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All Springer/NP/PCP Air Gun Discussion General => PCP/CO2/HPA Air Gun Gates "The Darkside" => Big Bore AirGun Gate => Topic started by: oenomaker on January 11, 2017, 07:20:30 PM
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I'm seriously looking into purchasing one of these guns!
As somebody that comes from a hunting background (I own two Remington .308's, a Remington 7mm-08, a Sako Finnbear .270 (my hog gun), and several smaller caliber rifles, pistols, shotguns) the cartridge concept really intreauges me. I know some of the downfalls of the limited air capacity of the cartridge (they are only 10cc IIRC), but they force me to really think about my shot placement. Taking only 5 or 10 of these cartridges out hunting makes me feel like I'm going out with my .270 and may only take one or two shots. The removable barrel and stock, and integrated silencer (I would purchase one!) seems pretty cool too.
Owing to the fact that they just released this model in December, there probably aren't many people out there with this gun yet. But I figured I would ask. So, does anybody have any experience with one of these guns?
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I'm still waiting for the Western style .30 lever action and the .25 revolver.
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They are way under powered. The cartridge is around 8 cc.
There is a thread in the pcp gate where they took it apart and measured.
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I have the MACR.
I sent a cart to rsterene to get his expert eyes on it.
I can tell you a lot of real world details on the MAC style carts.
Is it a fun Gun?
Yes!!
It's not what we would call high power but it has that fun factor and is so different you gotta love it.
Would I buy one as a hunting Gun?
No.
Bottom line is it just does not do what is claimed and my numbers back that up.
Now if you stay about 50 yards? It's a shooter.
I'd look at a better Gun like the Slayer to really reach out.
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I came to the same conclusions. not enough air for the larger calibers, but heard they are increasing the cartridge capacity. I was thinking about buying a smaller caliber version, but the main issue for me was cartridge air holding consistency; I like to keep everything filled for long periods, for possible unexpected shooting needs. If cartridges don't all hold air the same over time, POI will vary. This would not be a problem if you fill and shoot soon after, but that is not usually what happens with me. Since cartridges have no pressure gauge on them, you can't easily tell what is in them. The manufacturer will not guarantee the cartridges will hold air for long periods.
The potential advantage of such a design would be the expected weight savings of not having the weight of an air tube or bottle on the gun, but I was disappointed to find that these guns came out heavy anyway.....No sale for me.
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I did some careful measuring of the MACR Cartridge capacity, and even through the outer housing holds 11 cc, by the time you subtract the volume of all the parts inside, the actual volume of HPA inside is only 8 cc.... The transfer tube that runs through the middle of the cartridge has a hole 2.5" long that the air must pass through to get to the pellet that is only 0.165" in diameter.... so it's like having a transfer port of that length and diameter between the reservoir/valve and the pellet.... That is about the diameter you would expect in a medium performing .22 cal pellet rifle.... so even though you can use up to 4500 psi, I think you will find the gun underpowered in anything over .257 cal.... and even in that caliber not a stunning performer....
IMO just not enough air, and way too small porting, for a Big Bore....
Bob
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I have the MACR.
I sent a cart to rsterene to get his expert eyes on it.
I can tell you a lot of real world details on the MAC style carts.
Is it a fun Gun?
Yes!!
It's not what we would call high power but it has that fun factor and is so different you gotta love it.
Would I buy one as a hunting Gun?
No.
Bottom line is it just does not do what is claimed and my numbers back that up.
Now if you stay about 50 yards? It's a shooter.
I'd look at a better Gun like the Slayer to really reach out.
Huh very interesting... what's with the guy on YouTube in Mexico getting good velocity from it then? I have a hand pump so one of my attractions to this gun is that I can fill the cartridges quickly if I only want to shoot a couple rounds. And unfortunately a Slayer is WAAAY to expensive for my blood at this point in my life.
I did some careful measuring of the MACR Cartridge capacity, and even through the outer housing holds 11 cc, by the time you subtract the volume of all the parts inside, the actual volume of HPA inside is only 8 cc.... The transfer tube that runs through the middle of the cartridge has a hole 2.5" long that the air must pass through to get to the pellet that is only 0.165" in diameter.... so it's like having a transfer port of that length and diameter between the reservoir/valve and the pellet.... That is about the diameter you would expect in a medium performing .22 cal pellet rifle.... so even though you can use up to 4500 psi, I think you will find the gun underpowered in anything over .257 cal.... and even in that caliber not a stunning performer....
IMO just not enough air, and way too small porting, for a Big Bore....
Bob
I read your post and I see what you mean. I spoke with Paul (I think that was his name) from Inovairtech on the phone the other day. He was very confident that the gun can achieve around 140fpe. Do you think they have redesigned the cartridges in order to get this energy? For my purposes I would be happy with this muzzle energy....
