Target Sports

PELLET SIZE: A SENSE OF PROPORTION

Created on 14th May 2009

RODERICK MCCAFFERTY explains how pellets compare to the size of a pigeon or crow and how to calculate pellet proportional weight

HAVE YOU heard the story about the lady who goes into the grocer and says "Four pounds of potatoes please?" The grocer replies, "Madam, we're in the EEC now - as you know we've changed to kilos." Bemused, the woman replies, "Very well, four pounds of kilos please!"

The only reason that I relate this daft joke is to establish that I will be using Imperial units of pounds and feet throughout this article. No, it's not because I don't understand the kilo, which is 2.22lb, it is simply that pellets scale up easier if I use pounds.

Have you ever considered what size a pellet is compared to a pigeon or a crow, for example? The body weight of a pigeon is approximately 1lb. Now, 1lb is 7,000gn. A very light target pellet can be a mere 7gn. This is only one thousandth of the bird's weight - not much, you might think. I weigh about 200lb (I wish). So a .177" pellet scaled up to my weight would be a fifth of 1lb! That's 3.2oz or three times the weight of a 12-bore slug (1,400gn in total). A .22" pellet at 14gn would be 6.4oz and a .25" pellet at 21gn would be 9.6oz. That is like a small cannon ball. No wonder air rifle pellets can clobber a pigeon even in the dinky sized .177" calibre. But .177" pellets are nearer 8.4gn and heavy weights like the Bisley Magnum or Milbro Clipper are 10.5gn. So now we are nearer 4oz or ¼lb for the lighter pellet. That is equivalent to four, yes four, 1oz 12-bore slugs impacting simultaneously!

A .22" pellet can range from a modest 12gn to a hefty 21.4gn with Air Arms field pellets coming in at 16.2gn and Eley Wasp or RWS Superdomes nearer 14.5gn. The .25" calibre is over-kill in my view, ranging from BSA's Pylarm pellets at 18.6gn and 19gn for the Milbro Rhino. The Ramjet by H&N is 27gn. These are serious projectiles used against pigeon or rabbits.

A simple way of calculating pellet proportional weight is to take your own weight in pounds and pick one pellet out of your favourite tin for every pound you weigh: in my case that would be 211 pellets. That's quite a handful and some weight as I mostly shoot .22" Wasp or Superdomes! The total is 3,059.5gn.

How big would these pellets be in scaled up form? In order to understand better I will give you a couple of straightforward examples.

Supposing you weigh 125lb, which is 8st 13lb or 56.3kg. The cube root of 125 is five or five x five x five = 125. So the pellet would be increased in all dimensions five fold. A .177" or 4.5mm would be 22.5mm in diameter. A .22" or 5.5mm would be 27.5mm diameter and a .25" or 6.35 mm would be 31.75mm diameter. Let us suppose that you are a bigger lad or lass and weigh 216lb, which is 15st 6lb or 97.27kg, then the cube root of 216 is six, so our pellets would scale up six fold! Our pellets scale up to 27mm, 33mm and 38.1 mm respectively. Imperial units are 1.063", 1.299" and 1.5" respectively. That makes a .50 calibre look a bit small by comparison. I think that 125lb to 216lb weight range will include most people. So pellets would scale up to five or six times the normal size for most people. Whichever way that you look at it, any airgun pellet is a big deal for a 1lb pigeon!

I have recently manufactured some scaled-up pellets which will soon be available for sale should any reader be interested. They are quite a handful (that's an understatement). After handling them I really appreciate just how big air rifle pellets are compared to birds like pigeons or crows.

Scaling up the range

If we also scale up the range of a typical hunting shot of say 25yd then this will equate to five x 25 or 125yd or six x 25 = 150yd. So air rifles are pretty powerful items in the world of small vermin. Most deer are shot with suitable high-powered rifles within 125yd to 150yd, so air rifle hunters shooting at 25yd are using their kit sensibly. Take that really long shot of 50yd with your trusty air rifle and we see that it is equivalent to between 250 and 300yd for our deerstalker. Most stalkers would be happier with the skill involved in getting close enough to take the certain humane shot, rather than the lazier long-range one. Elmer Keith did take some long shots but I remember he also said that he preferred to do all his hunting before he fired. I'm sure that this comes out of respect for the quarry and we should all aspire to this ideal. So I try to keep my hunting shots within my own skill level so that I can be certain of that single humane shot. Holding some of those scaled-up pellets in my hand has certainly convinced me that air rifle pellets fired from a quality air rifle are definitely up to the task of shooting pigeon and other vermin.

PELLET SIZE: A SENSE OF PROPORTION

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PELLET SIZE: A SENSE OF PROPORTION

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