Crosman Premier Hollowpoint 14.3 Grain Pellet Test Review
Overview
Testers: Doug Wall
Caliber: .22
Model Number: LHP22
Test Date: May 1, 2017
Source of Supply: Purchased anonymously at retail.
Condition: New
We Like
Great low price.
Surprisingly accurate in many airguns.
Available everywhere.
We Don't Like
Consistency could be better.
Not much for the price!
HAM RATING
- Comparison to Makers Claims:80%
- Most Common Head Diameter 35%
- Variation in Head Diameter 30%
- Most Common Weight 60%
- Variation in Weight 40%
- Most Common Length 35%
- Variation in Length 30%
- Dirtiness 70%
46%
HARD AIR MAGAZINE TEST CONCLUSIONS
Crosman Premier Hollowpoint 14.3 Grain pellets are far from being the most consistent pellets available. But they do work well in a wide variety of airguns and sometimes can match the accuracy of much more expensive pellets.
Crosman’s distribution muscle means that these pellets are available everywhere airguns are sold. That’s another great benefit, although it doesn’t factor into our scoring.
These Premiers justify a HAM Gold Award because their remarkably low price makes them outstanding value. If you’re looking for a “go to” pellet at a very low price, this is the place to start!
VALUE FOR MONEY
Crosman Premier Hollowpoint 14.3 Grain pellets are an industry standard. They’re manufactured in Crosman’s Bloomfield, NY headquarters and are available at just about every Walmart in the USA, as well as online and at big box sporting goods stores.
This easy accessibility, together with the fact that they are likely to shoot pretty well (or better) in the majority of air rifles (see our HAM air rifle test reviews), makes them a popular choice for many airgunners. Attractive pricing helps, too!
Walmart sells these pellets for $6.47 per tin, Crosman Premier Hollowpoint 14.3 Grain pellets cost 1.29 cents each. This makes them a bargain, compared to an average price for .22 caliber lead pellets of 5 cents.
Of course, if you buy them online, you will be able to benefit from the “buy four tins, get one free” offers that are available from the leading retailers.
BUY FROM PYRAMYD AIR
Crosman Premier .22 Cal, 14.3 Grains, Hollowpoint, 500ct
BUY FROM AIRGUN DEPOT
Crosman Premier Hollowpoint 14.3 Grain, 500 Ct
TEST DATA SUMMARY
| Price per Pellet | 1.99 cents |
| Most Common Weight | 14.44 Grains |
| Pellets at That Common Weight | 14% |
| Variation in Pellet Weight (Smallest to Largest) | 3.3% |
| Most Common Head Diameter | 5.52 mm |
| Pellet at That Common Head Diameter | 26% |
| Variation in Head Diameter (Smallest to Largest) | 1.5% |
| Most Common Length | 6.56mm, 6.64mm, 6.65mm |
| Pellets at That Common Length | 10%, 10%, 10% |
| Variation in Length (Smallest to Largest) | 4.5% |
COMPARISON TO MAKERS CLAIMS
Crosman Premier Hollowpoint 14.3 Grain pellets are manufactured from a fairly hard lead alloy. They certainly seem perceptibly harder than many other types of lead pellet.
Compared to the 14.3 Grain claim, the average weight per pellet of the samples tested by HAM was 14.38 Grains. This was 5.6% higher than the claimed weight.
Crosman also claims that there are 500 pellets in a tin. The tin tested by HAM contained 503 pellets. More is good!
The claim is also made that these pellets are ‘built in America”. This is true. HAM Publisher Stephen Archer has visited the Crosman plant – so have many others – and seen these pellets rolling off the production line in Up-State New York.
It has become more common recently for pellets to have marketing claims made for them. In the case of the Crosman Premier Hollowpoint 14.3 Grain pellets, the package claims these pellets deliver “maximum power and expansion”.
In the HAM team’s opinion, it’s not clear how the claim for “maximum power” can be justified. Head diameter expansion of the Crosman Premier Hollowpoint 14.3 Grain pellet fired into our standard test block of soap was only 2.5% – as you can see below.
CONSISTENCY
Although there is no foam or other padding inside the tin, no damaged or malformed Crosman Premier Hollowpoint 14.3 Grain pellets were found in the tin tested by HAM. This is almost certainly because the pellets were packed tightly into the tin with very little space for them to move around in transit, combined with the hard lead alloy used.
Head diameter of the Premier Hollowpoint pellets tested by HAM varied between 5.48 mm and 5.56 mm. The most common head diameter was 5.52 mm. This was found in 26% of the tested pellets – as is shown in the chart below. The average head diameter calculates to be 5.51 mm, however.
So, the head diameter of the largest Crosman Premier Hollowpoint 14.3 Grain pellet tested by HAM was 1.5% larger than that of the smallest measured in the test sample.
As we can see from the weight distribution chart below, only 2% of the Crosman Premier Hollowpoint 14.3 Grain pellets tested by HAM actually achieved the nominal 14.30 Grain weight. The most common pellet weight was 14.44 Grains. 14% of the pellets tested had this weight when tested on HAM’s incredibly-precise, laboratory-grade milligram balance.
The minimum weight of an individual pellet was 14.11 Grains, the heaviest was 14.57 Grains. To put that into perspective, it means that the heaviest pellet tested by HAM was 3.3% heavier than the lightest.
Length of the Crosman Premier Hollowpoint 14.3 Grain pellets tested by HAM varied as shown below. The minimum length measured was 6.48 mm, while the longest was 6.77 mm. So, the longest pellet was 4.5% longer than the shortest.
