Air Arms Owners Club

Hi there, new here so hoping to get some dedicated answers if possible, I've been talking to Julian about spares but haven't made a purchase yet , my query is regarding " Spring Life "

I'm not a ft/lb power mad junky, but having just recently returned to shooting after many a years lay off, I have picked up a 2nd hand Tx200 Mk3 full length in .177, lovely looking rifle, so heavy compared to the old cheapy I used to own.

Can anyone tell me the expected life of the springs please, upon following videos I stripped it down for a good clean up and re-lube, every YouTube clip that I've watched, every gun they ever take apart doesn't seem to have any preload washers on them at all, mine seemed to already have 3 fitted between the spring and spring guide, people reported that power used to creep up after the gun was fired a few times, I have no idea of the history of how the rifle has been used, what for and how often, I contacted AirArms directly and it's a June 2014 gun.

For a sub 12ft/lb gun it was only making about 10.7 with the 3 preload washers already fitted, I don't know whether the guns leave the factory preloaded as standard to make power, or whether they have been added later, While tinkering around I made some of my own preload washers just for testing purposes and if I add more, the power does go up, so obviously the spring does still have life in it, from what I can see it' s still at full length, hasn't been altered or lost any of it's length.

Breech seals have been renewed and the piston seal looks O'K to me, one of the parts I was going to renew anyway, don't know how long piston seals last but it's not hard or cracked and makes good compression if you hold your finger over the compression tube port.

I'm not into blasting little fury critters out of existence, more likely to have a little fun on the target range , FT or HFT if my poor old eyes allow it.

So any advice would be most helpful, the gun is in VGC , just want it as good as I can make it for consistency then learn how to shoot a much power-fuller rifle , after watching countless clips I'm eager to join somewhere and start shooting again

You didn't say what pellets you were testing. My TXs only put out similar power with H&N FTT for example but produce around 11.2ft lb with AA DF and 11.4 with Express. Also pellet head size can make a difference. Some JSB 8.44 die numbers give me no more than 11, others 11.3 but the fastest are not the most consistent/accurate.

Sorry I didn't get notification of your reply, I was supposed to have had notification once the thread was passed by the mods but nothing came through so just looked back today, I'll have to take a look through my settings and see what's up??

Pellets were AA Diablo Field 4.52 or JSB Exact Diablo also in 4.52, When I played about with the gun and stuck extra Preload washer into the assembly it came out at 11.63 with the JSB and similar with the AA Diablos, so I know the it can be addressed, I was also given a few cheap Hobby Sport line flat heads that are a bit lighter, a few of them shot out a lot faster being a lighter pellet and they registered on the Chrono at 11.9 average ( only did 5 of these). I just didn't want a gun full of preload washers if not necessary, more metal, more weight, I'm not getting any younger.

So they were a bit close to the limit.So out came the extra preload.

My main concern was should the gun have come with 3 preloads already fitted or not, or have they been added to a tiring spring,If the spring is getting weaker , then I might as well replace it while it's apart again

Most people say for Target shooting you don't want the gun quite that high, probably between 10.5 -10.75 is plenty enough.

Like I said I'm not power mad, just while I was buying a few spares I would get everything added and pay one lot of postage, otherwise small items become not a viable purchase if you have to pay P+P every time, You wouldn't buy a small "C" clip for 44p then pay £2.20 for the P+P

As both of mine are recently acquired and not yet run in, I've not taken them apart. So I can't say what pre-load they have but I would have expected your spring to be ok at that age going by comments I've seen from other owners. Perhaps another AAOC member can advise you based on more relevant experience.

Each gun and each spring is a tiny bit different. I think the factory put the washer in to get to a target velocity. They allow for the gun to bed in and gain some power is my guess. I've heard of new guns having 5 or more washers. Even the barrel can produce a change between two guns using the exact same spring, guide, piston and compression tube. I have 8 TX's and I've tried swapping out the whole power plant from one gun to another. That leaves the barrel as the only thing different and the results were a bit surprising. There was a good 10 to 15 fps change between the guns and the velocity spread remained the same regardless of the innards i used. Also, the more consistent gun, with a 4 fps spread in 10 shots, was less accurate than the gun with a 9 fps spread. Spring guns are really more amazing than their pcp counterparts.

FPoole wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 07, 2019 12:47 am

Also, the more consistent gun, with a 4 fps spread in 10 shots, was less accurate than the gun with a 9 fps spread.

I've found this with both spring guns and some PCPs. A few fps difference has very little effect on trajectory, much less than finding a pellet which really suits the barrel. If you can find a pellet that groups well and has tight fps spread then you have best of both worlds.