DIANA SHOT pellets in 0.22 - a review

[bennedose]

I got a request from http://www.kovibazaar.com to review Diana Shot Flat Head and Round head pellets by Marvellous. Someone had noticed that I had reviewed 10 brands of pellets in another thread and in that thread I had reviewed Diana Shot pointed pellets. I thought this would be a good opportunity to complete the series - and I now have reviews of practically all the well known and popular pellet brands.

I will post a couple of images and then post the data after which I will give shooting reviews with 3 air rifles - SDB 65, IHP 35 and Precihole Orion

The pellets came well padded in attractive coloured boxes. After removing the securing tape I had to prise open the lid with a screwdriver - it was not easy to unscrew. The interesting thing is a phone number on the cover - this is the first time I have seen contact information on the box of any brand of pellets.


The pellets were undamaged. I was particularly impressed by the smooth, uniform appearance of the Flat heads. See for yourself - I have a composite image below that shows both the flat heads and the round heads in each half of the image


Here are the statistics:
Diana Shot Round Head:
Skirt diamater: Average 5.55 mm (range - 5.45 to 5.6 mm) 60% were exactly 5.6 mm
Weight: 750 milligrams (11.6 grains for the grainiacs). This is a light pellet ideal for the muzzle velocity nazis.

Diana Shot Flat Head
Skirt diameter: Average 5.57 mm (range - 5.5mm to 5.6 mm)
Weight: 840 milligrams (13 grains for the grainiacs)

The pellets are available under the pellets section of http://www.kovibazaar.com

I will now post some photos of grouping of pellets with the IHP 35, SDB 65 and Precihole Orion.

The performance of the Flat head pellets was excellent in all 3 rifles. The groupings for Round head was somewhat less close, but it was still good for IHP and SDB 65. Surprisingly the grouping for the round heads for the Orion was not so good

I would recommend Diana Shot Flat Head as good quality pellets, accurate and consistent. Round heads are OK - but they did not perform well with the Orion

[bennedose]

I. IHP 35 bench rested at 9 meters (~30 feet), open sight

5 shot grouping for Diana shot flat head



5 shot grouping for Diana shot round head, using 1hp 35 bench rested at 9 meters (~30 feet)

[bennedose]

II. SDB 65 bench rested at 9 meters (~30 feet), open sight

5 shot grouping for Diana Shot Flat head



5 shot grouping for Diana Shot Round head

[bennedose]

III.Precihole Orion bench rested at 9 meters (~30 feet), open sight

5 shot grouping for Diana Shot Flat head



5 shot grouping for Diana Shot Round head

[Basu]

My inpression is that Dianashot Flat Head is indeed better pellet than RH.
13 grns is quite good to hold stability on flight path with better velocity.
Hope in SDB , it would be little tight fit.
Any idea , is it available in Kolkata and where ??
Could try in my SDB45 ..........

Basu

[bennedose]

Basu - what surprised me was the relative inaccuracy of the Orion and the pleasing accuracy of the SDB 65. I do think the SDB brand belongs among the top three air rifle brands in India along with Precihole and IHP. It is an under-rated brand.

Just to check - this morning I did another grouping test with the Orion using its "favourite" Precipell 0.22 pellets. And as expected the grouping was fine. I had earlier noted that the Orion is fussy. It likes some pellets and dislikes others. The IHP 35 is much more forgiving. So far, the SDB 65 is proving to be as good.

[Basu]

Precihole bore is a shade larger than IHPs and SDBs.
So all low end pellets may not receive adequate spin and can not avoid wobbling.My feedback says PH perfoms excellent with Precipell in all its models.
SDBs were no-rated, and at times, under rated brand in India till it was picked by me and rated with pros and cons.
I am awaiting for there best model with Diana type ball bearing trigger SDB 2000 to be rated with maximum details.

Basu

[bennedose]

Basu your theory about the Orion bore may be the correct explanation. Any pellet that is a snug fit on the Orion is a bit tight on the IHP 35 and very tight on the SDB. And the same is as true of my 20 year old SDB 50 (now retired) as it is for the new SDB 65

[brihacharan]

Basu your theory about the Orion bore may be the correct explanation. Any pellet that is a snug fit on the Orion is a bit tight on the IHP 35 and very tight on the SDB. And the same is as true of my 20 year old SDB 50 (now retired) as it is for the new SDB 65

Hi Bennedose,

> Thanks for the tests & results - Very interesting....
> It may sound a little presumptuous but between 5.5 & 5.56 there exists a palpable difference in performance....
> True - IHP is more forgiving than Orion which is a tad choosy about pellets
> But then as we all know ARs behave differently with different pellets....
> Any idea about the cost of these pellets & where / who manufactures them - from your pics the finish appears good.....
Briha
BTW - The label on the Diana Pellet Tins says 5.6 where as we are more familiar with 5.5 & 5.56!!!!!

[bennedose]

Hi Bennedose,

> Thanks for the tests & results - Very interesting....
> It may sound a little presumptuous but between 5.5 & 5.56 there exists a palpable difference in performance....
> True - IHP is more forgiving than Orion which is a tad choosy about pellets
> But then as we all know ARs behave differently with different pellets....
> Any idea about the cost of these pellets & where / who manufactures them - from your pics the finish appears good.....
Briha
BTW - The label on the Diana Pellet Tins says 5.6 where as we are more familiar with 5.5 & 5.56!!!!!

Briha as usual you are dead right about the fact that one can feel the difference between small differences in bore/pellet size

Using Vernier calipers I found Diana shot to be 5.6 mm. Precipell have a skirt diameter of 5.7 mm. GSmith round head is 5.8mm! They used to almost jam up my old SDB.

But the Orion is comfortable and accurate with heavier pellets.

From Kovibazaar, ordered online, Diana shot Flat heads are currently priced at Rs 130 for 100, while the round heads and pointed are currently Rs 100 per box of 100. The manufacturer is labelled as Marvellous XL - but no other details are available. Could not get any info via Google either.

[kshitij]

Bennedose, hats off to you for the brilliant effort in testing out these pellets. Went through your other pellet review thread too, awesome post.
One small request, if its not too much trouble, can you test/review the pellets at longer ranges like 30 and 50meters. It would be interesting to see if the same pellets perform any better or worse as the distance goes up.

[bennedose]

Bennedose, hats off to you for the brilliant effort in testing out these pellets. Went through your other pellet review thread too, awesome post.
One small request, if its not too much trouble, can you test/review the pellets at longer ranges like 30 and 50meters. It would be interesting to see if the same pellets perform any better or worse as the distance goes up.

Kshitij - I would love to. But I currently do not have access to any place where I can do that. But now that you ask - I will try and think out of the box to do just that. Thanks for the kind words

[kshitij]

Looking forward to see what you come up with. All the best.

[Master]

On the advice of Bennedose sir, I tried Diana shot flat heads on Precihole Scorpius (0.22) in sitting position, with target at 12 meters. Four shot grouping is shown. They are definitely a low cost alternative for Precipell 0.22 pellets.

http://s1369.photobucket.com/user/saika ... 5.jpg.html

[mercury]

Bennedose , in your review it is the skirt size that averages 5.6mm...as mentioned on the container cover. did you get the average head sizes ??

is there a size mentioned on the 177 containers ??