Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Air Guns quality pellets

I have always used RWS Super Domes for my benchmark when shooting my inexpensive piston guns. I recently tried to get them at the local big store and they no longer carry them. I bought the best stuff they had and the Daisy and Crossman stuff don't cut it. I went to Air rifles of Arizona and bought some JSB pellets; wow did they ever wake this rifle up!!!


I went from 1" 10 meter groups to .2-.3" groups- especially with the heavies!

Anybody else use them??

I used JSB's about 12 years ago for my Pro Elite, since then I've never looked for anything else. They work flawlessly in all my vintage Sheridans, the RX-2 and my Alecto as well. They are a classic design that just plain works in everything.

+1 on the JSB Exacts. When I had my Beeman R9, sadly now gone..STUPID, they were the most accurate pellet for it. Can't tell you how many squirrels I took with that combo. Used to shoot 'em like deer. Just behind the shoulder. Almost always exit and usually DRT.

We can't quit shooting this thing- it has opened up some things for us! Both the heavies and regulars shoot great. It's pretty hard on grackels too!

Damn, I like these pellets. Gonna have to give my Crossmans away!!!

I have never found any one brand of pellets a panacea for accuracy across the board.

As with any firearm , guns tend to decide what they like best and many times it flies in the face of preconceived notions of the owner.

At this time a half dozen pellet guns I own really are not that impressed with any RWS pellets- even though they are fine ammo..

I have several rifles that shoot Crosman .177 and .22 pellets sold be Walmart as well as JSBs( MOA groups out to 50 yards)

Yes, the European made pellets tend to be a bit more consistent in weight, but there is nothing wrong with Crosmans in many individual rifles IMHO.

My .177 R-7 does .3" or under at 25 yards consistently with .177 Premier HPs from Walmart lightly lubed with Whiscombe honey.

JSBs are my first choice and work best in most of my rifles. Crossman Premium 10.5 and some RWS work great in some rifles.

I've been shooting the Crosman Detroyers, they are leaving the squirrels DRT. Thanks for the post on the heavier JSB's, I'll have to give those a try.

I'm a using a Scottish pellet that shoots just as good at almost half the price of JSB's. Kip from Airguns of Arizona turned me on to them the last time I was there. (3 months ago) I had my R9(.22)with me and got to try them out in their indoor range. I was very impressed how well they shot, now that's all I use.

If it's it's the Milbro pellets, the are no cheaper than Crosmans.

But it's always nice to have choices.

I were sure rather give Milbro or Crosmans a try before I used Gamo pellets.

In fact they are Milbro, but which Crosman's? The Premires in the box are well over 20 buck which makes the Milbro's much cheaper than that, and I've never tried the cheap Crosman's. It doesn't matter, none of my springers likes Crosmans anyway, only my Crosman's shoots Crosman pellets with any kind of accuracy but I'm not buying a separate brand just for a gun. I try to find one that shoots well in all of them and the TR's do the job very well for all of them.
And I'm like you, they're ain't no way a single Gamo pellet of any kind is going down any one of my barrels.

I know a lot of folks claim the lower price Crosman pellets are junk ,but that has not been the case in my actual experience.

I actually buy the Crosman Premier HP .177 and 22 slugs from Walmart at $7 to $8 per tin of 500.

I have compared directly them with the .177 and .22 cal premier FT pellets in the same rifles and have found that you are just as likely to find a rifle that like the cheap pellets as the more expensive ones in the box.

All of the Crosman pellets can stand sorting and cleaning, but so do many brands of pellets. Other than cleaning mine with a wash of mineral spirits or other solvent to flush out some of the trash, I shoot them right out of the tin.

I have a .177 Beeman R-7 that shoots the Walmart Crosmans better than anything else- including JSB ect. The gun and I are having a bad day when I cannot shoot bugholes hanging around .25 CTC from a rest at 25 yards. It prefers them lubed with a bit of Whiscombe honey for best results.

