Alright, so I've owned quite a bit of air guns and picked up a few tin cans of random pellets just to get a feel of what rifle likes what. Though I haven't done many actual tests, I can safely say that I have tested these two rifles the most. Well enough to put this thread up. The Crosman Phantom 1000x and the GAMO Big Cat 1200. Yes that's right. The two rifles that constantly compete with each other in the market. Both have the same functions, come stock with a POS (piece of "crap") 4x32 scope, a synthetic stock, a horrible trigger, and feature a break barrel design. I have found that the Phantom only likes.....here I say it, it likes the Crosman pellets. Wow, what a surprise huh? The Crosman pellets I used were the Premier Hollow Points and the Destroyers. The Hollow Points were definitely a heck of alot better than the destroyers in terms of consistency and accuracy. I was getting about a little over a nickle's size worth of groupings with the Premiers, whereas 1-1 1/2 inch groupings with the Destroyers.
I still need to take pictures though! The Destroyers fit rather loosely in the barrel whereas the Hollow Points needed to be jolted in, which I liked dearly. However, I found that expansion for both weren't very noticeable. That being said, the Destroyer's simply deformed when hitting a moist target (to reenact animal flesh), whereas the Hollow Points retained their shape and expanding ever so slightly.
Upon testing with some Daisy Flat tops and GAMO Raptor pellets I have found that the Daisy pellets were only good for target practicing and zero'ing your scope (if you're lucky enough...). Getting pretty inconsistent shots that were quarter sized to like 5 inches to the right, back to quarter and then 2 inches down. They fit very loosely in the barrel, and deform with slight a slight amount of pressure and not to mention that they are dirtier than Crosman's pellet(s). Oh well. Anyway, the Raptors. I have been both blown away and disappointed at the same time. They are fast, and are great for the environment. But they are very inconsistent both pellet wise and accuracy wise. Getting about 1-2 inch groupings. I guess because they're so dang light! Anyway, I was doing these shot testing(s) at about 30+ yards. Considering my backyard isn't that big that's all the room I had, go figure!
Okay, now with the Phantom out of the way time to bring in the GAMO Big Cat! Alright, so I didn't test the Phantom using the RWS Super Points huh. Well I will for the Big Cat. However I will for the Phantom soon enough! Anyway, comparing both rifles I have found that they perform almost the same with minor variations from pellet to pellet, etc....the Big Cat liked those Hollow Points (getting pretty good nickle sized groups), but preferred the RWS super points instead. The accuracy was amazing, and on top of that each RWS pellet was identical to another with no imperfections what so ever!I was able to get consistent dime size groupings with little variations testing 3 times afterwards totaling at 15 shots (3 groups). Astounding! I don't want to even use these because their like a tin of gold, ha imagine that. The Big Cat however did not like the Destroyers, the Flat tops or the Raptors. Very inconsistent from what I have come to test. All performed almost identical in terms of groups getting quarter sized to about an inch and a half......But hey, as long as the rifle shoots the dang pellet it's good in my book right? Whatever. So that about wraps it up. This review is almost pointless without pictures, but I will post some up maybe soon. If you have any questions on the pellets or the rifles I've used, please feel free to post! Thanks for reading.
-Jarred
