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All Springer/NP/PCP Air Gun Discussion General => PCP/CO2/HPA Air Gun Gates "The Darkside" => Topic started by: AustinBinTX on November 14, 2017, 06:09:18 PM
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I've had my M16A for a while now. I was definitely not impressed by it out of the box. I tinkered a little bit and ended up needing some spare parts. The rifle has great potential in .22, but what about .177 and .25? While exchanging emails with Julie from SPA I asked about full assemblies of the other 2 calibers. While she couldn't ship any assembled parts, she could ship almost any individual part so with the low price of parts, and the high price of shipping, I went ahead and ordered a .177 and a .25 rifle minus the barrels (I can fit my own), the shrouds (same as the barrels), the stocks (I plan on just swapping my stock and checking if Kraale can get two here cheap), and the bottles (I've got a few CF spares).
I'm not expecting amazing results from .25 caliber, but since it's all here I'm gonna go for it.
So far all the parts got here fine, minus a mix up on the drop down block that holds the fill port and regulator. I expect I'll get the two correct parts quickly when they get time. I am a little disenchanted about how well the parts are fitting with each other. So far I've had to break the Dremel out to widen a few areas on the breach, and I've had to drill larger holes for some of the pins. I was hoping everything would be a quick fit and assembly, but right now I'm expecting to have to invest a good amount of time to removing burrs and getting clearances so the parts fit.
Can't attach photos right now, as it broke the previous link.
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It'll be great to hear your results! I bought a bunch of parts as well and was surprised some parts needed some work to fit as well. Looks like they are pretty poor in making the parts and must have guys doing work on them while assembling.
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I'll follow this thread for sure because I've got the Dominator but it's not the bottled version.
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2 of the 3 breeches are assembled now. One part was so far out that I gave up. They're just going to have to toss a new one in when they ship the tank/regulator blocks.
On a side note, I really hate the little keeper pins. Every hole in all 3 breeches was way undersized for the pins. I ended up having to ream all of them to get anything to fit. I know they should be slightly undersized, but .030 is a little small.
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I have found very little on the Bottle Version. What was your disappointment out of the box? Seems the tube versions have found favor with many so far.
Knife
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Knife,
I was extremely dissatisfied with the regulator performance. After 1500 shots the consistency was still not good. I remedied that by building my own regulator.
Overall, the rifle needed a huge amount of deburring to get smooth operation.
Accuracy was good, but my barrel had a bad tendency to loosen itself from the breech. On my 3 builds I'm making a breech insert that holds the barrels with a set screw as well as using the threading. The 12mm barrel doesn't leave enough for me to trust in .25 caliber, so I'm going to make my inserts take a .500 diameter instead of the 8.8mm turned down portion.
The bottle was heavy walled aluminum to handle the higher fill pressure. It weighed too much for me and didn't hold enough air to justify the weight. CF bottles held 33% more air and weighed 35% less.
At the $650 price point, I wasn't expecting a rifle that didn't need any work. I was expecting one that might need a some massaging though.
I'm ISO barrel blanks right now. Hopefully I can find LW barrels for all 3 calibers instead of paying full price, and just machine them all as a group.
As far as I know there are only 4-5 other bottled Dominators here in the USA, and I'm almost certain my .25 will be the only one.
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Lothar Walther polygonal barrels are on order. Hopefully I can get them in next week and get everything assembled minus the two tank/regulator blocks that were the wrong parts.
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Nice!
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Good luck, and I will be following your post! 8)
Knife
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Bad news:
Barrels from Lothar Walther came today. Opened them up, and they were button rifling. Looks like it'll be next week before they get the correct barrels here. He said they'll ship out once these are back there. That's a little frustrating. He said he'd see what he could do to get them out earlier, so hopefully they'll ship when they get the shipping confirmation on these.
Good news:
The two regulator/tank blocks got here.
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Grrrrr!!! on Barrels, Yeah! on Blocks. 8)
Knife
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Finally finished assembly on all three actions. Talk about a fight. I don't think I had one go together without some sort of drilling or reaming. I had to do significant work on the .22 breech to get it to cycle. A Dremel and needle files have it smoothed out and it's as smooth as the .177 and .25 now. I ended up with 5 magazines for the .177 and .25, and 10 for the .22 caliber. I expect to pressure test when my AV compressor gets here as the Shoebox would take forever to pump up the tanks. There are some real oddball o-rings in the rifle. Odd enough that I can't find them on Theoringstore.com or McMaster. Hopefully I was easy enough on them during the install that they don't leak.
