Arlo wrote:
To me, some spring piston guns are best in.177 and others are better in.22. Some can even handle .25 pretty well.
What I’ve kind of come up with is that magnum springers need .22 to work best and smaller rifles do best with .177.
To me, somewhere around 700-800 FPS is a real sweet spot for accuracy and power. So, if a gun is doing 950-1000+ FPS in .177, it would do much better in .22. @ 750 fps. And conversely, if a gun is doing 450-550 in .22, it would be much better in .177. @700-800 fps.
So, guns like HW30 or HW35 are better in.177 and guns like HW80, HW95, Diana 34 and 350 etc are much better suited to .22 caliber.
It seems to me that pellets like velocities in the 650-850 FPS range so I always try to select a rifle that I know will fall into those parameters when making a buying decision. Or I try to tune them to shoot at those velocities if they are too far over or under that threshold. I kind of go for 10-12 foot pounds in.177 and 14-16 foot pounds in.22.
What are your thoughts and opinions about this? Do you love super high velocity regardless of caliber? Or do you like going with .22 cal sub 495 FPS for non-pal rated guns?
I've been doing this for almost 60 years. In my experience .177 springers are best between 600 and 750 fps ( depends on the gun). Highly tuned .177 springers can be OK at up to 900 fps, but it is not really necessary. I have a Beeman R9, circa 1995 with a Maccari Tarantula kit along with a Venom piston seal that shoots around 900 fps with JSB Exacts. It shoots very, very nice, but, for the most part, in my view, it is an anomaly. I prefer .177 springers around 700 to 750 fps, or less ( 8.4 gr pellets ), like a well tuned Diana 280 or a Slavia 634. And I have given up on .22 springers. They do not make enough additional power to be worthwhile IMO. I believe .177 is where springers excel. If more power is needed, and FAR better functional accuracy, then a PCP in .22 is the road to take ... IMO. As a side note, virtually all round nose diablo pellets do best between 850 and 885 fps. More than that and they invariably lose stability and can spiral down range.