones the USFT didn’t like.
For the old pellets, blue label with the orange, year, lot number and head size sticker on the back.
If I had four tins of 26000009 4.52, two of the tins worked and two didn’t.
So even the old pellets with the same numbered lots and head sizes marked on each tin are just as unpredictable as the newer red labeled tins without any year, lot or head size information.
On top of that the new tins look to be imported by Predator International…
AOA,
Hey, stupid can’t get signed in to see it. Let me know if there is an easy way and I’ll tell stupid 🙄
With all this talk about pellets, I figured I would throw in my 2 cents worth.
I know nothing about lead/tin composition..nor do I want to.
There has been lots of talk about JSB’s going down hill with the change to the RED TIN. What all of you already know, or should know..is that JSB makes pellets for AIR ARMS. The last time I ran low JSB’s I tried to order JSB’s from PA they were out, and kept changing the delivery date.
Instead I ordered the more expensive Air Arms(jsb) little tin of 250 at $10 each.
I had googled (are air arms the same as jsb), or something close.
They sure look like JSB’s to me.
I CAN NOT say these shoot any better than the regular red tin JSB’s, but it is something for you guys to think about..and maybe even try.
I’ve seen that before on YF. It kind of sorts by the ratio of the head and skirt diameters. Interesting.
When I started having trouble with JSB pellets, I tried weighing them, lubing them, trying to measure head size and all was too time consuming and did not improve the groups.
I made one of these to sort pellets more quickly after seeing a post on the Yeller where Yrrah sorted by rolling and he claimed this method of sorting pellets helped him.
After experminting with what arc gave me the most consistent tight groups I ended up using the pellets that just cleared the end of the vertical strip.
Here is a video of testing some pellets. Just click on the pic.
Made from foam board and balsa wood.
Would that be – .004 – Perhaps?
I don’t mean to bust your balls, but those zero’s matter. LOL
Don’t worry – you didn’t. Think metric. .04-.05mm is correct.
“The old pellets are roughly .04 larger skirt diameter than the red labels.”
Would that be – .004 – Perhaps?
I don’t mean to bust your balls, but those zero’s matter. LOL
I have two stashes of JSB 18 gr pellets. 3 tins of 500 left that are 26 months old and 8 tins of red label that are 2 months old. I have swapped back and forth in my .22 std Cricket multiple times being careful to hold other variables as close as possible and the old pellets shoot better consistenly. Now I only shot from one old tin and I have tried three different tins of the red label. I sorted the pellets for weight and dumped any bent ones and used consistent air fills. I only used head diameters that measured exactly 5.52. In each case the old pellets out shot the red labels roughly by 1/4″ at 40 yards – sometimes more. (update: I forgot to add there is a slight POI shift as well) I even had a fellow (another retired bench rest shooter) shoot them w/o telling him which pellets he was shooting (my blind study – lol). What has changed as far as my checks can tell is stricly the skirt diameters between the old and the new. The heads are all 5.52 that I compared. The old pellets are roughly .04 larger skirt diameter than the red labels. The weights are very close and I shot groups that sorted the same.
I first found this out when I noticed with the Cricket magazine that the new JSBs fall through w/o the orings in place but the old ones do not. No explanation just an observation in all of this. For my pest hunting this is irrelavant until I shoot at sparrows at over 100 yards and even then not much of an issue. I have one dead tree at 105 yards they hang out in and the Air Ranger .25 was the king before the Cricket. 😎
I also find myself using the red labels for chrony work and close pesting under 50 yards. If I was a target guy I would be trying to figure out what other pellets JSB may have for match work if any or try something else. I know some folks have already complained to JSB about all of this but I never heard of the same observation on skirt size. So far all of my red labels are consistently worse but only very slightly. I doubt 90% of the shooters will consider this an issue.
RC, I was pulling your leg. 😀 I couldn’t resist.
I have said for quite sometime that airguns, (firearms also), are like fingerprints. They are all different. Uncle Hoot describes it well. Each must be evaluated with different ammo on its own. Ed gets a “well done” for matching a barrel to a specific pellet and then building the rest of the parts around that. For Ed, the booger falls into the soup when JSB changes the specs of their pellets…be it by design, or accident.
Look at what Tony does with the AirForce platform. Steve at PomonaAirguns tunes guns to win competitions. Tim at Mac-1 tunes guns to win also and has reduced the necessary fill pressures of his guns while maintaining a decent shot count. These guns aren’t cheap, but many will deliver outstanding out of the box accuracy.
This is the best time in history for guns, air or powder burners. We have become spolied by this. Our guns, scopes/optics, and ammo allow us accuracy and power previously unheard of. Lucky us!!! 😀 I shoot for fun and to eliminate pests. These modern airguns fill that niche and are just too cool. 😎
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I saw a rather complicated set of swaging dies that screw into a reloading press for sale on Ebay yesterdsy, the seller did not know what he had, but knew they were 17 caliber.
It was a 3 or 4 die set with plungers to eject the projectiles. I am pretty certain they were a very elaborate set of pellet making dies, not Corbin but who ever made them must have known what he was doing. And they were old, maybe from the late 50’s or early 60’s perhaps.
RC