Trigger time with the Hajimoto Productions Gauntlet .22 - [2025-04-24]

[GTA-Airgunner]

Good morning airgunners!

So, today's post goes right along with our recent discussions.  I had an old, gen 1, UX Gauntlet .22.  Haji (check out his gate here on the GTA: https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?board=243.0, send me his Buck Rail stock conversion which really helped the overall feel and shootablity of the gun.  Then, he offered to do the full tune and upgrade for me.  We got it back a couple of weeks ago, and MAN, what a difference.

I shot a video yesterday, which will probably go live next week. Please keep your eyes open for it.  Here are the initial impressions of how it shoots now.

The big changes are the new side lever, the CF bottle, and the 2-stage trigger.  There's a lot more under the hood that Haji does with the internals to make everything more efficient, but the things you see and feel right away are the 3 that I just mentioned.

The side lever takes a bit of getting used to because it seems to always be under pressure and doesn't sit comfortably when fully open like most.  Once you are used to the feel, it's good to go.  The CF tank with Ninja adjustable regulator is simply awesome.  He set it to 1420, and it's delivering 29 foot-pounds with 18.13s.  The shot count is, well, very high.  I gave up at 90+ shots and still had 1500 PSI to go before I hit the reg.  I'm pretty sure that you could get close to 200 shots out of it with this setup. I had an extreme spread of only 18 across 80 shots with a standard deviation of only 4 fps. The two-stage trigger is probably well under a pound.  I need to get my trigger gauge out and test it, but it's very, very light and consistent.

When it comes to accuracy, Haji sent along his results at 25 and 50 yards.  I'm getting close to his results at 25 yards, but the wind was really kicking yesterday so I did not shoot at 50. The gun is so light that it really highlights my marksmanship deficiencies.  I need more practice, which I'm happy to do with this gun.  I'm pretty excited to see how it all plays out over time.  I'm hoping this will be a fun 75 and 100-yard gun once I get better at doing my part.

Anyway, this is an example of taking an affordable gun and turning it up to 11.  All the upgrades, except for some engineering changes, can be done over time by a typical user, which makes this a great project gun.  It reminds me of the days of the QB78, 1077, The Benjamin Discovery, and the Maruder.   Financially, it would probably be less expensive to just buy an FX DRS or DRS Tactical, but that's not really the point.  The journey of taking a $300 airgun step by step through to match the performance of a gun costs 4 to 5 times as much is just really fun, and you can't really put a price on that experience.

Be sure to catch the video when it comes out.  It's only part 1.. I need to get better behind the trigger for sure. 

That's it for now.  Thank you all for being part of the GTA!

Cheers
Rick