What’s the point of pointed pellets?

Trumpetier said:
Possibly Hades where the pellets you mention ? Great in .22, not to hot in .177
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I honestly can't remember but I've sent him a message so as soon as he gets back to me I'll edit my post.
A quick google images search looks like it could well be them and they would have been in .22 because thats what his Hatsan is.
We tried them in that, a Hammerli break, a very old Remington and a Lyra K. All similar results - they just went dead straight until they got to that point which was different with each gun. In my post I presumed that was because of power but now I'm wondering if it was to do with spin from the different barrels too?
 
I've generally found pointed pellets to be a bit poor accuracy wise but Crosman pointed (they're not very pointed!) are an exception and shoot well in both .22 and .177 in several of my rifles better than crosman domes in some cases. My .22 stealth loves them!
 
Pointed probably would work best if the point is the centre of spin, I somehow doubt that is always the case.
I've not tried many recently, as historically it followed the path of "these look cool, if they works as well as they look it will be great".
"Oh they don't, never mind, back in the draw". My MMC .22 threw them like poorly made paper planes.
The thing about a diablo is, that if the head is every so slightly off centre, compared to the spin, the air resistance, should not so different, that it amplifies the error.
 
I have neve found pointed pellets to be very accurate in comparison with domes. And the wind resistance is just as high. You'd need the point angle to be very small (ie a very long pellet) in order to get a significant improvement. A typical 45 degrees or so gives no improvement whatsoever, because it exceeds the 15 degrees angle of attack generally reckoned to be the maximum for smooth airflow. (Think aircraft wing- when too steep the airflow becomes turbulent and the airplane stalls)
Similarly, pellets with an indented head also tend to fly off target. As above, the symmetry requirements of manufacture seem difficult to produce consistently.
Of course, rifling is meant to average out poor pellets (as well as improving other things) but somehow that does not seem to work well enough.
 
Siraff said:
We did a little pellet testing last year over a few days at the range. I never thought about which were pointed or not back then because we were just trying out a range of pellets to see which was best or which was acceptable for a good price.
To cut a long story short the general consensus was that better (usually more expensive) pellets fly more accurately up to a point then once you get to around £18 and up per tin its more about which gun likes what. For instance a very cheap Snowpeak pistol doesn't really care if you use Exact cheapos or Diablos while a Lyra is much more happy at distance with Barracudas than those cheapos.
Thinking more about it I don't think we had any pointed pellets give great results at distance (40 yards+ for us - we have neither the guns or skill to hit things much past about 60 yards accurately yet). One stand out were a tin of cross-cut ones but I'll have to message my friend to find out which brand they were.
(EDIT - Hades .22 - thanks, Trumpetier)
They seemed very, very accurate until a point where they would hit a wall (probably as velocity dropped off) and start veering off. Until that point which changed with the power of the gun, they were ultra accurate - at 30 yards even relatively cheap guns were giving very tight groupings with them. Never expected that from them.
We are going to do it again this year but with a much wider range or pellets and actually note the results down. If anyone's interested I can post them up on here though it needs to be remembered we have limited skill, guns and so on so its not going to be definitive.
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Any info is good info 👍
 
They're probably irrelevant now. For short range rats I don't want over-penetration, so it's wadcutters or dome. For longer range rabbits I want something that travels well, so it's domed. For the competition targets at the club it's wadcutters. The few tins of pointy pellets I've got I use them for plinking to use them up
 
My Theoben Countryman likes them and I have taken rabbits with them out to 30 yards .

The previous owner asked his wife to get him pellets and she came home with them . He tried them and found the rifle liked them so I have carried on using them.

RWS Superpoint Extra in .22.
 
Mike Woody Watkins said:
I’ve tried a few is the past, long, long time ago when super large scopes and power were the most important thing (🤦‍♂️) but never found them to be any good.

Then l grew up, ditched the large scopes, stopped worrying about power but never tried point pellets again. I think this is because, pardon the pun, l can’t see the point of pointed pellets 🤷‍♂️? What are they for?

What’s your option? Do you like them and if so why and for what purpose? Or are you like me and don’t see a use for them.

Discuss 🤔!
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Marketing and tradition I suspect
 
Some good thoughts and a bit of a mix between guns that do and guns that don’t like them, which surprises me. I don’t use them for two main reasons, and this is especially true when I’m hunting, one is their inaccuracy and two the over penetration. Hades are certainly my preferred hunting pellet.
 
Never mind the pointy ones, can't remember when I last used them, what about these bad boys? Air gun dumdums!

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