ive been thinking about TH adjustments…
i know it seems a strange thing to question, but why does adjusting the tophat make a difference? now, i can see if the valve is getting knocked open fully so the TH is hitting the valve face, but the general consensus seems to be that contact between the 2 should be avoided, due to POI shift and potential damage. it seems to me it shouldnt make a difference unless the valve wants to travel further than the tophat height.i feel stupid for asking, but it has been killing me. 😕
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AH YES !!!! The pleasures of owning a non-regulated airgun>>>.I LOVE mine. 😀
I cant remember where i started seeing problems with contact , but somewhere around .030 to .025,
this is where i was at without oring and was having problems ,and like 1000 psi in the tank , power wheel zero , to get the rws 14 grain pellets to slow down under 800’s , to 600’s .
I did this when i first bought the gun.
also i read and whole heartedly agree with tim bout the talon tank, but im converting to .25, and that to me warrants a condor powerplant to achieve the kind of numbers i will be shooting for as soon as the barrel comes. i just hope i get one that handles EJs well, if i wanted to keep punching 1 holers in paper, i would keep the gun .177 and continue running on co2 or a micrometer when its cold…shes a real tackdriver as is, but i wanna kill something, maybe something BIG, maybe even on 2 legs… 😈 😈
yeah, i read it, definitely a good place to start.(btw, i just got a brand new tank, valve, and hammer from tony, just cant use it till i get the barrel. he says if i use it with my current .177-24″ bbl, its almost certain to dump.) 😥 . yeah, i realize the tank pressure/valve travel relationship, thats why i also got the heavier hammer, i want to set up to use higher fill pressures and a quick lock time.
P.B. do you know how little of a gap one can have without the T.H. bottoming out? Also to M.S., keep in mind if you start off with 3K in the bottle, the valve will open less and close faster at any giving T.H. setting. This is where (Imho) Tonys majic really comes to light. Balancing the rifle around a given pellet to give you the best of everything. Accuracy/shot count/velocity/efficiency etc. When you get your gun back from Tony, it’s like having a engine blue printed and balanced by a race shop. Yes, it’s that good. Edit: M.S., have you read the article by Tim@Mac1 about the condor with a talon bottle?
yeah, PB. that was what i meant. i wonder if anyone has taken a more scientific approach to this. maybe i just think too much, always gets me in trouble. 🙁
Oh ok i see what your saying , if all else is the same why does the gun change from tophat setting of .090 to .050 ,
well all i can say is that it is the dynamics of having the top hat out more gives the inertia of the hit more time open that if it had a smaller opening setting , like savage sam said like a camshaft on a motor , more time lapses in the duration of the opening point which allows more air to pass the valve, hence more velocity.
i do have a chrony, and i am as yet unclear as to my exact wants as far as performance is concerned. its hypothetical, i know the basics of tuning and adjusting these rifles. i just wonder why it would make a difference if, for instance, from shot 1 to shot 30, the valve stroke starts at .022, and ends at .033(as pressure drops…) if the TH were set at .066 or .090. the amount of stroke is the same. i dont dispute the effects of tophat adjustment, i just dont understand them.
Yep , Yep, the more you open the top hat gap the harder you need to hit the valve. for more fps.
with same settings you need more hammer strike for more psi in the bottle for a given fps.
with Les psi in the bottle you need less hammer strike for a lower fps, and consistency.
the condor for instance is for magnum set up, heavy pellets at maximum velocity, you have to lesson the hammer and shorten the duration the valve is open to get lower fps with lighter pellets,
If you lower the top hat say somewhere around .030 to .025 with the power wheel at lower setting for low fps the top hat will hit the brass behind the top hat and cause inconsistent shots and fliers, so you need to add buffer behind top hat to cushion the hit . which makes for a very consistent lower fps rifle.
Do you have a chrony? That’s first (Imho) thing you need in order to make meaningful adjustments. Also you may have different goals. MAX power Vs. MAX efficiency. What gap do you (you need feeler guages) have now? What are your goals? What is your set up? What pellet do you want to shoot at what velocity? Need more info. EDIT: To answer your first question. Adjusting the top hat controls how much the valve opens AND the duration the valve stays open via the hammer strike. Think of a high lift cam shaft and you might get some idea.
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i would have loved to had a regulator at one time but i don’t know now, i kind of like the ability of being able to change the rifle around and shoot differant pellets and tuning to them
Well when i first bought the condor i had read all the post about the power curve and i just didn’t like the idea of the huge fps difference, and i confirmed it with paper shooting. i would have the impact on center , and it would move height left 3/4″ then back down to center then low after, so i began immediately trying to tune the rifle for the center of the fps variation, because it stays there the longest.
If you take your rifle first of all , with a designated pellet,and go ahead and shoot your big huge curve, thru a chrony, on paper with the variation of fps to find the velocity the pellet likes the best, when you get to that point of the pellet grouping the best pull your tank and see what the psi is in the tank.
NOw you can also fine tune the fps at this point with the top hat.
Now you have a fill target range, you will also see the fps variation tighten up when the tophat, power wheel,tank pressure get in sink and start working together, the gun will tell you what it wants
so now fill just over this psi by 100 psi , when you go back out to shoot, you need to shoot a few to settle the gun in while making sure the gun fps is climbing slightly to a peak, then moving down , if it is not the power wheel need to come down a hair. go back a fill tank to the same point. and shoot to see if your fps is either steady and staying withing 5 fps or so and slightly rising then falling,
you have your fill pressure target then its just a matter of finding the power wheel setting to allow that fill pressure to be slightly under the peak velocity.
This is where i fine tune with the top hat also, but you have to learn how to balance in between the three to fine tune to a low fps variation, and try and tune to a shot string of like 20 , 30 shots , or an extremely tight string of 10 or 15 shots if your after the tightest groups.
I have shot my tightest groups like this with my rifle , by tuneing to the pellets sweet spot in velocity, and getting the three adjustments on the rifle in sink for a nice tight fps string.
When you have it tuned like this wright down all your settings and the temp outside, and you can find them again, if you want more shots for plinking just fill with more psi in the tank by 200 or 300 psi ,
for instance i fill to 1900 psi when shooting 14g. pellets at a velocity of low 900’s for most, power wheel is 4.4 to 3.3, top hat is at.072 to .080 with the .070 o ring. this is for a 10 to 15 sot string for target work
, now if i want to do some plinking , i will fill it to 2100 and it will give me a good 25 to 30 over the top of the curve and 25 to 30 under the curve .
you can fine tune the velocity with the top hat too for temperture changes.