FX FX Panthera tuning question

[BBRemedy]

I’m new to the Panthera 700 and am learning to tune the beast. By the prior owner, it was previously set for Zan 30 slugs at 135 bar. It was no doubt consistent and accurate when I began to use it.

I then decided to try to tune it for JSB 18 pellets and followed multiple recommendations on the web to try 85 bar. At every power wheel setting the velocity was high, over 1000 fps. I progressively lowered the regulator pressure and finally reached 916 at about 60 bar, with a power wheel (hammer) micro setting of about 2, resulting in incredible consistency = 0.5 sd. Accuracy is rather impressive as well.

Now for the question…. Moving the power wheel through its range without changing the regulator pressure does not change the velocity more than a just few fps. However, as I test multiple power wheel settings, the sound emitted from the Panthera at the low end of the micro scale changes into a ping rather than a longer duration lower pitched sound.

What does that change in sound tell us about the tune?

Thanks in advance for your help. I appreciate this forum.

 

[humbled.ag]

Air use per shot. You should record shot counts between high and low setting.

 

[Rey]

That ping noise is like when you take a hammer and hit the valve and it does not move as much. For example: take a hammer and hit a solid metal that wont move, a very high pitch noise will be made.
If you take a bigger hammer and hit it more the ping goes away. For example take a bigger hammer and drive that metal in, you will hear a dull metal to metal sound.
If you work with metal. You can tell when the object bottom out just by the noise of the hammer.

 

[Rey]

That ping tells you that the regulator pressure is to high for the low hammer setting.

 

[BBRemedy]

Thanks

 

[BBRemedy]

For the 22 Panthera, what are you averaging in bar per shot?

 

[aven22cal!]

I’m new to the Panthera 700 and am learning to tune the beast. By the prior owner, it was previously set for Zan 30 slugs at 135 bar. It was no doubt consistent and accurate when I began to use it.

I then decided to try to tune it for JSB 18 pellets and followed multiple recommendations on the web to try 85 bar. At every power wheel setting the velocity was high, over 1000 fps. I progressively lowered the regulator pressure and finally reached 916 at about 60 bar, with a power wheel (hammer) micro setting of about 2, resulting in incredible consistency = 0.5 sd. Accuracy is rather impressive as well.

Now for the question…. Moving the power wheel through its range without changing the regulator pressure does not change the velocity more than a just few fps. However, as I test multiple power wheel settings, the sound emitted from the Panthera at the low end of the micro scale changes into a ping rather than a longer duration lower pitched sound.

What does that change in sound tell us about the tune?

Thanks in advance for your help. I appreciate this forum.

I’m new to the Panthera 700 and am learning to tune the beast. By the prior owner, it was previously set for Zan 30 slugs at 135 bar. It was no doubt consistent and accurate when I began to use it.

I then decided to try to tune it for JSB 18 pellets and followed multiple recommendations on the web to try 85 bar. At every power wheel setting the velocity was high, over 1000 fps. I progressively lowered the regulator pressure and finally reached 916 at about 60 bar, with a power wheel (hammer) micro setting of about 2, resulting in incredible consistency = 0.5 sd. Accuracy is rather impressive as well.

Now for the question…. Moving the power wheel through its range without changing the regulator pressure does not change the velocity more than a just few fps. However, as I test multiple power wheel settings, the sound emitted from the Panthera at the low end of the micro scale changes into a ping rather than a longer duration lower pitched sound.

What does that change in sound tell us about the tune?

Thanks in advance for your help. I appreciate this forum.

When you hear the ping are you still achieving the desired velocity, accuracy and SD? If so, then there's no issue with hearing the ping. With low reg pressure the valve opens with a very light tap. More noise out of the barrel means wasted air. Bottom line - all else being equal (accuracy, velocity, SD) use the lightest hammer strike possible.

 

[weevil]

Hard to diagnose based on descriptions of sounds - which are pretty subjective.

