I have in the past used small pistol primers(expensive too heavy pellet) in my airguns (.177) in the past. it was pretty neat if you hit somthing hard stone,brick, bone, or glass bottles, you would get a loud cracking sound for your efforts....does anybody know of any other kind of "specialty" [:D] ammo for pellet rifles?....it was also good for crows where bb's or pellets would fail the primer would take thier heads off when a pellet would only leave a hole. dead both ways but much more grafic with the primer if it went off.


I use a crosman 150 pump pistol and because of the chamber design its hard to load the primers straight.

I guess I might be the one to respond here.  I have made many interesting pellets.  One was a tungsten carbide tipped beast that weighed in at 10.5 grains in .177 and would completely penetrate a 14.1 oz propane cylinder (empty) when fired from my RWS 48 (estimated MV of 800 FPS). This was a saboted round with a non-discarding Teflon sabot.

I made a FMJ flatnosed pellet out of a #11 percussion cap and a little solder.  This was very good for small game use out of my RWS due to the high velocity.  The pellet would go through a squirrel completely unlike flatnosed types that don't penetrate enough or hollowpoints that explode.

You can solder-tip many pellets to increase weight and improve penetration since the solder is quite hard.

I stay away from any hard projectiles directly onthe bore.  Any explosives are also verboten as a detonation in the bore would ruin the accuracy.

At one time, used to stick wood matches (white tip) down the barrel.  Shoot at wall or hard surfaces for a bang and flame.  Friends would shoot each other, and sometimes the match would light on impact.

I used to shoot a Crosman 766(?) American Classic pump-up. The barrel,.177, was recessed about 3/8 inch. Back Cat firecrackers fit just nice in the end. Pump it up light, the fuse, fire. The trick was to do it in that order. Forgot to pump the rifle one time, lit the fuse, pulled the triiger and the whole front sight, barrel support, etc, blew apart. Last time I ever tried that. I think I was about thirteen at the time.
Have also ground the head of roofing nails to the point where they fit easily into the barrel, then wrapped them with duct tape in a cone shape. They were pretty accurate out to about 20 feet, after that it was iffy.
I would not this with a good rifle, but in the cheapies it is kinda fun. I think I'll have to try the primer idea.