Shooting & Country TV | Gary Chillingworth | The ultimate guide to pellet perfection!

In this episode of Shooting & Country TV, Gary Chillingworth looks at the importance of the humble airgun pellet. Presenting his ultimate guide to pellet perfection, Gary looks at how to wash, dry, and lubricate airgun pellets for maximum accuracy, and tests whether damaged heads or skirts make a difference to pellet flight. He also looks at the head size and weight and sees if an oxidised pellet still fly true.
www.flop-over.co.uk (pellet pouches by Rex)
www.customtargets.co.uk (pellet keepers)
Gary is running this new airgunning vlog - At the Range with Gary Chillingworth - every other week on Shooting & Country TV, so make sure to subscribe to the channel and keep and eye out for his videos if you love air rifle shooting. It will be a mixture of air rifle reviews, air rifle shooting technique advice, and tips for Gary's specialist subject - HFT.
If you want Gary to answer a specific question or cover a particular area of airgun shooting, just leave a comment below or contact Gary via details in the video. Enjoy!
Join a growing community of likeminded people, have fun, and request videos on subjects you want Gary to cover by joining his Life at the Range Facebook group here: / 212586927158986
CHAPTERS
0:00 Starts
0:23 Intro
3:43 Part 1 - Weighing pellets
6:15 Part 2 - Heavy Pellets
9:12 Part 3 - Light Pellets
12:00 Part 4 - Wash-Dry- Lube
17:05 Part 5 - Lubed pellets
20:12 Part 6 - Damaged heads
22:26 Part 7 - Damaged skirts
25:02 Part 8 - Oxidised pellets and how to fix them.
30:42 Part 9 - Head size
35:20 Part 10 - Conclusion
36.44 Ends

[@jeffslade1892]

I've used ultrasonic baths in the laboratory so many times it's unbelievable. Use ordinary water, from the cold tap, from the hot tap, from a cooled kettle after it has boiled (softer water). Add a splash of washing up detergent. Run the machine. Rinse off in water. Drain and onto paper towel. If you now want them really dry, rinse in a little iso-propyl alcohol, which will absorb residual water and evaporate without leaving a residue. Drain and onto more paper towel. You're massaging oil into the pellets by hand, but you have an ultrasonic bath - dunk the tail of the bag into water in the bath, sorted.

[@ShootingCountryTV]

Great information, ill try the isopropyl trick. Gary

[@FeathersMcGraw1]

Really appreciate the time and effort that you put into these video's Gary. I would like to suggest that you do a video on shooting a full HFT course with techniques and tips in various situations as you go around the course.

[@garychillingworth]

Hi Andy, once I've finished all the technique videos that's my plan. I'm going to do one with a pcp and one with a springer. I'm also going to do one in high wind if I can.

[@FeathersMcGraw1]

@@garychillingworth looking forward to it already 👍

[@jdjones4825]

@@FeathersMcGraw1 #metoo

[@markhomer5704]

FANTASTIC vid , might get me a sonic cleaner ( not just for pellets ) specially as you can get em for £20 , lube my pellets the same , EXCEPT , I put the lube in the bag first , and squish it about a bit , then drop pellets in , reason? , well when you drop the lube directly onto the pellets , a certain percentage gets caught up in the inner skirt and dosent displace , oh ! And I leave the bag all lubed up for next time ... great vid , very informative

[@garychillingworth]

Perfect, thanks for the information

[@roseybut]

Another great video. Thanks Gary.

[@gabepettinicchio7454]

Very greatly appreciated, Gary!

[@robertconard6621]

I learned so much. Thanks Great content

[@steveneggleton9017]

Hi Gary just recently got back into shooting absolutely love your videos watched them all and are very helpful for learning and tips keep up the good work.👍

[@salopsniper22]

I've herd people say to avoid the Napier lube as it attacks seals etc. LT1 seems well recommended. With the sonic cleaner was there a basket for it too as the pellets surely shed their grime and sit in it when they are just lose in the cleaner only to pick up the dirt again when you tipped it out ? But weight, head size and pellets condition seemed the priority for sorting pellets 👍

[@obxjimbo272]

Awesome video thank you 👍

[@andrewharris4940]

Thanks Gary,that was interesting 👍

[@Happy-Me.]

Great video Gary. Answered lots of questions! I used the lighter Air Arms Express pellets in my HW98 in a competition but will use the 8.44 from now on!

[@nigelbase1196]

They might not suit your barrel!