Sounds like I need to shop around unfortunately.
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140 FPE in what caliber?.... The best Jeff got at 4000 psi in .357 was 647 fps with a 98 gr. bullet, which works out to only 91 FPE.... At 4500 psi, that would extrapolate to about 102 FPE.... Using a much heavier bullet, say 140 gr. would likely up the FPE a bit.... but unless they have increased the air capacity, or the port diameter, (or barrel length), I have my doubts about that claim....
Bob
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You say that some Guy on youtube got good velocity? What Cal.? What velocity?
Cronied, or just looked fast, or worse yet, sounded fast.
The only person that I know of that ever claimed to be able to tell a gun's velocity by sound, was BB Pelletier. and his calibration was dubious at best. LOL!!! :o 8)
Knife
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The guy in Mexico is Alvaro. He showed up at EBR with that gun in 2015. It is .30 pellet shooting 44 gr pellets. It has a 38" barrel to get the speed needed that a normal gun does with a 20" barrel.
The gun is a good conversation piece is about it. They missed the performance part by a long ways.
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140 FPE in what caliber?.... The best Jeff got at 4000 psi in .357 was 647 fps with a 98 gr. bullet, which works out to only 91 FPE.... At 4500 psi, that would extrapolate to about 102 FPE.... Using a much heavier bullet, say 140 gr. would likely up the FPE a bit.... but unless they have increased the air capacity, or the port diameter, (or barrel length), I have my doubts about that claim....
Bob
Ya it sounds like the guy I talked to was blowing smoke... From an engineering standpoint I completely understand everything everyone has been saying about the port size and the transfer tube in the cartridge limiting the gun.
The guy in Mexico is Alvaro. He showed up at EBR with that gun in 2015. It is .30 pellet shooting 44 gr pellets. It has a 38" barrel to get the speed needed that a normal gun does with a 20" barrel.
The gun is a good conversation piece is about it. They missed the performance part by a long ways.
The barrel is 14" as per their website, and the gun is .357/9mm. It LOOKS like he's using JSB .35cal diabolo's but I supposed he could have different pellets in the tin. Also he could be lying about the chrony results too because you don't actually see him fire the gun through a chronograph... He is "apparently" getting mid 700's for these pellets which would equate to just over 100fpe. But he says that he is only charging the cartridge to 3000psi instead of its max of 4500psi. I'm not sure if the psi difference is a direct relationship to power, but if 3000psi is 750fps then 4500/3000 = 1.5, and 1.5 x 100fpe is 150fpe..... I just wish someone out there (or the manufacturer!!!) could post a video of them shooting JSB's through a chrony so we could see whats really happening.
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FPE is pretty much in direct proportion to pressure, so 4500 psi should be 50% more FPE than 3000 psi.... However, FPE also depends on barrel length, so a 14" barrel would drastically reduce the power compared to the 28" barrel on the MACR that Jeff tested just a few days ago.... Since the cartridge volume is so small, the usual rule of thumb for maximum power that half the barrel length would result in half the FPE doesn't apply.... but taking the test that Jeff did and cutting the barrel length in half should reduce the best FPE he got in .357 cal, which was 91 FPE at 4000 psi, to just 65 FPE.... and dropping the pressure down to 3000 psi should drop that down to just 52 FPE, not 100.... Something doesn't add up, if their factory data is so much different than the results Jeff got....
PS - I just tried to listen to the promotional video on the Baracuda, and the audio quality is terrible.... I gave up because I couldn't understand any of the important information, even the caliber was almost impossible to understand.... ::)
Bob
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FPE is pretty much in direct proportion to pressure, so 4500 psi should be 50% more FPE than 3000 psi.... However, FPE also depends on barrel length, so a 14" barrel would drastically reduce the power compared to the 28" barrel on the MACR that Jeff tested just a few days ago.... Since the cartridge volume is so small, the usual rule of thumb for maximum power that half the barrel length would result in half the FPE doesn't apply.... but taking the test that Jeff did and cutting the barrel length in half should reduce the best FPE he got in .357 cal, which was 91 FPE at 4000 psi, to just 65 FPE.... and dropping the pressure down to 3000 psi should drop that down to just 52 FPE, not 100.... Something doesn't add up, if their factory data is so much different than the results Jeff got....
PS - I just tried to listen to the promotional video on the Baracuda, and the audio quality is terrible.... I gave up because I couldn't understand any of the important information, even the caliber was almost impossible to understand.... ::)
Bob
The audio on the video is pretty bad I agree. It appears in the video that a significant amount of air is exiting the barrel as the pellet leaves the barrel. Even though the bottle said "breathing air" on it, maybe it was helium to get that higher FPS ;-)