CRISIS POINT!

Gary Wain sets out to round up the facts of what really matters

With the machinations of the wadcutter conundrum now resolved, but to some degree still spinning in my head, I’ve actually had something of a crisis of confidence. Maybe I’ve been placing too much emphasis on the importance of pellet choice. For me, it seems critical, but to others, pellet choice might not be a significant factor when it comes to hitting the target. The choice might not be as dramatic as that offered by Dirty Harry, for him it was simply ‘Do I feel lucky?’ The not so prosaic question I have to have to ask myself is, ‘Do I feel … that pellet choice, cosmically speaking, really matters?’ In order to find out, I thought it would be useful to look back at the basics of ballistics, the types, and shapes of pellets on the market, and as an end-of-year roundup, identify those pellets which stand out to me as worthy of more consideration.

COEFFICIENT OF FORM

To understand the principles of ballistic coefficient, we first need to look at coefficient of form. Don’t panic, ‘coefficient of form’ is just a fancy word for shape, and is a measure of the penetration characteristics of a projectile, or how easily it will pass though something. That something could be a rat or a pigeon, or even the air itself, and is very easily explained by the concept that pointy things penetrate ‘stuff’ better than blunt things.

Slightly more complicated is the concept of sectional density. This is a measure of how dense a projectile is when compared to its frontal area. Looking at a few examples will help us to grasp this one better.

THE SAME, BUT DIFFERENT