[@mikeedwards2384]

That was great thanks for the interesting info I found it very helpful we rely on on pellet rifles for hunting table fair please keep up the great job deeply appreciated

[@TheRealWindlePoons]

Useful video, thanks, Gary. I just unearthed a 17 year old tin of AA Field Diablo pellets (opened). Despite their grey appearance they shoot just fine. As an experiment (having Googled "deoxidising lead") I rolled a small handful around in some plumbers' solder flux paste (the water-based variety). They were left for 30 minutes then rinsed in warm water and cleaned with a soft toothbrush to get rid of every trace of flux. They are much shinier and every bit as clean as your ultrasonically cleaned sample.

[@FirstTwoDie]

Excellent video well done so helpful

[@Happy-Me.]

From lots of testing my TX200 likes the lighter pellets of 8.3/4 grain! However as long as the pellet weights are consistent she's ok with 8.5 grain too. You just have to test! 😎

[@billemshoff9335]

Great video and thanks from across the pond.

[@richardhumphreys7892]

Another very informative video,congratulations. Would like a video on shooting up,and more to the point downwards at different distances please 👍

[@garychillingworth]

No problems Richard, it's on the list

[@heithwatkins]

Wow........... Excellent video ❤🎯🇺🇲

[@donpay6427]

Very interesting and informative

[@joncohen6548]

Another great video, thanks Gary. Most car shampoo’s have some wax in them wouldn’t that act as a lubricant ? I also like to use a pellet sizer. One more thought, get yourself down to the Airgun Farm, would have been much easier indoors and out of the wind.

[@mikegreenfield5102]

Excellent vid. Thank you for all your time. I have noticed that stated head size on tin doesn’t always tally with what is within. Go by batch number seems to work for me. Trouble is that I have too many rifles and far too many different tins. Very confusing! Need to be organised.

[@dow4hurst]

Thanks for all the work done in the video! This is very helpful to newcomers to the sport. Maybe airgun101 should incorporate this video into the archive at that site? Anyway, I’m directing people to this vid for pellet care instruction.

[@terrywoodley593]

Hi Gary Very informative, l have taken up air rifle shooting during lockdown and have .22 PCP. I now will start doing this. I also shoot and reload for centre fire f class and RF. l do more or less what you do with pellets when making Centre fire ammo. And that makes hell of a difference when shooting at 1/2 moa. Also subscribed Regards Terry.

[@garychillingworth]

F class, now that's some fun shooting. What caliber do you use?

[@terrywoodley593]

@@garychillingworth Hi Gary The calibre are 308 win and .223 REM. Plus 22rf . The distances are from 25yds to 100yds and centre fire 300/500/600/900/1000.yds. The PCP his ideal for 22rf practice at a fraction of the cost. Many thanks for all you hard work on your videos, much appreciated in these trying times Keeping people amused and informed Regards Terry

[@andygray3001]

Gary ..some of the slightly bent skirts can be repaired with a clay dotting tool. Also some pellet manuf. have mold seams, I shave them off and and buff the area slightly....better accurcy..👍

[@alanmullock381]

Always good info Chilly,I just do a visual check but anything that improves confidence has to be a help!👍👍👍👍👍👍👍😎😎😎

[@leevespa4564]

Already subscribed mate....agree,would like to see more content of air rifle videos👍🏻

[@krisdabrowski7482]

Hi Gary, I wash and lube all my pellets by choice. When it comes to weighing them what sort of spread either side of e.g. 8.48gn, would you suggest? I currently select any pellet from 8.47gn to 8.49gn. The weighed pellets I use for chrono purposes and benchrest target shooting which is between 20 and 25 yards. I shoot (both Tony Leach tuned), either the AA TX200HC or Prosport. Cheers Kris

[@garyhaden2390]

Hi mate love your reviews but have probably missed a lot due to only recently started shooting, my question is have you or are going to do on bench rest competition?

[@toddhunter5693]

this is great vid,s ir.

[@garychillingworth]

Thank you.

[@mark.foster278]

What about the actual size of the in a pellet head sizer Gary.

[@davidr4310]

Great reviews gary, I was thinking when you were doing the damaged heads and skirts that the pellets reform itself before leaving the barrel, like the pellet prob going into the back of pellet when pushed into barrel will reshape the skirt, Just a thought, what you think 👍

[@garychillingworth]

When the gun is fired, it reforms the skirt a bit, but nothing can fix a damaged head.

[@warrenbond5323]

Hi Garry what is the glove you wear ? I'm enjoying the vids thanks.

[@squiretomasie7003]

Thank you Sir! Your a Awesome shooter.

[@chrisg4270]

Another great vid Gary. I have a HFT500 can I ask where did you buy the hamster from and it’s make/model if needed please. Keep up the excellent work. Chris g.

[@garychillingworth]

I'm afraid it's a homemade job from Pete Dutton. Just a piece of delrin flat bar and some posts.

