Post retune preliminary results for the HW57!!

[tjk]

Kind of excited about the results so far. A coil and a 1/4 made all the difference. There are a few wide deviations, but over the course of more shooting, I have a good feeling this gun will settle down in a nice steady 12 fpe range shooter.

[Mark 611]

12lb gun, Tom your getting good power for that rifle, how many shots on the retune?

[Bayman]

You might find yet better results with H&N FTTs. None of the Weihrauch 22s I've owned or worked on liked JSBs at the chrono and usually the target. I've always gotten more power and consistent results from the FTTs.

All of my Weihrauch springers in three calibers lose efficency with heavies.

But I've never owned a 57 either

[tjk]

It was right at 14 fpe before the rework. I used the Vortek HW59 tune kit when I initially tuned the rifle. But turns out it is just too strong for this model. Maybe 50 shots. But I completely retuned the gun including a stripped barrel cleaning with goo gone and dry patches. So the barrel will need to redraw on some. I used JM moly and tar super lightly. Also removed the breech seals and applied clear tar to them. That made a big difference in setting the breech loader. And zero compression/pressure loss. I plan to run at least 100 more shots in her tomorrow and then rechrony to see how it settles in. It is so much better to shoot now and the accuracy has improved due to the drop in power. Not that it was not accurate, but because it is easier to shoot with a better shot cycle, and follow through isn’t hampered much anymore. There was alot of movement before.

[tjk]

You might find yet better results with H&N FTTs. None of the Weihrauch 22s I've owned or worked on liked JSBs at the chrono and usually the target. I've always gotten more power and consistent results from the FTTs.

All of my Weihrauch springers in three calibers lose efficency with heavies.

But I've never owned a 57 either

I will try the FTT’s Ron. Before, the only pellet that would shoot in the Vortek conversion were the JSB heavies. Everything else made the gun spastic!! My .20 HW30 loves the ftt’s. With higher powered guns,…like the 57 in this case, I’ve found that every H&N pellet shot harsher and I didn’t like the feel of the piston slamming home. I think this is due to the H&N pellets having a thicker skirt and not expanding like the jsb’s. It he thinner skirt JSB gave more cushion for the piston. Even the cuda18’s did this and the regular Kodiaks didn’t shoot well. But now with the power reduced I may give the ftts another “shot”. Lols.

[Bayman]

You might find yet better results with H&N FTTs. None of the Weihrauch 22s I've owned or worked on liked JSBs at the chrono and usually the target. I've always gotten more power and consistent results from the FTTs.

All of my Weihrauch springers in three calibers lose efficency with heavies.

But I've never owned a 57 either

I will try the FTT’s Ron. Before, the only pellet that would shoot in the Vortek conversion were the JSB heavies. Everything else made the gun spastic!! My .20 HW30 loves the ftt’s. With higher powered guns,…like the 57 in this case, I’ve found that every H&N pellet shot harsher and I didn’t like the feel of the piston slamming home. I think this is due to the H&N pellets having a thicker skirt and not expanding like the jsb’s. It he thinner skirt JSB gave more cushion for the piston. Even the cuda18’s did this and the regular Kodiaks didn’t shoot well. But now with the power reduced I may give the ftts another “shot”. Lols.

I think your sensation of piston slam is actually piston bounce from the increased start pressure of the thicker skirt and generally tighter fitting H&Ns. Start pressure also typically increases with weight.

In all my 177 Weihrauchs JSBs make more power than the H&Ns. In 20 I get mixed results depending on barrel. In 22 Weihrauchs I get more power and typically better accuracy from the FTTs than any of JSB options. I'm not sure why. It just does. It may have something to do achieving optimal start pressure.

As caliber increases start pressures actually decrease due to the additional surface area the air pushes upon. Odd but true. It's why the same guns often have a smoother shot cycle as caliber increases. It's my understanding that 177 has about a 60% higher start pressure than 22. My R1 is obnoxious in 177 decent in 20 and nice 22.

In a way you are feeling piston slam. But it's the piston slamming into high pressure air, stopping and reversing. Not the end of the compression tube because of H&Ns low resistance. It's slamming into high pressure air that's trapped behind a pellet that hasn't broken it's inertia yet.

JSBs are generally loser fit and thinner skirted so the pop free quicker and thus less likely to induce piston bounce or slam as you call it.

