Found this thread interesting BUT totally irrelevant
especially for Newbies.Whom I expect it is aimed at anyway.
As the PCP guns available are not equipped with a power control valve.(Those that do are not fine adjustment but large leaps )So as the guns are of a fixed power output then the article should ahve been a bit more precise in its content.
That said it is I repeat intersting,but of course the conclusion you should be getting from this simple data is that pellets like barrels and rifling grooves all differ from one to the other.head diameter and skirt thickness,waist shape and head shape,smooth and ribbed.each peelet fired at the same velocity and the same spin will all exhibit different flight characteristics.and will all behave vastly different at different ranges because of wind sheer and atmospheric pressures on the day.
Given a standard power output lets say 11.5 fpe with the most Air efficient pellet.(PCP's go higher with heavy pellets and springers usually go higher with lighter weight pellets) the test needs to be done at three or four different ranges with a gun set at maximum and then results recorded and then the best pellet should be subjected to further testing with the method you describe but as the guns are fitted with anti tamper if they are PCP then it is totally impossible to do.So therefor that's when it becomes irrelevant.
A better article for newbies would have been how to test for the best pellet for their guns.Not just newbies but also old hands are not all clued up as to how to go about making an informed choice by testing properly.
I have known some pellets that will be accurate as hell out of one gun set at 10fpe yet go all to cock from the same gun at 11.5fpe,but the same tin of pellets would group their tightest from another barrel set at 11.5 fpe.This would indicate that it is not the power that the pellets do not like, But that from any particular gun that they will behave differently.It is not the pellets that vary in performance so much as each individual gun barrel
That is whole idea of marrying a specific pellet to a barrel,because when a pellet is good, it is in my experience, usually good over a range of powers from the same barrel.The odd thing is that some pellets will be as good as each other up to a certain range, then the increase in range starts to tell a different story.In your tests could it be a case of ,Not so much the pellet reacting differently as the barrel behaving differently,with the harmonics altered by the power increase/decrease.Barrel harmonics are the single most destructive element in accuracy changes.And Harmonics change with power output therefor the behavior the pellet.
You say you wanted to keep it simple BUT this is not a simple subject, the science of the barrel harmonics and its affect on accuracy is a very complex one.Pellet Selection and how to go about it, is very easy on the other hand, and that should have been the article for newbies.
