AEA Challenger Magazine Problem

[DrGunner]

Hey folks – I got my AEA Challenger .22 a couple weeks ago and so far I am very happy with the gun except for two problems: one, the setscrew that holds the power valve in place broke off. I fabricated a replacement, no problem, and Bin Tac is sending me a replacement free of charge.
    The second problem is why I am posting this thread and asking for help. The rifle came with two magazines from the factory. They are held in place by a small detent ball that articulates with a tiny dimple on the bottom of the magazine, and there is a magnet in the breach opening that is supposed to hold onto a metal insert in the bottom of the magazine.
    I noticed right away that when I cycle the bolt, as I pull the bolt back fully the magazine shifts to the right in the breech opening by about 1/8”, and stays out of alignment unless I push it back in. I believe that the shift occurs as the spring loaded magazine rotor turns to align the next pellet. This is not a huge problem as I can simply remember to thumb the mag in place when I rack the bolt, but it’s a hassle that I believe can be overcome with some type of DIY fix. I ordered two more magazines from Precision Airgun Supply, they arrived and are slightly different. They have the metal insert placed over the detent ball, with no metal over the magnet in the breech opening; and they also shift to the right on cycling the bolt.

Has anyone ever had this problem with a Challenger or any PCP?

Any suggestions for a fix?

 I am in the process of designing a single shot tray for this rifle and as I tinker with the 3-D printed prototype for it, I will try to come up with a solution for this problem that I can then adapt to the magazines. But- until I get there, I’d like your suggestions on what to try. It appears that the dimple in the magazines is rather small compared to the detent ball which measures 3 mm wide at the base, so I might start by widening/deepening the dimple.
I’m pretty certain that I could simply add a layer of tape or epoxy to the mags to give them a tighter fit, but I’d like to find a solution that WORKS without creating a force fit.

Here’s pics of the magazines and breech opening:







Here’s my starter SST. My friend is 3D printing some prototypes for me to tinker with:







Any help, information or suggestions you can provide will be greatly appreciated-

Sincerely,   

DrGunner

[scion19801]

After receiving a .357 AEA hp ss mag from a customer to redesign. I see a lot is lacking in this magazine. I'm not sure if your mag has the same inadequacies or not. But I was really surprised how bad the design is.
Center bolt holding the cover is way undersized and/or the countersink is way oversized. the actual center post is way too small. The customer had his shatter during a hunt in cold weather. The spring in my opinion is way too strong for what it is, but that is my opinion there. hollowed out way too much in the cover detent retention ball area. AEA mags are nothing more than Marauder/Gauntlet mags thinned out and made to work in AEA.
I have prototype mag printed out in PETG and did a stress test at 0 degrees in my freezer for 16 hours and my mags remained flexible with no cracking noises and still function normally.
So, I'm not surprised you having mag issues.

[DrGunner]

Thanks for sharing. Any way you can suggest to mod my mags? Or do you think it would be possible to mod a Marauder or Gauntlet mag to fit my Challenger?

After receiving a .357 AEA hp ss mag from a customer to redesign. I see a lot is lacking in this magazine. I'm not sure if your mag has the same inadequacies or not. But I was really surprised how bad the design is.
Center bolt holding the cover is way undersized and/or the countersink is way oversized. the actual center post is way too small. The customer had his shatter during a hunt in cold weather. The spring in my opinion is way too strong for what it is, but that is my opinion there. hollowed out way too much in the cover detent retention ball area. AEA mags are nothing more than Marauder/Gauntlet mags thinned out and made to work in AEA.
I have prototype mag printed out in PETG and did a stress test at 0 degrees in my freezer for 16 hours and my mags remained flexible with no cracking noises and still function normally.
So, I'm not surprised you having mag issues.

[scion19801]

By the way you describe things. it sounds as if the dimple for the ball detent is not located properly. especially being that once you pull the bolt back and it is causing the mag to shift outwards and stop the bolt from closing unless the mag is bumped back. I would look at what position the mag is in with an open bolt and see if you can feel where the ball detent wants to center the mag. if it's too far in the direction of removing it then the dimple would need to be moved the necessary amount needed to get it to shift back where it should be and settled on the ball. barring that contact AEA and make them aware of the mag alignment issue. its brand new it should be covered under warranty.

[DrGunner]

By the way you describe things. it sounds as if the dimple for the ball detent is not located properly. especially being that once you pull the bolt back and it is causing the mag to shift outwards and stop the bolt from closing unless the mag is bumped back. I would look at what position the mag is in with an open bolt and see if you can feel where the ball detent wants to center the mag. if it's too far in the direction of removing it then the dimple would need to be moved the necessary amount needed to get it to shift back where it should be and settled on the ball. barring that contact AEA and make them aware of the mag alignment issue. its brand new it should be covered under warranty.

