Empire xs barrel and projectiles

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MrP

MrP

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Apr 29, 2020
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New Lebanon, NY, USA
I was hoping someone here might have some insight into preferred projectiles for a 22 caliber empire XS. Anyone have any suggestions for good pellets or slugs for this airgun?

Also, if anybody knows any details on the barrel twist rate, if it is choked/unchoked I would love to know that as well. Based on what I experienced when cleaning the barrel, I think the barrel is choked, but I’m not 100% sure.

At some point, I will push a slug through the barrel to check the exact diameter.
 
I have some Crosman ultra magnum on the way and I have a couple of tins of crosman hollow points in the meanwhile.

part of what motivated me to get this particular caliber was to keep ammo costs low. Been shooting .25,.257, .357 for a while and it adds up if I don’t stay on top of casting.

This gun is really nice - even the magazines work really well for the type that they are, so much better than the AEA magazines which were difficult to load and hod no indicator for how many pellets remained, and nothing to let you know when you’d fired the last pellet.

This seems very well made for the price and I am pleasantly surprised
 
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I worked mine over for more power but it still shoots the lighter stuff like 14.3 and 15-16gr pretty good. Don’t spend much bench time with it because it’s a little hunter/plinker. Never tried a slug because even with my increased power, it would be lame. Mine doesn’t care if it’s shooting JSB’s or H&N’s, it’s about the same with both.
 
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Vetmx said:
I worked mine over for more power but it still shoots the lighter stuff like 14.3 and 15-16gr pretty good. Don’t spend much bench time with it because it’s a little hunter/plinker. Never tried a slug because even with my increased power, it would be lame. Mine doesn’t care if it’s shooting JSB’s or H&N’s, it’s about the same with both.
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Would you be able to share a couple of tips for things that someone with relatively basic skills might be able to do?

I probably won’t mess with it for a while, but at some point I might make some small changes and it would be nice to know where the restrictions to air flow are for example.

Thank you

PS somebody posted a picture of a completely disassembled empire xs and I can’t seem to find that post -seems like a useful thing to have on hand.
 
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That was a picture I took the day it arrived and I took it apart. It can’t be ported much. Increasing the power sets off a chain of events to make everything come together. Making a smaller diameter poppet out of better material is part of it. When you install a better hammer spring and have the gun operating at the upper fill limits, you can start having cocking lever popping open issues. But that’s fixable when you make a poppet. Out of the box it’s a gun that’s a light weight pellet shooter and probably with a good shot count once you figure things out with the hammer spring and fill/refill numbers.
 
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I’m getting about 2 magazines shooting from 200 down to 100 bar in .22 cal.

I will get the chronograph out tomorrow and see what kind of energy it’s putting out.

Would you mind posting that photo or sending it to me by private message? It would be nice to get a look at the physical parts in comparison to the diagrams and there really is not much online.

I had a heck of a time getting the scope setup and centered. I tried adjusting the cant of the rail, and shimming the scope but i think my scope rings were a hair too close together on the scope - not enough to be obvious but I think maybe enough to keep the scope from settling evenly on the rail. I also added a washer under the rail on the rear end to cant the rail forward a bit but that might be overkill now that I set the rings at the right distance. just corrected that but now there’s a downpour, so it will have to wait till tomorrow to be checked.

I’m hoping getting the scope centered will go quickly tomorrow… spent too much time on that this evening.
 
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I also had some issues with the scope rail and pellets clipping. So in truth, I just wasn’t impressed with it as an out of the box gun. But after some work, it turned around. Here is the screw I made as a set screw for the hammer spring adjustment. Nothing worse than when the adjustment starts to walk and you can’t figure out why your gun is slowly getting whacky. I eventually built a SSG for it also. I gained 3 or 4 shots with it. I think if you get the hammer spring setting right, you should get 3 mags with a stock gun. The velocity will be what it is.
 
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The screw that goes in the bottom of the gun to lock the hammer spring adjuster and that other pic you wanted

IMG_3699.jpeg


IMG_3679.jpeg
 
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Dairyboy said:
Did you buy these through Krale?
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Yes. They actually did a terrible job packaging the gun and pellets. The sides of the inner box were not taped closed and there was not enough padding between the inner and outer box so the end blew out and everything was loose in the larger box. It was also clear that UPS had not handled things gently. The pellets were all dented because they were not carefully wrapped or anchored in the package.

I’m pretty disappointed, given the fact that they have done a good job in the past.

I’m including a picture of the amazing wrapping job they did of the inner box.

IMG_0723.jpeg
 
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Vetmx said:
My clipping issue was caused by the muzzle brake being off axis. I had to chuck it up in my lathe and tap it with a little mallet until it had no runout. Once it spun true the clipping went away.
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Thank you for your response and for the photographs this is all very helpful. I’m about to take the gun out for a little more testing this morning.

Update: I corrected an issue I wasn’t aware of it first with the scope mount, and put my bug buster on it, which I think should be a reliable scope, compared to some of the other cheap ones I have.

It is shooting perfectly… very easy to get it zeroed in and grouping is as good as I can pull off using shooting sticks.

I posted a pic of the first shots I took getting it on paper and zeroing it in. I was going crazy last night because I was not able to get any consistency and thank goodness it was the scope mount and not clipping in the air stripper.

At one point I made a half hearted effort to look inside of the little can that Kral puts on the end there. I was able to unscrew the outer tube from the collar with the little grub screws, but once it was completely unthreaded, I was not able to easily pull the tube off and since it was late I gave up and screwed it back on.

A few mags through the chronograph next

IMG_0725.jpeg
 
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Ok power is kind of low - I screwed up saving the group, but I took screenshots.

What I got with cphp 14.3 grain was a straight descending shot string starting at 874 fps (24 fpe) and ending at 757 fps (18fpe). 200 bar down to about 135/140 for 24 shots

I don’t see how this lives up to the 30+ foot pounds specs (maybe they used heavier pellets to get a higher fpe). Am I wrong that the fact that this is a descending shot string and not a curve means that gaining power by tightening the hammer spring isn’t possible and the spring needs to be backed off.

I’ve really been enjoying shooting this today. It is a little too loud given the closeness of my neighbors, so I screwed an empty 1” ldc body (no baffles) on to the end and that quiets it way down….
 
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Yep, your 14.3 shot string is an indicator that you have too much hammer spring. You might think when you fired that first shot that wow, this gun is pretty fast. But you are too hot for this platform. When you get your hammer spring set right, I would think you’ll be 820’ish at the peak of your bell curve. That’s just a guess. Accept the gun is not a hot rod or you’ll have to start with modifying.
 
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