Hard to cock new 2013 condor
Go to the next thread for the cocking details.
Ok, there are some other threads about this and all worth reading if you are brand new to the new condor like me. Sorry but I don’t know how to be brief. My short story is, I bought my condor as a complete package in austin the day it arrived. june the 13 or 14th. Still in the ups shipping box. Gun, hand pump, scope, co2 adapter, and bipod. Sorry charlie, no pellets available for 25 cal. This was a weelend we were in austin for the annual republic of texas motorcycle fling. We were in the gun shop because it was hot thurs afternoon. The sales clerk said a 25 cal condor was on it’s way. I either went back fri or sat but I bought it. Stll no pellets available. I unboxed it and looked it over in the motel room. The clerk had said it was not good for it to fire it unloaded so I never tried to cock it as I thought it was shipped with air in the tank to keep consensation out, shows what I know huh? I came home and ordered pellet from three different suppliers. I probably wasted some money on some of my choices but I did read here first. I think it took two or three weeks to get all the pellets in. At that time I decided to pump the tank up. WOW. I am 5ft 7 in and weigh about 155. I took jumping up and locking my arms to compress the pump all the way from about 2200 to 3k pounds. I think I rested about every 25 pumps over a weekend when I had time. I put it up and decided I needed a real pump so I started studying up on pumps military surplus and all. I got a coltri scuba 3000psi max air on ebay and got some more parts to raise it to 4500 psi. All the time studying on this forum from time to time. I then decided it was time to mount the scope and I tried the bipod. I won’t fit on straight. The second one won’t fit either. Thats that. I then decided I better look it over better. I used a bore lite and saw something that looked like rust in the barrel. I used a hawkeye bore scope on the entire bore and it was rusted on the bottom nearly the whole length. I cleaned it with jb bore paste and it came out nice and shiney but terribly pitted. I called the gunshop and the owner said to return it. I told him I didn’t want to wait for another one. I called Rachel and we exchanged the barrel and bipod. The new barrel looked good. The new bipod looked as good as the first one it just won’t fit. By then I was reading about how quite they are so I cocked it and fired it. Like I said it took both thumbs and the muzzle on the floor to cock it. I thought what have I bought? So that is where I am. I decided from studying it needs a regulator and chamber, a heavier hammer with the slap mod and maybe a one piece top hat as once if I ever get it to shoot good I will only shoot one pellet weight. To keep the fix seperate go to the next reply.
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Yes I have pecan and peach trees and that is one of my purposes for the condor as my neighbor complains that the spring guns and the 17 hmr and the 22’s scare her damn horses, she has 6 on about 4 acres almost in my front yard. My wife grew up eating squirrels and can make a good squirrel stew. Now if I could only get her to skin them.
This post should be sticky’d on the front page so that potential new buyers can be a little more informed. This just sucks
to happen to anyone. I too am having issues but compare to yours are minute.But i also dont have a bore scope and nowhere near
the patience you have. If my shooting area was a little closer i’d stick with my 10/22 with a volquartsen barrel just for plinking. Man
i love that gun only a boyd stock , a volquartsen barrel, and polished trigger, and its accurate as hell with bulk ammo. But then i wont
be able to shoot all the squirrles devastating my apple and plum trees in the backyard. Hopefully it’ll be one bad ass airgun after your
done with it.
Yes if I had known that this gun really needed a high pressure compressor and as many mods as I have bought I would never have started messing with it at this time. I actually thought I was going to pump it up with the bicycle pump that came with it. Right now I have several serious projects uncompleted. I didn’t have the extra time this has required or really the desire to have this much tied up in a air rifle. I know for sure there will be lost money on this project. I guess I just really like semi auto centerfire rifles that shoot good groups. I have lost the grip in my left hand. I still work on stuff daily but cocking a bolt action rifle fast is no longer a option and that will also be the case with this toy. Although now I can cock it with my left thumb, it’s tight in the frame but manageable. I will be good for crows I’m hoping though and maybe coons.
My first gun was a benjamin 22 cal pump up. Boy I still feel bad about all the dead sparrows on my street. I also could hit a 1 gal paint thinner can at 100 yards with it but you need a lot of the barrel for elevation and setting on the ground with a tree at your back to be steady. It would tear long holes in the can. my cousins single shot 22 would punch clean little holes in it. My shot would shake the can so you knew when you hit it.
I still don’t know if the accuracy will be worth it yet. I also have a 24 inch lw barrel to try in it. So it will get a good try out before i give up.
I have decided there is no quality control checks on completely assembled guns at airforce though. I think they have decided that we are the quality control. I do think they have good customer service but I bet they are very busy. At my old business machine co. We called the junk “high maintenance” products.
