The 177cal Chief let off the leash

[Racing]

Backstory, cause there is one, is that one of our local hardware store chains for some reason has come to offer a Beeman Chief rip-off, in 177cal only. These are going at 135£/165$ and as we came to chat at coffee break.. we arrived on picking one up as sorts of a dare.
Thing is..
I went to pick it up and was about dead set on this being an expensive toy. For children.
Well.
I was wrong i guess. Nope. Didn´t even fire it, just tore it apart to see what it was made of and to my surprise the thing was put together neatly. Very much so even.
Sharp tools had been used and things fit together better than many 1000$ rifles i´ve been into 

No. Of course no threads on barrel for a moderator and of course no scope or stands and of course no pic rail or bi-pod. But hey.. 165 bux. Hello!



As i had the thing apart i tossed the barrel on the lathe first thing and actually opted to go a little different for this one, cutting it 1/2"-28 UNEF out front. As some of you know i´m into making my own moderators and have a few around carrying that thread - which i honestly like and find better than 1/2"-20UNF.

That being said the thing went back together again aaaand...
The trigger.
It HAS to be the most god awful thing i´ve ever experienced. Yeah. Carries a few adjustment screws but.. no. Just.. NO!



In all honesty. As is it´s not usable. Not even on the best of days.



About as basic as they come i guess, but shutter angles are so off to start with that.. Yeah well, whatever. I polished the living daylights out of everything in sight and as the parts are steel at least adjusted it as "fine" as it´d go.
At this state.. BARELY to use. Mark BARELY.

While at that shop, well.. they sell the 8,4 grain JSB´s too right so picked a tin of those up and in turn these "super duty" scope rings 
Nah. None of it put me in the poor house exactly. That being said, it says on the tube not to fill beyond 2000psi or 138bar. Yeah well, as an engineer.. no. H*ll no even.
A fair guess is that the stated 2000psi in this case comes down to keeping power back. Only reason i can see at least.. But, i digress.

Fired the thing and was rewarded with a pattern sized was this a scattergun. Ooookey.. Off the barrel came again, quick polish of the crown and chamber followed by a decent clean.



Okey! So. 30 meters, but as measured with an FX brick it handed approx 7,5J. I presume these are marketed in Germany too, where that´s the limit to keep exempt.
It at least came to hand me a grouping.

That being said..



Apart. Again. Like i write above, most of the parts on this piece are actually quite alright. Valve for instance is held in place "floating" via three pieces of allen cap screws where the load in shear is on their heads. Smart move! Compare that to other ultra budget PCP´s like the Stormrider and its 200 cousins.. Materials used, again in contrast, sure isn´t the crappiest stuff around either. No.. i refrain from using the word good, but.. decent i guess would be a fair nomer.

For some reason tho the design is such that there´s a massive dead blow hammer stop within the tube, and this is set at such a depth that the poppet spindle turns very very long, unsupported.
We´ll get back to that..



For some reason the piece lacks a traditional transfer port. Instead what is used is like a "cut to shape" semi hard plastic piece, i guess POM, that is sandwiched in between the tube and the receiver. NOT exactly my thoughts on how to keep this thing leak free so.. Shoved an 8mm endmill into the exhaust port of the valve, and same thing on the receiver why i turned a more traditional transfer port sporting regular o-rings on its ends.
So yeah.
At this stage we were running ports juuuuust a tad over 4mm. As such, back together and this time out.. well i had ordered me a tin of H&N´s 20 grain hollow points and in turn their 21 grain "Piledrivers" too.

...aaaaaaaand, back to scattergun.
Upon closer examination, i shoved a No of pills through the bare barrel, it turns out she´s on the large side. So much so in fact that none of the slugs engaged the rifling. At all.
What to do?

Well. This might be a trick worth something to someone, but as our pills are swaged i reasoned as such that i could sure try and "swage them a little more".



