Tuning Umarex Gauntlet Problems .22

[Hajimoto]

I would like to see Hajimoto, address the hard closing bolt issue. First off I don’t think the G2’s with this issue would give him accuracy.

I have addressed this issue in another post which you may find useful. Keep in mind that any of the services offered in a complete Tune Package, are also available individually for users that only have one item they wish addressed. 

I hope this helps.

Hajimoto

 

[radduci]

Thank you so much for posting this reminder. I know a number of Gauntlet 2 folks are wrestling with this problem. I had not run across your previous posts about the issue so I appreciated your posting. Since I am not handy enough to do the required polishing, I will do the correction the hard (or easy) way by just shooting until the smoothing and accuracy improve. I primarily use JSB 25.39 grain pellets, so it make take plenty of magazines to accomplish the deed but I am a patient person.

Thanks for the suggestions. And thanks for your effort for the airgun shooting community. My Gauntlet 1 is still purring along thanks to your 'big bottle' and Ninja regulator adjusted to 1900 psi.

radduci

 

[.20calguy]

Hi Radduci 

I just got my Gauntlet 2 back from Umerex. My results weren’t productive. I didn’t receive any correspondence, other than a test target, with a .56 and a .61” group at 20 meters. That’s not much better than I told them that I was getting at 50 yards, if you do some math. The best group I got out the gun, was shooting “weight matched” JSB 18.13’s, into a 1 5/8” group at fifty yards. Ten shots with six bulls on a one inch bullseye. A .56 group at 20M, calculates to 1.3” at 50 yards. Not a big difference. So I shot the gun, and found no improvement for our, mine, and Umerex’s efforts.

 

[radduci]

Hi, .20calguy; Sorry to hear about the return of your Gen 2 with no improvement. My result was basically similar. Fast turnaround but nothing significant changed. I read Hajimoto's comments about the causes of the need for a hard thump to get a pellet into the breach and found it very interesting. It makes a lot of sense, as did your appraisal re the rifling. Haji also spoke about the reasons for the hard chambering..... short lead-in to the barrel and the condition of the rifling at the barrel entrance. There is no doubt about the short lead-in and the condition of the rifling at the barrel entrance, as you also said. I am shooting indoors and probably will continue to shoot indoors using a combination of 4 magazines of Crossman pellets followed by another 4 magazines of JSBs to try to wear down the rough edges. Those hard Crossman's are beginning to make some inroads to wear down the roughness. The JSBs now chamber a lot easier but it will take some time. The grouping of the test shots Umarex sent to you look pretty good to me. If you are getting groups like that at 50 yards you are doing well, IMHO. I was lucky to get 2 inch groups last time outdoors at 60 yards. That was before I started shooting with hard Crossmans. It will be awhile before I feel ready to shoot at long distances again. It will take a lot of lead to polish up the lead-in and the barrel entrance but I have time and winters are long in Wisconsin so shooting outside is not very attractive up this way for a few months. Any plans to improve the Gen 2 yourself or send it for professional work? The end price of the Gen 2 may be a lot higher to make it better.

 

[.20calguy]

Hi Radduci, the picture of the groups, show the Umerex test target at 20 meters, or 21.87 yards, and my 1 inch black dot targets, at 50 yards, which is 45.72 meters. I shot those groups yesterday after I received the G2. I’m not sure what the two low flyers were about? Those pellets were sorted, and weighed. The regulator fps’s were amazing. All 977’s with two 979’s, and one 974, which could have been the low guy, if I’d have been paying more attention. After running out of those pellets JSB 18. gr, I ran about eighty Barracuda Match 21.14gr, and they didn’t shoot well at all. 
as far as repairing this gun or letting it break in, I’m inclined to send it to Hajimoto, and have it done right. I have been watching and reading all I can find on his work, especially G2, related. I’m sure I’ll have a happier “my gun arrived” message after he worked on it. Lol in the meantime I’m going to shoot it. I’m in SE Louisiana, and this is our best BBQ weather, usually until after Christmas. Nothing goes better than BBQ, and pellet guns! Just don’t get confused, and keep yo hands washed!