I've contacted SPA again and let them know I'd take the risk of having stocks shipped from China, and I understood shipping would be high. They got me in touch with their Euro office and hopefully I'll hear back from them tomorrow. I have one stock on hand, and will just swap actions for the time being. Worst case scenario I might see if my old man wants a project now that he's retired.
The correct polygonal LW barrels will hopefully be here before I load my lathe up for the move. I'd like to have them machined asap, or else I'm not sure when I'd get the shop time to start work on them.
I'm expecting extended strings with decent power on the .177 caliber.
My stock .22 shot something like 110 shots at 27fpe on its first string. I'm hoping to up the power to 32-35 fpe and get a few less shots.
Not sure on the .25 caliber. I'll set the regulator higher and go for 5 mags at whatever for is highest and most consistent through all of them. There isn't a ton of plenum volume so it'll be interesting.
I'm planning on machining a spacer for the bottles out of 7075 that I can install another pressure gauge on so I can see bottle pressure. Right now all I see is regulated pressure.
I don't believe anyone will care for pressure test results, so the next update will be after the barrels are installed and I get initial numbers.
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Well, I lied. I went ahead and made a pressure tester/ regulator tester.
Machined from1" 7075 round. M18x1.5 threads to a 1/8" not 5000psi gauge. I had started a spacer so I could add a bottle gauge, but changed my mind mid machining. It's got a little more plenum than I want, but it should still cut down the time to test and set the regulator.
Now I won't update until the barrels are in unless something major happens during testing the seals and regulator.
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Looking good so far Austin! 8)
Knife
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Just a quick update.
Barrels finally made it in. All three are machined and ready to roll. I left them all at 23.xx" for now. I have tested the .177 and .25 calibers.
.177 with a 1200psi setpoint is shooting 10.61g at 900fps over the 52 shots I shot (4 mags). I had to turn the rifle down to keep them under 1000fps. The regulator is breaking in still, but it looks very promising. Not sure what my goal is yet with this setup.
.25 with a 1400psi setpoint is slinging 25.4s at 815 over 27 shots I shot (3 mags). I can get them up to 850fps, but that's a lot of hammer spring to do it. At 815 I'm backed off the hammer spring about as far as I can go. The regulator is breaking in as well, but it looks like it will be fine also. This rifle will be my pecan protector at the new house. Max distance will be maybe 30 yards. 37.5fpe should be plenty of power.
There's still plenty of air left in each rifles bottle after testing, I just get bored loading the mags that many times.
I plan on setting up the .22 barrel tonight, and then taking the rifles out for accuracy checks tomorrow or Sunday.
I need to buy two more bottles, and I'll have to make stocks on the duplicator for the two rifles that don't have them. Not sure if I'm going to turn down the 16mm barrels or not yet. I kind of like the weight.
On a side note, I got an Air Venturi compressor while I was waiting. Takes 5 minutes to fill the 490cc CF tank to 3600 psi. That's about 45 minutes faster than my Shoebox F8 will do. I don't fill tanks, just the rifles themselves, so I'm expecting to be able to go extended amounts of time between rebuilds.
I took a photo of the .25 with the polygonal barrel. No use in taking all three as they are identical.
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Took the .177 and .25 rifles out today to test accuracy at 25 yards. The .22 is not right, and I had to get SPA to send a new breech as this one is not machined square. Both rifles were paired with 3-9 UTG Bug Busters. The eye relief is a little short for these rifles, but it's not the worst.
I used 10.61g Stoeger pellets at 900fps in the .177 caliber. Winds were gusting. The polygonal barrel did its job and 13 shot groups (1 magazine) were all 0.250" CTC or less. I managed one group that was almost one hole, but I got way to excited around shot 11 and pulled it.
I used JSB 25.4s for 4 magazines (8-9 shots each, don't remember the exact number) in the .25 caliber. Average speed is 815fps. These spread more than they should have. I believe I had cutting oil in the barrel from machining because after the 2nd mag they tightened up to about 0.300" CTC. I shot 2 magazines of Predator Polymags as well. These were mainly just to see if they fit the mag, and if they would cycle well. They fit, but barely. The 2 magazines cycled perfectly. They grouped the same as the JSBs, but about .500" left and .250" high. I will recrown this barrel tonight. I see some chatter marks from when I crowned and threaded the barrel the other night. Maybe they are affecting accuracy, but I don't like the way it looks.
