GTA
All Springer/NP/PCP Air Gun Discussion General => European/Asian Air Gun Gates => China/Asian AirGun Gate => Topic started by: Rickt83 on January 21, 2013, 04:46:15 PM
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My father and I are both new owners of airhawks. They are great and shoot awesome, the only thing I wondered was how to make them quieter and smoother. As it is they are not too loud, and I don't think I hear a twang. His gun consistently fires the pellets deeper into a phone book during test fires. We have fired mostly cheap crosman destroyers and pointed pellets, also some gamo pointed pellets as well.
The crosman pointed seem to spray, destroyer ex are consistent as are the gamo.
As for questions, is there anywhere to order a "top hat" for the spring? Also can tar and lubes be ordered from the same place?
I am more interested in durability and smoothness as well accuracy than I am with power. Although more power would be welcome. I have placed some Teflon pipe tape under the breech seals for now as they were flush with the breech upon inspection, I still need to add a bit more.
The other question is, will something like a vortex pg2 come with enough tar/lube to do a simple tune on the other gun, assuming I upgrade only one?
I almost want to just shoot this thing as is until it breaks, but my father is more into accuracy for pest control.
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In general, domed pellets that weigh around 8 to 8.5 gr will give you the best long range accuracy and performance from your Airhawks. They may look aerodynamic, but pointed pellets are not aerodynamic, and this does not contribute to good long range accuracy for pesting. Think about the shape of a water droplet falling through the air (looks like the top of a domed pellet) - that's aerodynamic! A domed pellet will penetrate just fine out of your Airhawk. Pointed pellets excel at delivering penetration even when shot from a lower power rifle. The Airhawk is not low powered. In fact, it's power is very well matched to 8 to 8.5 gr domed pellets. If you drive them much faster, accuracy will suffer. If you use heavier pellets, they will be slower, but will be hard on your spring. If you use lighter pellets, your piston will slam home and bang up the piston seal, and accuracy will suffer because they will be traveling too fast.
I'm not a tuner. Never done it. Others who have can give you advice in that area. But my advice is to clean the barrel with GooGone and a patch run through the barrel on weedeater line, make sure the breach pivot is tight, lock tite the stock screws (and let set overnight!), and find a dome pellet your Airhawks like, accuracy wise, in the 8 to 8.5 gr weight range (they may like different ones). Then shoot a tin or two before you decide to take them apart. You may find they settle in great. In which case, shoot'em until the springs break and then worry about tuning them. Some good go to pellets are the Crosman Premier Light (7.9gr domed), HN FTT (8.64 gr) and Air Arms Diablo Field (8.4 gr).
I really like the Airhawks. Very nice stock triggers and good performance. You might try a replacement breach seal. Mike Melick can probably set you up with some for a nominal cost if you give him a call. The Airhawk is the same as the B25 that he sells.
Welcome to the GTA and happy shooting!
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Contact Mike Melick in the Flying Dragon Airgun Gate or go to his website Flyingdragonaiirrifles.org and he can full tune a Ruger for a very reasonable price.
BZ
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Sorry guys but am no longer working on the Ruger rifles or any of the Umarex products.
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Thanks guys, we shot a ton of pellets the other night just trying to sight in a scope only to realize we were way to close anyway... 15ft... The pointed pellets will be fed to a sentimental crosman 760 and to a new daisy 880 that will be going to my older brother...
I have a ton of destroyer ex pellets that seem to be consistent and accurate, though I will shortly be testing a bunch again....
I had contacted mike through his sight yesterday, just awaiting a response, and I literally just ran patches and q-tips with too gone down the barrels and shimmed the breech seals right before readin this.... I have replacement seals, from lowes #83 just in case these rip or anything I can use them in a pinch.
My plan is to shoot the *(&^ out of these, get some decent pellets for range and since I am a tinkerer I wIll tune them, just a matter of when and what to use.
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Man these things can be aggravating, I must've shot over 250 pellets and couldn't get decent groups, I can chalk it up to the cheap crosman pellets I am shooting maybe, or it is me most likely.... Too much caffeine.
Anyway I was thinking of getting a rifle stand/mount so that I can really see if these things are accurate and with which ammo, that way I can at least zero the scopes and go from there.
I had a box of some old copperhead pointed pellets weighing 7.9 gr and surprisingly they were decently accurate....
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If your gun liked the Copperheads, you might try Crosman Hunting pointed. I think they are the same. I have a gun that does not like heavy or light Premiers, but likes the Hunting.
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Thanks tad I will look into those, I will likely stop by Walmart tonight to get a rifle rest so I can eliminate the guns as the issue with grouping, my father's hands are way steadier than mine and even without the scope zeroed he was getting them in the same hole, after the goo gone cleaning and now running so many pellets through after, I hope it will start to tighten up....
Also what is typical break in? When things start to settle?
