I usually cut my CPHP into an "X" to make it mushroom better... But I've recently heard that this is bad for your gun because it will "screw" up your barrel, yet I know people who do this exact thing to 44mags and other HP rounds for power-burners... So my question is,,, Did doing this to your pellets screw up your barrel? If so do you have any pictures? or any other source that could shed some light on this situation??

how does it screw up your barrel?

I don't know myself, thats what I was wandering.. Just thought that maybe one of you's had heard something about this... What ever though, I've already shot over 2,500 pellets like this thought my BC barrel, and it still seems fine..

I dont see how it could posibly hurt your brl. Cody.:confused: I can certainly see it destroying any hopes of reasonable accuracy though!!:nod: :p Tim.

:banana075:
yeah, the best way to get max expansion is to place the pellet just behind the targets eye.

I can't imagine that, as soft as the pellets are, they would damage the steel barrel. At least probably not any more quickly that you would notice over the barrel life.

The biggest problem with pellet Hp's is lack of power to make a pellet expand reliably in tissue. If I cant make a "hollow point" expand in a 1 gallon milk jug at point blank range, it isn't going to happen on a bird, or even a squirrel.

Take a .22 LR hollow point and do the jug test. They don't even expand that much, if any. The Yellow Jacket's did the best for a stock .22 Hp, and that wasn't the greatest.

Now take a Stinger Hp and the awl from a swiss army knife. Carefully bore out the hole to the full width of the bullet, shoot a starling, leaves a golf ball size exit hole, every time!

I'm going to put my Dremel in the drill press made for it, and try it out on some CPHP's some time. The trick is to weaken the pellet enough to let it expand at lower velocities.

I can't even make Poly Mags expand out of my Cat. What they do instead is tumble on impact, which works just as well.

Aside from expansion, it would be interesting to see how a through hole would affect the flight...

Not much at all. I shot cheap Daisy wadcutters backwards out of an 80's model 881. No windage adjustment, maybe an 1" drop.
Again golf ball sized holes in pigeons. This was in an old bank barn. The pigeons wouldn't let me get any closer than about 25 yds.

You wouldn't drill all the way through. You're trying to get the pellet weak enough to either a: expand larger than it's stock diameter, b: fragment inside the target, or c: both, depending on the target.

For birds I'd love the fragmentation. The Stingers I modded would explode inside the chest cavity of a squirrel, and not exit. That would work great on a bird. For squirrels I want penetration AND expansion.

Tried the Dremel today. I widened/deepened the cavity on the CPHP's.I used a 1 gal. milk jug filled with water @ 35 yds. Big Cat's normal velocity is 875 fps with these pellets (didn't chrony them yet).

Same accuracy out of my gun. ZERO gain in expansion, ie, none!
I noticed something interesting however. The burred edge on the pellets from drilling them caused a cookie cutter hole in the jug on the far side exit, instead of just tearing through. If that edge is cutting plastic, it would cut tissue pretty good. Now if I could figure out how to get them to expand!

Pictures of that would be neat to see!

That's what I also want to see.... All I know is that the ones that I make are the most deadly mushroom in my yard.... I have recently switched from making an "X" (2 cuts) to making * (4 cuts).... At point blank a regular CPHP will travel 9 inches into Plaster-A-Paris... While the "* " on the hollow-point will make the pellet only go in the same stuff about 5 inches..... That's almost to fast of an expansion!!! you think of how far that would go into something at 50+ yards? probably not far at all...

The Crosman pellets have a high antimony content and are harder than pure lead pellets. Try some RWS super h's and Beeman hollowpoints. Besides being softer, they're lighter which will up your FPS and further help with expansion. Crosmans are very accurate in many guns and retain a lot of energy down range and they're cheap...but forget expansion.

You nailed it right Ray. Crosman Hollow points can be better used for longer yardages and they don't expand that much. I, for one had never recovered even one of my pellets on any of the grackles and starlings and small birds that I have shot down. It just blows right past through them every time. But if you want to gun down a larger target at shorter distances (say about 25 yards max) then you could do that expansion trick of making cuts on top. Crosman hollowpoints are a bit tough since they are made with some parts of antimony to make them hard.

Here are some interesting articles about hollow points:

http://www.pyramydair.com/blog/2007/01/do-hollowpoint-pellets-work.html

http://www.pyramydair.com/blog/2007/02/crosmans-premier-hollow-point-part-1a.html

http://www.pyramydair.com/blog/2007/03/crosmans-premier-hollowpoint-part-2.html

That's the fun of testing different pellets. Predators are just (literally) drop dead lethal! I've yet to recover one in a tree rat or bird. I don't know whether it's expanding, or tumbling (most likely), but there's no denying there efficiency.

CPHP's work well on tree rats, but not to the extent of Predators. They do retain their energy on "hard targets" like rodents. On "soft targets" like birds they just punch through, without expanding,or dumping their energy into the target.

I found a new Dremel bit set at Lowe's, that might make the pellet project a little more interesting, I'll let you know later.

Sounds interesting... I wonder what you'll do with that dremel tool? :D