Things have clearly slowed down for me on many fronts. One of them for sure is my air rifle shooting. I told myself that the next schtick was testing out those speed loaders I had with different pellets and different rifles and getting used to handling those rather than individual pellets. It has been less inspiring than I really thought and I have been dragging my heels.

Since I started this journey, I have been on a quest to try all different kinds of ammunition. I have gone through a lot of different ‘heavy’ pellets and now I am on the lightest of the bunch. The current group I have been shooting is the Gamo Blue Flame. I am going to talk about my impressions of this particular load.

The Gamo Blue Flame is a lead free, pellet of 5.4 grains. It is commonly referred to as PBA or Performance Ballistic Alloy. It is made of tin even sometimes plastic and the theory is lighter is faster is more energy. This also comes at a cost of about $0.12/pellet versus about $0.02 for lead.

While I clearly understand the value of energy, I think it comes with a compromise of other factors. Take noise for instance. Air rifle pellets can break the sound barrier causing a supersonic crack. I am also not convinced that they are as accurate. The rifling is optimized for projectile weight and my testing has yielded less than ideal groups. You can see from my picture that I have some scope work to do to get them on target but the grouping is rather large.

I think my biggest complaint is the quality of the product. The picture does not show it well but at least five of the pellets came out of the can severely deformed. One in fact was not even able to be loaded. Four of the pellets had the blue polymer tip fall off in which I painstakingly hand applied and re-crimped. By my calculations, that is a 9% defect rate. And just think that only two of these pellets equals one 9mm cartridge in cost.

Another reason things slowed down for me is that I was last shooting 14gr pellets. As a result of my testing, I feel like my rifle performs best in the 7-10 grain range. My personal favorite right now is the Crossman Piranha at 10 grains. It is just a little harder for me to find on retail shelves. I know Walmart carries it but I do not have a Walmart close and I despise ‘mommy may I’ games.

This last one isn’t on the pellets but the rifles. Just like you never get EPA rated mileage, I have not gotten manufacturer velocity results. I have published my results but truthfully I have only seen about a 5% increase in velocity and 250 fps less than advertised. I am measuring no where near the stated potential.

End Your Programming Routine: Granted, I have primarily done most of my shooting with the Crossman 1000, results could change with different platforms. My honest opinion is that PBA pellets are not worth the money. I am sticking with the fatter and slower loads because they are also significantly cheaper as well. Dead doesn’t come in degrees but accuracy and money do.