Steyr LP 1 used 4.48 pellet in factory test.What to use?WHY?

Tycho · Post by **Tycho** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 2:57 pm

As usual, Steve's taking up a lot of space, but there you have it. And - I'm upkeeping my statement that there's no way any serious, match grade AP will shoot bigger groups than 3-4mm with any halfway serious ammo, although the wrongly cited garbage can principle applies in this case, too. Testing ammo like the 4.48mm Finale Match against the 4.49mm Finale Match is a waste of time of the highest order. You're obviously free to do it, though, but don't indoctrinate rookies with theories like that. We'd all better spend our time practicing.

william · Post by **william** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 5:01 pm

At the risk of angering a far better shot than I: Steve, your rigorous engineering approach reminds one of the pilot, lost in the fog, who radios for help. He reaches the Microsoft Technical Assistance Center where an engineer answered the question, "Where am I?" with the perfectly accurate - and totally useless - "In an airplane." More seriously, a well respected and very successful coach supplies his team with Geco pellets. That is RWS's promotional line which sell for about 35% less than Meisterkugeln which in turn sell for about 25% less than R10. ¿Quien sabe?

Richard H · Post by **Richard H** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 6:11 pm

william wrote:At the risk of angering a far better shot than I: Steve, your rigorous engineering approach reminds one of the pilot, lost in the fog, who radios for help. He reaches the Microsoft Technical Assistance Center where an engineer answered the question, "Where am I?" with the perfectly accurate - and totally useless - "In an airplane." More seriously, a well respected and very successful coach supplies his team with Geco pellets. That is RWS's promotional line which sell for about 35% less than Meisterkugeln which in turn sell for about 25% less than R10. ¿Quien sabe?

Your point being what?

Geco is RWS and it has been said over and over any pellet from a reputable manufacture will perform fine. The difference between Geco, Meisterklugen and RWS is the sorting. Like was also said the difference between 4.48, 4.49, 4.5 is really a negligable error in the whole system. So maybe a shot that plugs in might plug out, I have the money and am willing to pay to maybe get lucky and get it plugged in. I'm also under no illusion that the differences in Meisterklugen and RWS will not make a statistically significant difference in my scores.

william · Post by **william** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 6:52 pm

My point, obscured in trying to be too cute, is that the quality of the practice (which is more difficult to reduce to numerical evaluation) is vastly more important than the quality of the pellets. The Geco sidelight was merely to illustrate that excellent results can be had with pellets that cost under $4USD per tin without recourse to getting lucky and maybe having one plug in.

Honest Abe · Post by **Honest Abe** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 7:26 pm

I love these threads!

Like eating cotton candy or watching American television . . .

He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas better than any man I ever met.

Abraham Lincoln

RobStubbs · Post by **RobStubbs** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 8:32 am

william wrote:My point, obscured in trying to be too cute, is that the quality of the practice (which is more difficult to reduce to numerical evaluation) is vastly more important than the quality of the pellets. The Geco sidelight was merely to illustrate that excellent results can be had with pellets that cost under $4USD per tin without recourse to getting lucky and maybe having one plug in.

But you can do both and that's the point. If you shoot a crap pellet or one that is too sloppy for the gun then you lose. You may not lose very much but you will lose points. You have no need to so a sensible approach is to find some decent pellets that shoot well and stick with them.

Rob.

Steve Swartz · Post by **Steve Swartz** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 12:16 pm

. . . everyone's a critic . . .

Steve

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:04 pm

Well, what about the fact that any particular "size" pellet will have a batch to batch variation which is as much a diference as the difference will be trying different sizes.

If you want to completely waste more time test 5 different batches of 4.48s and see what happens (even from the same manufacturer).

Or, just buy some pellets (anything made by RWS, H&N or other reputable manufacturer) and go to the range and shoot.

The great advantage that pistol has over SB rifle is that anyone could be World Champion with an average pistol and cheap ammo.

Steve Swartz · Post by **Steve Swartz** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:33 am

My point exactly . . . you have Brand-Brand error differences, Weight/Size-Weight/Size error differences, and Lot-Lot error differences (not to mention pellet-pellet within the same tin differences!).

With this much noise, an awful lot of testing would need to be done to pick up any "real" (as opposed to "got lucky with one 5 shot group") differences in potential accuracy between Brands, Weight/Sizes, or Lots.

And this assumes that the "real" differences are even practically significant (as opposed to statistically significant). Particularly when you consider that the errors would be somewaht randomly distributed across the face of the target, making the probability of the error being "in your favor" *almost* as likely as the error being "against you."

Of course, this assumes you are selecting reasonably high-quality match grade pellets. The Brand-Brand differences between RWS/H&N etc vs Crosman Dome Point Hunting pellets are certainly significant. No argument there.

Buy reasonably good pellets and shoot a lot of them. Do even more dry firing while you're at it.

Steve Swartz