N/A Thinking About Returning to PCPs

I dropped the hammer yesterday. A little nervous about it.
I ordered, from UTAirGuns a Taipan Veteran 2 Standard in .25 (700mm barrel)

I had gone so far as ordering the Cricket II and cancelled the order after talking to a couple fellows on the phone and re-reading a few reviews. I don't think I could wrong no matter which of these for my needs?

The deciding factor for me was the quality of the build and the trigger -- reputations and reviews as I have never even seen in the wild a Crcket or Taipan. While I think there are dozens of wonderful airguns out there, I can't afford buy favorites, the Steyrs any longer since Krale stopped selling to us.

My nervousness:
1. I have a lot of confidence in the trust folks have with Charlie Frears and his Cricket work. He no longer sells Taipans.
2. I've ordered nearly every air gun I've ever owned from AoA (about 6 or so). I've never ordered one from UTAG and I did read a couple of horror stories AFTER I had placed the order.
3. I hope the stock (wood but not tactical) is sleeker than they look in pictures and videos. If not, I'm planning to do a bit of butchering if the rifle makes the grade in other areas.

I don't have any concerns about accuracy or dependability.

Going to go with filling up the gun a couple of times with local paintball shop. Pretty silly for a 331 cylinder to 250-260 bar I know. If I can get that fill per tank (75-100 CF) down from the $20 the fellow quoted me, I may get a tank. If not, then I'll likely get a portable compressor with the GXS 4 C-I being the most interesting to me at this point.

Finally, I'm intrigued with the idea of shooting slugs in this rifle, but I'm being it to shoot whichever .25 caliber pellet shoots best in it.

Thanks for all the input.
Just a heads up. In order to get tanks filled from a shop/business they will need to be up to date on inspections. I believe the C/F tanks are good for 15 years.
 
After more checking (this forum) it seems that $20 to fill a 75-97 CF carbon tank isn't out of line? Some say they pay $22 per fill (top off).

More thought on the matter in store for me.

Got a firehouse nearby? Might be worth seeing if you can make friends with some of them, sometimes you can find one that’ll fill your tanks for free. ;)
 
I dropped the hammer yesterday. A little nervous about it.
I ordered, from UTAirGuns a Taipan Veteran 2 Standard in .25 (700mm barrel)

I had gone so far as ordering the Cricket II and cancelled the order after talking to a couple fellows on the phone and re-reading a few reviews. I don't think I could wrong no matter which of these for my needs?

The deciding factor for me was the quality of the build and the trigger -- reputations and reviews as I have never even seen in the wild a Crcket or Taipan. While I think there are dozens of wonderful airguns out there, I can't afford buy favorites, the Steyrs any longer since Krale stopped selling to us.

My nervousness:
1. I have a lot of confidence in the trust folks have with Charlie Frears and his Cricket work. He no longer sells Taipans.
2. I've ordered nearly every air gun I've ever owned from AoA (about 6 or so). I've never ordered one from UTAG and I did read a couple of horror stories AFTER I had placed the order.
3. I hope the stock (wood but not tactical) is sleeker than they look in pictures and videos. If not, I'm planning to do a bit of butchering if the rifle makes the grade in other areas.

I don't have any concerns about accuracy or dependability.

Going to go with filling up the gun a couple of times with local paintball shop. Pretty silly for a 331 cylinder to 250-260 bar I know. If I can get that fill per tank (75-100 CF) down from the $20 the fellow quoted me, I may get a tank. If not, then I'll likely get a portable compressor with the GXS 4 C-I being the most interesting to me at this point.

Finally, I'm intrigued with the idea of shooting slugs in this rifle, but I'm being it to shoot whichever .25 caliber pellet shoots best in it.

Thanks for all the input.

Oh, and because I had ordered a pre-owned Cricket II from AoA and a new (better be) Taipan Vet 2 from UT, there was only $1.00 difference in price.
That one has my interest. I thought the 700mm standard vet II was Talon only.? I like it better if it isn't & a factory offering. I think your going to be very very happy with your pick
 
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I know I have the cart several days or more ahead of the horse. Howecer, I'm fascinated by the opportunity to modify the stock on my incoming Taipan Veteran Standard .25. While I haven't handled one of these yet I'm anticipating that I'd like to lighten and slim the stock some? Below is a scaled sketch of what I have in mind. Of course the big question will be not to interfere with internal workings or weaken the stock.

The areas in "red" below are the portions I'm thinking about removing. Depending upon how complicated the inletting would be I could simply opt to hand carve a nice walnut stock. I'm a hobbyist woodworker (I have my wood rifle cradles listed in the marketplace here) with lots of different tools. An air rifle seems to me to be much less complicated than say a rimfire rifle inlet job? I won't know until my paws are laid on one.

Anyone done something like this?

IMG_6150 copy.jpeg
 
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I know I have the cart several days or more ahead of the horse. Howecer, I'm fascinated by the opportunity to modify the stock on my incoming Taipan Veteran Standard .25. While I haven't handled one of these yet I'm anticipating that I'd like to lighten and slim the stock some? Below is a scaled sketch of what I have in mind. Of course the big question will be not to interfere with internal workings or weaken the stock.