 

[radduci]

Hi, again, .20Calguy; I would be happy if I could get a group like that at 60 yards with my Gen 2. Even at 20 yards, mine won't consistently group like that. I'm not the best shot in the world but the comparison for accuracy between my Gen 2 and my Avengers is staggering. I've not been unhappy with the velocity and fpe measures I've taken with my .22 cal Gauntlet 2. Velocity stats averaged 1023 fps with 18.13 JSBs and 914 fps with 25.39 grain JSBs, fpe of 42.2 and 46.6, respectively (I only fill to 4K psi). Accuracy, on the other hand, has never been very good. I have given the rifle a good cleaning and will do it again after I shoot the cr*&p out of it with Crossmans, but am not sure how much better it will get. Your decision to send it to Hajimoto is a good one. I would also do that except shipping cost for me, even with UPS ground is about $40.00 so round trip would be about $80.00. That's a significant add to the price of the rifle. I can buy a lot of pellets for that much (if I can even get pellets again, with the delays in availability. Fortunately, Crossman are cheap and will hopefully stay available). I could pull the barrel but but would also need to pull the breach block and I'm not keen on doing that. Shipping cost would be cheaper for parts, only but there would still be a shipping cost and the mod is priced at $110 or something like that. Again, I just don't want to pour more good money after bad. I may change my mind later at some point, but for now the economics just don't make sense to me. By the way, lucky you on your location. Temps are running in the low 30s and we've already had some snow flurries here in Wisconsin. My taste for outdoor shooting is waning rapidly. The months ahead will allow plenty of indoor shooting time so we'll see. I do like your combination of BBQ and Pellets . Also, proximity to DonnyFL 'ain't bad, either.

 

[.20calguy]

Hi radduci. 
I wanted to mention that I discovered that my rifle was dropped here, before it was shipped to Umerex. When I examined where it was dropped, I spotted two dings in my flooring. I grabbed the rifle, and laid it on the dings, one lining up with the muzzle, and the other with the air reservoir. So I apologized to Umerex, and removed those comments and photos, publicly. 

 

[radduci]

.20Calguy; Sorry to hear that. Hard physical impacts are certainly not good and can explain a lot re the performance that you have been experiencing. Hope you can figure out how those ‘drops’ happened. Are you going to do some testing before asking for a swap out? I no longer have a cat but could always blame things like that on the kitty

 

[Rodney Maynot]

I say problems because it's plural now. First, I'm posting this for a friend, he's the owner of the gun. He brought it over to have me help him zero the scope. I have a standard 72cu' tank from air tanks for sale. We filled his gun to between 2 and 3k PSI per the owners manual. To be specific, we filled it to 2900 PSI. I cocked the bolt to the rear, and loaded a pellet. Put the gun on fire, and all we get is the sound of the sere being released, the spring going forward and the sound of some other trigger action - but absolutely no air released. I had to punch the bore of the rifle with a .22 caliber rod to get the pellet out, because no air was being released. I thought maybe I had overfilled the gun when I read the 1250psi warning on the regulator, but realized later that this PSI only applies to the amount of air the regulator is to release and not the fill pressure of the bottle. Nowhere in the gauntlet's owners manual does it say you can't fill the gun to 3000psi. So we try again and again, and get the same result, no air being released, but the tank pressure showing a steady 2900psi. Second problem: I took the stock off and took the trigger housing group off to make sure nothing was out of order. Everything seemed fine. Next, we removed the trigger group all together and took the rear retaining plug off. Out comes some sort of polymer guide plug, a convex shaped plug with a threaded hole going through it, and a long guide rod with a spring around it. When removing the front screw to the trigger guard, we realized it was questionably loose. Once we had everything out, we decided not to go any further because there were no glaring broken parts or pieces that we noticed. The second problem comes in when I can't get the parts back into the gun. I put them in exactly the way that they came out, and the rear retaining plug will go in - but once the gun is back together, the bolt will not cock the gun and it won't go all the way to the rear. I am at a loss here and open to any suggestion. As it stands now we still have a pressurized gun that won't go bang - and now wont' go back together the way it came out. I cannot find anywhere online a diagram or disassembly video or assembly diagram of the gauntlet. Any help is appreciated, Thanks.