I have decided not to turn the 16mm barrels down any. I like the weight. I will shroud them though. A Marauder shroud fits nicely and will leave me 3.5" from the muzzle to cap. I'll order those from Crosman tomorrow. I'll machine the caps tonight and do some test fitting with the shroud I have on hand.
I have still not shot the .177 out of air. I'm at maybe 190-200 shots on a 3600 fill. It has a Talon Tunes 490cc bottle on it though.
The .25 is using the stock bottle, I have a TT bottle I bought from a member here that will go on it. I got right at 90 shots on the stock bottle. I'm hoping for a 33% increase with the CF bottle.
I'm still looking for a CF bottle for the .22 caliber. Hopefully parts from China will be here next week and I'll have it up and going.
There is room to up power on the rifles, but I don't like maxing hammer spring tension out. I have a spare transfer port tube for each rifle. I might max the hole size out for each caliber and see how much it ups power. The way these are built, the transfer port tube is the restriction, everything else has excellent flow.
I purchased a stock duplicator today so I can make my two stocks. I'll have that up running as soon as possible.
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No real work done tonight.
Shrouds assemblies have been completed though. Instead of making a complete shroud from scratch, I went ahead and used Marauder shroud tubes. I machined the caps myself though. I've got roughly 4" from muzzle to cap of the shroud to work internals into.
I still need to setup the stock duplicator and make the two stocks I need. After that I plan on doing a wood stock for my Maximus.
I'm hoping I might get to take the .177 out to the next get together down the road from me. I'd like to see how it holds up against some of the high dollar rifles. I say that because as of right now, I have about $260 into each rifle minus scopes.
Here's the .177 scoped, and sporting the new shroud.
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Finally ran strings on all three rifles.
The .177 is at 17fpe for 200+ shots. There is lots of room to increase power if needed. It takes too many pellets to shoot strings, so I probably won't shoot a full string again unless I try to sell the rifle. Its shooting Nickel sized holes at 30 yards right now. I'm sure as the barrel and regulator are broken in it will tighten up.
The .22 is at 130 shots at 27fpe, but I'm still waiting on another carbon fiber bottle. I expect about 160 shots at the current level. There is lots of room to up the power on this rifle as well. It's currently doing nickel sized groups at 30 yards as well. I'm expecting better groups as the barrel and reg break in here too.
The .25 is shooting 80 shots at 39fpe. There is a little room to up the power, but I think there is lots of room to up the efficiency of this one. This one manages dime sized groups at 30 yards. The barrel still needs to be broke in, and the regulator is new still.
Each rifle is using a full diameter polygonal Lothar Walther barrel. They're heavy, but the rifle didn't gain much weight over it's stock form since I'm using carbon fiber bottles. They are also long, but I don't plan on taking these out in brush, so I don't plan on cutting them down unless I sell them and the buyer requests it.
I ended up with a ton of spare parts. Almost enough to build 1 more rifle in each caliber. I might take the transfer port tubes and ream the spare ones out to 80% and see how much power I get.
My stock duplicator is sitting here still. It's up for sale, because I'm a little worried some of my PB stocks won't fit in the work envelope. If it doesn't sell by the time we close on our house, I'm putting it together and making the two stocks I need.
I managed to snap one picture of the three completed actions this morning. The .22 doesn't have a bottle on it since I was hoping my last CF bottle would come today.
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Thanks for the writeup and pics! Sounds like some real shooters and great all around guns. Super shot count!
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Nice custom trio you've got going there for sure. It will be interesting to see how much power you get from the bigger exhaust transfer port.
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Austin did you ever open up a transfer port to see what difference it would make ???
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Wayne,
I haven't gotten around to it just yet.
I finally got my machinery moved into the new shop and I'm waiting until next weekend to run service out there.
I've tinkered with settings on the .22 some. The max power I'm getting out is 39.7fpe with H&N Barracudas at 920fps.
