Been thinking of trading off my Cricket Carbine 22, and not getting any bites, I thought I'd de tune it a bit and have some fun with it. The thing shoots lights out @ 925 avg, with an es of 6 fps. I wanted to turn it down to something like 850 fps. So I degassed the gun and got the reg out. The o rings looked pretty bad on the air tube, flat, square and extruded, so i'm thinking I'll replace them, looked at the reg o rings, same thing, big surprise. Took the end cap with the gauge on it off, same thing, obviously. The gauge o ring had extruded so badly, that I thought it was a part of the end cap, .. seriously, I couldn't see the oring, it had extruded and molded the thread in perfectly and looked just like the aluminum end cap, it took me a minute or two to see it had flowed and molded. I guess this tells me the whole gun needs resealed, so onward ho!
Well, I got it all done and back together and turned the reg down a bit and the hammer spring back a couple turns. I put it all back together and put it on the chrono, still getting 899 fps, ... whaaaat? Ok, I bet it's going unregulated. Now, on the Carbine the moderator adapter is held on by set screws and I had a 0db on the rifle and it still sounded like it was shooting hot, just as the chrono confirmed. On about the 5th shot, I heard a bit louder bang than usual, and holy smoke! it launched the moderator and adapter down range about 20 feet off the gun. Yeah baby, it's un regulated at this point. This may help someone someday, but I put the wrong o ring in the reg that seals the piston shaft under the screw retainer. Open the gun up again, and replace the o ring, which it didn't damaage, just blew by it, with the correct o ring in and tried again. Chrono now shows, 850 fps, which is close to what I expected, and much quieter, as you can imagine.
So, be careful of that oring, it's somewhat close to one other in the set and I picked the wrong one, and the difference was fairly obvious, just a mistake. No harm no foul, it's all good now. By the way, these guns are pretty easy to work on, there's a bleed screw to release the air and most everything is in the air cylinder, so once it's done, you've essentially got the hard work done.
What is amazing is the degree to which these o rings deformed and extruded and the thing still shot like a champ.
Well, I got it all done and back together and turned the reg down a bit and the hammer spring back a couple turns. I put it all back together and put it on the chrono, still getting 899 fps, ... whaaaat? Ok, I bet it's going unregulated. Now, on the Carbine the moderator adapter is held on by set screws and I had a 0db on the rifle and it still sounded like it was shooting hot, just as the chrono confirmed. On about the 5th shot, I heard a bit louder bang than usual, and holy smoke! it launched the moderator and adapter down range about 20 feet off the gun. Yeah baby, it's un regulated at this point. This may help someone someday, but I put the wrong o ring in the reg that seals the piston shaft under the screw retainer. Open the gun up again, and replace the o ring, which it didn't damaage, just blew by it, with the correct o ring in and tried again. Chrono now shows, 850 fps, which is close to what I expected, and much quieter, as you can imagine.
So, be careful of that oring, it's somewhat close to one other in the set and I picked the wrong one, and the difference was fairly obvious, just a mistake. No harm no foul, it's all good now. By the way, these guns are pretty easy to work on, there's a bleed screw to release the air and most everything is in the air cylinder, so once it's done, you've essentially got the hard work done.
What is amazing is the degree to which these o rings deformed and extruded and the thing still shot like a champ.
