Tuning Is the HW97 Vortek pg4 HO kit a little for spicy for .177?

I have one of those beautiful, or ugly blue laminate 97's depending on your preference. I dig it. Recently opened up, cleaned, polished, and Vortek HO kit installed. Have others shooting 10-12fpe and wanted to keep this one lively. It is still settling in, but 15fpe is the median depending on pellets. Deadly accurate, very well behaved. Doesn't get much better than this.
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I have one of those beautiful, or ugly blue laminate 97's depending on your preference. I dig it. Recently opened up, cleaned, polished, and Vortek HO kit installed. Have others shooting 10-12fpe and wanted to keep this one lively. It is still settling in, but 15fpe is the median depending on pellets. Deadly accurate, very well behaved. Doesn't get much better than this. View attachment 338588View attachment 338589View attachment 338590
Nice scope! I have the same on my HW50...I also kept my HW97K with a PG4 HO at full power and it's shooting 8.64 grain FTT at 865 fps...LASER
 
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View attachment 337860 I apologize if this has already been discussed. The Vortek website says that this HW97 HO kit will put out 1100 fps with 7.9 grain pellets. Is this a misprint or is this kit better suited for the bigger calibers? Does anyone have this kit installed in .177 and if so how is the performance and firing cycle?
one reason the spring is more power is it takes higher speed air to send a .177 pellet through the tiny bore than it does to send a .22 or .25 in a larger bore
 
Not offhand. But its pretty common knowledge across many air gun forums. There's a British forum I occasionally go to. There they take this efficiency stuff to levels that are way over my head.

I do know from chronographing thousands of rounds through a couple dozen different Weihrauchs in three calibers that all of them were less efficient with just about every heavy for caliber pellet. Often drastically less efficient.

Those results match the explanations on the UK forums by much smarter people than I. I think it has a something to do with the limited amount of available air to a springer and the short time it stays peaked.

I certainly don't know it all but given the results of my testing and quality of the corroborating information, I just accept it as normal. You may not want to and that's fine.
Part of the explanation for reduced efficiency with heavier pellets is piston bounce. Heavier pellets release later in the shot cycle causing the pressure to be too high near the end of the stroke causing the piston to bounce off the cushion of air. This is wasted energy and for a fraction of a second causes a drop in pressure.

Most springers are optimized via spring stiffness, piston weight, and size of transfer port to avoid piston bounce with mid-weight pellets. If the spring is too strong and your pellet too light you will get piston slam and piston bounce when the pellets are too heavy.

Some folks increase the size of the transfer port, others reduce the piston weight and utilize lighter pellets with less powerful springs. Pick your poison 😁

-Marty
 
Part of the explanation for reduced efficiency with heavier pellets is piston bounce. Heavier pellets release later in the shot cycle causing the pressure to be too high near the end of the stroke causing the piston to bounce off the cushion of air. This is wasted energy and for a fraction of a second causes a drop in pressure.

Most springers are optimized via spring stiffness, piston weight, and size of transfer port to avoid piston bounce with mid-weight pellets. If the spring is too strong and your pellet too light you will get piston slam and piston bounce when the pellets are too heavy.

Some folks increase the size of the transfer port, others reduce the piston weight and utilize lighter pellets with less powerful springs. Pick your poison 😁

-Marty
Thanks Marty, that makes sense. Guess I'll stick with pellets in the low 7 grain range.
 
Part of the explanation for reduced efficiency with heavier pellets is piston bounce. Heavier pellets release later in the shot cycle causing the pressure to be too high near the end of the stroke causing the piston to bounce off the cushion of air. This is wasted energy and for a fraction of a second causes a drop in pressure.

Most springers are optimized via spring stiffness, piston weight, and size of transfer port to avoid piston bounce with mid-weight pellets. If the spring is too strong and your pellet too light you will get piston slam and piston bounce when the pellets are too heavy.

Some folks increase the size of the transfer port, others reduce the piston weight and utilize lighter pellets with less powerful springs. Pick your poison 😁

-Marty
I'd caution anyone about messing with transfer ports. It's hard to predict the affects of increasing the transfer port and it's harder to return them to their original size. Very often increasing TP size decreases velocity because it increases lost volume. Lost volume is the amount of swept volume not used to propel the pellet.

Increasing TP size can uncork guns and make them less prone to bounce but it can also make them more prone to slam. It's a very dicey thing to play with that's hard to undo.
 
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I'd caution anyone about messing with transfer ports. It's hard to predict the affects of increasing the transfer port and it's harder to return them to their original size. Very often increasing TP size decreases velocity because it increases lost volume. Lost volume is the amount of swept volume not used to propel the pellet.

Increasing TP size can uncork guns and make them less prone to bounce but it can also make them more prone to slam. It's a very dicey thing to play with that's hard to undo.

This makes me wonder why nobody has made a spring gun with swappable transfer ports to make it easier to tune to a specific pellet/harmonic. Maybe I should have patented that before posting. 🤣
 
This makes me wonder why nobody has made a spring gun with swappable transfer ports to make it easier to tune to a specific pellet/harmonic. Maybe I should have patented that before posting. 🤣
Decades ago Tom Gaylord had a R1 custom machined to have adjustable transfer port sizes. I don't believe he found any appreciable gains.
 
This may help.
Pellet Rifle Swept Volume formula:
Rifle bore radius squared x Pi (3.14159) x piston stroke = cubed mm. Convert to cubed centimeter by moving
decimal point 3 positions left.
Example:
HW95L .22 caliber 26 mm Bore radius = 13 squared (1/2 diameter) = 169 mm x Pi (3.14159) = 530.929 x HW95L Stroke 85 = 45,128.9 mm cubed. Convert to CC (cubic centimeter) = 45.128 or 45.13 CC for Swept Volume.
 
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This may help.
Pellet Rifle Swept Volume formula:
Rifle bore radius squared x Pi (3.14159) x piston stroke = cubed mm. Convert to cubed centimeter by moving
decimal point 3 positions left.
Example:
HW95L .22 caliber 26 mm Bore radius = 13 squared (1/2 diameter) = 169 mm x Pi (3.14159) = 530.929 x HW95L Stroke 85 = 45,128.9 mm cubed. Convert to CC (cubic centimeter) = 45.128 or 45.13 CC for Swept Volume.
Just why ?😢😢 , now I have a headache after reading this post! lol
 
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I’ve decided I’m going to try the HO kit at full power before I do any spring trimming. The wife had shoulder surgery so I’m doing a lot more around the house but hopefully I can make time this weekend.
Use the rifle a while before trimming the spring. Chances are you'll have a little bit of dieseling, the seal has to break in and the springs settle down after a couple, three tins.