.35 Air Bolts for the .357 Benjamin Bulldog

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I really don't know what power the Claw .50 dual tank produces in the low power setting but cannot be to much more then 150 FPE but again I really don't know.
I'm not on GTA anylonger so I cannot bring it up but it's an interesting thread worth checking out think the title is " Claw .50 airBolts "

The Bulldog alredy has 300 cc air so it should be plenty, something else must be amiss.
 
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AirArcher66 said:
I really don't know what power the Claw .50 dual tank produces in the low power setting but cannot be to much more then 150 FPE but again I really don't know.
I'm not on GTA anylonger so I cannot bring it up but it's an interesting thread worth checking out think the title is " Claw .50 airBolts "

The Bulldog alredy has 300 cc air so it should be plenty, something else must be amiss.
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@AirArcher66 Check out the second video on the page below. I noticed there’s something over the fletching. I’m wondering if firing these with the vanes out negatively impacts the bolt’s flight. Theirs look like they are wrapped up with something.

www.pyramydair.com

Air Venturi Air Bolt, 6 Pack .35 cal | Pyramyd AIR

Stock up on Air Venturi Air Bolt, 6 Pack .35 cal at Pyramyd and get the best price for your next outdoor adventure!
www.pyramydair.com

Starting around the 7:24 mark shows the Bulldog slinging these bolts at around 380 fps (average) for a rough average of 121-122 fpe. Later in the video the Seneca Recluse slings these bolts at over 400 fps. I think the Recluse is the second gun after the Bulldog.
 
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AirArcher66 said:
These heads are OK but still not cut on contact broadheads, better then machanical but prone to get stuck into bonewitha straight hit and the razor stlyle blades are prone of breaking,....whatch that video and you see the superiority of cut on contact broadheads as well as more heavier heads,...I would not go under 125gr
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@AirArcher66 Just left the archery shop. Grabbed these.
7D16CE2B-9028-4734-B7DE-FC3E145DC216.jpeg


Was also told that the penetration on the target bag was normal for the velocity the Bulldog slings these. I told them 300-350 fps.
 
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Ezana4CE said:
@AirArcher66 Check out the second video on the page below. I noticed there’s something over the fletching. I’m wondering if firing these with the vanes out negatively impacts the bolt’s flight. Theirs look like they are wrapped up with something.

www.pyramydair.com

Air Venturi Air Bolt, 6 Pack .35 cal | Pyramyd AIR

Stock up on Air Venturi Air Bolt, 6 Pack .35 cal at Pyramyd and get the best price for your next outdoor adventure!
www.pyramydair.com

Starting around the 7:24 mark shows the Bulldog slinging these bolts at around 380 fps (average) for a rough average of 121-122 fpe. Later in the video the Seneca Recluse slings these bolts at over 400 fps. I think the Recluse is the second gun after the Bulldog.
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These are the old style .357 Airbolts using the sticky velcro like I described before, if your vanes are clipping might be a good option for you to take them off and replace them with the velcro
 
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@AirArcher66 Allow me to preface this by saying I don’t know jack about archery. However I did come across a product that may come in handy to replace fletching. I’ll post a picture of it when I can. It looks like a sleeve with the vanes attached to maybe some sort of shrink wrap. Ever see anything like that? The vanes don’t look flexible, but I didn’t know these were a thing. Maybe there’s another type.

FB98CC73-1D89-4B41-B257-618524CF8729.jpeg

Then I also saw these broadheads, but they were heavier than I was looking for at the moment. Everything was clearly picked over since archery season is about to begin.
5385D468-2410-4707-857F-193A8F1DE320.jpeg
 
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@AirArcher66 I may grab them later if they don’t sell out. I want to try to work with what I have right now. I was talking to a fletcher about weighting my bolts properly in order to practice with heavier projectiles. Hopefully he’ll allow me to do some testing on their range with the configurations we come up with. He showed me a few things this morning about the dynamics of arrow flight and some of the testing that he does.
 
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AirArcher66 said:
I really don't know what power the Claw .50 dual tank produces in the low power setting but cannot be to much more then 150 FPE but again I really don't know.
I'm not on GTA anylonger so I cannot bring it up but it's an interesting thread worth checking out think the title is " Claw .50 airBolts "

The Bulldog alredy has 300 cc air so it should be plenty, something else must be amiss.
Click to expand...
@AirArcher66 Just finished reading that “Claw .50 Air Bolts” thread linked below. Although none of the photos can be seen within the thread, I still read some very useful information. Thanks for the reference. I have a lot to learn.

