First up.
Sry about this post being split over days.
This is mainly as i use Pixlr to reformat pictures to more forum friendly proportions and Pixlr has since a while back arrived on that those of us that use their service are limited to 3 pics a day..
So sorry about that.. it is what it is.
Super ultra budget PCPīs on the agenda then!
Is there such a thing? Well, evidently. I guess we all know that we can get them type of guns on Amazon and what not but truth be told.. kind of a crap game if what arrives is a gun, a plastic toy or a brick.
So what about super ultra budget PCP guns that can be store bought then? That you can physically fondle before you hand your hard earned cash over.
Is there SUCH a thing?
Yes.
Yes there is. I give you the Kayoba Power Series.
.177"cal and single shot only.
No. No it does not come with a bi-pod (or even picatinny rail for that matter). No. It does not come with a 4-16 or 5-25 power scope with rings. No. It does not come with a moderator, in fact the barrel doesnīt even sport a thread to install one.
It comes in a cardboard box that supports the gun within using styrofoam coupled with a small ziplock bag that contains two small o-rings for the pellet probe, and an allen key. In other words not even a bare minimum really.
What it DOES come with tho is a 135Ģ/165$ hang tag. That it DOES come with and TBH i have a REAL hard time getting a grasp on how this piece of kit was produced to be offered at that price point. There HAS to be a catch right?
Cheaper than dirt?
Well. Just about iīd say.
Iīve never really taken an interest in the 177" cal guns. Always thought to myself that whatīs the point seeing the caliber and thus the pill weights to be available. Me mainly being into pesting (rats) i still want to be able to dispatch them critters as absolute humanely as possible. At that rate.. "a weak little 177"cal ainīt gonna cut it". Thus the mainstay of my PCP puffs consists of 25cal guns.
Yeah well. Wrong. I was dead wrong even. Certainly my bad.
The Brits have this down as i regard it as they for the most part are limited to their 12fpe permit exempt law. I guess to many that brings that the smaller caliber and lighter weights hands that speeds can be kept up there, for at least reasonable terminal performance on game.
Hm.
Well? What then if you advance this with the insight that.. nevermind the 12fpe, what can the rest of us do? Yeah well, thatīs been the rabbit hole iīve been down the last couple of days.
Thing here is.. at 165 bux is this even a rifle? Not a gimmick or plastic piece of c*ap toy for children?
I can assure you.. it IS a rifle. Hands down. Not only that but a rifle that has come to impress me.
As is, out of the box, these are setup very very limited as far as power. Whatīs more, i presume for legal reasons, they are clearly marked for 2000psi being maximum fill pressure, which sure doesnīt help in the performance dept.
But.
As things unvailed...BS phrase to keep out of trouble is what them 2000psi is in THIS particular case. Itīs that short n simple.
Even as they come out of the box though theyīre rather loud to the character why no doubt a moderator is of importance, at least to anyone that wants to keep shooting. On a general whole iīd say "backyard friendly" is exactly that and see NO reason what so ever for PCP puffs being louder than needed.
Right off the bat this there rifle is a contender for for instance the Artemis/Snowpeak PR-900 / Diana Stormrider. Issue with that is.. this piece is more coarse to the build in places while at the same time of better design where it counts and MORE importantly of better materials to the build!
Say wut?
Yes. First thing i did,didnīt even fire a shot, was to rip the piece apart as i wanted to get a grasp on what i was dealing with here and truth be told...
Plastics of any kind are not even on the agenda and whatīs more... Mainly machined metal parts, not cast (with exception for the trigger assy housing)
Fit is nothing short of mind blowing. The metal part of it is fit so tight vs the wooden stock you have to FORCE it out of there. Whatīs more no tool marks, sharp tools has been used during the entire manufacturing.. and i guess we all know what that costs.
Having gone the piece over i quickly put it back together, cocked the hammer to relieve pressure on the poppet on the completely empty tank and.. filled her up.
Thereīs a Foster fitting up front.. so yeah. 2000psi right. 138 Bar. A Foster fitting even at 165 bux? Yep.
Now.
The tank on this thing, just as on the PR-900 and what not, is out of steel. In contrast though on 2,5mm thickness seamless pressure tubing which coupled with the fact that the valve is on there using three allen screws in shear AT THEIR HEADS and that the other end of the tank hold an adapter out of steel.. using plenty of threads in which in turn the Foster fitting is threaded in place.
2000psi?
