TargetTalk

My son (age 16) wants to start shooting; I picked up an IZH-46M for him to start with. My question is looking at a catalog, I notice the sizes of the pellets offered are 4.49mm and 4.50mm. Which is better to feed the animal and why the difference?

Thanks,
Tim

Every gun has it's own best fitting ammo,
some are shooting better with heavy (0,53g) or light ammo (0,42g) and also the diameter can vary between 4,48 and 4,51.

But if your son just starts with shooting, just take 4,49 or 4,50.
If it can be inserted only scratchy it is too large.
However, the gun will shoot with every diameter and you won't break anything if you have the "false" one.

The reason is, that the barrels may vary in the inner diameter so you can pick up the best fitting ammo that will have the most accuracy.
Check my ammo test attached.
You can see on the left a few (good quality) diabolos, that are not really fitting my LP400, some others (marked with the black bars) are much better.
You will only find out with a ammo test, but honestly, I'm shooting also 375 with our club ammo and have shot some 358 with the best fitting ammo one day – there are more things to improve before picking the best ammo.
In the worst case, you can lose 1 Ring per shot because it’s a 8,8 instead of a 9,1, but for beginners and non competition shooters it’s IMHO not relevant.

Try some of each and use whichever your son likes better. I find that mine is harder to load with larger pellets so I choose smaller when they're available locally. But both shoot perfectly accurately through the 46m. Same for cheap-ish versus pricey. RWS Basic shoot the same for mine as R-10.

Honestly just get the regular economical Beeman pellets at 4.5mm. At this stage it would not matter much, as it is all about learning the basics. I don't see the point of batch testing to find the right caliber (4.48, 4.49, 4.5, 4.51,4.52) because if you have reach a point which 1/4 of a ring will make a huge difference you are probably ready for him to use a PCP. Then batch test all you want from the lowest grade to the highest, from the smallest to the largest caliber. Qiang Yuan, RWS, H&N, Vogel, Anything you want.
(and yes, I forgot about JSB, they are expensive).

Cheers, my two pellets

With the IZH-46M being a pump gun I would suggest the lighter pellets , the Pre Compressed Air Pistols (PCP) have more grunt and are happier with the heavier pellet.
Most competition pellet brands are available in 4 sizes (4.48, 4.49, 4.50, 4.51mm).
Cheaper training pellets are often only 4.50mm.
Try some of the sport/training pellets and see how they go, don't worry about testing or match quality pellets until you can shoot 550-560 or better.

Neon, the worst group there is A1, and it is still a 10.5 or better.

I wouldn't say 10.5, but it will hold the 10 easily IF you would be able to hit the 10.9 always.

I know what you want to point at and as I said, there are other things that will guide to a better result,
but if you have a 9mm diameter tolerance, a 10.2 out of your hand could lead to a 9.5 on the paper..

Neon21 wrote: 9mm diameter tolerance, a 10.2 out of your hand could lead to a 9.5 on the paper..

or a 9.5 could be a 10.2

Group A1 looks like if you find the true center and draw a 5MM circle (inner 10 or X ring) on that center it looks like it's pretty close to holding a 10.5.

Dave

Frankly said, I never cared about the bad results of the A1 ammo or even thought about how good they would actualy be, haha.

The result could get better, but calculated properly (yeah, stochastics),
the possibility is bigger to miss.. (3 directions pointing away from the inner circle, only one towards)

Just buy RWS Basic or Hobby (whichever is cheapest). It'll be MORE than good enough, and the light weight will get you slightly cleaner target holes.

Don't think for a second that you can buy points.

Rover wrote:Just buy RWS Basic or Hobby (whichever is cheapest). It'll be MORE than good enough, and the light weight will get you slightly cleaner target holes.

Don't think for a second that you can buy points.

Wasn’t trying to “buy points” just asked what is the difference between using a 4.50 versus 4.49 mm diameter pellet and which one is better and why?

Tim C wrote:Wasn’t trying to “buy points” just asked what is the difference between using a 4.50 versus 4.49 mm diameter pellet and which one is better and why?

If one were better than the other... it seems likely that the one judged to be 'worse' would go out of production after a short time. If one were significantly better in a significant percentage of guns, it seems similarly likely that sales of the worse pellet would decline, if not vanish. There are variations in actual barrel diameter and in the depth and pattern of the rifling, the relative choke of the barrel if any, crown style and relative precision of finish, and of course muzzle velocity. With all these plus other variables from pistol to pistol it comes down to using a bunch of pellets and figuring out which one your particular pistol (not just make and model, but the individual unit as manufacturing variation is a fact of life) happens to 'like.' As should be obvious from this, choosing between 4.49 or 4.5mm head diameter pellets is going to be a random decision at the outset. Only with time and trial and error will you discover any difference, if any exists for your particular pistol. And the difference will be very, very slight, whichever you choose.

Another thing to bear in mind is that pellets that are marked 4.49 or whatever are not always that size! Awhile ago I measured some JSB Match Diabolos (with a micrometer) and found that the actual size could vary +/- 0.01 mm from the marked size.

Neon, are those five shot groups? I ask because some of the holes are so ragged.

I like to shoot 25 or 30 shot groups to "fatten" them up for ease of measurement and comparison.

BTW Ich bin hier für das kostenlose Bier.

the upper stripe shows 5 shot-holes,
the stripe below are 10 shot-holes from the best lots of the upper stripe.
(the namings are not identical with the namings on the first stripe)

Freibier für alle ;)