Claw .50 @ Air Bolts ***REVIEW*** - Airguns & Guns Forum

Claw .50 @ Air Bolts ***REVIEW***, Air guns, Airgun Forum
www.gatewaytoairguns.org
 
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Ezana4CE said:
@airarxher66 Just finished reading that “Claw .50 Air Bolts” thread linked below. Although none of the photos can be seen within the thread, I still read some very useful information. Thanks for the reference. I have a lot to learn.

Claw .50 @ Air Bolts ***REVIEW*** - Airguns & Guns Forum

Claw .50 @ Air Bolts ***REVIEW***, Air guns, Airgun Forum
www.gatewaytoairguns.org
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Yeah I refused to pay the crazy new prices for the Photobucket account so they deleted it and I lost all the pictures I linked to threads in the past 15 years :mad:
 
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@AirArcher66 i don’t know anything about Photobucket. It sounds like some sort of photo hosting cloud storage company. You lost all of the photos? Do you have any of your photos backed up somewhere? If so it sounds like it’s just a minor inconvenience. I hope you didn’t lose them all. Whatever the case, the information is still good to read.

I spoke to someone at Air Venturi about the issue with the fletching getting torn up shooting these bolts out of the .357 Benjamin Bulldog. I was told that this style of air bolt with plastic vanes is relatively new and the technician hadn’t heard of this issue before. I’m going to send some more info to them, but it appears that either I’m alone in this problem or we’re on the front-end of it here in this thread. I’d have thought someone else would have experience this as well.
 
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Ezana4CE said:
@AirArcher66 i don’t know anything about Photobucket. It sounds like some sort of photo hosting cloud storage company. You lost all of the photos? Do you have any of your photos backed up somewhere? If so it sounds like it’s just a minor inconvenience. I hope you didn’t lose them all. Whatever the case, the information is still good to read.

I spoke to someone at Air Venturi about the issue with the fletching getting torn up shooting these bolts out of the .357 Benjamin Bulldog. I was told that this style of air bolt with plastic vanes is relatively new and the technician hadn’t heard of this issue before. I’m going to send some more info to them, but it appears that either I’m alone in this problem or we’re on the front-end of it here in this thread. I’d have thought someone else would have experience this as well.
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Lost everything, over 20 years of hunting and other pictures even from before aitgunning when I was strictly bowhunting.

no back up, lost well over 3000 pictures so now if you pull up an old thread of mine ( and I have a ton of them on GTA ) they will all be pictureless,......bummer.


the problem with the vanes is only if you have a shroud of some sort, if you have a barrel with nothing in front of the crown it's all fine
 
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@AirArcher66 Sucks about the photos. I’m not on GTA but I do read from the Manny’s Corner gate on occasion. You seem to still have some years left in you to get out there and take more photos.

As for these bolts. I intend to continue working with them until I can figure out what works best in this .357 Buldog. I have some ideas and I want to try a few things. First things first though. When I have some time off I want to chronograph these bolts to get a base reference for the velocity of these bolts at various air pressure levels. I will also shoot from 30-40 yards. I want to see how much penetration changes and what the drops look like at various pressures. From what I’ve seen in other videos, 50 yards seems a little long with a stock Bulldog. I want to either try to make something similar to or find the older bolts with the Velcro the see if they perform differently. I have other ideas as well, but I’ll focus on these areas for now. I’m trying to take a deer with an air bolt and broad-head this season if I can get the right technique and consistency with this gun and bolt combo.

What I found strange from my earlier conversation is that the AV tech was telling me that the plastic vanes work well in the .45 and .50 (I assume she meant using Seneca airguns), but not so much in the .357. I thought that was a strange thing to say. I forget what her rationale was for it. She didn’t seem to have much experience with this pairing I’m using.
 
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Ezana4CE said:
What I found strange from my earlier conversation is that the AV tech was telling me that the plastic vanes work well in the .45 and .50 (I assume she meant using Seneca airguns), but not so much in the .357. I thought that was a strange thing to say. I forget what her rationale was for it. She didn’t seem to have much experience with this pairing I’m using.
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Interesting,....I have yet to test the new version of the .357 Airbolts, now I'm curious.

when I finally find some time and I do if they do not perform or the vanes get messed up I will just strip them off and replace with industrial strength velcro ( can find it at ACE ) because I know that that way they work great.
 