So i kind of recut a regular drill bit to the approx shape of the nose cone and drilled this piece of brass out with a 4,5mm drill bit. The honed it to 4,57 by hand on the lathe. Turned a couple of mandrels to fit the rears of the pills. Massaging them to 4,55-4.56mm diameter and.... bingo.
At least as far as the 20 grain H&N hollows.

[Racing]

Again at 30 meters, and of course at decent speeds this time out seeing the englarged transfers.

Then to go astray a little.
The hammer on these things, the stock item is an absolute BLOB of steel. Didn´t put it on the scale before i cut into it, sorry, but a fair guess is vs the 100 gram mark. Might actually be even more..
So diet time. For real.





This thing has since undergone a few iterations. For a while there at 50+ grams.. then 44.. now 37. Truth be told though i´m now running a dual hammer spring setup and i bet a "golden middle" would have the thing come in around like 45-47 grams and then just one appropriate singular spring. Recall that insane long poppet stem?
What i opted to do, best as i could, was recut the actual striking face of the hammer to protrude way deeper beyond that hammer stop and then cut back accordingly on the poppet stem. Truth be told it might very well be that upcoming i´ll make a completely fresh hammer with an even more pronounced so, to be able to cut the stem back even further. At that point.. might very well be with a 2mm stem too.
Anyways..



De-pinger, through hole was of course upped as well. At this point... to *(&^ with them 2000psi. Win or lose, YES i´m aware of what i´m doing here, i opted to go 250bar.
Now we were getting somewhere. Them 20 grain slugs came to exit at the most around the 1065-1070 mark, which is saying something.



True. By now not so much a "mere 165$ gun" anymore -seeing the time invested. None the less what i had in hand was a 177cal (my first experience with that caliber btw) el-cheapo PCP showing REAL good accuracy for "minute of rat" no doubt.
So.
An old Yukon IR i´ve got laying around and rats.. here i come. From a practical point of view i was a tad discouraged at first. Being used to the downright mayhem the 25cal do on the rats.
Truth be told though, 177cal or no they were still dead as doornails. No floppin around, no helicopter movement nothing the likes. Just, *pft*. You´re dead. Hm.
From a minescule little 4,5mm projectile?
I truly learned something new here, that much was for sure.



Yep. Can is home brew too, out of steel. Yep. Weighs its fair share no doubt (approx 380 grams) but the puff doesn´t seem to mind.



But enough was enough already. Albeit the bolt handle on these are out of steel that actually WORKS (Stormrider, *blink**blink*, nudge nudge) it´s designed to fit the palm of a 6yr old so.. Made a new one, that i cut a brass end for.
WAY better and now i had no issues what so ever pulling the bolt.

However. Although tank capacity is larger than on a Stormrider it still isn´t anything to write home about right.. and at the levels i was..enough.



Now. I wanna be very very very clear here on that the fabbing of high pressure vessels is NOT for the novice. If you ain´t EXTREMELY familiar with what you´re doing here.. just don´t. Pressures involved are enough to kill you, and then some so tread gently and carry a BIG stick!
That out of the way, high pressure seamless tubing and according end pieces - out of steel. Ends were threaded and then TIG welded on 140A and that done i drilled into the material from the side and "rosette" welded in 4 points on each end as well.



Yeah. You all see where this is heading.. 
A tad of math told i´d be the north side of 300cc´s, which is WAY more like it. Note here.. for some reason, i thought there and then, the thing stonewalled no matter what i did at approx 1070fps using them 20s.
As it turned out, a true brain fart cause i had upped through holes and dimensions alright.. just forgot about the "lid" for the valve that holds the return spring in which was still at approx 4,5mm. Doh!
So upon reassy.. don´t need that where we´re going! So no more return spring, no more "lid". Enough already.

[Racing]

Keeping tube diameter on 38mm let me keep most of the wood intact. Foster fitting got replaced by a stand alone such, which the original sure is not.
Now on a slightly shorter tube there´s no issues what so ever getting the fill fitting on there anymore.





