Air rifle Pellet Testing- Flathead vs roundhead

  • Hey Guest, Early bird pricing on the Summer Moot (29th July - 10th August) available until April 6th, we'd love you to come. PLEASE CLICK HERE to early bird price and get more information.

Siberianfury

Native
Jan 1, 1970
1,534
6
mendip hills, somerset
I shoot air rifles a fair bit, for hunting and target practice, ive always used Webley Accupels and have never had any problems or doubts about them.

i saw a tin of bisley flatheads in a local shop, and bought them on impulse.

so ive decided to run a few little tests to see which out of these two pellets is superiour for my intended purpose- Hunting small Game.

pellettest009.jpg

the Pellets where being fired from my .22 BSA Lighting with a 3-9 x 40 Nikko Sterling mountmaster illuminated sight, the rifle is running at about 11.4ft/lbs and has no problem dispatching rabbits and pigeons.

pellettest001.jpg

The First Test was to see which pellet had the best penetration, i used a inch thick block of Chip Board for this. On the left you will see the Bisley Practice Flathead, not much penetration and the pellet seems to have tumbled, on the right you will see the Webley Accupel, its penetrated cleanly about 2 thirds on an inch into the board.

pellettest002.jpg

next i wanted to test out the Damage on Soft Targets, for this i chose a couple of Pears. as you can see the Bisley on the right has literaly blown it apart, theres alot of stopping power in that pellet.

pellettest003.jpg

the Bisley Flathead, showing its ability to cause alot of damage.

pellettest004.jpg

In Contrast the accupels result was rather unimpressive, it simply peirced through the fruit, not taking much flesh with it and not providing a particuarly good ammount of stopping power.

pellettest005.jpg


Next up i chose to test the accuracy of these pellets by Grouping on a target at 18 yards with 3 Pellets, in this picture you will see the Group from the Bisley flatheads, a respectable grouping.

pellettest006.jpg


However, the Accupel clearly lives up to its name as in this picture it shows a Pellet on Pellet Group, Brilliant accuracy at 18 yards.
pellettest008.jpg

here you can see the pellets literaly fused together, a brilliant result.

so in conclusion

Bisley Flathead wins for Stopping Power

crossman Accupel wins for penetration and accuracy.
 

Shewie

Mod
Mod
Dec 15, 2005
24,259
24
48
Yorkshire
We used to use flatheads for rats when I was a kid, trousers tucked into socks and a three hole balaclava :D
 

woof

Full Member
Apr 12, 2008
3,647
5
lincolnshire
Interesting Josh. I used H&N "wadcutters" in mine (airarms tx200 .177) as i found that conventional round nose were going straight through. The same principal with fullbore handguns, a jacketed round will give you good penertration, but you need it to dump all its energy in your intended target.So given a choice i would choose hollowpoint/semi-wadcutter, style round, however, no one was ever killed in a "gun fight" by a near miss, so accurracy must be your main priority. I understand that German barrels a tad smaller in diameter, so look where the pellets are made, and keep trying different brands.

Rob
 

Tony

White bear (Admin)
Admin
Apr 16, 2003
24,174
1
1,931
53
Wales
www.bushcraftuk.com
SF, was the rifle sighted in using the accupels? or did you set the gun up separately for both types of pellet? I appreciate that it's unlikely to effect the grouping but it might bring the grouping back to the middle. Unless you've covered all this I think it demonstrates the need to set up your gun and stick to the pellets you set it up with.
 

BCUK Shop

We have a a number of knives, T-Shirts and other items for sale.

SHOP HERE