Same with my .22 cal Marauder. It shoots the cheap Crosman HPs as well as any 14g pellet-and nearly as well as it's favorite JSB 16g and 18g pellets. I have tried various JSB, RWS and H&N made pellets in that gun and the premiers shoot very well out to 50 yards.

Based on your post, I will have to give the Millbros a try next time I place an order with AG of AZ..

Always good to try out different pellets.

Good for you that your guns like Crosmans, I wish mine did, not only just my Crosman guns.
I agree that all brands can stand a washing, but I just shoot mine right out of the tins, to lazy to go through all of that.

I tried the Select and TR, the TR shot just a bit tighter, but not by much. For the price, these pellets works great if your gun likes them.

And yes, it's always good to try different pellets, you never know. Look what happened to Beeman and their FTS pellets. I still have 14 unopened tins of them and will hang on to them until hell freezes over. That's why I'm always looking for a pellet that can replace the FTS. The H&N FTT works good, but not all of my springers likes them, the FTT aren't as consistent like the FTS in head size.

Do you find that the Pneumatics are far less sensitive to Pellet choice then springers?

I've had a few springers in my life and they all seemed rather finicky, except the R2 which was a gas piston actually.

However the pneumatics Have all shot pretty good with most pellets and excellent with specific pellets. I just have the feeling the pneumatics shoot most pellets better on average then the springers do.

I wish that was the case, but not for me. I've had/have 4 Benjamin 392's, three had been modified (Steroid by TimMac1) and kept one stock since it was a Limited Edition 392. Two of the three Steroids wouldn't shoot JSB Express, or Crosman Premires with any kind of accuracy. At 25 yards, it was like I shot a shotgun at a 1" target, but the other Steroid and stock 392 would make a 1/2-3/4 inch ragged hole. All of the barrels were cleaned with paint remover to get out the over spray from the factory and all of the Steroids had a crown job done by Tim. Funny enough, the stock 392 didn't get a crown job but it shoot just as tight as the Steroids.
As far as the same pellets through my springers & rams, none of my springers shot the Express or Premiers very well either, although a few of my Crosman gassers shot the Premiers the best out of all of my guns.
I wish I could find 1 pellet that ALL of my guns could shoot with very good accuracy. I know, fat chance of that happening, but at least I narrowed it down to 3 pellets that all of my guns shoot with acceptable accuracy.

My Sheridan Blue streak from 1964 is the most accurate rifle I have ever shot period.

I can usually skim the tip of a blue tip match and get it to light from 20-30 feet. Not every time of course. Many times I shoot the whole tip off the match which would seem to be good accuracy in itself. However it usually takes a few tries and eventually that match lights at the crack of the pellet firing.

On a none windy day, I's try to shoot out lighted candel at
about the same range with whatever gun I had at the time. Birthday candels are really small if the gun didn't have a scope on it.

Pic from yesterday.....

RWS SuperMag, RWS Magnum 350, from a rest at 23 yards....



The dust around the hole, is whats left of a housefly. If you look close you can see a piece of wing. A dash of beer on a board will provide hours of entertainment.

Now that sounds like a good hunt. When I was a kid, I had fun shooting bumble bees off the honeysuckle with my crossman slide barrel BB gun. Lent that gun out and it never came back. I could use it now.

Airguns are quite possibly the funnest thing to have around a campfire in a hunting camp that I can think of.....


Grizzly camp this spring we had mine and while we were sitting under a tarp waiting for the rain to stop we were having a informal shoot, clipping match heads at 20 yards.....

JSB Field Target 16.0 grain and Straton 16.0 grian .22 pellets work OK in my S&W 77A, but the pellet that shoots the best in this rifle is the Beeman Kodiak 21.1 grain. This rifle will shoot the lighter pellets, like the RWS Hobby 11.9 grain pellets OK with 5 pumps, but sends them all over the paper at 10 pumps.

Other than the rifle itself, the best pellet buy that I ever made was the Straight Shooters 22 Caliber sampler pack. I think that it came with 25 each of 18 different styles, from 5 different brands (Beeman, Crosman, JSB, Lazapell, and RWS). A cheaper way to narrow down what does, or doesn't, work in your rifle.

JEff