Remarkably enough all "the little things" got ironed out smoothly and it was time to let her rip, and did she ever.
FX brick went blank and i was rewarded with a rather hefty super sonic boom...  No more 1070fps i guess huh!
No. I still haven´t checked with my LabRadar, will have to get around to that.. But suffice it to say i turned the hammer spring adjuster WAY down to get her to come to a rest at approx 1030.



..and this is how she came to reward me cause that there is all in all 9 shots at 30 meters at dusk (in short done with that old POS Yukon IR).

Call me impressed. This.. 165$ gun hands accuracy like it was going out of style. Yep. Still "re-swage" them 20 grain hollows and yep.. it sure does the trick!

Since she´s downed yet a No of rats and leaves no room for debate what so ever. Mission accomplished in short.

But.
This of course has fed a few follow ups. What about the trigger? It´s an abomination to be quite candid. Have looked into implementing the small bits from Kral actually, to make it into a "weighed" unit. Even checked how a trigger group for an Artemis M-16 would fit (which it will with a tad of tinkering).
Same in turn, maybe make it sidelever?
As some of you know i am NO fan of bolt actions for PCP guns.
But yeah.
On a whole, there ya have it. The el-cheapo 165$ 177cal Beeman Chief rip-off that went ape. 

[Back_Roads]

 That is one screamin Beeman

[SwampHunter]

Nice gun and write up!

[190mech]

Always enjoy your innovative builds, WELL DONE!

[Goose]

Wow!  That's some nice work.

That's a QB-78 trigger group.  It should be tuneable to decency.

Could you tell us the brand and hardware store that carries them?  That looks like something I'd be interested in.

J~

[ranchibi]

Jesper! Wonderful mods on that Chief! You are a fabricating monster! I bet the rats hate it...😂👍

[airpuffhunter]

Hello the trigger can be adjusted

[airpuffhunter]

in this thread rsterne works on his chief and improves the trigger
https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php/topic,136973.0.html

good luck

[nervoustrigger]

Yes, the QB trigger group responds very well to smoothing and lubricating.  It is a proper drop sear design and it is fully adjustable for pull weight, sear engagement, and overtravel.  Swap the spring with one from an ink pen, shim the trigger blade with M3 washers to take up the side play, and lubricate the contact points with molybdenum disulfide (or tungsten disulfide).  Add in the spring plunger mod and the result is a trigger you can take down as low as 8oz or so, with no creep and a completely predictable break.

Spring plunger:
https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=125063

[Racing]

Thx guys.

That there with the trigger. Personally i swing both ways as far as triggers. My Anschütz 22lr gun for instance is single stage and i have no issues using that what so ever.
THAT single stage though is a different ballgame all together.





(For the sake of argument, and sorts of a fotnote i guess, it´s an old 1416 that i built into a KRG Bravo stock intended for a Ruger 10/22 thought for PRS-22. No, of course nothing fits between the two, and that´s what lathes and TIG welders are for  )

Anyways. So to me it´s not so much about it being single stage as the poor "feel" of it. On the spring, ahead of you. Already done n implemented and indeed the mating surfaces have been polished up to obliviation. So yes. Trigger feel has been improved massive, it doesn´t really matter as the design in itself leaves tons to be desired, for instance compared to that single stage Anschütz.
Hence why i´m debating replacing the whole thing cause if i´m to fool around with it might as well make it a decent working two stage, as i see it at least.

My PCP´s are used for ratting, in essence, why accuracy is imperative to me. Humane dispatch being the No1 criteria to be met. As it turns out this feeble little thing made by "Kayoba" can sure carry its own weight in that dept no doubt.
Real happy with that and what´s more the performance out of it on the stock 540mm barrel. Much like Bob i was worried as far as the three allen cap screws why these were replaced about first thing, just around here 12:9 fasteners are more the norm than anything so..
Have to admit to have given thought to going M5 tho. Mainly to make for a tighter setup more than anything else.