[@deansshootingandfishingham8275]

All the years I done FT I never done any of that apart from making sure the pellets were not damaged and I never found any problems with them shooting straight. I'm not sure if doing all that work makes any difference.

[@garychillingworth]

I don't wash and lube, but I do weight. HfT is different to FT as we aren't shooting at a specific range as we can't dial. So, I will often be trying to squeeze a 40 and 45 yard aim point into a 35mm kill.

[@SC-rb2jr]

Great to see tests. However, if you could have done it inside, then you'd eliminate the random wind effect, and if you did it on a bench setup, you eliminate another factor. That way your testing would be far more reliable. Many thanks for doing this video.

[@Dark_Knight_112]

You and one other KZbinr debunked the lubed pellet theory. They don’t make it more accurate. Just keeps your barrel cleaner and less cleaning which in turn makes your rifle more accurate. If you clean your barrel regularly, unwashed pellets are fine. Thanks for the in-depth video.

[@daleweller5193]

I use 2 stroke synthetic oil to lube ,it seems to work better than most and it’s cheap.

[@ShootingCountryTV]

Interesting

[@enriqueoliva6988]

Hi Gary,you talk about the subject of the head size,what about the skirt size , will a small skirt size also affect accuracy.Which one is more important head or skirt size?

[@NickSchoonwinkel]

Head size and the head must not be damage.

[@iantcroft]

When dropping the oil in the bag like that oil gets trapped in a selected few of the pellets skirts and doesn’t come out, and that causes dieselling, when using those pellets, which causes inconsistency

[@NickSchoonwinkel]

Not with a PCP

[@Happy-Me.]

Could the lubricant on the pellets cause a Springer to "deisel"?

[@garychillingworth]

I don't think so, but may be worth testing.

[@NickSchoonwinkel]

Yes

[@charliedunham6586]

❤

[@mark.foster278]

Gary what are them scales you use please .

[@garychillingworth]

Try putting this into our favourite auction site. Pocket Digital Scales Jewellery Gold Weighing Mini LCD Electronic 0.01g 200g

[@garychillingworth]

The ones I have are no longer available

[@roberthowe2910]

Wat scales u using.. Could. Nt really tell on vid.. Cheers..

[@garychillingworth]

Mine arnt avaliable any more, but these ones are good.

[@roberthowe2910]

@@garychillingworth.. Cheers.. But wat r they... No info....

[@garychillingworth]

Try putting this into our favourite auction site. Pocket Digital Scales Jewellery Gold Weighing Mini LCD Electronic 0.01g 200g

[@roberthowe2910]

@@garychillingworth cheers

[@bigwill4284]

Is it Santa is it Santa 🎅

[@garychillingworth]

Might be :-)

[@lewishutchings9344]

Is that just a shooting glove or is there a reason other then comfort?

[@ShootingCountryTV]

helps to remove the pulse from the hand, also better grip.

[@lewishutchings9344]

@@ShootingCountryTV thanks your videos are great!

[@jazzking8380]

Qeestion, what is brand of the scale you use to weigh your pellets and where did you get it? Thanks in advance for your answer

[@ShootingCountryTV]

Just a cheap brand from ebay.

[@philipgamble7917]

Like the video but would have liked to see more shooting. 3 pellets doesn't tell you anything... Also on the head sizing test different batches of JSB shoot differently and you need to rezero for them. Going from 4.53 to 4.51 and not rezeroing your gun but then claiming they shoot low because of bad fitment is not a real test. Maybe that 4.51 batch just zero differently and need a few more clicks of elevation. These 4.51/4.52/4.53 labels are nonsense from JSB. I've got Die 48 pellets with the exact same batch numbers but they are labelled 4.51 and 4.52, if you measure the pellets they are also never accurate to their stated size. It's just marketing fud and any effect you see from shooting different head sizes are because you're shooting different batches of pellets and that's it. Also on that section pellets don't tumble, the skirt design means the centre of drag is behind the centre of pressure and they stabilise like a shuttlecock. They do however have a barrel roll effect in the air as they loose a bit of stability and it's this that causes them to land low. This barrel roll effect means they have effectively covered more distance than a pellet that flies true and they drop a little low as a result. Tedsholdover did a video on this when he reviewed a FAC HW100 in .177. The gun shot too fast for the pellet, you could see the barrel roll effect on his slow motion video. It's very interesting.

[@seankinder4370]

I think what he meant about the head size was when you have a tin and wonder y sometimes they shoot different it might be because u have picked a different head size out the tin.

[@richardhodds7812]

well my experience says it does make a difference. My AA s510 shoots a tighter group with 451 than 452 in JSB and AA. But it does really like QYS 9.56 gr with no head size shown.