Hth
Ron

[tjk]

Thanks Ron. As usual I appreciate your reply and most often hold your opinions with high water marks. But I have owned, shot, and tuned a lot of springers enough to know the difference in piston bounce and the piston slamming the bottom of the compression cylinder. And perhaps my description wasn't exactly the best for what "was" occurring before I reworked the rifle. And thank God for the more desirable results!!!!! You know, you shoot these guns long enough, you can tell when they are shooting healthy, under powered for what they should be shooting at, when they are over sprung or set up too hot, and you get that "feel" of it's characteristics through more than just its movement, but the sound it makes internally, the report from the gun, etc and so forth so I can see where you may have ascertained your opinion on what was going on. Not totally disagreeing or agreeing with your thoughts, but they are appreciated none the less. I will say that if it were "bounce" and not "slam" I would have experienced more dieseling and detonation which is weird because that wasn't a big issue unless I was shooting "normal" weight pellets and most times I was experiencing either ss velocities or more often 'blow by' with thicker skirt pellets like the H&N pellets.  But all is well now, and I am happy to say that I can shoot a variety of pellets brands and weights without the issues I was having before. Yesterday evening I was able to shoot the fit's along with some other types and some shot well and some didn't. The FTT's did ok, and the JSB express were soso. The CPHP's shot good even though I hate how coated they are, but the big surprise was with the Brazilian 18 grain premium series Rifle pellets. Guess I left enough power in the spring to shoot these, and quite accurately too. To simplify things, I believe the Vortek HW50 SHO tune kit is just too much spring for the HW57 rifle. Which makes sense because the stock 57 is a bit more powerful than the stock 50, and to up the power of the 50, Vortek chose to use a stronger spring,....and I could be wrong, but I think the 50 has a bit longer piston stroke/coil stack length to absorb the power of the spring, where as the same spring in the 57 would 'feel',.....theres that word again!!!!,..... like too much spacing added to the spring. IF that makes any sense,......I wasn't an English Lit major in school. Regardless if I've made that point correctly, to anyone that decides to try out a 57 and thinks about possibly adding a full power Vortek tune kit, I would definitely cut a coil or so off the spring right off the bat. 

[Bayman]

Anyone would think that earlier piston bounce would cause more dieseling and detonation. You would figure the extra start pressure and resistance of a tight fitting and or heavy pellets would spike the pressure higher, create more heat and detonate more. Typically it doesn't.

Guns are more likely to detonate with light and or loose fitting pellets. Part of what causes dieseling and detonation is friction heat created by rapid air molecule movement. This can be heard when guns are dry fired. With no pellet they obviously detonate badly. Even when minimally lubed. Logic would dictate with out a pellet there's no resistance and the piston would slam the end of the compression tube. With no pellet resistance, no pressure should build up and there should be no detonation. Yet there clearly is. It's because the transfer port still creates enough resistance to spike pressure and the air is being funneled though the gun at supersonic speeds.

Heavy /tight pellets create enough resistance to slow and bounce the piston earlier in its stroke thus reducing the pressure spike and actually slowing air movement through the gun. The piston may bounce a few more times yet. It's why most springers lose efficiency with heavy or tight fitting pellets. It's an old tuners trick to run heavies or even two pellets to break in a gun that's dieseling until the excess assembly lube burns off. It does work but I personally think that's a bad hack to fix a sloppy build.

I also wonder if the additional lost space in the tap loader is creating some of your sensation and I can't relate because I've never dealt with one. In any event I'm glad your 57 is coming along nicely. One of these days I'll get the guts to try one.
Be well

[Mark 611]

Well Ron, I agree with some of your theory, but any over sprung air rifle is going to have piston bounce that you can feel once you have shot enough springers! to know what is going on in the shot cycle, IMO the 57 as TJK has stated with the spring set up kit he installed was producing 14ftlbs out of the gate, that's too much power for that power plant just sayin! TJK reduced it to 12FTLBS but still using heavy pellets, IMO also the kit maybe over built for the power plant? but it may also break in overtime and lose power? only time will tell, I know from personal experience using VT kits they come out of the gate very strong and lose power and I mean allot of power with several hundred shots, which is why I do not buy them! for example my R1 one of them I used a VT kit several years ago was shooting 850fps in .22cal with a 14.3gn pellet and after about 1k the power dropped to 775fps, and no it was not a lube issue! this tube was SUNNEN honed and had a custom fitted piston seal from TOM himself! and after the power drop, I installed a JM kit and never looker back! I got a steady 800fps with 14.66gn FTT from the JM kit, no bounce just consistent power! YMMV,