The dimple is in the right location, just seems shallow/small compared to the detent ball. The mag does click & seat in place just fine. It seems that the rotor in the mag that advances the next pellet causes the shift- when the tapered front of the bolt probe slides back enough, the spring tension on the rotor is what causes the shift. I’m going to experiment with by milling the detent pocket slightly larger/deeper to see if that works.
I also thought about adding a single layer of electrical tape to the backside of the mag to make a slightly tighter fit that’s less likely to shift/move. If it works, I’ll tinker to find the best location & then rough that surface up & replace the tape with a thin layer of Devcon 10110 liquid steel putty epoxy. That’s what I use for pillar bedding powder rifles. It’s extremely tough and sands/machines well.

[PasadenaMike]

My .22 AEA HPSS had problems jamming. Something is wrong with the .22 magazine batch because we tried 6 magazines they all jammed. I switched to the HPSS plus .30 no issues yet .

[scion19801]

ahh.... ok, I understand better now. so, it seems the .22 also suffer from too strong of an internal spring. If you have capability enough, I'd tear down the mag and adjust the internal spring. see if maybe they got too much preload on the spring, or you may have to make a new spring hole in the shell to take off some spring pressure. I noticed the same issue with the .357 one I have.
I'll keep you posted as I bought music wire a gauge smaller than the factory .357 wire to see if that improves the ones I made. plus, it is the same gauge wire for fx impact mags and why I chose the wire I did. As I'm making some FX impact mags as well.

[DrGunner]

Oh, I’m more than capable at tuning rotary mag springs; I’ve been doing it with BX10 magazines for Ruger 10-22s for almost 40 years. THANKS for helping diagnose this problem. I’ll dig into it when I’ve had more coffee and see what I can accomplish.

DrGunner

ahh.... ok, I understand better now. so, it seems the .22 also suffer from too strong of an internal spring. If you have capability enough, I'd tear down the mag and adjust the internal spring. see if maybe they got too much preload on the spring, or you may have to make a new spring hole in the shell to take off some spring pressure. I noticed the same issue with the .357 one I have.
I'll keep you posted as I bought music wire a gauge smaller than the factory .357 wire to see if that improves the ones I made. plus, it is the same gauge wire for fx impact mags and why I chose the wire I did. As I'm making some FX impact mags as well.

[scion19801]

awesome. so, it sounds like you got things in hand now. I just got my order of spring wire. now to figure out how to wrap a proper spring for these AEA mags and my FX mag.
The aea mags are easy just count the wraps and keep the coils touching each other. the fx units are spaced apart.

[sicumj]

     Kevin, yep Rimfire Central is where we know each other.  Good to see you on the airgun forum. 
Just read Manny's thread and see you might have a solution.  Sounds like it will work.

     AEA sells a pretty good product for the cost.  Their US support seems to be consistent and very good.  Bin apologized to me once for taking to long to get back with me, (2 hrs).  Don't be concerned with contacting them.  It seems to me they like the input. 

     I purchased an AEA HP 25 Backpacker first of December.  When I got it ready to load I couldn't cock it.  Well I could but it took two hands.  Was told: Yeah their hard to cock.  So I tore it down and the spring guide had a divot in it that was causing the spring to coil bind prematurely.  Fixed that and now one hand cocking.  The magazines can be a headache.  Having them slip out of your hand while winding them to load is what caused my mags to fail.  When they snap back suddenly they sometimes slip their positions or break.  I would rank these springs right up there with the legendary Mitchell 300 bail springs, their that bad.  Get some springs when you can.   That is all the problems I've had and all happened when first bought.  Have about 1500 rounds through it and it is my constant companion righty now.

     Take care.

Jim

[DrGunner]

     Kevin, yep Rimfire Central is where we know each other.  Good to see you on the airgun forum. 
Just read Manny's thread and see you might have a solution.  Sounds like it will work.

     AEA sells a pretty good product for the cost.  Their US support seems to be consistent and very good.  Bin apologized to me once for taking to long to get back with me, (2 hrs).  Don't be concerned with contacting them.  It seems to me they like the input. 

     I purchased an AEA HP 25 Backpacker first of December.  When I got it ready to load I couldn't cock it.  Well I could but it took two hands.  Was told: Yeah their hard to cock.  So I tore it down and the spring guide had a divot in it that was causing the spring to coil bind prematurely.  Fixed that and now one hand cocking.  The magazines can be a headache.  Having them slip out of your hand while winding them to load is what caused my mags to fail.  When they snap back suddenly they sometimes slip their positions or break.  I would rank these springs right up there with the legendary Mitchell 300 bail springs, their that bad.  Get some springs when you can.   That is all the problems I've had and all happened when first bought.  Have about 1500 rounds through it and it is my constant companion righty now.