Much of the charm here, to me at least, is the very simple and generic setup. Yes, i´m absolutely certain performance can be upped even more but in all honesty - to what avail?
I´m real happy with it as far as that as is to be honest. As a 177cal it has surpassed any and all expectations i had, and then some. Have come to widen my views as far as 177cal on a whole.

Uhu. NOT a big thing among the rats at the shop! Certainly not! Fact is.. yet another one down tonight 

On that note i guess i´ve been kind of spoiled as far as the downright mayhem produced on target with the 25cal puffs.. having been taught "old school" as far as this.
Then again, 25cals have been used by some to down prey it´s insane.. the 177 not so much. Truth of it though is that the 177 suffice and well beyond that going after the rodents.
Of course i get complete pass through at the levels i´m at, but that minescule little entrance hole vs the rather extensive exit.. nope. There´s no arguing to me as far as the effectiveness on target. At all.
That being said tho, love my 25´s and for the most i´ll stick to ´em.

Thing is though, if it all pans out i´ll come into an Evanix Huntmaster AR-6 come this weekend and if i got it correctly it is a 177cal too. The AR-6 with the larger air tube.





Seeing the rep of it Q is if to keep it 177 though. Might be old, as a design, but that doesn´t really detract from what CAN be done to it i guess.

[Goose]

Thanks, Jesper.

WIth that info, I was able to find one video review. 



I'm thinking it's another rebranding of a SAG airgun much like what was done with the original QB77 (a Crosman 167 copy), the QB78 and others.

Once they're de-burred and cleaned up, they actually perform pretty well!  I'd been looking for one to run on Co2 in the summer and pump up in the winter.  This one looks like it fits the bill.

Stay safe,

J~

[Racing]

As sorts of an update then.
Since i´ve been using this thing on the rats and.. I´m a convert. It will certainly put a smack down on them critters beyond reason. As i´ve touched on before, i guess from basic conservatism, i´ve never before even given thought to the 177cal. No. Not even for pest control.

More or less regarding the brits using it for hares as pheasants to squirrel to rats and what not at 12fpe as.. not my bag. Doesn´t work like that around here, why.. 177cal i´ve always regarded as something used for punching holes in paper in your backyard at 10 meters.

Well. I was wrong.
It that simple. Granted, i´ve opted to use the, to my knowledge, as of current heaviest hollow point pill there is. The "new" H&N 20 grain hollow point, and does it EVER deliver! 

Have downed a number of scaly tails since and not ONE of them has taken an extra step after being hit. Them "massive expansion" yadda yadda.. well, they do. Accustomed to the mayhem the 25cals i´ve mainly run thus far.. Nope. Entry hole of that 20 grain 177 pill IS small but ..SAVE me the exits is anything but!

All to aware that many go pesting with regular pellets and i guess.. to each his own.
I do not, with few exceptions. Point being that rats and mice are "soft" targets and it might be they´re "just" rats and mice. To me.. they´re still life and as i aim at them i undertake the responsibility to make dispatch as swift and effective i can.
No. NOT coming down on others, just stating what i´ve come to experience cause.. them "new era" hollow points in these smaller calibers ARE a game changer on that note.

Energy dump, and then some.
Not with this 177 but very well using a 25cal shooting the same basic pill just a tad larger and heavier.. i´ve literally seen rats go airborne like a foot and touch down like almost 3 feet further back. From the hit of ONE of these hollows.
To state death is instant?
Yeah, and then some. When you take headshots with them 25cal´s running the north side of 1000 we´re talking literal decapitation. Instant such.
Can´t very well become more humane than that in my book why i´ve put the effort to find the various weights and brands that work for the various puffs i own.

This el-cheapo 177 turned into something i would never have imagined. It´s laser friggin accurate and this sending them 20´s at 1030-1050 (as adjusted) but mark my word cause this thing´ll toss them straight through the wall at approx 1130fps at the drop of a hat.