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Our Airhawk took 3-400 rounds to break in and shoots the H&N FTT into .5"@50ft.Running chrony strings with it she averages about 7fps ES with the factory 4x scope and a UTG 1pc mount. The rifle actually belongs to my 10yr old and he shoots it in our Friday night shoots, it's something watching him cock it. I do the wrenching on it, he does the shooting, we don't take anything for granted when he's competing with it.
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Thanks tad I will look into those, I will likely stop by Walmart tonight to get a rifle rest so I can eliminate the guns as the issue with grouping, my father's hands are way steadier than mine and even without the scope zeroed he was getting them in the same hole, after the goo gone cleaning and now running so many pellets through after, I hope it will start to tighten up....
Also what is typical break in? When things start to settle?
Rickt83, first Welcome to the GTA.
You may want to look into a shooting bag to help you with your shooting. The shooting rest is a nice thing, but many guys use a bag to shoot off of, rather than a hard firm base. A bag can be made, or bought for under $20.00 including a couple bags of beans, or rice. I've also linked a tutorial video by Tom Gaylord, on understanding the shooting of a breakbarrel air rifle, and the "Artillery Hold". You'll see that He's shooting from a bag, and shows the technique:
https://www.pyramydair.com/article/The_artillery_hold_June_2009/63 (https://www.pyramydair.com/article/The_artillery_hold_June_2009/63)
Again, welcome and best of Luck to You!
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as far as tuning goes id look into one of the kits vortek offers, you have one of the easiest rifles to take down for a tune job, also a damaged piston seal can cause poor grouping, just my 2 pennies
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Is there a guide anywhere specifically for tuning this rifle? Or do you just use a general guide?
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Rickt83, If you go the the GTA library section, you will see instructions that apply to all breakbarrel rifles. They operate the same and you can use them for your specific rifle. Of course, your results will not compare to a professional, but it will show you the operation.
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search this forum or google it, pretty basic, disasseble to just the action, remove the saftey cover but not the lever itself, mount in spring compressor, remove 2 trigger cross pins, relax spring conpressor, remove trigger group then you can remove spring and piston, anybody chime in if i missed anything
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So I fired roughly 100 more shots through each rifle, I stopped by Walmart and purchased their rifle rest as well as crosman premier hollow point and gamo tomahawk just because that's all they had besides what I already have...
So I put the rest together, fired shot after shot to see if the scopes were in fact zeroed, and I realized if I changed my hold on the rifle, while in the rest, ever so slightly it would throw off the shot... So after tryin to stay as consistent as I could, I noticed the rifles do in fact seem to group the pointed pellets better, although I will need to keep firing to verify, the tomahawks not so good plain and simple...
I noticed my fathers rifle to be much quieter and smoother dare I say, than mine. It seems to fire a bit better too, but with the hold sensitivity I could not group it well...
Now as for mine, I noticed a couple shots were louder than others, I assume it is still dieseling but this got me worried, by now I figured it should have finished and broken in, but maybe I don't have enough shots through. This also has me worried about my seal, is this something I can check without takin it apart?
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if it were mine id just tear into it, no point in guessing and adding to your headache
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A tear down ,inspection and proper lube will make it a much better shooter, just be careful...
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Thanks guys, I am a tinkerer at heart so I had planned on opening it up anyway, mike can I source parts from you please?
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The Vortek kit comes with more than enough lube for 2 guns, or at least mine did. It doesn't have any tar.
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So do I need the tar? Does vortek sell it? I just want to try and get everything from the same place..... Also does the vortek kit increase power? I am just looking to smooth everything and make it reliable, I am not concerned with power..... If they have a system with a stock like kit and power, or if I could get the uograded parts with factory power sprin I would like that....
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the vortek kit comes with everything needed and the instuctions have details on were to lube the kit, the kit is perfect, smooth cocking, firing cycle and improves accuracy, win win
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Thank you Donny, I am going to order the kit now, I was going to open up the gun anyway but I might as well do it all at once since I know I will be doing it eventually anyway. Now need to build spring compressor.
I plan to use the extra lube on my fathers gun after I tune it, hope there is enough....
I notice my rifle sounds much different than his at times.
Also while I shot it in the gun rest just "rested" on it, not clamped or anything, wherever the barrel was pointing after the recoil was where the pellet hit, so if I loosely held the gun and aimed and shot, after recoil and still holding the gun and looking down the scope, the crosshair/reticle would be right on the hole the pellet made, so I am trashing the gun rest and just using pillows as I did the first day we purchased these. Just thought I would share that.
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Thank you Donny, I am going to order the kit now, I was going to open up the gun anyway but I might as well do it all at once since I know I will be doing it eventually anyway. Now need to build spring compressor.
I plan to use the extra lube on my fathers gun after I tune it, hope there is enough....
I notice my rifle sounds much different than his at times.
Also while I shot it in the gun rest just "rested" on it, not clamped or anything, wherever the barrel was pointing after the recoil was where the pellet hit, so if I loosely held the gun and aimed and shot, after recoil and still holding the gun and looking down the scope, the crosshair/reticle would be right on the hole the pellet made, so I am trashing the gun rest and just using pillows as I did the first day we purchased these. Just thought I would share that.
