Finding these pellets interesting I decided to try them out of a few other guns, and for further testing chose to use the Talon SS. The guys on the Talon forum had told me that they had obtained good results using these pellets so it seemed like a good place to start.
To take a look at the terminal performance I set up a test model that consisted of a 4"diameter PVC piping that was 8" long and tightly packed with plumber's putty. Shooting from a rest in my basement range at 12 yards I shot three groups of the Predator Hunting Pellet, Predator Hollowpoint, Beeman Crow Magnums, and Beeman Kodiak at a power setting of Five (5) on the Talon. Then I dialed the power up to ten (10) and repeated the group. I shot the Kodiak for a comparison of the hollowpoints to a roundnose pellet.
The findings were interesting; with a power setting of five (5) the Predator polymer and the Hollowpoint both penetrated less than the Crow magnum, and all of the hollowpoints far less than the Kodiak which was to be expected. But the wound channel opened with the Predator polymer was almost a half centimeter larger than any of the other pellets.
At the higher power setting the pellet penetrated further, but the wound channel actually decreased. I am not sure of the underlying mechanism for this occurrence, but did note that the hollowpoints all seemed to expand equally at the two power settings. So it seems to me that the net gain in penetration is obtained at a loss of the diameter of the wound channel.
The predator polymer tip separated and was found in a small side chamber of the primary cavity at about the halfway point at both power settings, yet was intact at the lower setting and broken into multiple pieces at the high power settings.
I mentioned that the effect on jackrabbits was striking; in the accompanying figure the 40 yard headshot on the rabbit was explosive. It is anecdotal, but I have shot many jackrabbits over the years and this was probably the bloodiest hit ever, and the rabbit simply flopped over DOA. The pellet ended up on the offside just under the skin, mushroomed to a point it was almost inside out, but I was unable to find the polymer tip.
Because the penetration was less than the Crow Magnum (and far less than roundnose pellets) I postulated this would be a good pest control pellet in sensitive areas. To test this hypothesis I took the rifle out and at a power setting of 5 took a few starlings. I reckoned that these light bodied birds would give me an idea of how the pellets performed with respect to penetration and expansion/knock down power on real quarry under the pest control conditions I planned to use them. I found again that the knock down power can only be termed as explosive. The birds went down hard to virtually any body shot, yet the pellet only exited on one out of seven birds shot.
Based on these findings, I plan to use these pellets for pest control on a site that is rich with pigeons but in an area with buildings and equipment that I can't afford to damage. I'll update this preliminary report as I gather more hard data.