[Bayman]

Well Ron, I agree with some of your theory, but any over sprung air rifle is going to have piston bounce that you can feel once you have shot enough springers! to know what is going on in the shot cycle, IMO the 57 as TJK has stated with the spring set up kit he installed was producing 14ftlbs out of the gate, that's too much power for that power plant just sayin! TJK reduced it to 12FTLBS but still using heavy pellets, IMO also the kit maybe over built for the power plant? but it may also break in overtime and lose power? only time will tell, I know from personal experience using VT kits they come out of the gate very strong and lose power and I mean allot of power with several hundred shots, which is why I do not buy them! for example my R1 one of them I used a VT kit several years ago was shooting 850fps in .22cal with a 14.3gn pellet and after about 1k the power dropped to 775fps, and no it was not a lube issue! this tube was SUNNEN honed and had a custom fitted piston seal from TOM himself! and after the power drop, I installed a JM kit and never looker back! I got a steady 800fps with 14.66gn FTT from the JM kit, no bounce just consistent power! YMMV,

Yes Mark you are 100% right and basically reiterated what I said.. I never said he was wrong about the gun being oversprung. Yes you are right. Any oversprung springer will have piston bounce that you can feel.

The additional information I was trying to convey was that he might be feeling piston bounce from the heavy and tighter fitting H&N pellets rather than piston slam from bypassing pressure due to stiffer skirts.

And yes you're right most Vortek kits start hot and lose a little power. I'm not sure how long ago you had the R1 issue. My differences haven't been that drastic until much more use. My 177 HW 50 started at 12 fpe and after about three or four thousand shots has settled to just over 11.4 fpe. My HW30s start about 8.4 fpe and settle in around 8 fpe in about the same amount of shots. The springs will usually last at least another ten thousand at that power. Then they will go soft if they don't break first from a dry fire.

I respect your greater experience. I'm just sharing my possibly more current experiences with the Vortek stuff. A lot of people wrote off the Vortek kits long ago and haven't tried them lately. I've been using a mix of Vortek and Macarri kits in my tunes. I have my gripes with each, neither are perfect. IMO I do believe the Macarri kits are less troublesome. But I do favor the Vortek seals.
Be well,
Ron

[Mark 611]

Sorry Ron, didn't mean to do that, most of the information I try to convey is for folks who may not know what we're talking about, anyway, the 57 is in the 12ftlb power class, that's where it should perform the best, a small light weight rifle like this will get unruly and hold sensitive once you start pushing it past its best performance range, 

[tjk]

Sorry Ron, didn't mean to do that, most of the information I try to convey is for folks who may not know what we're talking about, anyway, the 57 is in the 12ftlb power class, that's where it should perform the best, a small light weight rifle like this will get unruly and hold sensitive once you start pushing it past its best performance range, 

And it does perform much better now. I know there are folks out there that think I'm a nut case for owning and working on this gun, but it really is a splendid rifle once everything gets sorted out. If there was ever a candidate for a .20 model, I would buy one lickety-split!!!! Of course I would love to have every begun I own in 5mm!!! 

[Toxylon]

And yes you're right most Vortek kits start hot and lose a little power. I'm not sure how long ago you had the R1 issue. My differences haven't been that drastic until much more use. My 177 HW 50 started at 12 fpe and after about three or four thousand shots has settled to just over 11.4 fpe. My HW30s start about 8.4 fpe and settle in around 8 fpe in about the same amount of shots. The springs will usually last at least another ten thousand at that power. Then they will go soft if they don't break first from a dry fire.

I think this is an apples and oranges type of comparison, since Mark's R1 produced close to 23 fpe when fresh. That's almost twice the KE of your HW50, and just about three times as much as your HW30 yields.

Low-power springers are low-stressed in every way, and even lower-quality mainsprings last better than on high-power guns.