The most common lengths were 6.56 mm, 6.64 mm and 6.65 mm. 10% of the total sample size fell into these lengths.
DIRTINESS
As every airgunner knows, lead pellets are usually dirty. That dirt is lead dust and other small particles of lead that are inherent in the production process.
Crosman Premier Hollowpoint 14.3 Grain pellets are generally pretty clean. But here’s what the dirt in one tin of pellets looks like, when washed-off onto a cloth.
There was 1.4 Grains of dirt in the tin of Crosman Premier pellets tested by HAM. That equals 0.28 Grains of dirt per 100 pellets.
DOWNRANGE PERFORMANCE
Downrange performance of the Crosman Premier Hollowpoint 14.3 Grain pellets has been charted using the popular ChairGun ballistics program. We used the Ballistic Coefficient of 0.0190 that’s in the ChairGun database.
Using our standard Beeman 1074 air rifle (with “1,000 FPS performance” in .177 caliber), the Muzzle Velocity averaged 710.8 FPS, giving 16.14 Ft/Lbs of Muzzle Energy for these pellets.
This means that – if the test gun was sighted-in at 22.5 Yards, then the point of impact would be within plus or minus 0.5 Inches all the way from 10 Yards to 35 Yards. That’s 25 Yards of effectively “flat” shooting.
Here’s the ChairGun data from which the above graph was created.
Range POI Drift Time Vel. Vel. Energy Energy Drop
(Yard) (In) (In) (sec) (Ft/s) (%) (FtLbf) (%) (In)
10 -0.32 -0.24 0.044 667.9 94.0 14.24 88.29 -0.4
15 0.11 -0.54 0.066 647.7 91.1 13.39 83.03 -0.8
20 0.33 -0.96 0.090 628.2 88.4 12.60 78.12 -1.5
25 0.33 -1.51 0.114 609.4 85.7 11.86 73.51 -2.4
30 0.09 -2.20 0.139 591.3 83.2 11.16 69.20 -3.5
35 -0.39 -3.02 0.165 573.8 80.7 10.51 65.16 -4.9
40 -1.14 -3.97 0.191 556.8 78.3 9.90 61.37 -6.5
45 -2.16 -5.07 0.219 540.3 76.0 9.32 57.79 -8.5
50 -3.49 -6.32 0.247 524.3 73.8 8.78 54.40 -10.7
55 -5.13 -7.72 0.276 508.6 71.6 8.26 51.21 -13.2
60 -7.10 -9.28 0.306 493.4 69.4 7.77 48.19 -16.1
HUNTING USE
The ChairGun data tells us that the initial Muzzle Energy of 16.14 Ft/Lbs had dropped to 70% – 11.3 Ft/Lbs – at 29 Yards. So, this may be considered a maximum hunting range for small game in most medium-powered air rifles.
Penetration into the standard bar of soap used for these tests was 43mm. As we can see, the “wound channel” was straight and there was little sign that the Crosman Premier Hollowpoint 14.3 Grain pellet expanded hugely when giving up its energy to the soap.
The entry wound had a 9mm diameter. The original diameter of the pellet was 5.52 mm. After carefully removing from the soap bar, the head diameter measured 5.66mm. So, expansion was actually 2.5%.
BUYING AND OWNING
As we’ve said, Crosman Premier Hollowpoint 14.3 Grain pellets are available just about everywhere. They’re a good general-purpose pellet and form an industry benchmark for overall performance.
These Crosman Premier pellets are packaged in a large screw cap tin that’s generally easy to open and is good for repeated use. Although, from experience, the HAM team knows that some can be very tightly closed when you try to open them for the first time…
Although these Crosman Premier pellets are fairly clean to handle, all appropriate precautions associated with any lead product still must be taken in use.
TEST DATA
For background details on HAM’s Pellet Test Review methodology, check out this link.
Chairgun is a product of Hawke Sports Optics LLC and is used with permission. Check out http://www.hawkeoptics.com
BUY FROM PYRAMYD AIR
Crosman Premier .22 Cal, 14.3 Grains, Hollowpoint, 500ct
BUY FROM AIRGUN DEPOT
Crosman Premier Hollowpoint 14.3 Grain, 500 Ct
Understanding HAM Pellet Awards
HAM Pellet Awards come from the most rigorous, professional and comprehensive pellet testing by any independent publication. They are the result of much precise measurement and analysis using high precision measuring devices and highly-experienced testers.
Note that accuracy is a product of the complete “system” of airgun, scope, atmospheric conditions and shooter ability – not the pellet alone.
This means that no pellet test review can predict the accuracy of a particular pellet with YOUR individual air rifle. That’s why we do not measure accuracy in these pellet tests.
What HAM Pellet Awards do recognize is manufacturing consistency. Inconsistent pellets definitely will be inaccurate, consistent pellets are much more likely to be accurate.
HAM Awards also recognize value. There’s considerable variation in the price of airgun pellets. This means that an 8 cent pellet needs to score higher than a 2 cent pellet to achieve an award.
For full details of the HAM Pellet Award scoring methodology, please check out our Pellet Testing page.
For a full listing of HAM-tested Ballistic Coefficients, please see our Ballistic Coefficients page.
This entire article including scoring, data etc is Copyright Hard Air Magazine and may NOT in part or in whole be reproduced in any electronic or printed medium without prior permission from the publisher.
