Well - not all new...
Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2018 5:11 pm
First off, I'm a new member since a friend gave me his S400 Classic .177, 2007.
So far I've only managed a couple of hours plinking in a friend's garden 15 yds max as the club in Basingstoke has closed its membership at least until September. The gun came with a Bushnell scope , which I found impossible with my ageing eyesight. With or without glasses I had to chose between having the target or the reticle in focus. Reading up on the subject, it seems that the Objective is quite probably parallax free at 100 yds. So I'm now waiting for the courier with an Airmax scope (hopefully one issue sorted). Of course it will probably turn out that I'd have been fine with my reading glasses...
Other issues that have come up is that when pumped to 190 bar (yes I was sweating a bit) on the Hills pump's gauge, the AA gauge only read 160 bar. Now I'm perfectly happy to accept that these are fairly cheap innacurate gauges on the guns and mine is old enough to be of dubious usefulness. I can live with that, but it does restrict my ability to try to work out a power curve if I don't know the actual pressure once I go above 150 bar. I'm also waiting on delivery of a chrono so as to check it out in more detail. I guess once I have the chrono I shall have to extrapolate from the range in which the gauge is functional. Bearing in mind that the gauge is likely to be inaccurate anyway, that's not such a great loss.
Obviously what comes next will depend on what results I get. On the plus side, the gun is old enough that it doesn't have anti-tamper devices (anyone know when they started?). It also means that if the power is on the high side, I can take out the cover screw to tweak it down. Question: what lurks beneath the cover screw? I can see another allen head, but which way does it work? It seems far more likely that unless I strip and clean the hammer and rail it'll be on the low side and I wouldn't want to use it for that - better to strip and clean and see if that brings it back to spec. Another plus, I believe, is that the firing valve is likely to be of the old sort (hard nylon, I believe) so isn't quite the consumable item the new one is said to be.
On the subject of power, as the gun came with a full tube of AA field pellets I may never need buy more in my lifetime. But what maximum power setting would people advise? Set to 12fpe with my chosen pellet would certainly make it a failure if checked with a heavier projectile that Plod happened to have lying around. Is there a maximum pellet weight which can be chambered? I know in the USA they mould solid, full ogive bullets for airgun use, but then they have full-power to fire them and no restrictions of power allowed. Indeed, some suggest that dieselling is the only way to achieve acceptable performance. It strikes me we have another piece of legislation written by people who don't really understand the subject matter. In the absence of any reasoned advice, I guess I 'll look at the heaviest currently available 177 pellet in the UK and calculate for that and then compensate down to my lightweight pellet. One or two unknown factors in the calculation though.
I was also toying with the idea that maybe one day I would fit a regulator. I know many people are against them, but I accept that they are properly used to lower the firing pressure to that of the minimum acceptable point on the power curve. Whilst my shooting is never likely to justify the potential for improved repeatability, it should allow the gun to be filled to max pressure yet not lose the first 20+ shots as fliers until it reaches the upper pressure of the sweet spot. In effect, it extends the flattened curve up to maximum, though can't do anything once you drop below the set pressure. The Altaros design seems the simplest for the end user, particularly as you can adjust the set pressure or swap back to the original internals. So much scope for tinkering that I'd have to get a larger garden.
Sorry, I'm rambling again...
Rob.
So far I've only managed a couple of hours plinking in a friend's garden 15 yds max as the club in Basingstoke has closed its membership at least until September. The gun came with a Bushnell scope , which I found impossible with my ageing eyesight. With or without glasses I had to chose between having the target or the reticle in focus. Reading up on the subject, it seems that the Objective is quite probably parallax free at 100 yds. So I'm now waiting for the courier with an Airmax scope (hopefully one issue sorted). Of course it will probably turn out that I'd have been fine with my reading glasses...
Other issues that have come up is that when pumped to 190 bar (yes I was sweating a bit) on the Hills pump's gauge, the AA gauge only read 160 bar. Now I'm perfectly happy to accept that these are fairly cheap innacurate gauges on the guns and mine is old enough to be of dubious usefulness. I can live with that, but it does restrict my ability to try to work out a power curve if I don't know the actual pressure once I go above 150 bar. I'm also waiting on delivery of a chrono so as to check it out in more detail. I guess once I have the chrono I shall have to extrapolate from the range in which the gauge is functional. Bearing in mind that the gauge is likely to be inaccurate anyway, that's not such a great loss.
Obviously what comes next will depend on what results I get. On the plus side, the gun is old enough that it doesn't have anti-tamper devices (anyone know when they started?). It also means that if the power is on the high side, I can take out the cover screw to tweak it down. Question: what lurks beneath the cover screw? I can see another allen head, but which way does it work? It seems far more likely that unless I strip and clean the hammer and rail it'll be on the low side and I wouldn't want to use it for that - better to strip and clean and see if that brings it back to spec. Another plus, I believe, is that the firing valve is likely to be of the old sort (hard nylon, I believe) so isn't quite the consumable item the new one is said to be.
On the subject of power, as the gun came with a full tube of AA field pellets I may never need buy more in my lifetime. But what maximum power setting would people advise? Set to 12fpe with my chosen pellet would certainly make it a failure if checked with a heavier projectile that Plod happened to have lying around. Is there a maximum pellet weight which can be chambered? I know in the USA they mould solid, full ogive bullets for airgun use, but then they have full-power to fire them and no restrictions of power allowed. Indeed, some suggest that dieselling is the only way to achieve acceptable performance. It strikes me we have another piece of legislation written by people who don't really understand the subject matter. In the absence of any reasoned advice, I guess I 'll look at the heaviest currently available 177 pellet in the UK and calculate for that and then compensate down to my lightweight pellet. One or two unknown factors in the calculation though.
I was also toying with the idea that maybe one day I would fit a regulator. I know many people are against them, but I accept that they are properly used to lower the firing pressure to that of the minimum acceptable point on the power curve. Whilst my shooting is never likely to justify the potential for improved repeatability, it should allow the gun to be filled to max pressure yet not lose the first 20+ shots as fliers until it reaches the upper pressure of the sweet spot. In effect, it extends the flattened curve up to maximum, though can't do anything once you drop below the set pressure. The Altaros design seems the simplest for the end user, particularly as you can adjust the set pressure or swap back to the original internals. So much scope for tinkering that I'd have to get a larger garden.
Sorry, I'm rambling again...
Rob.