Pellet Accuracy Vs Power In Sub 12fpe Guns Tested

With all the talk recently of the Daystate Delta Wolf and its ability to change pellet velocity (power) easily I thought that I’d have a look at what they already offer in this. All my electronic Daystates have 3 easily adjustable power outputs programed into them, so I’m guessing the DW is just the next evolution from that with more options to fine tune the power to pellet rather than adjust every shot to an exact velocity which would be impossible without it weighing the pellets its self, but it can do as I’ve done using a known weight of weighed pellet.

I’ve used two .177 guns for a bit of variety and to see how they compare, both fully electronic and both in tip top condition and shooting excellently. I used a Daystate Red Wolf and a Daystate Pulsar which have served me well and are at the top end of the Daystate range and as the garden limits me to 20m/22yds for this that’s what I’ve got figures for. The guns were shot bench rested and taking my time, no shots were pulled and all the shots are reflected in the chrono readings which you can match to the pictures.

I used two different pellets for each (plus JSB Premiums in the RW as I use them for BR), one medium weight and one heavy weight, I then tried both types of pellet through both guns at low, medium and hi power levels and had an FX chrono attached to them the whole time to track every shot. I had three targets for each gun and for each pellet type to correspond with the power outputs. So I got 10 shots at each power in identical (and leveled) targets to see what would happen to the power/velocity and the POI as I changed it. I had an aim point about 3/4s of an inch above the center of the targets so I could keep a consistent aim and was not just shooting at a hole as it grew. I also used the guns half way through their fill even though they are essentially electronically regulated it just felt right to do so.

For the RW I used JSB 4.53s weighed at 8.4gn, JSB Premium 4.52 at 8.4gn and also JSB heavies weighed at 10.3gn. For the Pulsar I used AAFD 4.52s at 8.4gn and JSB heavies at 10.3gn. I zeroed the guns with each pellet type before starting on either lo or hi as I worked across the page back and forth – but all the targets are labeled even though they are a bit busy because of this. The guns were not re zeroed between the three power settings, and only one shot was fired and deleted from the shot string between each power change to eliminate any effect from changing power with the first pellet (just in case). I done this so you can see what effect changing the power has on the pellets POI over the 20m and also what effect it has on accuracy by doing so. It also show what these guns have been set up as power wise in all three setting, and I’ve put the average FPE on each individual target in black marker.

Across all this the guns performed really well, with mostly around 5 to 12 fps spread in the shot strings on most occasions, but you can see the very slight difference between me weighing the pellets to the nearest 0.1gn and using the JSB Premium ones which are more accurately selected and delivered just a 5fps spread over about 20 shots. Bearing in mind I put over 300 shots through them doing this between practice, set up, zeros and the actual project itself, so I’m pretty happy with those figures.

Finally I’ve included a couple of pictures of both guns best group of the day with a 0.177 pellet and a paracetamol in the picture to give you an idea of just how tight these guns were shooting – it’s like 6/7mm edge to edge if you use that method, and even the larger groups were only about 8/10mm edge to edge and 4/5mm CTC.

So the conclusion:

You can see that different pellets can perform slightly better if you match them to the best power/velocity for them, but the gain will realistically only ever be seen in doing something like this on paper as the difference between the powers and pellet groups were very small, with the best groups being around 6mm edge to edge and the larges being around 10mm edge to edge. Best group of the day was unexpectedly the Pulsar with a 6mm one hole group of ten shots with the JSB heavies in LOW power mode

James

The RW rig up:



RW pellet tests:


photo and images hosting free


Pulsar set up:



Pulsar pellet tests:




Here are the shot strings if you into that kind of stuff

RW JSB Premium

11.3
11.4
11.4
11.3
11.3
11.3
11.3
11.3
11.3
11.3
10.9
10.9
10.9
10.9
10.9
10.9
10.9
10.9
10.8
10.6
10.5
10.5
10.5
10.5
10.5
10.5
10.6
10.5
10.5
10.4

RW JSB Exact

10.3
10.3
10.4
10.3
10.5
10.5
10.3
10.4
10.4
10.4
10.8
10.9
10.9
10.8
10.8
10.8
10.9
10.8
10.8
10.8
11.3
11.2
11.3
11.3
11.3
11.3
11.3
11.3
11.2
11.2

RW JSB Heavies

10.7
10.9
10.6
10.9
10.9
10.9
10.9
10.8
10.6
10.9
11.3
11.4
11.3
11.4
11.4
11.3
11.4
11.5
11.3
11.3
11.8
11.8
11.6
11.8
11.8
11.8
11.8
11.6
11.7
11.8

Pulsar AAFD

10.2
10.2
10.2
10.2
10.1
10.1
10.0
10.2
10.1
10.1
10.5
10.5
10.5
10.5
10.5
10.5
10.5
10.5
10.5
10.4
10.8
10.5
10.8
10.7
10.8
10.8
10.7
10.7
10.7
10.7

Pulsar JSB Heavies

11.1
11.2
11.0
11.2
11.3
10.9
11.3
11.3
10.9
10.9
10.9
10.7
10.9
10.7
10.6
10.8
10.8
10.6
10.6
10.9
9.9
10.1
10.0
10.0
9.9
10.3
10.1
10.0
10.0
10.0