So far I've rebuilt all three regulators due to cheap o rings on the outlet side. My issue with them was probably caused by not having enough preload on the Belleville washers. Not enough preload was causing my piston to stroke substantially more than it was probably designed to stroke. I got rid of the generic stacks of washers and have tried to get as close to the specific output I want instead of using the external adjustment. I've also switched from using silicone oil to a silicone grease to try to help as well. With the new setup, I get a range of about 25-40 bar adjustment using the external adjustment on the regulator.
All three are extremely accurate with the polygonal barrels, but the .177 is by far the most accurate rifle I have ever shot. I dropped it down to 13.5fpe and it's getting more shots than I can count.
So far I've got about 2000 pellets through the .177, maybe 500 through the .22, and maybe 150 through the .25 caliber. No real issues now besides the cheap o rings on the regulators.
As soon as I have power to my mill I'll open up transfer ports on the .22 and .25 calibers. I finally put the stock duplicator together and I'm going to make some stocks out of cheap wood for the rifles. After a little practice I might go with something a little nicer.
Currently the rifles are using a Marauder shroud with custom caps and LDC. They are heavy with the 24" full diameter barrels, but they're manageable. Once the stocks are made, I will probably pick my favorite rifle and post the other two up for sale.
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Awesome work Austin, and like Wayne I am very interested in the port experiments when you get the time. I have my .25 cal Dominator shooting AA 25.39 pellets at 890 fps and it is one ragged hole at 35 yards when I do my part. The Huma reg in mine is set at about 140, and I did have to use more hammer spring. A full fill will give me right at 3 mags before it falls off the regulator and I am very happy with this setup so far.
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Austin you've definitely done some fantastic work on these guns, 39.7fpe is serious energy with a .22 pellet, kinda makes me wonder what the 25 grain JSB's would do in it. I've got a bunch but really haven't got a gun that pushes them like they need to be but seeing this I think this gun is more than likely capable of it. I really need to get hold of Julie@SPA and order some parts, I've only got one clip for this gun and I thought I'd order a couple extra's, reg assy and 2 of the transfer ports. I'm also thinking about going the same route you went for ordering all the parts for a PP700SA minus the barrel of course. I figured I might as well order a bunch of stuff when I do order, I'd also like to get some parts for the PR900W as well.
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Austin, beautiful work on all 3 rifles! Congrats on your new shop/home!
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These really are solid rifles.
Now if we could just get our plant up and out of this forced outage, I would be able to shoot some.
On a good note, my father got bored yesterday and came and ran the power feed to my shop. I've got to send the wife to Home Despot today to buy some conduit and Romex so I can finish everything up next time I get a chance.
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Wayne, my .25 cal Dominator is pushing the 25.39 AA pellets (same weight as JSB) at just shy of 45 ft lbs, and shoots the 31 gn Baracudas at just shy of 48 ft lbs. I know there is room to move it on up 50 ft lbs if I modify the ports, but I am pretty happy at 45 for now. Was shooting the bottom of a soda can at 100 yards yesterday, and even though it was very gusty winds, I was hitting more than missing. My Dominator doesn't seem to be too pellet fussy and I have had good luck with the Benjamin domes as well. The gun is more accurate than I am, and when I do my part, the results are awesome.
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Steve one spot I park my truck when hunting there's a big field right there with just the right height fence posts for me to rest my rifle on, one day I paced a hundred yards out with a soda can. The can is out a little further now because every time I shoot it, it goes a little further out. The last time I was in that spot I took another one mildot over at it again and drove it out a little further. One thing I can say about the Chinese is they sure make some darned good barrels. It's a shame the average shmo can't just buy the barrels, they'd sell a lot like that.
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Austin I was wondering where you ordered the spring stacks for the regulators, that sounds like a great idea to me as far as the reg goes on these.
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Wayne,
I ordered them from McMaster Carr. They are part #96445K216.
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Wayne,
I ordered them from McMaster Carr. They are part #96445K216.
Awesome. . . . . if I ever get around to it I need to order parts from Julie, especially a couple extra clips because there's been two different occasions I almost lost mine, the last time I happened to notice it on the hood of my truck heading home already a few miles down the road, lucky was an understatement that day.
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Wayne,
What caliber is your rifle?
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Wayne,
I have 5 extra .22 magazines. I was about to post them on my website. I'll send them your way for what I paid SPA for them if you're interested.
