H&N Excite Spike, .22 Reviews

max penetration on furry critters airborne ones too.

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break in your springer with the pellets you'll use for hunting. if at all possible. the wear pattern is critical for accuracy. in the pressure chamber

These pellets deliver the best terminal performance on rabbits, resulting in quick, humane kills. I have a cottontail rabbit problem in my yard and have killed 24 of them in the last 9 months with my .22 caliber Beeman R9 (equipped with a Meopta Optika6 Scope) at a distance averaging 15 yards and a muzzle velocity @ 700 fps. The rabbit overpopulation has allowed me to experiment and collect a trove of data about what works and what does not, including shot placement (e.g., only take head shots when the rabbit is perfectly broadside and NOT quartering; otherwise deflection will occur), pellet penetration, lethality, and pellet brand. I started out using Crossman Premier pellets and JSB Hades pellets, but I ultimately switched to Excites because so many rabbits (approximately 50% of the rabbits I shot, in fact) ran into my neighbor's yard to die. Since switching to Excites, I haven't lost a single rabbit into my neighbor's yard. The terminal performance is unparalleled.

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Terminal performance refers to lethality, which in the case of air rifles usually results from a pellet penetrating an animal's vitals rather than hydrostatic shock (which can only occur when a bullet hits at thousands of feet per second). From my autopsies of rabbits, I've discovered that Excites penetrate deeper than other brands, sometimes resulting in pass-throughs. When they hit, they "ball up" rather than "pancake", which creates more sectional density at the front of the pellet and enables deeper penetration to the vitals. Hitting the vitals results in a faster, more humane death. I conclude from my data, collected from 24 kills over 9 months, that Excites provide the best terminal performance of any pellet on cottontail rabbits and probably other medium-sized rodents.

pretty accurate in some of my guns not all of them. good penetration even in my pistols. the point doesn't seem to flatten out like a dome or round nose pellet. great for breaking in a new gun.

longer point & a thicker skirt for higher powered air guns. Skirts seem too soft. see below

rifling on skirt shot into ballistic jell with my 460 mag but not with my pumpers. (Skirt has rifling clear up to the neck) skirt was torn off one pellet and blowen into the face of the ballistic jell. NO I'm not dieseling them

Accuracy. Price. Weight is right between 14.3 and Ruger 1.1 gram..more consistent than both. One hole at 30 yards and 30 foot pounds . As many shots as I can load.

Nothing to change. Cheap. Accurate. Fun.

If you drive them too fast ..the alloy " melts" and slip over the rifling..especially deep grooved fast twist brrl. Loss of accuracy result.

OK for target use but for critters I use only non-lead pellets. For sighting in a rifle I want to use the same pellets at the range as I use for critters on my property.

Make a tin version.

These were good quality only had one or two deformations otherwise very happy

Possibly take a look at the packaging

I I will be buying more I like the way they performed

accurate, price point, very accurate in virtually all of my break barrels very glad to have found these

zero, always complaints about tins without screw on top, no big deal just transfer to empty screw on tin from another, im sure we all have empty tins for this-- no problem, just put on tape and write whats inside, i do it all the time

.22 octane, np2, valiant, npxl, diamondback, hatsan 1000, gamo whisper-- dont know guys, shot pellet guns for 47 yrs and have dozens and dozens of varying pellet types and these are such a great performing pellet in so many different rifles for such a great price, if had to pick one pellet for all my shooting, you guessed it--this one, it is an equal to the h and n baracuda in my opinion yet in lower powered breakers like the np2 along with the price it comes out on top. by the way my third choice would be polys that is how good these are. so you know i only shoot at 23 yds since that is all i have in backyard, so at longer ranges i dont know but pretty sure they would be good to at least 35 yds in appx.750 fps guns enough blabbering--- good shooting fellow air gunners and remember family is the most important thing on this earth-- for all of us...

Using a regulated PCP turn down low these are excellent for up to 30 yards but the energy will be quite minimal at that range and I recommend not going the past 20 or 25 yards so if you're shooting birds out of the tree in the backyard they're great but if you have a raccoon you need a lot more power and the weight is insufficient for that kind of kill. I can shoot rats in the barn and not worry about the cows with the power down low and my LDC on the thrac of hitting a rat makes more noise than the clank of the hammer hitting the valve.