I know this is an old post and you've most likely gotten this issue of your bolt not engaging fixed by now. The problem you were having when you pulled the trigger housing off of the Gauntlet taking the bolts one on each side of the trigger housing you removed the trigger housing and when you did this you disengaged the sear engagement from the hammer spring guide. When you went to put the trigger housing back on the Gauntlet you did not pull the bult back with the two trigger housing bolts one on each side of the trigger housing a tad loose then put the sear engagement back into the hammer spring housing by pulling the bolt back which the sear engagement would go up into the hammer spring housing then tighting the two bolts back up tight there for engaging the hammer spring when you pull back on the bolt. Below I have circled in red the sear engagement. The arrow indicates where the sear engagement needs to be put back in the hammer spring engagement when you pull the hammer back there is a little slotted spot where the sear engagement needs to be put into the hammer spring housing and tighten the two trigger housing bolts back up one on each side of the trigger housing that when you pull that bolt back the hammer spring will engage and pull the trigger the sear engagement will release and the hammer spring will engage smacking into the air valve and the rifle will fire. I hope this helps anyone that mat have this issue in with either the Gauntlet gen 1 or gen 2. The trigger system on both are the very same. Happy hunting / shooting everyone.

 

[Rodney Maynot]

I know this is an old post and you've most likely gotten this issue of your bolt not engaging fixed by now. The problem you were having when you pulled the trigger housing off of the Gauntlet taking the bolts one on each side of the trigger housing you removed the trigger housing and when you did this you disengaged the sear engagement from the hammer spring guide. When you went to put the trigger housing back on the Gauntlet you did not pull the bult back with the two trigger housing bolts one on each side of the trigger housing a tad loose then put the sear engagement back into the hammer spring housing by pulling the bolt back which the sear engagement would go up into the hammer spring housing then tighting the two bolts back up tight there for engaging the hammer spring when you pull back on the bolt. Below I have circled in red the sear engagement. The arrow indicates where the sear engagement needs to be put back in the hammer spring engagement when you pull the hammer back there is a little slotted spot where the sear engagement needs to be put into the hammer spring housing and tighten the two trigger housing bolts back up one on each side of the trigger housing that when you pull that bolt back the hammer spring will engage and pull the trigger the sear engagement will release and the hammer spring will engage smacking into the air valve and the rifle will fire. I hope this helps anyone that mat have this issue in with either the Gauntlet gen 1 or gen 2. The trigger system on both are the very same. Happy hunting / shooting everyone.

View attachment 541152

I know this was the problem because I had this same thing happen to my Umarex Gauntlet Gen 2 in 30 cal. When I first received my Umarex Gauntlet Gen 2 SL30 I could not pull the bolt back to engage the hammer spring there for my Gauntlet SL30 was unfirable. I thought it was the trigger adjustment screw had been screwed all the way in making it so the trigger could not engage being to tight against the sear engagement. However when I removed the bottle then the rifle from the stock I adjusted the trigger adjustment almost all the way out , removed the trigger housing cover and all was fine in that aspect. The real problem was the sear engagement had not been put into the hammer spring housing where it belonged there for when I pulled the bolt back the bolt would not cock back at all. I found out that the sear engagement itself was not in the hammer spring housing so the hammer spring could engage when the bolt was pulled back. So what I did to fix this was loosen the screws one on each side of the trigger housing , pulled the bolt back a tad and put the sear engagement back where it belonged into the hammer spring housing , tightened the trigger housing bolts back up and this fixed my issue of the bolt not engaging. It's not always the trigger adjustments itself. At times it's the sear engagement was not installed into the hammer spring housing of the bolt that causes this. I'm only giving advice based on what I have found with my own Gauntlet SL30. Funny or not this is what happened and how I fixed this issue. When I read that this posted had pulled the trigger housing off of his Gauntlet this only makes complete sense that he or she did not put the sear engagement back where it belonged and where the sear engagement was before he or she pulled the trigger housing off of they're Gauntlet.