[@garychillingworth]

Ho Phill. Thanks for taking the time for the great response. I fully understand that 3 pellets is not enough, however, the video was already 35min long. What you see on film is the final bit, all the testing and practice is done off camera, so, I normally go into the video knowing what will happen. The thing is, it doesn't always work out and as I said, we don't fake things. My hft500, likes a 453, 451's do not work in that gun, they drop low or to be more precise, the drop between 40 yards and 45 yards with a 452 is 8mm and with a 451 its around 13mm I will check out the video you suggested, it sounds interesting.

[@daviddavis6231]

It looked like the 4.51 would have been more cosistant , Had the scope been adjusted to suite them '

[@garychillingworth]

It's more about the drop Dave. Between 40 and 45 yards a pellet that suits the barrel drops less then one that doesn't.

[@GjVj]

"...ten quid for 500." Those were the days...

[@zansude89]

Gary.. Theory about light/ heavy pallet should go lower/higher. In theory it should the opposite you say. Heavier, bigger chunk of lead was pressed in the die, so it is fullfiled better, means it should have slightly bigger diameter, more it will seal the barrel, higher will have velocity. This makes much bigger impact then difference in weight itself. You can actually measure diameter difference betwen most heavy and lightest. Pellet manufacturers tend to be more on the safe side and push in smaller lead chunk than to big, which would mean damaging the tooling and little more lead flow over betwen two parts of a die, and that is hard to get of. But theory is one thing, real world another thing.

[@zansude89]

Find the biggest weight difference and then cut that weight of lead. You will be surprised where all that lead in volume is missing.

[@leevespa4564]

What would be a good video......how to use a scope in layman's terms ....for younger shooters,so cleaner kills ......nothing worse,than the younger shooter's wounding a animal(not deliberately).....just haven't got the knowledge of experienced shooters....just a thought 😊

[@Happy-Me.]

Hi Gary why did you just test 4.51 and 4.53 pellets in your gun to check the barrel and not 4.52?🤔

[@garychillingworth]

Because I was trying to show the biggest difference.

[@geetee50]

the HFT500 cheek riser sucks . such a massive fail on the finesse side. great video though gazza.

[@ForTheTeoma]

Touching the scales doesn't matter, it's a fixed strain gauge not a mechanical action.

[@user-ow4dz5ul3v]

If my pellets starts to oxidize ....it means I'm not shooting enough.

[@jamesbowskill362]

Sorry Gary but I find this clean/dry/lube episode a bit long winded !! I use a bowl with a few drops of washing up liquid together with warm water (not boiling) agitate VERY gently (we do not want to cause ANY damage to the skirts of the pellets/slugs by hand for a few minutes before rinsing & draining them onto paper towels, then renew towels & place pellets/slugs on it dry gently with hair dryer then coat with a very thin & fine spray of silicone oil. JOB DONE The use of silicone lube will protect any 'o' rings, DO NOT USE any oils/lubrications that contain petroleum products. these will destroy 'o' rings very quickly.

[@grantmedical]

Hello my dear friend, There are 3 main reasons for the pellet that is slightly smaller than ideal for the barrel falling faster after it reaches terminal velocity… The first is that the pellet has not benefited from the full power of the air pressure in the barrel. The second is - as you rightly said it has increased yaw in its initial launch and that wasted energy results in a faster drop due to loss of kinetic energy down range… And the third is due to decreased gyroscopic stability due to not gripping the rifling as efficiently…. If you test at 45 yards you should expect to see spiraling of these pellets if the power of the air rifle is set closer to the transonic speed…. At speeds of 800 - 900 fps these effects are minimal as you have demonstrated…. On a side note… Heavier pellets only fly “better” in the wind due to greater gyroscopic stability - IF the power is low and the twist rate of the barrel is slow (less than 1:17) then expect heavier pellets to do much worse…. To offset that most competition match barrels have a 1:16 or even faster (example 1:12) to allow for shooters to shoot heavier projectiles with higher power…. Using Miller’s Rule of Recommended Rifle Twist for given projectile we learn that twist rate is directly proportional to weight of projectile and inversely proportional to caliber and length…. A 0.177 is therefore inherently more gyroscopically stabilized at the same power and rifling than a 0.22 of the same rifling and PE…. Therefore if you are limited by law to 12 FPE then a 0.177 is the better choice for targets up to 45m…. Cheers, Dr. Matthew Grant, Captain of the Landak HFT Shooting Squad, Indonesia 🇮🇩.

[@gotallmyvaccinesforallknow4949]

No need for this if you have The Grizzly Predator Air rifle