Millennium Pumper Production - *The Beginning* - And The Lousy End

[CarsonRatSniper]

I'm going to add a weighted insert to the hammer first to increase the valve dwell time before I take the top end apart and try the oblong port.

Here's a WM shot into a 2x4 from 7' away...it penetrated the same amount as my Challenger did at over 1000 fps so I believe that's the slugs maximum penetration amount in a 2x4 due to massive distortion.
That slug is *smashed*



Mike

[ray in wi]

On an 1800 fill? That is awesome!!

[Matt15]

Mike, what is the volume of the valve? Thanks

[rsterne]

The valve is open on the front to a reservoir of about 45 cc....

Bob

[Matt15]

The valve is open on the front to a reservoir of about 45 cc....

Bob

Thanks Bob.

[CarsonRatSniper]

Well, my Wicked Monsters proved to be most accurate in this rifle too...my 1:22 twist just loves them!
I didn't shoot any Kings as I wanted to leave her tuned hot for hunting (pics in the Hunting Gate shortly).
I cleaned the barrel by pulling a .257 Bore Snake with the brush removed through it twice.
Then I saturated 2 felt cleaning pellets with Brownells Moly Bore Paste, loaded them, fired them then shot 2 Kings down the bore to clean things up.
It took about 8 shots to settle in but it sure made a difference!

Here's a three shot group @ 30 yards from the hood of my Jeep using a fixed 6x Bug Buster scope. The rifle was tethered via remote line to a 13ci bottle regged at 1800 psi.









That guard rail up the road was about 75 yards away...the holdover was the bottom of the first dot below.the crosshairs...I was *slaying* a Red Bull can every shot!

I will try to run some shot strings when I can...the law enforcement range has been closed for the last 2 days so they can burn their slash piles.

More to come!

Mike

[c670809]

It's great to see the updates. Thank you.

[Hanabata808]

Super psyched about the rifle! It's looking really good!

At some point, can you show what the shrouded and non-shrouded look like side-by-side? I'm leaning toward shrouded, but wanted to see what they looked like compared to one another.

[CarsonRatSniper]

Larry, I will as soon as I have the shrouded version parts assembled.

So, tonight I turned a hammer spring guide out of 316 stainless round bar to add weight to the hammer.
The hammer, guide & stainless cocking knob weigh 79.8 grams.
I had to go to a 1.5" x 12# spring vs the 2" x 10# spring I was using because my guide fills the pocket inside the hammer and is flush with the rear.

All I could do tonight is some unscientific testing...which was shoot a Wicked Monster into my water bucket and see if I got more expansion which means I got more velocity.

I filled the rifle to 1800 psi and had the RVA set just shy of coil bind.

When I shot into the bucket there was valve ping! That hadn't happened before...curious I had to go check the bucket for expansion of my slug.
Prior testing at 850 fps got good expansion but only a few fragmenting pieces.

I have *no idea* what the velocity is right now but I will let the pic of the slug inside my bucket speak for itself - its more violent than my Challenger testing & that was just over 1000 fps!!!
It may be just that one slug and how it hit but there's a big improvement...I'll be running chrony strings tomorrow.
If I'm at where I think I am performance wise I am done tuning and will start assembling powerplants on the rest of the guns.



Here's a pic of all the pieces I recovered from the bucket



More to come tomorrow!!!

Mike

[rsterne]

While it's nice to chase maximum FPE to find out what the ultimate potential is (I always do!), you would get more useful data if you graphed velocity vs. preload to see if you are approaching a plateau at 1800 psi.... There is NO point in having more hammer strike than that which will max. out the velocity, and even that produces an Air Hog.... To produce useful tunes for either tethered, or as a pumper, you won't be maxing the preload all the way to the plateau.... I'm sure you have seen the graphs I am talking about, here is one for my Disco Double....



You need to do that with the Kings and the heaviest slug that makes sense, and see where you are at, instead of chasing your tail changing things you may not need to change.... The useful tunes on the graph above are 5 or more turns out with the pellet and 3.5 or more turns out with the BBT.... Anything more than that is an Air Hog, with no gain in performance.... Tether the gun at 1800, crank the preload to coil bind, shoot 2 shots, back it off a turn, and repeat until you are well down on velocity.... It takes very little time to give you all the information you need to make an informed decision on how to proceed....