Forget the macro (power wheel) and tune it only with the micro, starting with an even lower setting. Let’s say at 1.5 (I can’t recall how low it will go), speed is 800. Increase micro in 3 click intervals and monitor speed. At some point, it will max out at your given pressure. That’s the max speed for that pressure and projectile and a good tune would sit at a lower micro setting that gives 96% of that speed. So, if max is 930, dialing back 4% would leave the gun set at an optimal ~895. In reality you can settle at 95-97%, giving a little wiggle room to find optimal speed/accuracy. But, if you want to get to, say 950, you need to repeat the process after increasing reg pressure, such that peak speed is ~990. Conversely, if you wanted to go lower, say 850, you would reduce reg pressure and find the sweet spot that gives a peak speed of ~885. This process is the traditional “tuning on the knee”, to find a sweet combination of efficiency and resistance against the triad of reg misbehaviors (creep, input variation and slow refresh). With a 700barrel, I suspect you’re pretty close to the optimal pressure at 60bar. However, if the speed isn’t increasing with more hammer, it suggest that at 2 on the micro, you’re already at 100% (or over hammered) at the 60 bar.

Then, some folks actually favor tuning the Panthera to 99-100% on the curve. As a shortcut, you could just click the micro down by 5 and check that the speed decreases so you know that you’re not way over the plateau.

Either way, that seems like a very LONG solution to shooting 18.1s (and excuse the rough math)

 

[100mtrbench]

60 bars seems incredibly low. No matter how soft the hammer hits that the valve will open wide and long and that might explain your lack of fps change.
I'd start with 110 bars , hammer at 1 and just up the hammer untill desired speed is reached.
Results will be a lot more logical i bet with a normal regulator pressure. In fact i might even start at 120 bar myself

 

[Jeroen S]

60 bars seems incredibly low. No matter how soft the hammer hits that the valve will open wide and long and that might explain your lack of fps change.
I'd start with 110 bars , hammer at 1 and just up the hammer untill desired speed is reached.
Results will be a lot more logical i bet with a normal regulator pressure. In fact i might even start at 120 bar myself

In this respect I would like to share something here. I am shooting springers since I was a small boy but I am new to PCP’s.

Ten months ago I’ve purchased a Panthera .22 600 mm and some different types of pellets and slugs.

Pellets: JSB jumbo heavy 18.13, FX 18.1, H&N Baracuda match 21.14, JSB Jumbo Exact Monster Redesigned 25.39

Slugs: H&N 5.5 mm HP 25 grain (.218), Javelin Gen 2 5.5 mm 34 grain.

Tune 135 bar, 2.5 micro was shooting pellets JSB 25.39 redesigned, slugs H&N HP25 grain as well the Javelin Gen 2 34 grain in decent groups at 50 m. Unfortunately I was not able to register velocity in that situation…

Anyhow, installed the FX radar, loaded pellets JSB 18.13 pellet in the magazine at that tune resulted in velocity of ~1170 fps explaining the loudness upon the shot. Adjusted the macro half way down. Velocity dropped to ~1060 fps. Still high but I was able to hit 10’s with occasionally flyers.

Reading the forum I found a thread indication for pellet tune for the FX 18.1’s. I decided to try this for JSB 18.13’s and FX 18.1 grains.

So, degassed the gun, set reg setting at lower pressure (85 bars, micro 2.5) and it spitted out the pellets at ~982 FPS! 100 FPS more then listed at thread start?! Pellets grouped within 1”.

I adjusted micro down and speed dropped to minimum of of 880 FPS. Group stayed within 1”.

Out of curiosity decided to degas and drop regulator pressure significantly and start to increase speed gradually to see effect on grouping. At 50 bars, micro 2.5 at ~810 fps, pellets dropped on top of each other!

In a later stage I increased reg pressure to 85 bars again with micro 1.9 setting. Velocity went up to 989 FPS, close to previous setting at 85 bars. With this setting I shot 10 out of 10 at 50 mtrs. So no comments for accuracy at this tune combined with the FX 18.1 pellets!

My question to the experts here;

1. What do you think of the deviation 100 fps compared to tune as found in thread?
2. Can a very low (50 bars) regulator pressure do any harm?
3. Is the high velocity at the low pressure setting normal? (assuming the used FX radar is OK).
4. Any other comments?

Thank you in advance for potential replies and I hope that I can take learnings from them.

Take care.

Grtz, Jeroen

 

[BBRemedy]

At 65 bar (micro 2.5) with a 700mm barrel, my shots (18.13 JSB) averaged about 900 fps with a sd of less than 2 with great accuracy.

the longer the barrel, the lower the pressure in this case.

 

[Jeroen S]

At 65 bar (micro 2.5) with a 700mm barrel, my shots (18.13 JSB) averaged about 900 fps with a sd of less than 2 with great accuracy.

the longer the barrel, the lower the pressure in this case.

