What Are The Best Airgun Pellets?

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What Are The Best Airgun Pellets?
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One of the most common questions from airgun shooters is: what are the best airgun pellets? Meaning, of course, the best pellets for their own airgun.

It’s a fact that every individual airgun is unique and that different airguns – even if exactly the same model – will “prefer” different pellets. Trying out different pellets and seeing the results is an interesting part of shooting for many airgun shooters.

Most airgun magazines publish tests that are performed with a variety of quality pellets that have a good reputation for shooting well. Are they the best airgun pellets for every gun? Not necessarily, but they certainly give a good guide that you can start with. This enables you to see how muzzle velocity and accuracy vary when different types of pellet are used in the exact same air rifle or air pistol.

Here at Just Air Guns we have an overall guide for the general types of pellets that are likely to work best with your airgun.

FLAT PELLETS

Generally flat-fronted pellets are best used for shooting paper targets as they give good, clean holes. They are also best used with relatively low muzzle velocities, say 800fps or less as their aerodynamics are poor above that speed. But these are typically the most accurate pellets available and can be used for close range hunting, too.

DOMED PELLETS

Dome pellets are those with a rounded front. These pellets cut through the air better than wadcutters and can be considered as general use pellets for plinking, hunting and everyday shooting.

POINTED PELLETS

Pointed pellets have a sharp nose and are typically recommended for hunting and longer-range shooting. Accuracy is normally not so good as with domed pellets, but is still OK.

STEEL BB PELLETS

Steel BBs are now very popular in many replica Co2 Air Pistols. Most will work well in all pistols, however, here are a few recommendations.

Whatever the pellet design, one thing is for sure. Lighter pellets shoot faster than heavier ones in the same gun.

This is why larger calibres such as .22 are more suitable for hunting than .177 – the pellets are heavier, so they travel slower but hit harder.

So we recommend using our guide but please try a few different types and brands to see what works best for your airgun.

For more information, please see our Airgun Pellets on this website at Just Air Guns.

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