PCP charging

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I used a pump for a while. Mine is a "Hill" hand pump.

But keep in mind, hand pumping will introduce moisture into your gun if you aren't careful. Even though some pumps have air "driers" on them, they are mounted on the wrong side. They NEED to be on the pressure side. Even if you get an electric pump, be sure to get a quality air filter/dryer.

When hand pumping, I normally pump about 40 to 50 strokes, let the pump cool for a while. Pump 40 to 50 strokes, let the pump cool. repeat until you get to the pressure you want. You can feel the bottom of the pump getting hot as it continues to pressurize the air. It's when the air cools, that's when moisture is pulled out of the air and can do damage to to your gun. Do a "search", you'll find other questions that other people have asked similar questions. Don't let the pump get too hot.

I finally bought a carbon fiber SCUBA tank. There's a dive shop not too far away, it's easy to get clean air thru them.

Have fun

Mike
 
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Mike, what do you mean by "on the pressure side"?

Barksdale, I use a cheap hand pump but got a tank and a compressor too because filling a tank is pretty inconvenient for me.

The pump isn't all that difficult. I can't picture it making anyone actually sore. But it can make you sweat. Using the pump makes me want to strip down. And it's time-consuming and sweaty enough that you will feel very motivated to not let your gun's PSI get too low.


 
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I found this helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH88OLcwSMw&t=681s



I am pumping with one of these pumps along with a Tuxing molecular sieve filter I bought. The Tuxing makes it take a lot longer, but I am willing to pump more to avoid moisture. I did get a non Tuxing filter first, but I had nothing but problems with it not sealing and blowing o rings.

I think the pumping being difficult is mostly perspective. I am N of 50 and weigh about 210. I can get my rifle up to about 3800 - 4k PSI before I give up, and at that point I am basically using all of my body weight and strength to get the pump down. Getting something to 3k psi is a lot easier than 4k or 4300. I would physically have to weigh more to pump any higher.
 
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Started with a hand pump.. after maybe 50 fills.. bought a tank. Partly because the one gun had already turned into 3.. and she wasn't that keen on pumping hers.. But living with a pump is very doable. I still keep the pump just in case.. At 60 years old, and fair health, 200 pounds, I didn't think 3000psi was all that much trouble. Go slow, full pumps, pause at each stroke. The first time, is of course the worst, after that, you will just be topping off. Our pump is one of the $55 ones from Amazon. Looks pretty much just like the one in the above video still.



It is a 30 minute drive to fill, and $5.. but it's near a buddy's house and a favorite BBQ joint, so I just plan it out that way. I suspect someday we will own a compressor to fill the tank. We have a Tiger Shark Deluxe.. Knowing what I know now, I should have gotten the Great White.. LOL. Who knew she was going to get into it... we have 2 rifles that are 200Bar, and now she has one that is 300Bar. I have not tried to top it off by hand.. We had the tank when it arrived.
 
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Your question will actually depend on the gun/s you're interested in. Some guns are very easy to fill with a hand pump (PROD), while others, "You're gonna have a bad time."

It'll also depend on how fit you are, so if you are unfit and slightly obese like me, "You're gonna have a bad time."

If you're buying a gun with a large tank and shoot regularly, you'd be better off investing in a tank or compressor, because over the course of time with the pump, you probably could have been having a better time; health-aside. 
 
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I typically pump 30 to 60 pumps at a time. I try to stick to a minimum of 30 pumps per session otherwise a lot of my energy is wasted just pressurizing the line which takes about 10 pumps. A recommendation for hand pumpers I keep seeing all the time is to stick to guns with a small reservoir and/or a low fill pressure. I disagree with this and almost fell for this advice when I was researching to buy my PCP. I initially severly limited my selection of guns based on this advice. Yes, a bigger reservoir that fills to a higher pressure will obviously take more time and effort to pump from empty to full... but there is no need to shoot all the way down to regulated pressure and no need to fill only to maximum from empty before a shot can be taken again. My gun fills up to 250 bars but for a pesting standby gun, I only fill it to around 180 bars. At full pressure of 250 bars, the gun gets 90 shots at 32 FPE on the regulator with .22 caliber. For my purposes, I can actually only fill it up to 150 bars and still get 30 shots on the regulator. This is the same shot count as some guns such as the HW100 (which gets so many recommendations for hand pumpers) but those guns still require a full 200 bar fill to get the 30 shots. The good thing about having the extra reservoir is it can always fill to full pressure and get the full 90 shots if I ever anticipate on doing a lot of shots in a target session or if I ever go to a target rich pesting environment. I don't have that option to pump more air with a gun with a small reservoir.

If you tinker with the gun a lot and need to empty the gun on occasions or if the gun has a terrible leak then yes, a gun with a bigger reservoir is a pain to hand pump from complete empty. My gun takes 200 pumps from empty just to reach regulator pressure. Keeping this in mind, my only other advice for hand pumpers is that guns with very high FPE and guns with really small air reservoir that needs 300 bars to get just 20 shots are probably not good guns to hand pump. From my experience with my gun, I need an average of 1 pump per shot per 10 FPE. So my 32 FPE gun needs 3 pumps per shot. I can also pump my gun to 250 bars without too much hardship. Although, it is noticeably harder at 250 bars than at 200 bars and I'd rather not go there if I don't need the shot count. I can only imagine the weight required to pump to 300 bars. 


 
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I hand pump both an FX Cyclone and a Daystate Huntsman Regal XL. Both of these guns have long slender air cylinders and I don't know the volume off the top of my head. Pumping is not a big deal. I can pump any of my cylinders up from empty in two sessions of 5-6 minutes each. I do it in two sessions to save the pump from overheating, but I have gone from empty to full in one session with no problems, but don't like to do it rregularly. I pump both guns to ~220 BAR all the time and it's just not a problem.

I also have taken both rifles apart several times and never once found any signs of moisture and I don't have any special driers. I use a standard FX pump.

Over the years I've had Hill 3 stage pumps, FX 4 stage pumps and FX regular pumps along with another one or two I don't remember now. There's just no free ride in pumps, easier pumper for more strokes or harder pumping for fewer strokes. But, when folks say "harder pumping" it's not all that noticeable to me. The FX 4 stage did take more pumps, but I couldn't say that they were that much easier than the standard FX that took less pumps. 

I will admit, when I have to tear down a gun I know it's going to take some pumping to get it back up and running, but then when it actually comes down to it, it just isn't all that hard.
 
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