Ultimate squirrel rifle setup(PCP/piston)

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Vetmx said:
I hunt squirrels with seven different rifles in three different calibers using pellets and slugs. I don’t have a standout favorite. But I would have to give a slight edge to my project P15 in .25. Years ago I dubbed it my Chaipan. Its slender, light, makes the power a .25 should and with the custom barrel I can shoot three different squirrel slaying projectiles with outstanding accuracy. The only drawback with the gun is the safety. It’s a micro button right on the trigger that’s only suited for a childs hand. The rear cocking doesn’t bother me on guns that hit everything on the first shot.

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I know what you mean. I hated the safety on my Skyhawk. But now i have Mackeral5’s P15 .25 project rifle. He put a P12 trigger on it which has a safety lever in front of the trigger. It’s great.
 
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My Squirrel Dreamline setup In .22.
IMG_1842.jpeg
 
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This VERY flat shooting 20 caliber TalonP is not quite finished but Im hunting with it. Ill be adding sling mounts and a green laser just behind the moderator on the top rail. Ill zero the laser at the highest point in the trajectory. That high mounted scope is wonderful for long range work and spreading your near and far crossover points out but plays hell with those close in shots you get so often when you're sitting still and let them get in too close. The solution in this case is going to be that green LASER. Set up that way it will tell me almost exactly how low I am hitting on the close shots.

The BC on that JSB 15.89 in 20 caliber is so outstanding that I can run the gun at 25 fpe and get the ballistics table inserted below.
Screenshot_20231214-175801-110.png
I hunt the deep woods and the only time I see shots over fifty yards is when I am pesting for the neighbors during the summer. This little rifle weighs less than 5 and a half pounds with the optic. I put the "Ring-Loc" valve kit in it. That let me tune it to 25 good shots starting at 2200 psi and ending at 1700psi. So if I ever need too I can hand pump it really easily. That gives me 20 shots with an ES of about 15 and an SD around 3 at 850 fps with the JSB 15.89 pellet, very nice :) There are another five shots under that 20 which would be usable if I had to press it (unlikely to be sure).
 
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OldSpook said:
View attachment 415736
This VERY flat shooting 20 caliber TalonP is not quite finished but Im hunting with it. Ill be adding sling mounts and a green laser just behind the moderator on the top rail. Ill zero the laser at the highest point in the trajectory. That high mounted scope is wonderful for long range work and spreading your near and far crossover points out but plays hell with those close in shots you get so often when you're sitting still and let them get in too close. The solution in this case is going to be that green LASER. Set up that way it will tell me almost exactly how low I am hitting on the close shots.

The BC on that JSB 15.89 in 20 caliber is so outstanding that I can run the gun at 25 fpe and get the ballistics table inserted below.
View attachment 415738
I hunt the deep woods and the only time I see shots over fifty yards is when I am pesting for the neighbors during the summer. This little rifle weighs less than 5 and a half pounds with the optic. I put the "Ring-Loc" valve kit in it. That let me tune it to 25 good shots starting at 2200 psi and ending at 1700psi. So if I ever need too I can hand pump it really easily. That gives me 20 shots with an ES of about 15 and an SD around 3 at 850 fps with the JSB 15.89 pellet, very nice :) There are another five shots under that 20 which would be usable if I had to press it (unlikely to be sure).
Click to expand...
I have always liked the talon P and love the 20cal in my springer. How is your accuracy with the 13s. I have about 20 tins of those.
 
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drsquall said:
I have always liked the talon P and love the 20cal in my springer. How is your accuracy with the 13s. I have about 20 tins of those.
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I have a couple of tins of those. I haven't even tried them in this rifle. I had high hopes for the 15.89s and they did not disappoint.

The 13s shoot well in my HW98.
 
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drsquall said:
I am thinking of picking one up for another squirrel buster. Are they very hard to tune
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Easiest gun there is to work on.
  • Get your selection of pellets.
  • Charge to 3k psi.
  • With the heaviest pellet you are going to run. Shoot over a chrony 3 shots at each odd (1,3,5,7,9,11,13) power setting. Average those and graph them in a spread sheet. Just to be safe recharge the gun before shooting the group at setting 9 to 3k psi. You now know what the max and min power settings do and you can predict fairly well what the setting should be for any weight you are going to shoot.
  • Set your power wheel to the energy level you expect to run. This is the minimum hammer strike which will develope the power you want. That means your valve is closing as quickly as you can make it close. That lowers muzzle pressure and conserves air.
  • Charge to 3k
  • With the heaviest pellet you are going to run. Chronograph shots from number 1 to whatever begins to show a velocity BELOW what you are willing to accept. Graph that in a spread sheet. You know know what the gun will produce at that power wheel setting with the heaviest pellet. Your lighter pellets will likely develop higher velocities and slightly less energy. The energy curve will start out low, increase in velocity and then fall off unless you are already tuned for maximum achievable energy. Now look at your graph. You are looking for the place on that graph where your shots are shooting at the power level you want with the smallest standard deviation for the most shots. That part of the graph starts at your desired energy level (might be shot zero, or five, or seventeen) and runs for some number of shots (might be 5 or 12 or 25) with a standard deviation you are willing to accept.
  • Now you are going to refill again to a pressure level which lands you at that starting point. Start to refill the bottle, watch the gauge, when the fill valve on the bottle opens and the rise of the fill needle slows down note the pressure reading. Write it down. Stop filling. You can now calculate the approximate starting fill pressure. You started with 3k psi. You shot N shots. You ended with X psi. You calculate that each shot took about (3000-X) / N psi. Suppose you filled to 3000 and your end pressure was 2100 psi. Also suppose the shot string you like begins with shot 8 and you shot 26 shots total. (3000-2100)/26 is about 35 psi per shot. You want to start your string at shot number 8. That means your new fill pressure is 3000-(8*35) or about 2720 psi. You have figured out that you get 18 good shots (26-8) starting at about 2750 psi.
  • Continue filling your bottle to your new starting pressure (in our example about 2750).
  • Start shooting for groups with your pellet candidates. When you find the pellet which shoots best you can start tweaking the power wheel setting to get the most consistent starting velocity and the longest consistent string of shots using what you have learned by following this procedure.
Shoot a minimum of a thousand shots with the gun before you start tearing it down or modifying it. The temptation is strong. Fight it. ;)