Gimme a break already. Spoiler alert here.. i am ALL to aware of the risks involved and ALL to aware that manufacturers recommended pressures should be adhered to in the most anal of fashions one can muster... No argument what so ever.
In THIS particular case though... nah. Just.. no. Them 2000psi is a manner in which to keep power of this thing down. ONLY and PERIOD. I confess to that since the first couple of fills i fill this thing up to 250 bar and it LAUGHS at it.
That being said, it is of course on your own responibility.. I happen to work on metals and am thus fairly clued in on the subject.. hello.
Btw. Tank volume for this one is approx 190ccīs. A rather far cry from the Stormrider 100ccīs..
So. The barrel is on 540mm, which is rather ample for a 177cal gun in my world. Which has also shown to be correct. None the less, even at very mellow power settings the thing barks more than needed for "backyard friendly" why i very soon decided on threading the barrel on the lathe of mine.
Choice this time came to be 1/2"-28UNEF as i had a couple of spare moderators hanging around sporting that thread, for the better. In other words a thread slightly tighter than usually used on PCPīs (1/2"-20 UNF).
One of the moderators being that there "gasoline filter" one you see in the picture. Does a decent enough job of taming the bark i guess but can sure be improved upon, and i will.
So. Barrel threaded, moderator installed. Took a piece of Pic rail off of another gun standing around and bolted a Harris copy bi-pod to it. Then in turn an el-cheapo Nicko Sterling scope on 24 powers..
Filled the tank up as noted and let it rip at 30 meters.
Oh.. let down. What i had was "scatter gun" groups at that distance using 8,4 grain 4,52mm JSB Exacts. Pityful..
However.
From previous experience i know that many mans use some sort of rust preventing oil or crud for the barrels as the guns are shipped at sea.. so off the barrel came to get a good clean.
Some reported that they got groups semi decent at 15 meters.. but that was NOT where i was going. First thing on the agenda was a trip on the lathe to have the crown polished as well as the pellet chamber. Then a REALLY good deep clean of that barrel, this time laughing at the 2000 psi and filling it up to 200 bar...
This being a single shot rifle... Sat down, cocked the thing, loaded her up with one of them JSB pills again aaaaaand....
Right. Nuff said cause see that there is all in all 9 shots fired.
Thus letīs hold right here for a second. Is what iīm saying that with the correct choice of pellets for this god forsaken thing it IS a well working rifle that WILL shoot and shoot rather well at 165 dollars?
Yes.
Yes, thatīs what iīm saying.
Does that also mean that this is a well working and completely thought through product at that price?
No.
No it does not. Not by a longshot.
That there abomination.. is by FAR the worst trigger assy iīve even come to play with. By FAR. It is an "in direct contact single stage setup" and that in the worst kind of ways.
I can not express how bad i think this thing is even on a deeper level. Garbage!
That absolute MASSIVE trigger assy housing then.. contains that. Now.. plz donīt get me wrong... But if effort was put into setting production of this unit up (which is a cost) then WHY not just copycat an existing WELL working balanced unit using a few coil springs instead? By all means, take a look at the trigger assy for the Artemis/Snowpeak M-16 and take it from there!
As is out of the box the trigger is just unusable. Period.
I of course set out to polish all there is as far as contact points and as you can see in the picture thereīs all in all three adjustment screws to the thing and TRUST ME when i state i used them adjustments to the absolute brink of reality.
Now the trigger is just BARELY to tolerate, but thatīs it. Then.. seeing how this thing has come to play out.. i believe iīm going to adress that more hard core down the line TBH.
Cause see.. the little rifle is worth it. As it turns out.
So. Itīll shoot the 8,4 JSBīs well. What about other sorts of pellets n slugs then? No. Just plain.. nope. Didnīt matter how much i dialed performance either up or down still just plain.. nope.
So i took to "slugging" the barrel to get a feel for what was going on. Judge my surprise when 4,50mm pills didnīt engage the rifling, at ALL. It was like shoving a marble down a piece of gutter approx.
In other words it very soon became evident that the barrels on these measure VERY large, to be noted by that the fun starts at 4,52mm as a bare minimum and then for pellets only.
Hm. So summary thus far is that i believe Kayoba should do another draft on the drawing board as far as the trigger assy and the rifling diameter and twist?
Yes.
Itīd basically cost of nothing vs whatīs done today, and then thus hand a WAY more usable rifle. But that being said.. it is what it is and i wanted to push forwards right.
177"cal and pests. 8,4īs might do it to some..
