Most of the large sprinkler manufacturer’s produce sprinkler heads with Matched Precipitation Rates (MPR). This simply means that all the heads will water at the same rate on a given sprinkler zone. To be more precise, it is the actual nozzle in the sprinkler head that will water at the same rate. So you could have spray heads on a sprinkler circuit that water different arcs and radii, but will water at the same rate because all the nozzles have MPR’s. A good example of this is Rain Bird’s Matched Precipitation Rates on it’s spray nozzles. The 5 series, 8 series, 10 series, 12 series, and 15 series nozzles all have Matched Precipitation Rates (MPR), even though the 5 series will water a 5′ radius and the 15 series will water a 15′ radius. This gives the sprinkler installer or maintenance person greater flexibility when working on a sprinkler system because different nozzles can be used for precise watering while maintaining matched precipitation rates across the sprinkler zone.
In the photo above, I am using Rain Bird 15VAN series nozzles to water the new turf that I installed.