Sometimes a deal comes along that just seems too good to be true.
This ain't one of them.
I've only seen Valor pellets offered for sale at one place, that would be Dauven's. Since I recently had ordered an AR1000 from him, I had decided to get a couple of boxes of these just to try them out. At worst, I'd wind up with a couple hundred "run-in"pellets I can use for warming up a gun before testing or after an overhaul. After all, they were cheap enough - $1 for 200 in .177, and $2 for 250 in .22 - what could I lose?
When I got them I immediately gave 'em a quick look-over... they didn't look too bad, and lacked the very obvious casting differences and flaws that make Industry Brand bulk pellets so funny to look at. They are short and relatively lightweight, and the head is a cross between a wadcutter and a point. They happen to be made in Argentina.
Since they were light (estimated at below 7gr for the .177 and below 13gr in .22) I didn't want to run them through a gun that might kick them out at supersonic speeds - so I grabbed wifey's somewhat detuned Shadow that also has a GTX-II trigger in it. I also grabbed my .22 Shadow and a couple of pistols - an old Crosman 357 and a Marksman 2004.
I shot them indoors at just about 10 yards distance, with a single point rest and open sights. I had really intended to do a thorough test using the 4 guns I brought out, but it turned out that the Valor pellets had other ideas...
I'll make it simple.
The sheet on the left shows the .22 results. The upper left target shows 5 shots with Gamo Hunters grouping of a smidgen over .4". It's hard to be exact when using domed pellets and copier paper, but obviously they're pretty close together.
Unlike the bottom target. Which, incidently, shows a shotgun-like grouping of 1.25" - three times greater than the Gamo's. And this was NOT the worst group the Valors shot. For example...
The sheet on the right shows the .177 results using wifey's Shadow. The top left target shows 5 shots at about .35 inches, and it would have been .25 if I hadn't flinched on one of the shots. This group was done with 7.9gr Crosman Premiers.
Apparently the good performance of the Premiers rattled the valor of the Valors, and well, they sorta scattered. Over 2" at 10 yards... can you say "airsoft accuracy"?
I'm not posting any pistol results for 2 reasons. First, what I'm showing here is representative of the performance I was sometimes able to get out of the pistols. I said "sometimes" because my 2004 did something it never did before - it went "pfffffft" when I pulled the trigger on shot 4 of a 5 shot group. What happened? The pellet was still there - but it looked like the breach O-ring had started coming out. I put the O-ring back, recocked, and tried again. And again, "pffffft" and a dislodged O-ring. I popped the pellet out, popped in a Premier, and BANG! the gun shot fine.
So, it was on to my Crosman 357. I loaded 6 pellets into the cylinder, and that's when it became apparent... the skirts were VASTLY different in size. Plain as day. And I don't mean because some felt tighter when I loaded them. I mean because I could see it.... it was that bad. Predictably, when I tried to do a 6 shot group (with an almost new cartridge) I had 2 misfires - like the 2004, the gun went "pffffft". Never, ever did that before - EVEN with Industry pellets. In one cylinder of six, I had 2 that just wouldn't fire.
So my testing was cut short, but I found out all I needed to know. Are they bad? Yes. Are they the worst? Well, the obvious contender is that cheap Industry pellet that we all know, and of the thousands of those that I shot, none of THEM ever refused to leave the barrel of a gun! They say that velocity is meaningless without accuracy, but even accuracy takes a back seat to actually discharging. So yes, they are the worst pellets I've ever tried.