Bob

[CarsonRatSniper]

I totally agree and planned on doing just that...I just had to know what the ceiling was with a heavy slug - people still want to see me hit your 67+ ft lb 1 shot max (they've asked!) even though my plan is to ship the guns tuned to 40 ft lbs with Kings.

I will post all the details when I'm done later today.

Mike

[UCChris]

Holy smokes. These rifles are wicked!

[rsterne]

My prototype maxed at 53 FPE with Kings at 1800 psi, and I had a single shot at 69 FPE with EunJin Points (42.4 gr) with the preload maxed out.... The usable tunes were 1 shot at 50 FPE, 2 at 45 FPE and 3 at 40 FPE with the Kings.... You have the new valve with a bit larger ports, and a bigger reservoir, and have already hit 60 FPE with the Kings, so you certainly have the power.... Is it possible your slugs are a bit tight in the TJ's 0.250" bore to deliver equal FPE on 1800 psi?.... Just a thought....

Bob

[CarsonRatSniper]

Yeah, that's a possibility... The fit to bore is *just right* but that doesn't reduce bearing surface area of my slugs.
I'll have to try a 52gr BBT that's lubed just to see what happens.

I should be happy about the Kings at 60 ft lbs then

I'll run it over.the chrony this afternoon...

Mike

[jvanschoonhoven]

As a lucky owner of one of these first guns I am so excited for these to get finished and cant wait to take it out hunting.
I was tempted to get the fx independence but so glad I waited for one of these. Someone on this forum told me about this build when i was lookibg for a high end pumper and after reading all the posts I was all in
The power and accuracy are more then I was hoping for! The stocks look amazing Im happy to be apart of all this and wanted to thank everyone who has helped on this project either directly or indirectly with ideas and stuff. You guys rock!

[Norm_m]

OK Mike I need to stop reading all these updates as it is making the wait more difficult.
Is that Camo one on your hood the one I think it is?
How loud is it at those numbers?

Norm

[CarsonRatSniper]

Yes Norm...I'm showing your gun some *Love*!

It sounds like a rimfire...*not* backyard friendly!!!

Mike

[CarsonRatSniper]

I got to do a bit of chrony work today...I settled on my original hammer/spring combo.



This is a 30 shot group with Kings @ 25 yards - anywhere from 978 fps down to 820 fps. Fill pressure was either 1800 or 2200 psi.
The 5 shot group to the upper right side is how far my POI moved just from screwing on my Clague LDC! I took it off after.



WM's @ 855 fps - RVA -2.5 turns - 50 yards




My 50 yard target...the upper target lower right side group was with my Clague LDC. I took it off and shot the .600" 5 shot group to the lower left of the bottom target (even though I was aiming at the top target LOL).
The other shots on the left of the upper target was me getting zeroed for 50 yards. The 2 shots in the bull were my final sight in shots. Not bad for a small/6x scope



Air usage went from 400 psi per shot with the 80 gram hammer & 12# spring down to 200 psi with the RVA backed of 2.5 turns and the 10# spring with the spring guide removed from the hammer.

I'm definitely happy! The barrels aren't even bonded yet...the cf tube is just locked into the barrel bands with the barrel floating freely inside. The muzzle is o ringed between the barrel and cf tube for centering and the thread protector is putting tension on the cf tube.

Worth noting...the velocity of the kings stayed the same from coil bind to -5 turns out on the RVA. Air usage dropped from 250 psi per shot down to 175 psi per shot yet the velocity remained at 905 fps.
I need to play more with a pellet tune. My WM's were doing 790 fps with the RVA @ -5 turns and using only 150 psi per shot.

More to come guys!!! I'm at the machine shop tomorrow getting all of the barrels prepped and threaded...I have 14 to do!!!

Mike

[c670809]

Awesome. Thanks for the update it's looking great.

One quick question, what did you decide to do with the barrels. I know at first they were going to be epoxyed to the carbon fiber. Then Jim had developed a system that was better. I also heard that you might use Bob's system with the belleville washers?

Thanks again for the update.

[CarsonRatSniper]

I'm just going to bond the sleeves to the barrels - it's a proven system. I'm going to play with viscous dampening and tensioning on my own time, not when I'm already past delivery dates.
I *do* believe it'll work and work extremely well...its just more time & parts & cost and I'm already spending about $100 of my own money on everybody's rifles to get them to where they're at.

It may be a future development & offering.

Mike