I'm Anal with respect to how and what I pour or push down the muzzle of my smoke poles. I have never nor will I ever use pellets. Loose Powder as some have already stated, allows you to tweek the load for a particular gun,distance etc... Loose is much more consistant from load to load than any Pellet. These 2 points are critical in my opinion to get these guns to shoot to there full potential. Just my opinion based on years of experiance shooting these guns. To each is own choice.