I learned this process when I bought a gun from a guy out in California which had obviously been HEAVILY modified to shoot high power and had been "well loved" for lack of a better term. The gun is one of the old model Condor SS guns. It came with a whole lot of parts, various hammers, custom top hats, hammer springs, etc. I also have run it regulated and unregulated and I have to say I think the platform is best run unregulated unless you are shooting bench rest. The regulators sit between the bottle and the action. This limits the plenum size and increases the length of pull. That is fine on a bench but not so much in the field. Anyway that gun was a mess. I bought barrels for it and have tuned it to shoot as much as 80 fpe in 25 cal and as little as 15 fpe in .20 cal and just about all points in between. Today it is the closest to stock that it has ever been since I first received it. Airforce already knows what works best, stick with their lead for the first year anyway. Talon P Moderator Thread

Love the platform. It is elegant in it's simplicity.
 
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OldSpook said:
Easiest gun there is to work on.
  • Get your selection of pellets.
  • Charge to 3k psi.
  • With the heaviest pellet you are going to run. Shoot over a chrony 3 shots at each odd (1,3,5,7,9,11,13) power setting. Average those and graph them in a spread sheet. Just to be safe recharge the gun before shooting the group at setting 9 to 3k psi. You now know what the max and min power settings do and you can predict fairly well what the setting should be for any weight you are going to shoot.
  • Set your power wheel to the energy level you expect to run. This is the minimum hammer strike which will develope the power you want. That means your valve is closing as quickly as you can make it close. That lowers muzzle pressure and conserves air.
  • Charge to 3k
  • With the heaviest pellet you are going to run. Chronograph shots from number 1 to whatever begins to show a velocity BELOW what you are willing to accept. Graph that in a spread sheet. You know know what the gun will produce at that power wheel setting with the heaviest pellet. Your lighter pellets will likely develop higher velocities and slightly less energy. The energy curve will start out low, increase in velocity and then fall off unless you are already tuned for maximum achievable energy. Now look at your graph. You are looking for the place on that graph where your shots are shooting at the power level you want with the smallest standard deviation for the most shots. That part of the graph starts at your desired energy level (might be shot zero, or five, or seventeen) and runs for some number of shots (might be 5 or 12 or 25) with a standard deviation you are willing to accept.
  • Now you are going to refill again to a pressure level which lands you at that starting point. Start to refill the bottle, watch the gauge, when the fill valve on the bottle opens and the rise of the fill needle slows down note the pressure reading. Write it down. Stop filling. You can now calculate the approximate starting fill pressure. You started with 3k psi. You shot N shots. You ended with X psi. You calculate that each shot took about (3000-X) / N psi. Suppose you filled to 3000 and your end pressure was 2100 psi. Also suppose the shot string you like begins with shot 8 and you shot 26 shots total. (3000-2100)/26 is about 35 psi per shot. You want to start your string at shot number 8. That means your new fill pressure is 3000-(8*35) or about 2720 psi. You have figured out that you get 18 good shots (26-8) starting at about 2750 psi.
  • Continue filling your bottle to about 2750.
  • Start shooting for groups with your pellet candidates. When you find the pellet which shoots best you can start tweaking the power wheel steeing to get the most consistent starting velocity and the longest consistent string of shots using what you have learned by following this proceedure.
Shoot a minimum of a thousand shots with the gun before you start tearing it down or modifying it.

I learned this process when I bought a gun from a guy out in California which had obviously been HEAVILY modified to shoot high power and had been "well loved" for lack of a better term. The gun is one of the old model Condor SS guns. It came with a whole lot of parts, various hammers, custom top hats, hammer springs, etc. I also have run it regulated and unregulated and I have to say I think the platform is best run unregulated unless you are shooting benchrest. The regulators sit between the bottle and the action. This limits the plenium size and increases the length of pull. That is fine on a bench but not so much in the field.

Love the platform. It is elegant in it's simplicity.
Click to expand...
Thank you for that.
 
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My kral jumbo 25 is a great sit or stalk gun. Took 8 on Christmas at my dad's. Tuned for 55 fpe with jsb 34s for 60 shots.
20231225_164727.jpg


My kral mega that's heavily modified is my main on the go rig. 25 cal 800 fps for 20 shots with JTS 25.4s

20231228_112434.jpg


Both wearing Athlon Neos scopes. 4-12x40 on the mega and a 6-18x44 on the jumbo.
 
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I think a mid 30s fpe 25 caliber is a great power level for squirrels. I shot 18 with my P35-25 tuned to 32 fpe. Very effective without being totally overkill. Now that I have a 32 fpe 22 I've turned my P35-25 up (and I find the 22 effective) but that's more in case I get a shot at something bigger.
 
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