A number of years back the semi fabled "Piledriver" boolit was arrived on, in Britain i believe. A sorts of longitudal "banded" slug to work in power limited guns. These come in at a rather, for a 177cal, hefty 21 grains... and now weīre talking as far as iīm concerned! 21 grains, thatīs at least usable!
These days tho produced by H&N and whatīs more H&N these days also market a 20 grain hollow point slug.
Sure sounds as what we crave right!
A tin of each was ordered. Delivery was a mere few days later and again i set her up to rip.. and this was when i "discovered" that the barrel was simply on the large side. Hits on target to the letter all over the place. If on target at all!
Be adviced though that this isnīt the first time out iīve had PCPīs running "large" barrel innards. Be that as it may, how do you band-aid that together for something that works regardless?
When i put the thing across the FX brick (the FX radar chrono) it showed me a mere 7,5 Joules approx first time out why i believe the model is intended for sale in Germany really (where the legal limit to be exempt is 7,5J) and that.. yeah well. (N OH do they ever fool around with that.. getting friggin 50cals okīd at 7,5J shooting rubber balls and what not)
Cause see, here enters a few other "dramas" to be handled. 7,5 Joules and not an adjustment point in sight. Not to fret then cause as stated, this thing is all steel and aluminium..
The end plug for the hammer spring, steel.. so i tossed that on the lathe, drilled and tapped for an M8 bolt. Presto. Adjustable hammer spring. Very very simple mod on this particular beast. Called for to say the least in turn.
However hammer response time was sluggish, let me put it that way, and as i picked the gun apart that hammer truly is of HEFTY proportions!!! Let me tell you!!
For a mere 177cal PCP gun, never got it on a scale in that shape but... iīd say an EASY 100 grams worth. On that note since a few iterations.. itīs now down to 44 grams which is WAY WAY WAY more within bounds. Which in turn has proven itself.
Fact is, this came down to other design criteria as well. The poppet spindle for instance had a protrusion of 8,5mm out of the valve body end. In my book not exactly the smartest of solutions for something to see semi stiff forces and at that rate is unsupported.
Whatīs more.. just upstream of that valve thereīs a hammer stop, again out of steel, that makes sure that what the hammer is able to move is like 4mm worth of poppet.
Mind you.
The poppet of a PCP rarely lifts all that much and within realms 4,5mm is ample and then some. Them unsupported millimeters tho.. not so much why iīve since basically remodeled the hammer entirely.
Drilled out the hole in the steel hammer stop, shortened the poppet spindle to more sane protrusions (thereby keeping it supported(4,5mm worth)) and simply cutting a sorts of recess the front of the hammer face that runs down into the hole of that hammer stop whatīs needed...
Yes. One thing sure lead to another on this one. Net result though was that i now had a much more reasonable shutter time and indeed.. power output was now within realms easily adjustable too.
Win/win if ever.
So all that done, slug time. 20 and 21 grains worth. Aaaaaand back to scattergun again right. No wonder huh?
Yep.
Sure enough, pills way to small in diameter to take to the rifling.. BUT.. this was slugs right and slugs are swaged as they come aaaaand can certainly be swaged an ever so slight amount more/again.
So i turned this little nifty tool to be able to "massage" them slugs to become wider in diameter, and in all honesty..?
The Piledrivers thus far.. not so much. Will need to readress them no doubt.
However.. the 20 grain hollow point H&Nīs that measured like 4,51-4,52 out of the tin handed me what could at least be argued to be a group at 30 meters. Like short of two inches worth.
Yep. Down the rabbit hole.. slugs into that tool and a mandrel turned to work with the slugs instead of the Piledrivers.
Bingo.
I came to rest at bumping them to 4,57mm.. and still need to investigate 4,58 as well as 4,60. But already at 4,57 weīre talking less than 1/2" at 30 meters, which will surely ONLY get better with tuning.
So what gives as far as these 20 grain pills then? Well. Do the math, cause if we shove a dedicated for expansion (read - hunting) 177 pill on 20 grains down the bore at inxs of 1050fps and up vs the wall.. weīre talking a whopping approx 70 Joules and see that will be ample and then some for about anything a 177cal could ever be asked to muster.
At least as i regard it.
Sry to say... more to it but out of pictures so iīll have to continue come tomorrow. For better for worse.
Summary for the day though has to be that this thing really is unreal and has come to impress the living daylights outta me. At 165 USD and a little know-how coupled with a tad of elbow grease.. weīve got a PCP rifle thatīll accuracy wise be able to hand out dirt naps like it was going out of style to anything within 100 meters when done in essence
Yeah well boys, to be continued...