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Chaparral 25 Testing
I've had some people
ask regarding the Chaparral 25 and "off the rack" pellets.
I looked around the shop and ran this informal test with what
I found here ...
The fact that I cast
special slugs which are more heavy or which are for a special
purpose means that I don't have alot of pellets in house. I did
this test with prepared #3 Hornady buck shot, a Barnes pellet
called the Falcon, and two Beeman pellets - the Crow magnum and
the Kodiak Match.
Here's the test: 3
shots at each - same POA
The chart is pretty
clear. Everything I tried worked well. I have also tried the Korean
pellet (it used to be called the Dae Sung ... maybe it still is)
... it worked very well too. I forgot I had them when I did this
test.
I'm extremely pleased
to demonstrate that the humble #3 buck shot performs so well in
the Chaparral. That was one of my goals - especially with the
new ball magazine. I do "prepare" the ball by running
them thru my tooling to make them more precise.
Hornady's web site
"claims" that their buck shot is within one thousandth
of "round" - that's their term. I'm certain they mean
spherical ... and I'm not trying to just nit pick. You could roll
something on one axis and get "round" (easier to do)
... a ball needs to be rolled on multiple axis to determine it's
"spherical" tolerance. I hope this isn't a loophole
they are using. Anyway ... the buck shot I have in house was purchased
about 6 years ago. It's Hornady and within about 5+ thousandths
of spherical. Hornady claims the industry standard is about 10
thousandths for buck shot.
Now... the 5 or 10
thousandths is not good enough for target work. When I prepare
the ball - I get them to about 1 1/2 thousandths of spherical.
That's good enough. "IF" the newly ordered Buck shot
comes in and IS now actually +/- 1 thousandths of spherical, I'll
be very happy indeed. I ordered a bunch some time back and it's
not here yet.
I'll continue testing
- hope you enjoy the reports.
1-05-04
Update: Called Hornady this morning.
Wondered if that net order really went thru. They found it - said
it had gone out - late due to the holidays. So, having them on
the line, I asked regarding my question as to if they have newer
technology now producing better buckshot. The lady had no idea.
She transferred me. The tech. said I was mistaking their round
ball for their buckshot. I insisted I was reading the section
for buckshot and they actually used the word "buckshot".
He then said there was a difference between techs. and advertising
people. Didn't care for the sound of that. He said he'd look into
it - took my number - they'd call back. They haven't today.
However; as things always go ... the
buckshot arrived today. Never fails after you go through all the
phone tag. I was anxious to check the product. It's different.
Much better than the several year old product I had in stock.
It would seem that the company is now making a better product
and the employees do not know it.
First shots of the
day - so I did two groups of each - no warm-up. First two groups
were the Korean 3 ring heavy dome pellet. Second two groups were
three each of the un-prepared new buckshot. Great.
Another buck group
of 3 thru one hole - excellent - NO preparation required - fed
thru my ball magazine as well. POI is intentionally off of the
POA in all these targets in order not to destroy the aim point.
Other Chaparral Pages:
chaparral25
chaparral_details
chaparral_testing
chaparral