The areas in "red" below are the portions I'm thinking about removing. Depending upon how complicated the inletting would be I could simply opt to hand carve a nice walnut stock. I'm a hobbyist woodworker (I have my wood rifle cradles listed in the marketplace here) with lots of different tools. An air rifle seems to me to be much less complicated than say a rimfire rifle inlet job? I won't know until my paws are laid on one.

Anyone done something like this?

View attachment 493032
wonder if it would fit in a wildcat stock
 
I've made 5 wood stocks for my 3 P35s so far. I used softwood off the floor of my shop for the first one. I wanted to make sure I could do it before potentially wasting hardwood. It worked but I decided I wanted the grip further from the trigger to better fit my XL hands. I modified the softwood version with some bondo and a glued on piece and some more shaping. I liked the fit of that so I went on to hardwood. I made two of laminated wood from pew seats from pews my church scrapped. The call the wood mahogany but I think it's really luan. Nice deep red but a coarse grain with no figure. I have those stocks on my P35-25 and P35-177. The 25 caliber has a nosepiece from the stump of an old oak that fell over I call my "killing tree" because of all the squirrels I took from it before it died. Highly figured. The other two stocks are cherry. The latest has a little subtle figure. It is a leftover piece from a bed I made for my oldest grandson.

Inletting is the least fun process. I use a domino XL for this and it works well but it is not a cheap tool. A router can do pretty much the same things. Forstner bit and chisels can also do a lot. I use a big router bit on my router table for the groove for the air tube. Not sure how I would do a Taipan stock, I'd need to see the action and stock separated from each other. I do all the inletting on the block of wood while it is square. Only after the action fits into the block do I start to do any shaping.

I shape first with my bandsaw for the outside shape and my Bosch jig saw for inside curves. The bandsaw works better than the jig saw even though the Bosch is a good one. A scroll saw could do both but I do not have one. After that I use a flapper wheel on a right angle grinder to do rough shaping. It is fast but messy. I used 40 grit once but I think it's too fast. I think 80 grit is safer. Then I switch to sanders. I have rasps but I use them as little as possible. I prefer the speed of power tools. The way I do it, figured grain is not really an issue. But if you want to plane or chisel it does affect things.

The Taipan has a laminated wood stock, I think. That will be part of the weight issue. Laminated wood is relatively heavy because of the glue and the wood is compressed. You can look up wood density on line to see what sort of difference the wood makes. Walnut is relatively light. I think maple would be heavier and particularly figured maple but I have not looked it up. My luan stocks are lighter than my cherry stocks but the softwood one is the lightest. I've thought of using some southern yellow pine for one. It is stronger than most if not all softwoods, lighter than hardwoods and the grain is somewhat interesting. But the main reason to use it would be weight. I probably won't do it because it takes some significant effort to make a stock. I'm thinking of making one for my plastic stock original Avenger. It really needs a new stock.
 
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JimD,
Your experience and advice is much appreciated and squares with what I've learned in wood working so far. Most of my 6-7 years of hobby woodworking has been to make or repair furniture for my two children and my wife and I.

I'm super intrigued to see how I can do this. The shaping will be pretty straight forward as long as I get the trigger guard and the tube channel right. Frankly, I'd like use a metal trigger guard I have laying around to reduce the wood and fragility of that part of the stock. As you suggest, I'll square up the form and then inlet for the tube first. Until I get that right there is no moving forward. I will probably start right off with walnut which I find very easy to work with. I even have some swivel mounts for a sling that require inletting. That would be a cool touch on an air rifle.
 
Absolutely! I didn't want to burden folks to ask for the inlet pics you provided above. Thank you very much!

I'm thinking to do this from scratch to protect the OEM. From your pictures the inletting seems very straight forward and not as complicated as a power burning dealing with magazine, trigger, and tang inletting. Heck, not even any lug up front.

I have an excellent wood supplier less than 15 miles from me who cuts the trees, takes it apart on his sawmill, and kiln dries the lumber. Lets me hand-pick. Walnut only $8/board foot which is $4/bd foot cheaper than a nice fellow I used to buy from.
 
The only thing about yours that will be different is the cocking lever area. You will have forward cocking but not sure how that will affect the inlet area? Would be cool to see you make one though. I think you made a great choice. I have 2 Vet 1s and if I were to get another gun right now a Vet 2 is high on the list. Such great dependable guns.
 
My search to "get back into PCPs" has concluded. I started this "search" last December. There are so many great choices out there these days. Other than the Revere the Daystates are too expensive for me now as are the Steyrs. Second place was a Kaliburgun Cricket 2 bullpen. Also think the Katran is pretty nice and a Brocock Ghost caught my eye for a bit. I went for reputation, build quality, trigger, accuracy, and power.

Lots of input from folks on this thread and many others, plus some helpful PMs and even a couple of phone calls! Great forum!

Summary:
- Taipan Veteran 2 Standard .25 w/700mm barrel (UTairguns)
- GXS c3-I compressor (amazon)
- Immersive 10x40 optic from "England"
- Two tins of pellets also from UT (should have bought the 3/4 from Pyramid Air or 4/5 from UT, but I wan't thinking)

Everything should be in my hands by this coming Monday. I'll put aside one of my rimfires and take this new rig to the squirrel woods shortly after.

Yep, I'll report on the whole set-up after my first couple of hunts.

Thanks everyone.
 
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