 

[.20calguy]

.20Calguy; Sorry to hear that. Hard physical impacts are certainly not good and can explain a lot re the performance that you have been experiencing. Hope you can figure out how those ‘drops’ happened. Are you going to do some testing before asking for a swap out? I no longer have a cat but could always blame things like that on the kitty

I know it's an old post but I missed it and I'm slow and old.
I have two kitties.
That rifle shoots fine, but has an issue with the chambers chamfer, It wasn't done so it doesn't have one. So when you close the bolt the rifling peels chips off of the pellet which fouls the barrel. If you pull some tight patches through it, it is really accurate until it fouls again.
I need to pull the barrel off and chamfer it.

 

[Wait_what]

I had the same problem with the Gauntlet not firing when I pulled the trigger. Try inserting a cleaning rod( or coat hanger) in the end of the gun. I did this and pushed 2 pellets out of the breech and it worked fine ever since.

 

[.20calguy]

My Gauntlet2 has never had trouble firing, it had trouble hitting what you fired at.
I sent it back for warranty and they shot test group of about 3/4" at 20 meters, and said that was what was expected from this gun. It wasn't what I was expecting. I didn't know when I bought it that my old 72 Sheridan Bluestreak, was conciderably more accurate then this beast.
I bought the gun watching Hajimoto's videos expecting his kind of accuracy. As it turned out Hajimoto responded to my thread and educated me on the rifles issue, along with a picture.

If you have a hard closing bolt, the pelets are being damaged in the chamber, by the sharp edge of the rifling, because there's no transition chamfer. Then lead chips from the damaged pellets foul the rifling ruining accuracy.

This is a common issue with some of these that Umerex decided not to warranty and let us live with.

 

[John "spysir" Blount]

My Gauntlet2 has never had trouble firing, it had trouble hitting what you fired at.
I sent it back for warranty and they shot test group of about 3/4" at 20 meters, and said that was what was expected from this gun. It wasn't what I was expecting. I didn't know when I bought it that my old 72 Sheridan Bluestreak, was conciderably more accurate then this beast.
I bought the gun watching Hajimoto's videos expecting his kind of accuracy. As it turned out Hajimoto responded to my thread and educated me on the rifles issue, along with a picture.

If you have a hard closing bolt, the pelets are being damaged in the chamber, by the sharp edge of the rifling, because there's no transition chamfer. Then lead chips from the damaged pellets foul the rifling ruining accuracy.

View attachment 542377
This is a common issue with some of these that Umerex decided not to warranty and let us live with.

The ONLY issue with my original .177 might have been even a bit worse than in the photo you used. Knock that down and just a fine utility. Excellent trigger (always like QB triggers) silk smooth cocking , zero poi shift -but if you have that easy low budget fix- and had never needed even an o-ring to date.
Would love to get a .30 now that the price is right.


John

 

[.20calguy]

The ONLY issue with my original .177 might have been even a bit worse than in the photo you used. Knock that down and just a fine utility. Excellent trigger (always like QB triggers) silk smooth cocking , zero poi shift -but if you have that easy low budget fix- and had never needed even an o-ring to date.
Would love to get a .30 now that the price is right.


John

Hey john..
The barrel on mine has good accuracy potential.
I have been shooting copper clad pellets with good accuracy and not fouling as quickly as the lead.