Airgun Pellets With Long Range Punch

By Jerrold Paul Shelton

During the 1980s and into the 1990s, the rapid growth of outdoor airgunning sports let competitors on a quest to find the perfect pellet for use far beyond the 10-meter distance used in traditional indoor airgun target shooting disciplines.

Back then, two large German firms dominated the market with three pellet designs which were then considered to be among the best available for the airgun silhouette and field target games.  Here in the U.S.A., importers quickly found themselves running out of these pellets almost as soon as they arrived.  At the time, this made the purchase of them difficult for airgunners in most parts of the country.

After close to 20 years of production, it may seem to some that Crosman’s Premier pellets have always been with us.  There are some airgunners, however, who have been in the adult airgun hobby long enough to remember the days of European dominance of the precision airgun pellet market.  At a time when European companies like Haendler and Natermann ruled the airgun silhouette and field target roost, it seemed unlikely that any domestic maker would or even could offer up a serious challenger.

It was with this historical backdrop under which Crosman Airguns of East Bloomfield, NY introduced a pellet that ushered in a new era of long range (by air rifle standards) performance.

Investment and Dividend

In the mid-1980s, Crosman scrapped its pellet designs and tooling and came up with a new generation of airgun ammunition.  The cost for the research and development that led to the introduction of the Crosman Premier line is said to be in the millions –big bucks for any company catering to the airgun hobby.  Bob Holtz, who was Crosman’s senior manufacturing engineer at the time, is credited with spearheading the pellet design project.     

Shortly after their introduction, the British publication Airgun World heralded the Crosman Premier as a “world beater.”  Back then, just as it is now, the United Kingdom was considered the center of the adult airgun shooting universe.  The U.K. was where field target competition was introduced to the world, and it remains the focal point of this particular discipline.  This is hardly surprising, given that the British have had a very serious fascination with precision airgun performance for decades on end.

Clearly, the praise heaped on them by the British airgun hobby press served to bolster the reputation of Crosman’s Premier pellets internationally.  Yet, no matter how gushing and over the top such praise might have seemed at the time, it would have all been for naught from Crosman’s perspective if their then-new pellets didn’t deliver the performance to back up the boast.  The fact that these pellets more than lived up to the claims made in the British enthusiast press is now a matter of history and one most airgunners are willing to stipulate as truth, and the truth is that the Premier, along with the Copperhead Domed design that predated it, proved capable of delivering performance from high-quality air rifles that was nothing short of incredible then and remains so even now.

Keys to Performance

Consistent base obturation is critical for accuracy in a pellet rifle for the same reason that it is in firearms rifles and pistols.  Uneven obturation evidenced by thin pellet skirts that “balloon” or “blow out” will throw off the center of mass and the gyroscopic stability of the discharged pellet.  This occurs because the critical bearing surfaces of pellets with “blown” skirts are generally not parallel, so when the pellet leaves the muzzle, the potential for yaw or wobble is dramatically increased.

Pellet skirt construction in the Copperhead and Premier lines is vastly different than that of any pellets previously manufactured by Crosman.  These pellets have a much thicker skirt and a solid web leading to the pellet head.  The skirt also follows a concave radius through the waist to the tail, in contrast with more traditional “diabolo” designs with their more angular wasp waist.  Skirt length is also shorter on the Premiers than most other pellets on the market.

The combination of the short and thick skirt allow for extremely uniform obturation when these pellets are discharged from high-powered spring-piston or pre-charged pneumatic rifles, in which the pellets they shoot will be subjected to pressures in excess of 2,400 p.s.i.

The form of the skirt is augmented by a head the design which is nearly hemispherical in profile and dramatically different than the British field designs which prevailed from the waisted lead pellet’s introduction.  As a result of these design elements, Crosman’s Premier Dome pellets have a Ballistic Coefficient (BC) that is higher than virtually anything else on the market at .027 or higher.  Other pellets may match this when discharged within a certain and typically narrow range of velocities, but Premiers are unique in that they can and do yield a high BC over a broad range of muzzle velocities, from the 550 to 570 ft/s range of the typical 10-meter match rifle to the threshold of supersonic flight at 1,000 ft/s.  The very high BC value translates into a higher percentage of retained velocity over distance.  This gives the Premier Dome a flat trajectory and, since velocity is squared in energy calculations, Premiers typically deliver the highest ft/lb of energy at 50 yards when discharged from a given rifle.

Inspection of Copperhead Dome pellets manufactured in the late 1980s reveals a shorter than typical length of .215.  The 10.5 grain Premiers, however, measure .266 and, along with the H & N “Barakuda” / Beeman Kodiak, are among the longest .177 pellets on the market.  With these heavy pellets, Crosman sought to improve performance in pre-charged pneumatic rifles, which tend to utilize longer, heavier pellets more efficiently than shorter, lighter ones.  These pellets will yield BC values in excess of .030 in a number of rifles, making them among the flattest shooting and hardest-hitting pellets available in .177 caliber currently.

While most European pellets are typically swaged from un-alloyed lead, Premiers have a little antimony which makes them harder.  The benefit is that the potential for skirt damage in shipping and transport is reduced.  The harder lead alloy also enables Premiers to have a slight penetration advantage over pellets swaged with softer alloy.  I’ve had complete through-and-through penetration on jackrabbits with these pellets in .20 caliber at ranges in excess of 50 yards when launching them with a tuned Beeman R-1.  The predictable result is instant, humane death.

Premiers in the Field

While the original design parameters of the Crosman Premier pellets were established for long range air rifle target shooting disciplines such as field target or silhouette shooting, the things that make them such standout performers on the target range also make them standout performers in the game fields.

In field target shooting and air rifle silhouette, a shooter needs a shooting system capable of hitting 1” targets at ranges in excess of 45 yards with 100% consistency.

In hunting, at least in hunting with air rifles here in California, it so happens that the majority of the small game species  one is allowed to take with an air rifle have kill zones that are normally 1” in diameter and hardly ever more than 1.5” or so.

Some air rifles, such as the Theoben Crusader in .20 caliber, will discharge 5 consecutive Premiers and have each of them combine to form a group that would fit inside a .75” circle at fifty yards.  Yes, there are spring-piston air rifles out there that will deliver that kind of accuracy in the hands of a skilled shot, contrary to popular opinion.  If they are going to deliver that kind of precision, Premiers often top the short list of pellets that they will deliver it with.