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AirArcher66 said:
Interesting,....I have yet to test the new version of the .357 Airbolts, now I'm curious.

when I finally find some time and I do if they do not perform or the vanes get messed up I will just strip them off and replace with industrial strength velcro ( can find it at ACE ) because I know that that way they work great.
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@AirArcher66 Price went down since the last time I looked. They’re now $89.99 on sale down from $119.99 for a 6-pack (with plastic vanes) at Pyramyd Air https://www.pyramydair.com/product/air-venturi-air-bolt-6-pack-35-cal?p=1424
Same sale at Airgun Depot.
 
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Took some time today to do some testing with the chronograph. Shooting 375 grain Seneca Air Bolts from a .357 Benjamin Bulldog from 40 yards out seated at table with a Caldwell Precision Rest.
53466B3A-14B2-4E0F-8383-D7D25335CC3E.jpeg


Here is some shot string data. 6 shots off of a single fill. The last shot dropped about 5 MOA off of my POA shooting from 40 yards out.
4013F8DB-6E85-4620-8971-121EC43157B6.jpeg

1FFD698E-CF79-4EF6-8B3C-D6740074C4E1.jpeg
 
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After a few shots using a new 375 grain .35 Seneca air bolt, the plastic vanes held up better than before. No apparent tears in the fletching is good news to me. I shot them from my stock .357 Benjamin Bulldog with the shroud end-cap removed. I also lubed the nock o-rings with Super Lube O-Ring Silicone Lubricant and cleaned my barrel with a Patchworm pull-through cleaning system before shooting. One or a combination of these factors changed the performance of these bolts out of this gun. I used a number of patches cleaning the barrel (I’m guessing, but probably a couple dozen patches).
B4907DDC-8111-41BB-B262-2A2C5959B5B1.jpeg



With a clean barrel, the shroud end cap removed, and using a new lubed bolt I scored a 4-5 bullseyes, although none hit the crosshairs dead-center. Even the two bolts with torn vanes still flew pretty accurately with a lubed nock o-ring.

The first shot hits with authority and it appears that I can get 3-5 accurate shots on a fill. Shooting 375 grain bolts the energy range was 137fpe - 167fpe and the velocity range was 407-453 fps. One of my first shots didn’t register off a fresh top off so I’m sure I can achieve a slightly higher velocity. I will continue to shoot to see what the average number of accurate shots is. However, in theory I think I’d hit the vitals on a deer from 40 yards using a 100 grain broadhead. The issue at hand is, how would a broadhead perform either resting on top of the shroud end-cap or resting upon the barrel crown within the shroud? I’ll continue to update this thread with my findings.

C2D92618-0F94-4E40-89B2-8AB5A20447D1.jpeg

847E75A4-DB9B-4A13-B751-7F494FD5351E.jpeg


The fletching and nock o-ring pictured below after concluding today’s shooting session. I’m pleased that the o-ring and vanes held up significantly better than they did during my previous outing.
3506E2F0-EC1C-4183-B365-64836203220D.jpeg
 
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Remember that broadheads do soooooo much more damage then a bullet so if you group 4-5" you still in very good shape,

Good velocity and all you really need is one shot ;) but looks like you have a good 3-4 shots on tap.

take the first shot as practice/check zero before going hunting then use shots 2, 3, 4, 5 for your hunting shots.
 
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I also forgot to mention that I replaced the nock o-rings that I’d blown off the two bolts the first time I shot them. I used o-rings that fit as close to the factory o-rings that I could find in an o-ring kit I had. Lubing them with silicone made a noticeable difference. Namely, I didn’t lose an o-ring on a single shot.

@AirArcher66 I’m liking the velocities and energy that the gun/bolt combo produce. Looking at my notes I was using approx 100 psi per shot. Once pressure dropped below 2500 psi the POI began dropping 5” -6” as velocity dropped approx 25 fps. I was getting approx 6” - 10” of penetration per shot at 40 yards. I had to lay the bag down on its back to pull a couple bolts out. It appeared that the ferule was getting hung up on some of the material when pulling out a bolt. I got roughly 1.75” - 4” on my best four-shot groups. No photos of groups because I remove the bolt from the target after each shot.

If I can get similar performance using a broadhead I’d like to take a deer with this Bulldog. With the velocity and power that I’m seeing it produce, I believe it can be done quite humanely.
 
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