Wow, thanks for sharing. Glad you have the patience and knowledge to fix it. We should’nt be fixing brand new guns to this extent.
To me thats bullshit that a $700 gun does’nt work right out of the box for at least a few months or at least a few thousand rounds.
It ruins the experience of buying what we’ve read and thought of as a quality product. Maybe i just read the good things and forgot the bad
things that i read. I have a crossman 1377 thats 25 years old and it still works good. now it may not be as accurate but the fun factor i’ve had
over the years are priceless.
I got the 95 gram hammer and one piece top hat from our resident guru and as I waited I spread out the finances over some other venders to keep every one financially secure and happy. R&L sent me a 24 inch 25 cal lwbarrel and a maddog ultima stock and maybe some free exact king pellets, I don’t remember if I ordered them or not. I got a altaros adj regulator and chamber. By then I had read the other hard cock threads. I just had to say that. On the other threads I had mentioned that when the hammer went forward it only got hard to push at the last 3/8 or so of the motion, also the trigger cover plate flexed down. It also flexed down when I pulled the trigger. That is the key. Before I started taking it apart, after removing the trigger group cover plate I looked at the trigger group and I discovered the toggle setting crooked and out of the notch in the safety slide. It didn’t want to go back in the notch and there was a burr in the frame where it was forced to far. Man this is easy, just take the toggle out. This was fitting with what I had read I thought. I had put the co2 adapter on in place of the tank to make it easier to work on so put it back together. If it was better, I couldn’t tell. So all apart it came, power wheel, spring of which it has a tag on it saying spring on one side and silencer on the other, that may mean two different springs, the hammer and all came out open tube. The toggle had made a burr so I got a 1/2 dowel and taped some red and then grey scotchbrite on it and used a drill motor to buff the inside smooth. It looked like and I think I read where it had a coating on it so I didn’t do any more than neccessary but it is smoother, I decided to do the whole length it was getting so much smoother. Kinda made a black dust. I put the hammer and weight back in and it slid smooth, no burrs. I put the trigger group back in and was pushing the hammer and weight back and forth to see what was binding up and it looked like the hammer release arm was slightly to long to go past the sear arm freely, I was really allrehensive about taking anything off of this part, It is where it latches up but it has to be able to swing past to latch up after the weight goes by in the cocking direction. I took it out and it looked like it was only rubbing on one crooked corner so I squared it up with a stone and also rounded the bottom corner some for more clearance. It seemed better with just the front screw holding the trigger cover down. I tried it out with the maddog stock on and it was as bad as ever everytime. I read in the maddog inst that the front screw for the stock might interfere with the powerwheel and protrude too far into the housing. BINGO. I took the stock off and shimmed the trigger guard screw out some more and it worked. I put the stock back on and it was as bad as ever. I took the stock back off and it was ok. The trigger cover plate was still flexing as it was cocked and released. I took the plate off and looked and there was a witness mark on one side of the plate right where the tail of the hammer release arm swings up, where I had stoned it. As the hammer and weight go over the teepee looking extension pushing the hammer release arm down it was hitting the plate a lot. I used a feeler guage and the plate had a .030 gap between it and the frame when the hammers ends and the weight pushed it down. I have a mill but right now it is set up for coping some tubing and I didn’t want to set it up again so I shadetreed it with a cutoff wheel. I put a .040(guessing) dish in the spot where the hammer release arm sticks up ansd it’s fixed. I did go back and shorten the front trigger plate screw so it won’t need any extra spacers to limit it’s depth, it also was rubbing on the hammer enough to keep it from returning on decocking with the power wheel on zero. And that hard feeling is all in about the same place from either part. About 3/8 to 1/4 inch from the end og the cocking stroke.
This is added 9/19. I forgot to mention that the pins all really only go in and out from one side, if you look closely they all have little chisel marks to make them get tight in their holes so if you drive them out the wrong way the other side gets burred up and a little looser especially if you do it as many times as I did. I used a correctly fitting pin punch to hold the middle arm, I gues its the sear, in place while I was try it out for fit.
Thats my story and I’m sticking to it. Now I gotta get the compressor going. I saw lots of unhappy and hungry crows while I was building high fence yesterday.
I don’t know if this is anyone else’s problem or if there are many like this. Only airforce will know that. My guns serial number is 296.
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Man, you’ve dealt with a lot of issues, sorry to hear that.
Mine was fine out of the box, have a TalonP and a Condor SS. Never had a problem cocking either.
It’s true, the Airforce bipod can be a bit tight fitting, I ended up machining a bit off of the top of the part that pivots on mine.
Pumping up the cylinder, I’ve found the Hill Pump to be easier going than the Air Force Pump -but it’s still not easy. I’m 5’9″ and 180 lbs.