Washing pellets

[Westporter]

I recently stumbled across a couple of videos on You Tube demonstrating the washing of air gun pellets and then drying and lubing them? I had never heard of such a practice, but then I am fairly new to shooting fairly high grade air guns (just purchased a new FAS 6004). Does anyone seriously do this? I assume match grade pellets are ready to go out the tin.

[kevinweiho]

I use RWS and H&N pellets and I find no need to wash them, they already come very clean from the tin. Other cheaper pellets from Daisy and Crosman leaves my fingers dirty with lead, but I don't clean them since I wash my hands everytime I finish shooting my airguns.

[wasatch]

My observation after being a PCP rifle enthusiast (not 10m) for a number or years and now taken up 10m AP is that washing/weighing/roll sorting/lubing is more beneficial for the rifle shooters, especially competitive field target types. This is because really consistent pellets (as well as regulator & valve performance) can definitely reduce group size when shooting to 50 yds and further. Shooting those scoped rifles, rested at 25yds is fairly boring. However with 10m AP even lowly pellets like RWS Basic straight out of the tin group better than I can shoot off hand. So I dry fire or lift some weights instead of wash/sort/weigh pellets :-)

Washing & lubing might be worthwhile to reduce fowling of the AP? Wash a tin of your favorite pellet and see how much dirt comes off. But I agree with Kevin that RWS, JSB & H&N all seem pretty clean out of the tin, especially the higher grade. I transfer my pellets to an H&N screw top tin with white foam (from JSB tins) on the top and bottom and after lots of pellets (no Crosman or Daisy tho) going through that one tin the foam isn't very dirty.

If you do choose to lube don't get sucked into the Napier snake oil. Slick 50 and Krytech bicycle chain lube are a couple of the more popular. Just use a little tho. It only has to get on the circumference of the head and skirt.

[redschietti]

don't even think about it unless you can shoot nearly perfect scores! I can show you amazing groups right out of the tin. Terrible too! Have to test Lot numbers IF you are shooting high scores in air rifle. Pistol shooters are sooo bad it doesn't matter!! LOL

[Rover]

Take special care when scrubbing the rear end.

[Andre]

Take special care when scrubbing the rear end.

And be sure to only use water that's been through a carbon ceramic filter, as any minerals can erode the pellet causing uneven erosion and weight variations between pellets.

All joking aside, a lot of field target shooters wash and lube pellets. Keep in mind they have to shoot a 3/8" target 55 yards away downhill, so every bit counts.

For air rifle or pistol no need to go bonkers. I've washed and lubed a lot of pellets over the years and found they just make things worse. Pellet lube from the factory is designed for a reason

[David M]

The only time I wash them is used pellets to remove the sand and dirt
prior to melting them for Blackpowder balls.

[TWP]

When I mount my daughters rifle in a machine rest, shoot 10 shots at 10 meters, bring the target back and I can't drop a fresh pellet through the hole that 10 shot group went through, I seriously doubt that washing the pellets then re-lubing them would make a better group.

Buy quality pellets, test them to see what your rifle likes, then buy a bunch of them.

[Ryan Anderson]

Maybe this could help if using low quality (i.e. non-competition) pellets? I have never heard of doing that before and none of the other shooters that I train with at the olympic training center do that. The only thing I have heard is that people will go through and inspect the pellets they plan to use for competition to make sure there are no dings or nicks, and some even go as far as weighing each pellet individually and tossing out any that vary by more than they would like. But honestly, most of us just shoot them straight out of the tins and quickly check for big dings before loading.

Also be aware that if you get oil or lube or anything down in the regulator if your airgun it could ruin the mechanism...

Ryan

[BigAl]

As someone else who posted earlier said I think this washing pellets comes from the FT shooters, who are shooting at up to 55m outdoors. Even then I know shooters how have won gold at World FT champs and they don't bother with it, as it is lots of work for very little/no return. What is important to them though is the right pellet type/batch, just as in any other discipline. I do know of shooters that do wash etc, but really it's more for psychological reasons than any significant improvement in inherent accuracy. I have actually tried the reverse, using pellets with visibly deformed skirts shooting in AR Benchrest using a rifle running at around 770 fps with a nominal 8.4 gr pellet. I deliberately squeezed each pellet to deform the skirt, and the results were scores that were identical to using the best looking pellets possible.

When I shoot AR now I just use quality pellets, straight from the tin, and of course I check for obvious damage, but I also know that if I were to miss some minor deformity that I am not going to have to worry about it significantly affecting the results.

Alan

[Sc0]

Another advantage to washing/lubing pellets is to prevent oxidation and possibly to keep the barrel cleaner. It is time consuming and if you shoot 10m it is not needed, at 75yds then it might make a difference. I just picked up a used toaster for my wash/lube process on my .22 and .25 pellets; FT and Benchrest comp rifle.

For my 10m stuff they go from the tin to the chamber then somewhere around a target with an X.

[robf]

Also be aware that if you get oil or lube or anything down in the regulator if your airgun it could ruin the mechanism...

Ryan

I wouldn't worry about that too much. To get oil into the reg it's got to get into the transfer port, past the closed and sealed knock open valve, into the reservoir, and then into the reg, all while each time it's fired 80 or so bar wants to travel in the opposite direction. It's more likely to find it's way down the valve stem onto the hammer. That can give you temp variation if you shoot in different temps, but 10m guns out of the box have lube here anyway so they have this issue native, and at 10m, indoors, it's not an issue.

It's not clever pouring it in everywhere but unless the oil is something nasty that will eat nitrile seals then all it will do is lube it. Regs are just a collection of sprung washers with a piston and a couple of seals.

As per the original point... test your pellets, they should give you a tight 10 group. If they don't, simply try another brand. No need to get into pellet worrying for 10m. Its for the FT/HFT mob, and then it's a maybe...

[cloudswimmer]

I'm a certified OCD patient, wish I hadn't read this thread ;)

[Rover]

Wash your hands of this matter.

[rmca]

I'm a certified OCD patient, wish I hadn't read this thread ;)

If you were a TRUE OCD you would write it as CDO!
Now that's the correct way! ;)

[cloudswimmer]

I'm a certified OCD patient, wish I hadn't read this thread ;)

If you were a TRUE OCD you would write it as CDO!
Now that's the correct way! ;)

Isn't that slysdexia? ;)

[rmca]

There you go spelling things wrong again...
slysdexia -> adeilssxy !!!

[cloudswimmer]

There you go spelling things wrong again...
slysdexia -> adeilssxy !!!

Hmmmmm........I always did think the competitors were standing too far away in the 01m air pistol event ;)

[BigAl]

There you go spelling things wrong again...
slysdexia -> adeilssxy !!!

Hmmmmm........I always did think the competitors were standing too far away in the 01m air pistol event ;)

Shouldn't that be 01m air ilopst? :)

Alan

[cloudswimmer]

There you go spelling things wrong again...
slysdexia -> adeilssxy !!!

Hmmmmm........I always did think the competitors were standing too far away in the 01m air pistol event ;)

Shouldn't that be 01m air ilopst? :)

Alan

I was never big on ilopst pistols myself :)