bfloyd1095 said:

I am looking at the Crosman Challenger 2021 but I have a concern that hopefully some of you can answer.

I have Very large hands, worked as a machinist my entire adult life, my concern is that opening to install the pellet looks pretty small..

Any 1st hand knowledge would be appreciated

Click to expand...

grackleblast said:

I do a hot fill to 5000 every time. If it's just a top off.....(3500 to 5000) I end up at about 4600 -4700 psi. If a fill from empty on an 88 cu ft.........5000 usually cools down to around 4150 -4200 psi . My pressure relief is set to 5000.
View attachment 535109View attachment 535110

Click to expand...

Cranky1 said:

I have been here since 2018, I lurked for about a year before joining. I still have my 22 cal silver streak that was my first, it’s probably 35 years old. Me and dad use to shoot it because I was too small to pump it. My uncle had a really old 20cal Benjamin and wish I could have ended up with it. Just to sit back with mine. This group has some very good people with very good information. You just have to wade through some of the craziness and the good guys will help. I’ve been lucky and had some really good guys reach out to help me with issues and advice.

Click to expand...

Johnny Mac said:

I recently acquired a Gauntlet SL30. I originally shot it in the factory stock with JSB 44.74 and 50.15 pellets. I didn’t record my groups but I was quite pleased with the accuracy. 50 shots with the 50.15 averaged 977fps and a whopping 107ft/lbs right out of the box. I swapped it into a Hajimoto/Buck Rail chassis but did NOT add a barrel band. I took it out the last couple days and accuracy was pretty terrible. I thought maybe it was far too fast for pellets and tried to turn down the power via the screw at the back of the receiver, I found the screw was already maxed out in the counter clockwise direction and turning it clockwise resulted in even higher velocity, well over 1000fps and turned in about 10 full turns, after the shot the valve remained open and I had to cock the rifle to stop air escaping, so I’m assuming full clockwise is the LOWEST hammer spring tension I can set and is still more power than I really want-I was shooting fully through my rubber stall mat backstop. I do intend to try slugs in this rifle, but is there any way to reduce power from current minimum stock levels without tearing deep into the gun? And am I pushing pellets too fast or do I just need to add a barrel band like the factory stock had to regain accuracy?

Click to expand...

Johnny Mac said:

I recently acquired a Gauntlet SL30. I originally shot it in the factory stock with JSB 44.74 and 50.15 pellets. I didn’t record my groups but I was quite pleased with the accuracy. 50 shots with the 50.15 averaged 977fps and a whopping 107ft/lbs right out of the box. I swapped it into a Hajimoto/Buck Rail chassis but did NOT add a barrel band. I took it out the last couple days and accuracy was pretty terrible. I thought maybe it was far too fast for pellets and tried to turn down the power via the screw at the back of the receiver, I found the screw was already maxed out in the counter clockwise direction and turning it clockwise resulted in even higher velocity, well over 1000fps and turned in about 10 full turns, after the shot the valve remained open and I had to cock the rifle to stop air escaping, so I’m assuming full clockwise is the LOWEST hammer spring tension I can set and is still more power than I really want-I was shooting fully through my rubber stall mat backstop. I do intend to try slugs in this rifle, but is there any way to reduce power from current minimum stock levels without tearing deep into the gun? And am I pushing pellets too fast or do I just need to add a barrel band like the factory stock had to regain accuracy?

Click to expand...

Dairyboy said:

That's interesting. I find the AEA and JTS outperform the JSB/FX in all my .22s.

I've mixed up pellet before once. Yeah I was very very confused at first.

Click to expand...

Gwelo said:

Yes, they are not inexpensive, but, at 79, I tend to be generous with myself. I figure, what am I saving it for? There are still deals to be had on used models. This one was a bargain IMO!

I had cataract surgery on both eyes about 3-4 years ago. I still need readers for close up but I can see the front sight pretty well. I have had red dots on all my pistols and haven’t shot with open sights for more years than I can remember.

I put up a target at 25 yards outdoors and tried the open sights standing, off hand with a 2 hand hold. The first shot was high, off the paper about 2”. I fired off 4 more using a sub six hold and then changed from 7.33 to 7.72g pellets. I was pretty happy to keep them in the black, see the results below.

These pistols are good for a lot more than 10M. Many Bullseye shooters train with them at 25 yard timed and rapid fire as well as slow fire. The long barrel RF model would be better for 25 yds IMO, but this compact standard model ain’t too bad either .

View attachment 535045

Click to expand...

dgeesaman said:

Couldn’t you use a .172x sized resizing tool on .177 slugs?

Click to expand...

TQM said:

I was shooting, and in the middle of a magazine it just stopped working. Essentially, when the hammer dropped no air was released (as if there was no air in the cylinder). There was just under 3000psi in the cylinder though. There was no air leaking, and I was guessing that a valve was stuck closed. I tried topping off the cylinder to see if that would help, but no luck. I ended up taking it apart to see what was up, and found the small brass cone part of the poppet had broken in two. Thanks to the past here with the parts diagram (Thank you!), I know what to call at least some of these parts.

View attachment 534868

View attachment 534869

When I opened it up, the Valve Core Pin was free to slide back and forth through the Exhaust Valve Core, while the little cone bit in the picture above stayed sealed in place against the Exhaust Valve Core. This is why it acted like there was no air in the cylinder - when the hammer hit the Valve Core Pin, it slide though the Exhaust Valve Core, and even though it pushed back the Exhaust Valve Core Sleeve (white polymer part of the poppet) the brass cone bit stayed in place (sealing the valve). I assumed when poppets go bad, the polymer bit would be what breaks, not the brass bit.