You might want to look into: http://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=41567.0 (http://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=41567.0)
This will work for AirHawk 100%
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you may want to toss around the idea of chopping and re-crowning the barrel, usually 3.5 to 4 in. is the magic number, a spring piston guns pellet velocity is reached in the first 11-12 in, everything after that is extra barrel, the idea is getting the pellet out of the barrel faster so the harsh shot cycle does not effect the pellets flight, or you could add a muzzle weight like the one that's on the airhawk elite, that helps to calm the barrels harmonics
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Thank you Donny, I am going to order the kit now, I was going to open up the gun anyway but I might as well do it all at once since I know I will be doing it eventually anyway. Now need to build spring compressor.
I plan to use the extra lube on my fathers gun after I tune it, hope there is enough....
I notice my rifle sounds much different than his at times.
Also while I shot it in the gun rest just "rested" on it, not clamped or anything, wherever the barrel was pointing after the recoil was where the pellet hit, so if I loosely held the gun and aimed and shot, after recoil and still holding the gun and looking down the scope, the crosshair/reticle would be right on the hole the pellet made, so I am trashing the gun rest and just using pillows as I did the first day we purchased these. Just thought I would share that.
You might want to look into: http://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=41567.0 (http://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=41567.0)
This will work for AirHawk 100%
X2 on this compressor
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You don't really need tar on a lower-powered spring, in my opinion. I tried tar on my first (Beeman RS2) tune and I couldn't tell a difference even after ramping it up until tar was being slung off of the spring, which is bad. The Vortek is a superb quality spring with a built-in guide, so it shoots nice and smooth.
As far as power goes, my 34 actually lost power with the Vortek. It shoots 15.8 grain pellets at about 685, but with a deviation of around 5 fps, which is great.
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Awesome compressor ferrum, I will likely copy that as I have every thing needed except a cheap c clamp, so cost will be minimal....
I ordered the vortek pg2 kit yesterday and of course last night I go down to the basement to shoot just for fun, shooting artillery hold off my knee, I would hit right around where I was aiming.(shooting cans and water bottles, so not exact science here). After not missing a single shot,(big targets), I took a piece of cardboard and drew some dots on it, I shot again from the same position and noticed I was pretty accurate with destroyer ex pellets, just like the first night the rifles were brought home.... So I had a piece of dense wood lying around and shot a random shot in, then I lay prone and used a paint roller to rest my hand on and rest the rifle on my fingers like a pool cue, I shot 10 shots with destroyer ex pellets into a clover shaped hole.....
Now I have this vortek kit I don't really need right away, but I will likely still do the swap after I keep shooting it more for accuracy....
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Hello Rick. Thanks!
I wouldn't save $1-3 dollars on a very C-cheap clamp - if you install a stronger spring in the future, the crappy C-clamp might not hold its pressure
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Quick update, I finally zeroed my rifle I was able to hit the same spot on thick cabinet plywood about 5-7 times in a row, the pellets were hitting and ricocheting right next to each other within a .5" space at 30 feet, achieved with a pillow, prone, artillery type hold....
So I went to my sportsmans club where I am a member, I take my rifle and try to zero at 25yds.... Get it zeroed, first shot high so I adjust and am dead on, shoot again and it is low left, then again with no adjustments high left, then high right, I don't mean 1" from aim point, I mean about 6-8" at exactly 25 yards.... After about an hour of this and of just hitting steel spinner plates I grab my dad's rifle with a cabela's .223 scope and my buddy next to me finished shooting and practicing with his pistols and rifles, I take one shot, high right about 3 inches, I make my adjustments, bullseye, shoot again, bullseye, one more time, bullseye..... Good enough for me.....
My buddy comes over I tell him what happened and he looks at my scope, two adjustment washers loose inside the scope.... I go to cabela's pick up a red hot crossbow scope, just mounted it yesterday and zeroed at 15 ft because that's all the range I had. And within 5 shots it is shooting clovers, I need to hit the range again Sunday....
This was all with destroyer ex pellets.... I got the vortek kit and will wait to put it in...
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Not familiar with that scope, but if the scope is not airgun rated the problem may recurr. Spring rifle recoil is hard on powder burner scopes. Leapers (UTG) scopes hold up well on airguns.
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There may be a problem with accuracy in the Destroyer pellets when you actually get out to range. After being broken in well, (say 500-1000 pellets shot), you may find that Domed pellets are a better choice for accuracy, and they are proven hunters. You might want to look into a good crossbow fixed power scope, or better, a fixed power "airgun rated" scope. The Leapers 5th Generation or Accushot series scopes are good choices.
I would recommend using a light coating of tar on the spring. Coating the steel is important, and the tar will not "sling off".
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A friend of mine bought an airhawk at Wally world and wanted me to check it out...it sprayed every pellet I tried...about twenty brands. I told him take it back and get another. It's like night and day...not even broke in and making small groups at ten yards with the cheap scope that comes with them. So I can see why your gun is so different from your Dad's.