     Take care.

Jim

FIXED IT!!!!

Following Bin Tac’s advice (same suggestion posted by Spacebus in Manny’s AEA thread here on GTA), I adjusted the depth of the barrel stub in the breech opening.

I pulled it apart, removed the shroud, adjusted the barrel stub depth, and tested all 4 magazines and they’re working flawlessly with the tighter fit.
Unfortunately, the four magazines I have did not all fit the same. The two that I got from Bin Tac with the rifle are a bit of a looser fit than the two that I got from PAS.
     No problem, I adjusted the barrel stub so that the loose ones  are a snug fit and cycle properly without shifting. I then had to gently hand file down the breech pocket on the other two mags to get them to fit just as snug without shifting. So I now have 4 fully functional mags that work flawlessly...

In the end, kind of a simple fix, really.


BUT- the base design of them is still a prime example of engineers suffering from rectocranial intussusception. It never ceases to amaze me how poor designs are often copied & perpetuated, ad infinitum.
 I still think the springs on my mags are all wound too tight, and I would not be surprised to find that there is some deformation of the pellet skirts going on from the force of the mag rotor, especially when chambering the first few pellets of a 12 shot mag. I intend to investigate this by loading a full mag, cycling the bolt to chamber a pellet, then removing the magazine and inspecting the back of the skirt with a borescope. This actually isn’t that big a deal for me right now, since I shoot mostly slugs that would not suffer from deformation, but I’m really liking this gun which means I’ll probably be shooting it a lot and will want to shoot pellets some of the time to save some coin. If I do find that the skirts are getting smooshed, I will tear one of the magazines down and get into adjusting or replacing the rotor coil spring. I will likely post a separate thread and ask for help/advice when I do.


Jim-
 I have a friend working on a single shot tray that he’s 3-D printing for my Challenger, the way he’s making it you could probably take one of my prototypes and simply file/mill the slot wider and deeper to fit your larger caliber. I designed mine with a “ V” to “U” slot that will allow me to simply drop the pellet or slug in from either side of the “V”, and it will roll down into the “U”. My wooden prototype worked great, so I sent it off to my buddy to 3D print some testers for fine tuning. There’s pics of my prototype further back in this thread. The 3D printed model will be shorter on the right side by about 1/4”, So it won’t stick out as much as the wooden one in the photos.
     I will post a separate thread when I have finished working through the kinks to get mine done right, then I plan to have a bunch of extras made and send them to members here for free- including you.

Thanks, again, to all-

DrGunner

[sicumj]

     Thanks Dr!   I have some of your chamber brushes and they are top notch.

      Only time my springs fail is when they are not wound tight enough, but that is for semi auto operation.  I would think in your rifle speed of indexing would not be a priority so no reason to wind them tight.

[DrGunner]

     Thanks Dr!   I have some of your chamber brushes and they are top notch.

      Only time my springs fail is when they are not wound tight enough, but that is for semi auto operation.  I would think in your rifle speed of indexing would not be a priority so no reason to wind them tight.

Kinda my thinking & they do seem pretty tight, especially when it’s rotating from pellet 1 to 2 & from 2-3. It’s still got plenty of force going from 11 to 12. I’ll be patient and do the actual loading test with the borescope and figure out if I even need to do anything before digging into my mags. Got to say, I absolutely love this Challenger. With the STO Falx it’s whisper quiet; The sound of my pellets whacking the 2 inch round steel 1up/4down self resetting swinger targets are louder than the report of the rifle!
 It has more than enough power, it’s REALLY nice to finally own a PCP air rifle that I have to tune DOWN to make it backyard friendly, and- as a result, substantially increase shot count per  fill.

DrGunner

[Wayne52]

That's great that you got that mag problem cured !!!

[DrGunner]

That's great that you got that mag problem cured !!!

Yep, it was actually really simple & quick to fix.
Still going to work on perfecting that SST. I’ll send you one when I get em tweaked just right.

DrG

[Wayne52]

The radial ports on that are just like the Xisico .22 in my signature, a long time ago I ordered some thin metric o rings that I never thought I'd use because back then I didn't have any pcp's with that type of radial barrel ports on it but they sure have come in handy since, glad that I kept track of them.

[scion19801]

good to hear you got it sorted out and all is good now.

[scion19801]

good to hear you got it sorted out and all is good now.

Here are they AEA max hp .357 mags I designed.

[Slimdog]

Glad to hear you were able to sort out your mag issue, DrGunner!

Those are some sharp looking mags, scion19801!

[DrGunner]

good to hear you got it sorted out and all is good now.

Here are they AEA max hp .357 mags I designed.

Very NICE!!!

Did you 3D print those?

DrG