Thinking About De-tuning a Beast

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ShotOut6

Member
May 18, 2021
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Oklahoma, United States
My first real airgun I ever bought is a Beeman R10 in .177 I picked up in 1990, IIRC. 

Still have it, and it has occasionally surprised me with some good groups, but I've never been able to shoot it consistently well. In my journal I have a pair of back to back groups shot with 8.3 grain Superdomes at 20 meters. The first was .398", followed by a freakishly good group of .119" - these are in my journal because they are very much the exceptions to the rule. Usually I get around an inch at 20. But they do give me hope....

I'm thinking this thing is just more springer than I can handle. It's right at 14 fpe with all factory innards (actually on the 2nd OEM mainspring - the first one went about 1,200 rounds before it broke). I'm thinking about dropping it down to 12 fpe with the Vortek PG3 kit.

Has anyone any experience with this? I'm hoping it will turn it into a brand new gun that isn't hold sensitive and doesn't eat scopes.

Am I expecting too much?


 
I don't think the low power tune will be the magic bullet you are looking for. Yes, it may be easier to shoot accurately but not by a huge margin. 

I think you'd see more improvement by trying different ammo, cleaning the barrel, making sure everything is snugged and adjusted correctly, checking the scope, and making sure it's not rested firmly on bags. 

I've had a couple older R10s and they were accurate at 14fpe. But one had an off center crown that needed corrected first, along with a very tight bore. 

FWIW, I've never found Superdomes to be incredibly accurate in any of my .177 HWs. 

And another vote for skipping the Vortek kit, particularly on an R10. The piston has a notch punched in the rear that distorts it's roundness. It will need to be trued up round and likely need some filing to allow the Vortek sleeve to fit correctly without binding. 

An Air Rifle Headquarters kit will drop right in and work, and likely be a better quality spring. 

My advice is spend a little more time with what you have, and make sure you have a good platform for accuracy to start with. 
 
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Well, I think I'll drop the ARH low power kit in it and see what happens. Everything was deburred and lube-tuned when I replaced the broken OEM spring, and it's really smooth and has a nice shot cycle with the factory innards - I just can't seem to shoot it! Frustrating, because my R9 in .22 shoots so accurately with the Vortek full power kit. A plus to this is I'll have 1st hand experience with both ARH and Vortek, and if it doesn't work out, I can always drop the ARH kit in a new R9 in .177. Because I need another gun, you know! Lol.

As a side note, yeah, I've checked the crown, snugged screws, changed scopes, and tried lots of ammo in the 30 years I've owned it. I do have an H&N sampler with different sized FTT's here somewhere that I might run through it just to see. Also, it may be a little tighter at the breach than my R9 or R7, but it's hard to tell. Seems like all HW's are a little tight at the breach. If I recall correctly, I used my old Beeman Pell-Seater thingy quite a bit with this one though to avoid sore fingers.

Thanks for all the responses.










 
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You didnt mention whether it is a long barrel or a carbine. Over the years I have found the ling barrel version to be more difficult to shoot accurately, the shorter carbine version has always been easier to shoot acturately for me anyways. If you havent noticed most springers have shorter barrels today than they came with 25 years back. Over the years I have switched to carbine or cut barrels shorter and found better accuracy every time due to a much shorter time for the pellet.
 
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Yes, long barrels are not as rigid, which might lead to vibration during firing. Check out this video of an HW90.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaW_Hs0B79c

This may be an optical illusion. There's a well known 'rubber pencil' magic trick that makes a pencil look like its flexing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeYCxH8EnXs

However, concern for barrel rigidity may explain why Weihrauch fitted the HW 98 with a bull barrel.


 
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