Here's an extension from a post I made in the Target Shooting board where I'm sighting in and getting used to a "new-to-me" .177 FX Wildcat Mk1.
The gun's previous owner said FX 10.3 grain pellets were its favorite food, and I have to agree. They have shot extremely well! I thought I'd try to figure out why the FX pellets shot so well and the easiest thing I could think of was a shootout between the FX 10.3 and some Air Arms 10.3 which look pretty much indistinguishable from the FX variant.
Here are some full mag (8-shot) groups of each. As you can see, the FX just beat out the AAs by a small, but noticeable margin. I figured across 32 shots of each pellet, the less-than-ideal wind would average out any small variations.
Using a Pelletgage to check head sizes I found a pretty noticeable difference between them. The most common size for the Air Arms 10.3 was 4.52mm and for FX 10.3 it was 4.49mm.
So this led to the next target where I shot some of the sorted pellets. Here are the AA, FX and just for fun some of the Crosman boxed (Die "I") 10.5 grain pellets. I found that with the Crosman pellets there was NOT one most common size, but it was split between 4.51 and 4.52 mm. I do think that sorting helped the Air Arms variant. I will have to shoot more sorted Crosman pellets to see if the results might be worth the effort.
And since I had them in my drawer, I also sampled some JSB Monsters (original, not redesigned). I think I purchased a few tins of these when I was shooting a .177 Hatsan Flash. The Flash shot them extremely well. I think these Monsters would have been purchased back in 2018.
I can't say the same thing for my Wildcat! It definitely did NOT like them. I found these had VERY small head sizes. Most went through the smallest 4.46 mm gage hole with ease and I'd guess that many of them could have been smaller than 4.46 mm. There was very big difference between what I called the 4.46 mm group (which I probably should have called "unsorted" on my target) and the 4.47 mm group.
There's always something to learn when you take out your pellet gun, isn't there
The gun's previous owner said FX 10.3 grain pellets were its favorite food, and I have to agree. They have shot extremely well! I thought I'd try to figure out why the FX pellets shot so well and the easiest thing I could think of was a shootout between the FX 10.3 and some Air Arms 10.3 which look pretty much indistinguishable from the FX variant.
Here are some full mag (8-shot) groups of each. As you can see, the FX just beat out the AAs by a small, but noticeable margin. I figured across 32 shots of each pellet, the less-than-ideal wind would average out any small variations.
Using a Pelletgage to check head sizes I found a pretty noticeable difference between them. The most common size for the Air Arms 10.3 was 4.52mm and for FX 10.3 it was 4.49mm.
So this led to the next target where I shot some of the sorted pellets. Here are the AA, FX and just for fun some of the Crosman boxed (Die "I") 10.5 grain pellets. I found that with the Crosman pellets there was NOT one most common size, but it was split between 4.51 and 4.52 mm. I do think that sorting helped the Air Arms variant. I will have to shoot more sorted Crosman pellets to see if the results might be worth the effort.
And since I had them in my drawer, I also sampled some JSB Monsters (original, not redesigned). I think I purchased a few tins of these when I was shooting a .177 Hatsan Flash. The Flash shot them extremely well. I think these Monsters would have been purchased back in 2018.
I can't say the same thing for my Wildcat! It definitely did NOT like them. I found these had VERY small head sizes. Most went through the smallest 4.46 mm gage hole with ease and I'd guess that many of them could have been smaller than 4.46 mm. There was very big difference between what I called the 4.46 mm group (which I probably should have called "unsorted" on my target) and the 4.47 mm group.
There's always something to learn when you take out your pellet gun, isn't there
