Qiang Yang Training vs. Match Pellets

[Mtl_Biker]

Does anyone here use Qiang Yang pellets (for rifle or pistol)?

I took advantage of a Boxing Week sale at a Canadian dealer, Nordic Marksman, and bought 10,000 Qiang Yang pellets. According to their web site AND order confirmation, what I ordered was "Match Quality" pellets. I was saving about a buck per 500 (plus free shipping) compared with the JSB Match Diablo and H&N Finale Match Light and Heavy that I usually shoot. My understanding is that Qiang Yang makes three different qualities of pellet... training, match and Olympic.

Anyway, the order arrived and the pellets are clearly marked as "Training Grade". I'm bummed out, as I wouldn't have paid this much for training pellets, nor would I have bought as many. The price difference between the match pellets I usually shoot and these "training" pellets, is not large enough to justify the purchase. Especially considering that I can get H&N Sport, RWS Hobby, H&N Match, etc. for much less money. And I consider those to be training pellets.

I've emailed the dealer but they may be closed today as they haven't replied.

What would you do? Keep them (assuming they'll credit me some money) or send them back? I repeat that I wouldn't have paid this much for training pellets. I only bought them because I thought I was getting a bit of a deal on match quality pellets, and from what I've read Qiang Yang makes good pellets.

It'll be interesting to see what the dealer says and what he proposes.

[hundert]

if it makes you feel better, I bought RWS Meisterkugel and they arrived in damaged tin cans, like heavily damaged. The price was only slightly better than usual. So I won nothing obviously since I had to use them for training only, but it was with these that I shot my best scores (all over 380). It had nothing to do with pellets I think, but for training it doesn't matter as much. So, I wouldn't send them back. But if you're delivered the wrong product then ask for price adjustment.

[v76]

iirc the "match grade" stuff come in quantities of 200 and are more than double the price than the training pellets.

How much more did you pay over say, some RWS Basic/Hobby? 3-4$ per tin? That's definitely a lot considering you won't really see a gain in performance - be it Finale Match or Basics or Qiang 'training' - unless you're at the top of the game. I wouldn't say the store ripped you off because, no offense, but these (and most any of these pellets) will do better groupings than you in a vise. For all we know these could even do better groupings in your gun than the higher priced stuff... Are you gonna be shooting in any crucial matches any time soon?

The best deal i've found for pellets (including shipping) has been Vogel from Tesro Canada. Cibles is pretty good on the HN stuff too. Canadian Airgun Forum store also has good prices on sleeves of RWS Hobby.

You already got an LP10, don't sweat that superfluous stuff.

[Mtl_Biker]

iirc the "match grade" stuff come in quantities of 200 and are more than double the price than the training pellets.

How much more did you pay over say, some RWS Basic/Hobby? 3-4$ per tin? That's definitely a lot considering you won't really see a gain in performance - be it Finale Match or Basics or Qiang 'training' - unless you're at the top of the game. I wouldn't say the store ripped you off because, no offense, but these (and most any of these pellets) will do better groupings than you in a vise. For all we know these could even do better groupings in your gun than the higher priced stuff... Are you gonna be shooting in any crucial matches any time soon?

The best deal i've found for pellets (including shipping) has been Vogel from Tesro Canada. Cibles is pretty good on the HN stuff too. Canadian Airgun Forum store also has good prices on sleeves of RWS Hobby.

You already got an LP10, don't sweat that superfluous stuff.

Thanks very much for your reply, but I think you're missing my point. I DO use what I call training pellets, either RWS Hobby or H&N Excite, and they're considerably less expensive than what I paid for these "Match" pellets which turned out to be "Training" grade instead. I'd never used Qiang Yang pellets before and neither have any of my local friends and I took advantage of Nordic's Boxing Week sale to get in a batch. So I'm disappointed about spending so much more for training pellets than I should have. I didn't realize that their "Match" pellets only came in packs of 200 instead of 500, but I trusted both the web listing and my order confirmation that I was getting "Match" pellets.

I ended up paying over $3 more per tin for these than I would have for Hobby's. And over $6 more per tin than the Excite. They MAY shoot well, but until I get a reply from Nordic, I'm not even trying them. I'm bummed because I could have gotten match pellets (real match pellets) for about the same price.

You are absolutely correct though, just about any pellet performs better than I can shoot. But from my testing, my gun (EVO-10 btw, not LP10) likes head size 4.49 better than 4.50, which is why I often elect to go with a better pellet simply because they are easier to obtain in 4.49 than the cheaper pellets.

And as far as being/feeling "ripped off" goes, I don't care if these pellets shoot the best in the world... Qiang Yang makes "Training", "Match" and "Olympic" grade pellets and when a company quotes me for "Match" and confirms that both through their web listing and order confirmation, I expect to GET "Match" pellets, and not "Training" pellets. If I'd been offered "Training" pellets at a good price, especially if they were as good as (or even better than) the Excite or Hobby, I very likely would have gone for those.