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Mines a .22 and yes I'm interested, I do need to update my paypal but basically I got a different card is all.
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For some reason I can't pm you. They were $10 each. I somehow ended up with 5 .177 caliber mags, 5 .22 caliber mags, and 10 .22 caliber mags.
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hmmmm maybe I need to clean out my messages's I'll check.
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I posted it in the back room and have already seen that someone else posted about the same problem in airgun gate crosman I think. It's a database error
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Austin if you have extra .25 cal mags I would be interested. I only have one mag and need a couple more.
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Steve,
No spares for the .25 unfortunately.
I've been tossing around the idea of putting another order in for the parts to build another rifle. If I do, I'll let you know. I'd be more than happy to add in a few mags in the shipment.
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Sure Austin, just let me know if you decide to order.
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I ordered parts from SPA on the 17th from Julie, she said in the email they won't do Chinapost for parts orders anymore and only Fedex. Anyway my order left Memphis Tenn. at 3AM and is scheduled to be here today. That's remarkable for coming from China in only 6 days if they indeed get here today. I wish that I had ordered one of the SPA compressors from Mike when he still had them, I doubt he'll get anymore the way things are going with the SPA products recently, it seems that everyone is jumping on the bandwagon now including Diana, they call the M16 the Outlaw and AOA has them for sale right now as many of you already know. Within the next couple years it wouldn't surprise me to see SPA start doing some big bores too, that would be nice if they did, then the big bore realm would be more achievable at a decent cost probably. Ken a guy who's also on the forum bought one from Mike to use over seas and a circlip wasn't installed right from the get go but he has since gotten everything he needs from Julie on warranty I'm pretty sure and from what I understand it's up and running right now. I should get hold of Ken with a PM and go visit him, he only lives 20 miles from me here in the states. He don't live far from Fort Custer maybe I should shoot him a PM and meet him there for some red squirrel hunting. It's kinda like a halfway point between us, I should try hunting there cause my brother has a lot in the past and says it's a great place to hunt.
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Austin, sounds like you have the patients of Jobe, and tenacity of a bull dog. LOL!
Great Job!!! 8)
Knife
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Austin I ended up tweeking the regulator and opening up the exhaust air hole to .171 which is just shy of 80% .22 and it's definitely pumping out much more power now, I've got some McMaster Carr springs (2 stacks of 12) coming for the regulator that I ordered, I did try the reg as is and that o ring you mentioned that was terrible just plain leaked, I need to get another oring on it too, do you recall the size of the oring? If not I'll eyeball something up to it cause it can't be worse than what came with it.
(https://farm1.staticflickr.com/887/27379021898_637e36b199_b.jpg)
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Wayne,
I just looked through my McMaster orders and it looks like it is a 1.5mm x 3mm.
I've been using 90D with some high quality Silicone grease on all mine and haven't seen any issues yet.
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Thanks Austin !!! The other two o rings on the reg I think are just fine though, it's the one in the back that leaks, heck the original (don't even look like the same o ring) still works just fine, the original regulator is black too so I figure it must have been their first ones but it's still working, it will be the middle of next week before I even mess with it. The guy that fills my tanks just got back from Florida and he won't be filling tanks in the winter anymore because he recently retired and bought a place in Florida for the winter, he's going to be running his compressor from his home residence now because rent for the dive shop was way too expensive.
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Wayne,
Just want to check, it's the small o-ring on the bottom of the piston or the adjuster, and not the large o-ring on the top of the piston correct?
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Yes.
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Ok. The 1.5mm x 3mm is the correct one.
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LOL I just checked the McMaster Carr spring stacks that I ordered (2 stacks of 12) and they're on the UPS truck for delivery today, I figured the pellets would beat them but the pellets won't be here til tomorrow. I ordered them both late Friday. I might get hold of Terry before I head to the woods and see if he's got his compressor hooked up yet, I'll bring a tank along when I head for the woods if he has.
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Late to the party, but, subscribed now :D...Austin, which one of those beauties is for sale?...just curious. 8)
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Don't mark my word Jimmy but I think he was talking like he wanted to sell the .22 and .25 ???
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Don't mark my word Jimmy but I think he was talking like he wanted to sell the .22 and .25 ???
Interesting to know, although IDK if I like the extra length added to the gun for hunting out in the field.