These are basically darts and you really can't do much except keep them down around 850 ft per second so get a chronograph

Get some cleaning pellets. Put some hops or rim oil on the first one but not real wet. Loaded up in the break followed by three or four dry ones and shoot it into a bucket of rags. Look at the cleanest ones and put two or three of the cleanest ones down the barrel one more time and then shoot 10 shots of whatever ammo that you're testing. This way your seasoning the barrel for this particular ammo by removing any effects done by any other ammo. If you're going to tune to shoot 16 grain pellets or larger you must reduce the power otherwise you won't get no accuracy because these will tumble madly out of control because of the high muzzle velocity 800 to 875 is just fine

Good pellet for my air rifle.

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It may not do as good as it does in my air rifle as yours, but worth a try.

Value and Precision

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Works really well in a BSA GRT. I'm unsure how well these would perform in a higher energy rifle - capable of sending 15.74gr to 1000+ fps for example. These exit said BSA at around 675 fps. I've tried a handful of similarly priced pellet options. These have been the best performing to date.

Easy to load. Great for plinking 10-20 yards.

Nothing.

Great price!

just got 2 tins from P.A. today. i was trying to find an accurate pellet that shoots a little flatter than H&Ns 17.13 silver point. this H&N 15.74 excite spike was an eye opener. the silver point shot well enough @ 25 yds { 5/8 to 1/2" } and will thump a rabbit clean @ 35 yds: the excite spike shot one raggedy hole ( 5 shot groups) @ 15 yds. with a bench rest hold. this is all done with my diana 48 and a spotless bore. the first pellet was off 3/4" from zero than the following 5 shot groups were fantastic. i use a hawke 3x9-40 airmax scope on the 48 and the zero for the silver point and excite spike are very close!!!

not a thing

the packaging for the tins is amazing. you'll see what i mean if you buy some ammo from P.A. i don't know ( or care) if their prices mite be a little higher than than others, but the packaging sold me. no!! i do not work for Pyramid Aid. I'm a retired concrete footer foreman and ex-competitive benchrest shooter. i love all guns supersonic and subsonic. I GUESS I BETTER QUIT TOOTIN MY OWN HORN ha

Reasonable and accurate

Screw on tin lid.

My WILDCAT Mk III likes them a lot. At 25 yards its a 1 hole gig. I think the fluted skirts help stabilize there flight.

The price and how they look.

I would like them to hit the target.

Don't waste your money. I'm giving them a 1 because you have to give them something. About me - I have 20 airguns from a $50 pistol to 1600.00 Air Arms and BSA rifles. I shoot a lot and I have a Youtube channel. I have used several different brands of pellets and since I have multiple guns in calibers from .177 to .50 I'm always trying new pellets and slugs. I have tried this pellet in two guns. Yes only two but at 45 yards, heck even 35 they don't even hit the target that I easily do decent groups on with Crossman Hollow points. I mean they miss all over the place, short, high, left and right. This is easily one of the worst pellets I have used. I have 4 .22 cal and I have used these in an Umarex Gauntlet and an Evanix Rainstorm II it was horrible in both, still I'm going to try them in my Benjamin Discovery and my BSA R 10 TH, but I'm not expecting much. My suggestion is stay far far away from these.

This is the closest thing I have seen to a Perfect pellet, solid, this is one of the hardest pellets I have seen and that leads to a minimal amount of deformation in the tin, some Tins literally had ZERO warped skirts.

These may be a little TOO hard, I was about to give up on them as I could not get any accuracy out of my Gamo with these, I was about to give up on them all together however the THIRD TIN I cracked open finally began to fly straight and I was able to get some decent groupings out of them. My theory is that because of how hard the alloy is, it takes a ton of shots (two whole tins in my situation using a Gamo maxxim) to season the barrel.

Do not give up! If you have trouble with accuracy or grouping using these, give it some time, it is going to take an abundance of shots to get your barrel used to these for its first time. Personally I still prefer the Daisy Pointed .22 to these for grouping, but these puppies are HARD HITTING in the right gun.

1/2 groups at 30yrds. Consistent size and shape, good value

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These are accurate in my Hatsan Bully @890fps, out to 30yards. Group well and hit plenty hard to eliminate starlings and sparrows on my bird feeders.

Good accuracy with Gamo whisper fusion mach 1 but 30% deformed pellets

No deformed pellets

Really like the shape.

Wish it would fit in my magazine

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Well made, just examine them individually. The quality of manufacture is immediately evident. These are unlike those made by many other manufacturers, even those we typically pay a lot more money for because the manufacturer's have invested in advertising.

Don't change anything, they are my new "go to" 16 grain all around pellet for plinking, hunting, and informal target shooting.

Shoot great

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