For low-cost training pellets, I like the H&N Excite (which are also used almost exclusively by the FQTIR where I shoot regularly) and those come in at $5 per tin... less than half what these Qiang Yang training pellets cost me.

[v76]

Crosman also has match pellets that they qualify as 'competition grade' and theyre the worst pellet I've ever used. iirc the excite pellets did the worst groups in most pellet tests here.

If you have a microscope or a good magnifying glass, I'd love to see pictures of the Qiang Yang pellets side by side with the "match grade" stuff from HN and RWS. I also wonder how good they really are!

But I do get your point, of course. QY have 3 grades which are:
Excellent for: best
Standard for: Intermediate
Match for: Training

The match come in a 500pcs tin and both others come in a plastic shaker box (200pcs). It happens a lot that retailers mix up information but in this case it seems you did... you got the Match stuff which are the training pellets. But I agree that QY needs to review their wording because that stuff is confusing.

[hundert]

yeah I also googled that, what they call match seems to be the training pellets. They are of good quality according to many.

[Mtl_Biker]

Crosman also has match pellets that they qualify as 'competition grade' and theyre the worst pellet I've ever used. iirc the excite pellets did the worst groups in most pellet tests here.

If you have a microscope or a good magnifying glass, I'd love to see pictures of the Qiang Yang pellets side by side with the "match grade" stuff from HN and RWS. I also wonder how good they really are!

But I do get your point, of course. QY have 3 grades which are:
Excellent for: best
Standard for: Intermediate
Match for: Training

The match come in a 500pcs tin and both others come in a plastic shaker box (200pcs). It happens a lot that retailers mix up information but in this case it seems you did... you got the Match stuff which are the training pellets. But I agree that QY needs to review their wording because that stuff is confusing.

This is far too confusing and it seems various sources call these pellets different things. I'll accept blame for not checking it out more carefully before ordering, but I was on holiday and had only my cell phone to do any research. And the review I read clearly stated that the "Match" pellets were better than the "Training" pellets and that the "Olympic" ones were the best.

According to this link, there are Olympic, Match and Training...
http://www.pyramydair.com/blog/2015/02/ ... st-part-1/

And with a European site for Qiang Yuan, there are (as you say), Excellent, Standard and Match...
http://www.qiang-yuan.eu/index.php/en/product-details

And yet another with Olympic, Match and Training...
https://podiumpellets.com/jsb-pellets.h ... facturer=8

Okay, I'll accept that it seems their lowest quality is indeed "Match". But sites which confuse the names suggest that "Match" is a higher quality than "Training".

Much too confusing if you ask me.

Guess I'll just have to keep these and learn from my mistakes.

[Mtl_Biker]

And one more source that REALLY confuses things...

https://www.tesro.ca/qiang-yuan-olympic-pellets.html

Those are clearly called "Olympic", implying that they are the highest quality pellet available from Qiang Yang. And they say 500 per tin. The photo looks similar to the Training pellets I received.

All those companies must be graduates from the Trump School of Marketing. Guess there's no such thing as truth in advertising.

[hundert]

there are only training pellets available in 500pc cans, they are of the same quality as in the boxes, from what I read. So, the match is only in 200pc boxes, they are better selected (they simply remove the bad ones) and are better for transportation, but for the price I'd never buy them.

[v76]

Yep I thought they changed the names after they were introduced... or maybe some retailers wanting to clarify what they were selling did so and confused clients even more... im curious about what the seller has to say about this.

[Rover]

All the above is of little value unless you learn to hold your mouth right.

BTW I use RWS Basic (best by test...not really, but plenty good enough) for everything.

[dulcmr-man]

All the above is of little value unless you learn to hold your mouth right.

BTW I use RWS Basic (best by test...not really, but plenty good enough) for everything.

+1 I HOPE that some day I will be good enough to notice the difference. In the meantime, I sometimes suspect I could throw them down range with similar results.

Dennis in the PRK

[Rover]

If it makes you feel better....I don't think ANYONE can tell the difference between RWS Basic and their "match" pellet.

Back before I was old and blind, I could call where in the ten ring my shot went. That was with an FWB springer and Meisterkugeln rifle pellets.

[dulcmr-man]

If it makes you feel better....I don't think ANYONE can tell the difference between RWS Basic and their "match" pellet.

Back before I was old and blind, I could call where in the ten ring my shot went. That was with an FWB springer and Meisterkugeln rifle pellets.

I am learning to call my shots, but not that accurately. I generally identify "high right" or "low", but generally cannot call the scoring ring accurately. Unfortunately, I sometimes call one good that turns out to be somewhere in the seven ring and I don't know why. Definitely a work in progress.

Dennis in the PRK