RWS Super Dome

What a coincidence.
I was just in a shop in Ashburton and they have the same in 177.
Let me know if can't find any up there and I'll send you the shop name.
Been to a few shops enroute looking for AA and have been rather amused at the responce when I've told them thier pellet selection is crap and air rifles are hell fussy and named better brands that would good to have as well.
One looked rather suprised when I told her I wouldn't touch gamo as they in general are crap. Yet they had rws. Lol. Shame didn't have any in 22,i would have brought a tin to try.

Just had one of those "WOW" moments....

Been doing some chronograph work today with my AirArms S510 .25cal.
Been testing different pellet weights at different power levels. Looking for consistency in velocity, because that should translate into tight groups right? Well thats my theory any way.

I've also had another theory thats been growing in the back of my head for a while now, so I was also testing that today, and that theory is that at lower power levels, "lighter for caliber" pellets work better, and at higher power levels, "heavier for caliber" pellets work better.
I'm not talking about velocity here, we all know that pellets are happiest around the 850fps mark, but not every rifle can push a pellet that fast, and not every shooter or situation requires that much speed and the associated energy that comes with it.
What I'm talking about is consistency in performance.
It doesn't matter if your first shot (power level) is only 218fps, what matters is will the next 4 shots be with in a few fps of the first shot? If they are then you have consistency and you should be well on your way to a tight group.

This S510 has 5 power levels (transfer port settings), and I have chosen to work with 3 of them.
Power level 1 - ridiculously low, about 2FPE.
Power level 2 - nice usable power for urban pesting, about 15 or 16FPE.
and power level 5 - huge power for big open spaces, 40FPE.

Anyone who knows me knows I am a huge fan of JSB exacts, they are very hard to beat for accuracy at long distances, and for me thats all that counts. So up to now I have been using the standard JSB Exact 25.4gr "standard for caliber" weight pellet for all of the different power settings, and they have performed reasonably well across all of them.
But there is always room for improvement, hence my never ending testing.

At the lowest power setting I wanted to try a "light for caliber" pellet and I found a 20gr H&N FTT, 20% lighter then the 25.4gr Exact. And yes, over the chrono it performed better (more consistent velocitys, less extreame spread and lower standard deviation) then the heavier Exacts, so I'll be changing to those for power level 1 (Sparrow power... )

Somewhere in one of the many threads on this forum, we were talking about measuring head sizes and someone spent hours measuring pellets and they said they were seriously impressed with the consistency of RWS super domes, and that stuck in my head. So when I saw some .25cal Super Domes on trade me I bought two tins, and today was the first time I've tried at them.

They are 31grainers, so quite a bit heavier then the 25.4gr exacts, so of course I tested them side by side against the exacts on power level 5, full power. And yes, at full power the heavier RWS's were more consistent than the Exacts. Heavier, yes, slower, of course, but the ES and the SD were both HALF of the Exacts.
And if I take out one of the 5 shots and just look at a 4 shot string, they had an ES of 5fps and a SD of 2!!!   

After that I had finished all my testing and was about to pack up when I thought, what the hell, everything is already set up and its all right here, let me quickly test the RWS against the Exacts at power level 2 as well (16FPE)...
And thats when I had my little "Wow..." moment.
Again heavier and slower, and carrying slightly more FPE, but over 5 shots they gave an extreme spread of 5fps and a standard deviation of 1.4
wow...
Hoping to get to my 100m shooting range in the next few days to continue testing. Will keep you posted.

I might have to try find some in .177 and .22 now aswell...