Full-power 350 Mag springs from Maccari have reportedly lasted 20 000 shots without losing velocity, possibly much more, as they were still going strong at the time. That's the kind of user report I personally find valuable in tuning my magnum springers.

[Bayman]

And yes you're right most Vortek kits start hot and lose a little power. I'm not sure how long ago you had the R1 issue. My differences haven't been that drastic until much more use. My 177 HW 50 started at 12 fpe and after about three or four thousand shots has settled to just over 11.4 fpe. My HW30s start about 8.4 fpe and settle in around 8 fpe in about the same amount of shots. The springs will usually last at least another ten thousand at that power. Then they will go soft if they don't break first from a dry fire.

I think this is an apples and oranges type of comparison, since Mark's R1 produced close to 23 fpe when fresh. That's almost twice the KE of your HW50, and just about three times as much as your HW30 yields.

Low-power springers are low-stressed in every way, and even lower-quality mainsprings last better than on high-power guns.

Full-power 350 Mag springs from Maccari have reportedly lasted 20 000 shots without losing velocity, possibly much more, as they were still going strong at the time. That's the kind of user report I personally find valuable in tuning my magnum springers.

I'm not a magnum springer guy so I can't really relate. The only gun I have close to a magnum is my R1. It's been a couple of years so IIRC my 20 cal R1 with the Maccari hi performance kit never made more than 17 fpe and the Vortek kit made about 19 with extra coils and 18 cut to off the shelf length. There's a comparison of the two kits posted here somewhere.

 With lower power than others were getting from the platform I suspected there was a problem with the gun. It's been through several different types and brands of seals both sized and unsized. I have also tried various length springs. The best performance I've gotten from it is from the Vortek kit plus half a coil and unsized Vortek seal with a 22 barrel. It makes about 19.5 fpe with decent manners.

An interesting side note both Maccari and Vortek have since changed their high output kits to bigger diameter and or heavier wire. I don't use the gun enough to buy one of these new kits to see if my missing power was really from a trending theory of using smaller diameter and or wire springs.

 I tuned a few R1s back then and the kits came with 0.128" (Vortek std) , 0.135" (Maccari SHP) & 0.148" (Vortek HO). Factory was 0.152" IIRC. None of the afore mentioned kits made impressive energy numbers in three different R1s. Who knows maybe I'll get a different R1 or HW80 to tune and I'll use one of the new kits with bigger springs.

 Until then I'll play with my lower power stuff. For the record I've gotten a lot more than 10k shots on some of the Vortek springs. I was guessing at a minimum length of level performance. I have too many guns that share pellets to keep track of shot counts. I think most people here won't ever shoot 10k rounds through any one rifle. Unless it's a R7 or HW30 lol.

Be well
Ron

[Mark 611]

Ron, I have OC's R1 I has a 152dia wire from VT in it, but I have not confirmed it, I can tell you this, it's a beast to cock, and has tons of power! I have not ran it across the CHRONY either so I have no idea how fast its shooting! I can tell you this it's a cannon! It's not an all day pinker either, 20 30 shots and that's about it! but its accurate with the 13.73gn JSB's https://ibb.co/7bBL26h

[Bayman]

Ron, I have OC's R1 I has a 152dia wire from VT in it, but I have not confirmed it, I can tell you this, it's a beast to cock, and has tons of power! I have not ran it across the CHRONY either so I have no idea how fast its shooting! I can tell you this it's a cannon! It's not an all day pinker either, 20 30 shots and that's about it! but its accurate with the 13.73gn JSB's https://ibb.co/7bBL26h

Thanks Mark. I always appreciate your constructive input and experience. It seems Vortek stopped offering the 0.152" spring in their kits before the PG4 steel kits due to available clearance. Now he offers a larger 0.905" OD 0.148" spring. My R1 kit has a 0.860" OD 0.148" spring. I imagine the larger diameter spring was introduced to improve both manners and power. Im not interested enough in my R1 to buy the new kit to see if that's why I'm not getting  maximum power levels. I honestly don't enjoy the gun and bumping up power isn't likely to change that.

[Mark 611]

I think there's a balance for most of us we get comfortable with when it comes to shooting our toys, finding the sweet spot, 

[Keen]

YSSMV

Your Sweet Spot May Vary 

[splitbeing]

YSSMV

Your Sweet Spot May Vary 

[chuckling]

Still learning and searching over here...