GTA
All Springer/NP/PCP Air Gun Discussion General => European/Asian Air Gun Gates => China/Asian AirGun Gate => Topic started by: Airnut on February 05, 2023, 10:48:21 AM
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Is it possible that Snow Peak designed this pistol to have a chocked barrel or is this by mistake?
First of all I got this pistol for my grandson to shoot and I must say that for the money it has proved to be one of my better buys.
When the gun arrived he wasted no time ripping off a tin of pellets (RWS Hobby) at about 10 meters or so. After about 1/2 a tin I was amazed how well he was doing with the open sights after sighting in so I put on a cheep Crosman red dot and he was deadly with it. OK lets cut thru the chase.
I got a chance to clean the barrel yesterday. Yes I know I should have done it before he shot it but you know kids there was no way he was going to wait for me to clean it!
The first thing I noticed was that the bore mop was very tight at the breach end and all most no resistance down the barrel until I got about one inch from the muzzle end and again it was very tight. The crown was surprisingly clean.
I chrony the gun and it shot RWS 11.9 @ 382 fps avg 8 fps Spread 2 fps SD 10 shot group.
I decided to polish the breach end and the muzzle end and picked up 10 fps on average velocity with no change in spread or sd.
The pic shows the first pellet is pushed throu the breach end only half way down the barrel. The second pellet shows the pellet pushed all the way thru. The last pellet is after shot.
My question is is this my design or by accident??
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Almost looks like they are copying FX
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I don't have any idea what FX is doing.
My hope was that other owners of this pistol could confirm or debunk my findings.
I really doubt SP would put a chocked barrel on a cheep gun but what do I know.
Frank
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It's very common for airguns (springers are noted for it) to have choked barrels, so why not.
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Cost being one.
I would think that adding a chock would involve added machining. Maybe not machining but surely another step in the production process.We're talking about a 60 dollar gun??
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Cost being one.
I would think that adding a chock would involve added machining. Maybe not machining but surely another step in the production process.We're talking about a 60 dollar gun??
All it takes is a slight squeeze in a hydraulic collet.
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Well after not getting much response here on the forum. I sent a email to SnowPeak
Customer service and to my surprise they responded quickly. They said that the SP500 has a nonchocked barrel.
So that settles that!
They also wanted to know if I purchased it new or second hand.
Kind of curious why they would ask that!
Frank
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Well after not getting much response here on the forum. I sent a email to SnowPeak
Customer service and to my surprise they responded quickly. They said that the SP500 has a nonchocked barrel.
So that settles that!
They also wanted to know if I purchased it new or second hand.
Kind of curious why they would ask that!
Frank
As with many airguns, they may have been tinkered with and barrels changed out for another brand. ???
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Ya could be!
I purchased it new from Amazon so no telling were it came from!
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Despite what customer service said, you have a choked barrel.
Many springers have this type of barrel. Chamber big enough to easily take a pellet. Then it squeezes smaller than nominal pellet head size for a brief way. At this point, the head of the rifling is engraved into the grooves, and despite any variation in the original size, most all brand and style pellets will be a consistent diameter. Then the barrel opens up a few tenths of thousandths of inches, so that the pellet is hopefully just touching the bore with no friction. Then the last maybe 1/4" tightens down again, to ensure adequate registration as the pellet exits the muzzle.
Sometimes they overdo it. On my Trevox pistol, once the pellet makes it past the breech constriction, the pellet falls out under gravity. (I cut the muzzle choke off). The gun still shoots great.
Most my springers have this type of barrel. Only major brand I own that doesn't seem to use this type barrel is Crosman.
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No offense dude but until I get more evidence to the contrary. I will have to stick with what the manufacturer says.
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The yellow box marks significant asymmetric head deformation. It may not be detrimental for modest distances typical for pistol shooting but I would be shocked if it groups well at 20 - 25 yards.
Also the red circle appears to show striations from the imprint of the lands, something I'm not seeing in the lands of the pellet pushed halfway through (blue oval), suggesting the lands may be damaged at the muzzle...something that SPA is notorious for doing. If you have the barrel off at some point, hold the breech end toward a source of light while sighting into the muzzle at a shallow angle. If the sheen of the lands at the muzzle differs from the rest of the bore, you're an official member of the club.
(https://i.imgur.com/VGiqi5Z.jpg)
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I don't see evidence of a choked barrel there. I DO see evidence of damaged rifling near or at the muzzle. Hopefully just a bad muzzle crown?
That can be repaired by polishing a new muzzle crown.
https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=165568.msg155849849#msg155849849 (https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=165568.msg155849849#msg155849849)
It should be easy to see the muzzle crown on the SP500 and a quick "q-tip" test should confirm a good or bad crown.
Edit... credit where due, Jason's (and others) posts made my first recrown effort a success.
https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=130555.msg1288471#msg1288471 (https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=130555.msg1288471#msg1288471)
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Thanks guys for the great input!
Lapped the barrel today after crowning.
I bore scoped it today and found two bad places in the rifling one about 2 inches from the breach end and one 1.5 inches from the crown. The lapping helped a whole lot. The rifle marks on the pellet now looks a lot crisper and not as deep. When I pushed the pellet throu it only had two slight snags nothing like before. I think it will be OK for 10m shooting with wad cutters if not I will
cut it off about 2" and crown it and see what happens.
frank