A
pellet is a non-spherical projectile designed to be fired from an
air gun. Air gun pellets differ from
bullets and
shot used in
firearms because of the
pressures encountered: airguns operate at pressures as low as 50 atmospheres, while firearms operate at thousands of
atmospheres. Airguns generally use a slightly undersized projectile that is designed to
obturate upon shooting so as to seal the bore, and engage the
rifling; firearms have sufficient pressure to force a slightly oversized bullet to fit the bore in order to form a tight seal. Since pellets may be shot through a
smoothbore barrel, they are often designed to be inherently stable, much like the
Foster slugs used in smoothbore shotguns