Just got back from a week long business trip to California. Before I left 0n the trip, I ordered in a couple of cans of the H&N, .22 caliber Baracuda Green, tin pellets. They were waiting for me when I got home.
I do a lot of ground squirrel hunting in California, and the ranch that I primarily hunt on, has banned the use of any and all lead ammunition, including airgun pellets.
For the past 5 years or so, my goto non-lead pellets, have been the ones marketed under the DYNAMIC brand from England. They have been stellar performers in many of my airguns. As in, the accuracy is as good as the best lead pellet in the same guns. They have pretty much set the standard by which other non-lead pellets are measured. At least in my small corner of the world.
Sometime back, I noticed that H&N, out of Germany, was offering a non-lead pellet in .177. I wasn't particularly interested in that caliber, but I was hoping that they would eventually offer one in .22. Sure enough, awhile back I noticed that they were now available in .22 as well.
My experience with the DYNAMIC brand tin pellets has been outstanding, so I'm curious to see what the folks at H&N have to offer.
When I sorted the Dynamic PCP-2, 14.5 grain tin pellets, I found them to be one of the most consistent pellets, weight, and dimension wise, that I had ever checked.
As a comparison, when I weight sorted some Kodiak Match pellets, they had one of the widest weight variations of any pellets that I had ever checked. They varied by as much as a full grain across a single tin.
As with the DYNAMIC non-lead pellets, when I checked the H&N Baracuda Green non-lead pellets, I found them to be very consistent in weight, and dimensions as well.
They weren't more than plus or minus a tenth of a grain from the mean weight of 12.6 grains. That is outstanding consistency in my experience, and will manifest itself as increased accuracy at long range.
Below, is a comparison showing the Baracuda Green, tin pellet, next to the DYNAMIC Sn-2, PCP-2, tin pellets, and a lead Kodiak. This is a good example of the difference in density of the two metals used in these pellets. The lead Kodiak, at 21 grains, is over 8 grains heavier than the Baracuda tin pellet, at 12.6 grains, yet the lead Kodiak is only .008 of an inch longer.
The 14.5 grain PCP-2, is .017 of an inch longer than the Kodiak, yet weighs 6.5 grains less. The challenge with the tin pellets is to get a pellet with some decent weight to it, yet have it be short enough to fit in most airgun magazines.
For example, the DYNAMIC TM-2 tin pellets weigh 17 grains, but at 17 grains, they are to long, and won't fit in any of my guns mags, so I have to shoot them single shot.
The next obvious step is to shoot these guys out of a few of my guns, and see how they perform in the accuracy department at 50 yards. No time to do that this week, but maybe I can do some testing next week. Stay tuned, more to follow.
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