Nah. Main issue, to me, not using heavier pills is that heavier would mean longer still (as the caliber is set) and at the levels i´m already at they will do all i ask for and then some so..
Happy.

A few things tho.
I turned a fresh bolt handle for it right. It seems that improved accuracy as the bolt isn´t locked down in any way or manner.. The new, way heavier, bolt essentially won´t move upon firing.
What it WILL do tho is move as I move around with the gun in hand. Due this one mod i will pull is a spring loaded ball detent for the bolt. So that it "locks" in place.
In turn the rather feeble bi-pod i tossed on there.. nah. Needs something more rugged me thinks.

That said.
Tonights rat was No 266 and the shot was taken at approx 70m. Headshot and.. this thing just delivers. It´s that simple.

For those of you out there that ain´t all thumbs, this is a good a platform as any to go ape on in my book. WELL worth the effort and learning curve.

[mackeral5]

Cool stuff here. 

I will add that often times, with QB based guns, if there is bolt jump upon firing, it is often caused by hammer/cocking pins contacting the bolt during the shot cycle.  Not always the case, but something to look out for.  Many things can cause this, it is just a matter of recognizing it is happening and troubleshooting..

[Racing]

Uhu.
Have given thought to a SSG but.. time permitting. Have no doubt it´ll make the thing way more efficient.

What´s at hand, i guess, is that projects like this never really gets done, do they? Seeing how extremely basic the stock piece is there´s a never ending stream of ideas to push.
Some more valid than others i guess.

That said most of them likely won´t change the nature of the creature me thinks. This fire breathing (yeah well..) minescule little 177cal - and that on a budget. Cause note that if not all at least most of what has been done is just basic materials and knowing how to swing the tools needed.

Yes.
Of course my time could be valued and seeing that.. should it, this is anything but a budget gun anymore really, and nor does it behave it. True to an extent i presume.
Still tho.
Like i write above, the thing will toss them 20 grain hollows through the wall, which is at approx 1130 where i´m at, like it was going out of style.
I REALLY need to set my LabRadar up to see where she bottoms out. Super sonic boom.. yep. Check. Quadruple check even..

Kind a funny isn´t it?
Got FX´s standing around, some semi serious other PCP´s.. then a plethora of "mid range" ones aaaaand.. a PR-900 as well as a PCP modified CP-2 in pieces. Then.. this. LOL

Of course a matter of novelty. Of course it is, but also interesting as a learning curve as this whole "high power 177" is spankin new to me and i DO enjoy that immensly for the time being.
In turn..
Might be that we´re talking point of diminishing returns in as much that i feel the need for the next MAJOR upgrade and as such reason - what would that be?
An SSG sure ain´t it.

Trigger?
Hm. I´d love a better trigger, albeit i´ve gotten it (the stocker) to the point where it´s actually to use at least. But no.. nothing even CLOSE to the real deal. Not even on the same map.
Side lever?
Yeah! That might do it! Then again, the new bolt handle sure made life a TON easier and to be honest the looks has grown on me. For once a bolt action sturdy enough to take a beating!
Convert it to take a mag?
Sure. Still got that multishot Artemis mag thingy laying around in 177.. that might be a thing. In such a case scenario tho.. i´d make it run both ways. Ie; able to take a single shot tray as well, seeing how laser accurate it already is. Be a shame to let go of that due something as petty as being hot for a mag..

Again.
I use all my PCP´s for pesting. It is extremely rare i need more than one pill a pop. In short a reload that takes a second or two isn´t the end of the world, rodent is already taking a dirt nap anyways, so it really isn´t. Especially not as the pill in case wreak havoc as they do and.. it being as accurate as it is in turn..flat shooting at that.. I´d say no matter the size of the rodent in case one pill is all it takes when we´re talking these 20 grain "massive expansion" hollow points.
Offed a 1 pounder the other night for instance. Thing got hit, fell over and done deal. Exit hole absolutely insane. They do NOT mess around. Not one yota.