I was inspired by some really good groups I was shooting with the Beeman R9 Goldfinger .20 late this afternoon. Shooting weighed JSB Exacts 13.45 grain pellets, after zeroing the "new" Bushnell Trophy 4-12X-40 mm AO scope (a really nice scope, thanks Jason), I shot 7 consecutive 5-shot groups under one inch at 25 yards, best group .40 inch scoring a 49 on the Gamo target. Nice. So, I thought I would weigh out some predators to see how they compared to the JSB Exacts prior to seeing how well the R9GF / 20 cal would shoot predators. After all, it is fall and squirrel season and all. . . Anyway, here are the numbers on two tins of JSB Predators in .20 cal. Only one pellet had a problem and that was a loose nose cone, not a bent skirt. No apparent topical lubrication. The JSB Exacts average about 13.75 grains, the Predators about 14 grains. I am going to try to get the overlap, my heavier JSB Exacts and lighter JSB Predators of the same weight and see if they will shoot to the same POA/POI.
PS:
I am convinced that accuracy improves substantially when shooting target groups with pellets of the same weight to within 0.05 grains vs. pulling random, unweighed pellets out of the tin. There may be some placebo effect going on (I think I will shoot better, so I do shoot better), but even if this is so, I remain convinced, so that from this point forward, whenever I am shooting targets or zeroing in on a head shot, I will know the exact weight of the pellet I have loaded in the breech and will have zeroed the scope or adjusted accordingly for that exact weight pellet. There is just too much variability in the "off the shelf" uniformity of weights for anything but match-grade pellets to do otherwise.