The Notos is less than 3 month old, so I contacted Umarex, and we will see what they say. Hopefully they can just send me the tiny part (not ask for the whole airgun to be shipped back).

Before anyone asks, I haven't done any mods, the Notos is all stock. I haven't fired it without pressure in the cylinder (I hadn't ever had it empty since I first got is and filled it). The hammer spring is stock, and I have the hammer set pretty light (would rather have more shots as opposed to more FPS). I admittedly have shot it a lot since I like to sit down in the evenings and shoot 100 pellets of so at a time. I'm not sure how many tins of pellets I have gone through shooting cans in my back yard, but its a fair number. Still surprised how it broke though.

Hopefully I can get the parts quickly. I've really enjoyed the Notos.

Click to expand...

pcponly said:

Remove the decocking handle and you will get full power shots all the way from 4500 psi

Click to expand...

Ranchibi said:

Glad you got the right info from THE MAN HIMSELF! The RAW regs belleville washers pressure is compressed by a spring, so yes, that's how these regs work.

Click to expand...

Emu said:

It is ugly indeed.

There's not any better in market I have found yet to improve that rubber pad of the DRS.

Click to expand...

L.Leon said:

Thank you! It means a lot coming from you, because you have used many sweet rigs busting iguanas…

Thank you Randall, those chickens? Simply showing off their Velociraptor genetics. I actually had to scare them away to take the picture…

Click to expand...

WOW said:

Thanks but Airgun Hobbyist already shot that down by providing the truth that my link was a bill that apparently didn't pass and died in 2019. Upon looking deeper there really isn't any provision to hunt deer with an airgun in IL yet. I will definitely still follow up w DNR about a few of these intricacies relating to variable airgun power and velocities. It's a hard thing to put your thumb on and like I said the lawmakers in IL are apparently happy with it that way.

Click to expand...

jps2486 said:

There are more and more good quality scopes being produced today, but the manufacturers seem to shy away from compact scopes. Most are too long and too heavy and are designed to produce large magnification and all kinds of fancy features. There are a few available, but all into the cheap gun show category with bad optics and wire reticles. My criteria is that a compact scope must be less than 11 inches long, weigh less than 20 oz., and have up to 16X magnification That leaves out a lot of decent scopes that approach that maximum, so please don’t ask about them. There are others that may qualify; some fall into the cheap category and I wanted to stick to those that are good quality.

As promised in another post, I did a little review of three compact scopes that I recently purchased: Veyron 4-16 SFP, GPO 4-16 FFP, and Optisan 4-16 SFP. I personally prefer SFP scopes rather than FFP, and GPO does not offer one in that line. All are available in FFP version at a higher price. I needed a compact scope for a couple of springers so that it would be easier to load them. My TX200 was difficult to load because the scope that I had covered the loading port and I couldn’t move it back any further. This also applies to HW97K and FWB 300s as well. A lot of you folks bought the Vector Optics Veyron Ultra Short scopes so that’s the first one I bought. Since then, the GPO (German Precision Optics) line was introduced so I bought a Centuri Compact. Then someone said “what about Optisan” and yes, they make a nice compact line so I bought one from my local dealer Trenier Airguns. My intention was to compare all three side-by-side to see which one is best suited to my likings. I didn’t beat the daylights out of them like Joe Cyclops, but I think I can honestly say that I like all three. My comments are as follows:

I set up an eye chart behind my house at 25 yards to see how well each one focused. All three focused sharply as far as my old eyes could see. The optics were bright and there was no darkening at maximum magnification. The weather was bright and sunny.

• Veyron 4-16X44. Seems well made and nearly as good as the others. It is supplied with 30mm Picatinny rings and a sunshade. All controls worked well. I liked the reticle, but it was a tad too fine for me and it was difficult to get it into sharp focus by adjusting the ocular. Turrets are the locking type and the click adjustment decent although not mushy.
• GPO Centuri Compact 4-16X44-This was the most expensive of the three, but I saved $200 because they offer a veterans discount, otherwise I probably would not have bought it for the MSRP. The controls on this one were the best as far as operational movement is concerned. The magnification ring came with a lever to help adjust it, but it can be removed. Turrets operated very crisply. The reticle had the perfect thickness, but did not have the “christmas tree” windage marks. It was illuminated and unlike most, the brightness is infinitely variable from min to max. As expected, this one had the best build quality, but not by much.
• Optisan CP-4-16X40-This one is the most compact because the windage/elevation adjustment rings were capped. Adjustment was on the mushy side, but it’s liveable. Of the three, I liked the reticle the most. It is not illuminated, but it is the right thickness and it’s image is sharp. Build quality is very good.

There you have it. Three similar scopes from a fairly wide price range. You may say that there are better ones like Nightforce, but most are too heavy, don’t focus down to 10 yards and cost more than most of us are willing to pay. Does any one really stand out? Not enough for me to reject any. You would have to consider price, and reticle differences to make your decision. Even the lowest cost scope is decent enough to get the job done. Unless you are a scope snob, you would like any of them.

	Vector Veyron 4-16X44	GPO Centuri Compact 4-16X44	Optisan CP 4-16X40
Focal Plane	SFP (FFP)	FFP	SFP (FFP)
Length	10.5	9.9	10.5
Weight	19.6	20	18.69
Parallax (min)	10	10	10
Tube Diameter	30	30	30
Illuminated reticle	Y	Y	N
Turrets	Exposed locking	Exposed locking	Capped
Eye Relief	3.5	3.75	3.5
Springer rated	Y	Y	Y
MSRP	$229 ($299)	$629	$349 ($449)

Click to expand...