Striper Phil

Guys and Gals,
As you have gussed I am not the expert by any stretch of the imagination. I have just finished my second box of 100 50/50 Pyrodex pellets so that is 100 shots. I have read a lot of stuff on this thread that sounds like guess work with respect to pellets, at least with respect to my 200 pellets used. I never feel them break up when seating, in fact they set in place with a nice little thunk so you know they are seated without much pressure. they stay in good condition in the box they come in and seem to be pretty rugged. In the winter I dropped one in in the snow and used it anyway. It fired just fine. These are formy scoped inlines for hunting. I am getting a traditional Pennsylvania by Traditions today and will go loose powder super classic type stuff.

Tomster

Hey S P,

That's great! I too use pellets for my inline and loose powder for the flint. I happen to like that combo and have the cash to purchase the pellets.

Is there a guestion lurking like do others do this??

I know other people that do this as well so your not alone.

T

Striper Phil

I don't quite understand the cost thingI'm using 30 cent a round sabots and the pellets for 100 grains are 54 cents a round. Some on this tread keep alluding to the pellet cost and talk about using sabots at $1 to $1.51 a shot. A hundred shots a year cost me $27 for 777 pelets. Duh

Tomster

Phil,

Last year, I purchased a container of loose Triple 7 powder on sale for about $16, at Gander Mountain. My Triple 7 pellets cost me about $22 at Hunters Gallery. The PB bullets cost $14.25 for 15 bullets. Round balls cost about $8 per 100, which I occausionally use in my flint.

I have not done a comparison between the weight on the loose versus pellets to see which is better priced.
I like using 100 grains, 2 pellets, in my inline and have no problem buying them solely for the inline.

I still have some Clean Shot left over from the year before, and Black Powder from the year before that.
I sometimes shoot these older powders early in the season for fun.

T

skeeter 7MM

Phil, you mentioned $27.00/T7 pellets that is for 100 pellets or 50 shots not 100. Your load according to your numbers posted will cost you .84/per shot x 100shots/year = 84.00/year. As in CF's some guys use cheaper sabots and other use more expensive sabots, so this is where the totals can change. Now if you were to compare your .30 sabot with loose the cost would be .27 per shot in powder using the same 100gr load, for 100 shots using loose T7 would cost you a total of 57.00/year or 27.00 saving. (Now this was assuming a keg of T7 is 27.00, however here it is more like 10-15% cheaper than the 100 pellet boxes, adding even more savings to the deal.) Be it a small savings in dollar amount given the total cost we put into the sport it still is over 30% saving for each load with this informal pricing example. Keep in mind many guys shot much more than 100 shots per year so the savings are indeed higher in terms of actual dollars in the pocket in the end.

My real gripe with T7 pellets is you need a 120 gr to equal the 100gr of loose, when you factor this in you'd be saving a lot more. As such I will never fork out money to use T7 pellets due to the diluted nature of the pellet form product to really get the increase benefits I want, the ease of cleaning to me isn't worth the extra cost. The other benefit to loose is the ability to tweak your powder amount to provide the best accuracy, if you are shooting 100gr loose pyrodex for hunting then I believe the pyro pellets are worth extra for the field. In my ML 100 gr of Pyrodex shoots nicely, therefore when I take to the field I use Pyrodex Pellets. However there are guns that like 95gr or 110gr, using the pellet form will cost you a lot more if you need to buy 50's and 30's or potentially have to give up or add a few grains to suit the pellets available...it just doesn't make sense to me in these cases. I buy both so I can try different load combos, when I find the load it dictates what type of powder I will be using come fall, I am certainly not married to any one form. Much like a CF I will play with different combos to find the best combination, the process begins every year for me but I always have a basis or fall back in case things don't work out with development.

BTW I have taken game with both pellet and loose powder so they will all work, however it boils down to your personal situation and what each person expects, needs and wants. Some will give up accuracy for ease, others simply will not, in time only you can decide which will be the best option to take. Loose is always going to be cheaper than pellet, we always pay for convenience and as such it will be brought up each time a person asks pellets vs loose questions...fact of life and is 100% true but wether it really matters is personal.

cayugad

Pellets are more expensive to shoot without question. For someone like me that shoots off approximetly 15 pounds or more of various grains of powder a year and I am about out of my #30 pounds of casting lead, I do everything I can to cut costs.

The other reason I shoot loose powder is I can fine tune my rifles better with loose powder and save money at the same time. Of course in most sidelocks other then the new ones out there, pellets are not recommended because of ignition problems. In my inlines I could use pellets but there is no reason to. Beside, I would not want to haul around boxes of 50 grain pellets and 30 grain pellets just to make some of my loads up for the inlines. I also like to shoot black powder besides Pyrodex and Triple Se7en so again, loose is the way to go.

If your someone that shoots very little, and perhaps do not like the idea of measuring all the different stuff out, then pay the price and shoot pellets. I have shot them once and actually they shot fine.

Striper Phil

Thanks for the knowledgeable and interesting replies. Cayugad at 30 lbs a year you certainly know a lot more than me Hats off to Ya.