American Airguns Blog
The Random Ramblings Of An Airgun Addict

Airguns of Arizona has been selling JSB pellets with a 4.53 head size. I was looking for them on their website when I noticed a new JSB pellet called the Exact Express. The pellets listed as 7.87 grn with a head size of 4.52mm. I had to talk with Greg about the Nikko Sterling scope I was testing and I asked him about these pellets. He said they had receieved them recently and they didn't have much time to test them yet. He went ahead and shipped a tin to me to try out.

I opened up the tin to look at them the day they arrived and low and behold if they didn't look a lot like the Crosman Premiers 7.9 pellets. The are essentially the same height but the hole in the skirt of the Express is deaper. That probably accounts for the somewhat lighter weight. The Exact 8.44 pellets had a better BC than the Premiers and didn't fit as snug in the barrel either. The Exacts shoot as good as the Premiers in most airgun and better than the Premiers in others. I was curious how these Express pellets would do.

I started shooting some 50 yard groups with my HW97 FT rifle. The Express pellets shot very well, I had several cloverleaf groups with them, but the rifle seemed to shoot a somewhat harshly compared to the Premiers. I shot the Express pellets in my ProSport, two FWB124 rifles, R7, TX200 MkI and a Daystate MakoFT. The express shot as well as the Premier in all the rifles. I did notice that in the ProSport and HW97 they fit into the barrel rather loosely. In the other rifles they fit but not tightly, much like the Exact 8.44 pellets.

Well, I was impressed with the accuracy of the pellet but I wondered how they did over the chronograph. It was rather interesting, in most of my rifles the speed increased around 25-35 fps over the Premiers. The only two exceptions were in my HW97 and ProSport. Both rifles shoot over 900 fps with Premiers but both lost velocity with the Express. The HW97 dropped from 900 fps to 855 fps. The ProSport only dropped 10 fps from 940 fps to 930 fps. The Express pellets fit rather loosely in the breech of both of these rifles and I remembered that I had polished the bores of both rifles. The polishing may have increased the breech opening a bit more than my other rifles so the pellet wouldn't fit tight. I took several Express pellets and flared that skirts out a little bit and tried them again in my HW97. Sure enough, the velocity went right up to 910 fps.

These Express pellets shot really well in my lower power airguns, even my Walther CP99. They appear to be a great alternative to the Premiers, expecially for lower power airguns, should the Premiers not shoot well with a particular airgun. I am going to get a sleeve of them to shoot with my FWB124s and give them a go for Hunter FT.