I did get some lead downrange today - despite it being breezy and 31 degrees..
I shot my new-to-me Wildcat Mk2 .30 caliber. I had taken it apart and found a leaking 0-ring. I also replaced the hammer spring adjuster nut as it was a bit stripped and glued in. For the new hammer spring adjuster, I used a brass jam plate from Cape Fear Airguns - rather than glue - to keep the adjuster from shifting, lol. The "Big Cat" shot great - I got four 5-shot groups that were under 1/2 inch edge-to-edge at 45 yards! I can't wait to try the Big Cat at 100 yards this spring.
I also tested out another hammer spring in my Daystate Huntsman Regal .22. I currently have no regulator installed. The factory hammer spring gave a nice flat shot string of about 30 shots - I had adjusted the length of hammer throw down slightly to reduce velocity from the factory 885fps to about 855 fps. The factory hammer spring has a wire thickness of 1.76mm and a length of 56mm (58.5mm with delrin spring cap).
I sourced a bunch of 18mm diameter springs from AliExpress - in different lengths and wire thicknesses. You guys saw I had nice 30-Masters results with the 1st AliExpress spring I tried. Its about 60mm and has a wire thickness of 1.6mm. It reduced power to a max of 810fps and gave a shot string of 50 shots with a 40fps spread.
Today I tried my second AliExpress hammer spring in the Regal. This spring is the same 60mm length (about factory length) but has a thinner wire diameter of 1.5mm. This spring had velocity peak at about 745fps (it may go higher on a warmer day - it was 31F). But I was stoked with the shot string...I got 65 shots with a 20fps spread - from the Regal's tiny airtime with 15.89 .22 caliber pellets !! And that's starting from only 210bar fill pressure.
I shot a 30-Challenge card in the middle of the shot string - it was a 194 9X - pretty darn good on a cold and windy day.
The best thing is that I think peak velocity was about in the 150 bar range. So if I decide to put a regulator back in this Huntsman, I can keep this spring and probably set the reg for 145-150 bar. That's much better than the 165-170bar that Daystate sets their regs at to achieve 29 ft/lbs with .22 caliber. I really like the lighter spring: cocking is much easier, accuracy is still very good at 735fps range (with 15.89g) and the rifle is quieter and shot count is more than double of the factory tune.
If you have an unregged Huntsman and want to tune it down and increase shot count, let me know and I'll show you what spring I'm using - I think its like $3.00 for 5 springs, lol. It is removing the two rearmost breech bolts (3/32" allen) and two grub screws (1.5mm allen) - takes less than 5 minutes to swap springs and its completely reversible - no other adjustments required.
-Ed
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