April 9th, 2012

New High Impact .177 and .22 Pellets from Gamo

Here’s a interesting new ammo option for air rifle shooters. Gamo Outdoor USA has introduced new Bone Collector® lead pellets featuring dome tips and grooved skirts. Gamo claims that the rounded nose and grooved skirt makes these pellets more aerodynamic (with a higher ballistic coefficient), so they retain more energy at longer distances. That’s good news for Airgun varmint hunters. The .177 pellet weighs 7.56 grains while the larger .22-caliber version weighs 15.43 grains. Gamo claims that the high weight-to-caliber ratio and higher BC gives Bone Collector® pellets “more terminal penetration than standard lead pellets” and a stable flight trajectory. MSRP is $8.95 per tin (150 pellets/tin in .177 and 100 pellets/tin in .22). Whether the Bone Collector pellets really live up to the marketing hype remains to be seen, but it’s still good to see some new offerings among pellet-makers.

Dome Top Gamo Bone Collector Pellets

RWS Superdome pellet .22Nothing New Under the Sun?
While Gamo is claiming that its domed and skirted pellet design is an innovative new aerodynamic design, sharp-eyed Bulletin reader Julio from the UK points out the the Gamo Bone Collector is a dead-ringer for the RWS Superdome pellet, which has been available for quite some time. Check out the photos and you’ll see the similarity.

The RWS Superdome is available in three sizes: .177, .22, and .25. The Gamo Bone Collector pellets are a bit heavier in .22 caliber: Gamo’s .22-cal Bone Collector is 15.43 grains compared to 14.5 for the .22-cal Superdome. But the RWS .177-cal Superdome is 8.3 grains compared to 7.56 grains for the bone Collector. And Gamo has nothing to match the jumbo 31.0 grain .25-caliber Superdome.

RWS Superdome pellet .155