Yes! But in my case it is a 600 mm and I only can get velocity below 900 fps at 50-55 bars with micro at lowest setting.

When going up a little with micro I am immediately back at the 900 region! I have not applied any modifications, it is still as supplied by the store. Strange in my opinion..

Any feed-back is welcome!

 

[Keith Rush]

My wife just got me a 600mm .22 when Utah ran their sale. Can’t have it until Christmas though. Looking forward to setting it up for 50yd bench rest.

 

[BBRemedy]

Jeroen, why not run it at 55 bar if you can get the sd down to around 2 with great accuracy. You also might consider a heavier pellet like JSB Redesigns (25.39). I’m shooting those at around 930 fps with the regulator on my 700mm Panthera set at 90 bar, micro 2.6.

 

[100mtrbench]

The 600mm barrel is not common where i live, they're all 700mm as hunting is illegal here anyway and only benchrest....

I'm just going to parrot what i heard about pressure and hammer spring and mix in my own opinion because i don't know **** but ...
As far as i can tell, there's two trains of thought:
1)
About 90-95% of hammer spring tension (around 3.2 to 3.5 on the adjuster?) with the lowest reg pressure possible. (for some reason if you don't almost max out hammer spring FPS is inconsistent. It has been like this since the Impact and the Crown)
So low pressure is valve opening for a longer time, resulting in a lot of volume of air 'slowly' accelerating the slug. It will probably shoot the easiest as the rifle will feel calm. But maybe you're wasting a lot of air resulting in inacuraccy ?
2)
About 90-95% of hammer spring tension (around 3.2 to 3.5 on the adjuster?) but with higher pressure. 140 to 150 bar.
Valve is open for a shorter amount of time, but the pressure is higher so (in theory?) a more snappy and 'violent' acceleration of the slug. Less air but at higher pressure. More difficult to shoot because more movement of rifle when shooting.

Over here literally nobody shoots the light slugs.
Only from 34 grain up to 40 grain slugs. (.218 ! )
At around 300 m/s (985 fps)
All rifles (i've seen settings of around 8 of them now in person and also reading forums) all set to 140 to 150 bar.

However, then there's this guy:
He shoots at low reg pressure AND he even installed a super light hammer, with only 1.2 tension. He changed a LOT of things though on his panthera but it's sure shooting right

Anyway, the safe zone, if you're not an expert and just want to shoot decently seems to be pressure at 140-150 , .218 at 34 grain and velocity around 985 fps.

I'm very curious about this topic myself so please if i'm completely wrong let me know

 

[coastal drifter]

60 bars seems incredibly low. No matter how soft the hammer hits that the valve will open wide and long and that might explain your lack of fps change.
I'd start with 110 bars , hammer at 1 and just up the hammer untill desired speed is reached.
Results will be a lot more logical i bet with a normal regulator pressure. In fact i might even start at 120 bar myself

I have an Impact m3 .22 600mm barrel reg set at 70bar, I'm getting 8 mags (224 rounds) on a 250 bar fill on reg @ 900fps JSB 18gr very tight es and great accuracy. The PPs in these guns allow for low reg settings.

 

[Jeroen S]

Jeroen, why not run it at 55 bar if you can get the sd down to around 2 with great accuracy. You also might consider a heavier pellet like JSB Redesigns (25.39). I’m shooting those at around 930 fps with the regulator on my 700mm Panthera set at 90 bar, micro 2.6.

Thank you for yor reply! Yes, that is also a possibility. For that I already purchased 21.53 JTS Dead Center to see where we end up with a slightly heavier projectile. However, this still doesn’t explain the high velocity I obtain in reference to other owners with the same rifle at higher reg pressure settings. I would like to know why such a difference and if a reg setting of 50 bars (or lower) could do any harm. Grtz, Jeroen

 

[Jeroen S]

The 600mm barrel is not common where i live, they're all 700mm as hunting is illegal here anyway and only benchrest....

I'm just going to parrot what i heard about pressure and hammer spring and mix in my own opinion because i don't know **** but ...
As far as i can tell, there's two trains of thought:
1)
About 90-95% of hammer spring tension (around 3.2 to 3.5 on the adjuster?) with the lowest reg pressure possible. (for some reason if you don't almost max out hammer spring FPS is inconsistent. It has been like this since the Impact and the Crown)
So low pressure is valve opening for a longer time, resulting in a lot of volume of air 'slowly' accelerating the slug. It will probably shoot the easiest as the rifle will feel calm. But maybe you're wasting a lot of air resulting in inacuraccy ?
2)
About 90-95% of hammer spring tension (around 3.2 to 3.5 on the adjuster?) but with higher pressure. 140 to 150 bar.
Valve is open for a shorter amount of time, but the pressure is higher so (in theory?) a more snappy and 'violent' acceleration of the slug. Less air but at higher pressure. More difficult to shoot because more movement of rifle when shooting.

Over here literally nobody shoots the light slugs.
Only from 34 grain up to 40 grain slugs. (.218 ! )
At around 300 m/s (985 fps)
All rifles (i've seen settings of around 8 of them now in person and also reading forums) all set to 140 to 150 bar.

However, then there's this guy:
He shoots at low reg pressure AND he even installed a super light hammer, with only 1.2 tension. He changed a LOT of things though on his panthera but it's sure shooting right

Anyway, the safe zone, if you're not an expert and just want to shoot decently seems to be pressure at 140-150 , .218 at 34 grain and velocity around 985 fps.

I'm very curious about this topic myself so please if i'm completely wrong let me know

Thank you for your reply and I definitely will watch the youtube movie! In crease of the hammer tension increases the velocity in my situation. I went op to 3.4 and velocity is only increasing. As I am trying to find top of velocity curve -10% (ref for tuning found in this forum) I did not try to max out hammer spring as in my logics I will go over the top of curve with results of higher air consumption and potential inconsistency. For that reason I kept reducing reg pressure till where I am at now and still see velocity (still very high)increase when increasing hammer spring. That is the reason to learn if further reduction of reg pressure could have any negative impact to the rifle. Thnx, Jeroen

 

[emanuele89]

Buongiorno,

Sono un tiratore sportivo e sto cercando di trovare la giusta configurazione per il mio fucile FX Dynamic calibro 30.

Attualmente sto utilizzando un cane Tungsteno da 26,4 grammi e sparo slug Javelin 2 gen da 68 grani con un reg da 165 bar. E la mic.impostata 3.5 ps anche se aumento la velocità non cambia.

Con questa configurazione, riesco a raggiungere una velocità di 935 fps, ma la precisione è troppo bassa.

potresti aiutarmi a trovare una configurazione che mi permette di ottenere una maggiore precisione?

Grazie per la vostra attenzione.

 

[Jeroen S]

The 600mm barrel is not common where i live, they're all 700mm as hunting is illegal here anyway and only benchrest....

I'm just going to parrot what i heard about pressure and hammer spring and mix in my own opinion because i don't know **** but ...
As far as i can tell, there's two trains of thought:
1)
About 90-95% of hammer spring tension (around 3.2 to 3.5 on the adjuster?) with the lowest reg pressure possible. (for some reason if you don't almost max out hammer spring FPS is inconsistent. It has been like this since the Impact and the Crown)
So low pressure is valve opening for a longer time, resulting in a lot of volume of air 'slowly' accelerating the slug. It will probably shoot the easiest as the rifle will feel calm. But maybe you're wasting a lot of air resulting in inacuraccy ?
2)
About 90-95% of hammer spring tension (around 3.2 to 3.5 on the adjuster?) but with higher pressure. 140 to 150 bar.
Valve is open for a shorter amount of time, but the pressure is higher so (in theory?) a more snappy and 'violent' acceleration of the slug. Less air but at higher pressure. More difficult to shoot because more movement of rifle when shooting.

Over here literally nobody shoots the light slugs.
Only from 34 grain up to 40 grain slugs. (.218 ! )
At around 300 m/s (985 fps)
All rifles (i've seen settings of around 8 of them now in person and also reading forums) all set to 140 to 150 bar.

However, then there's this guy:
He shoots at low reg pressure AND he even installed a super light hammer, with only 1.2 tension. He changed a LOT of things though on his panthera but it's sure shooting right

Anyway, the safe zone, if you're not an expert and just want to shoot decently seems to be pressure at 140-150 , .218 at 34 grain and velocity around 985 fps.

I'm very curious about this topic myself so please if i'm completely wrong let me know

Well, here a short update. Last week the rifle started to increase noise with each shot till the final moment where something broke and it lost pressure…. I returned the rifle to Krale shop and have to see what’s damaged. It might be that I was struggling with a mechanical problem all the time that resulted in the faillure. To be continued…