Further powered-down Cricket – UPDATED 7/20/2015 (320 SHOTS)
I turned down the power further on my Cricket to 10 FPE and did some chrono work today to check the results of my regulator and hammer spring setting shooting JSB 16-grainers. I don’t know what the regulator BAR setting is set to as I don’t have a reg-tester. Anyway, the starting fill pressure was 210 BAR. The pressure after the last shot was 165 BAR. I stopped on shot number 70 because I ran out of pellets. 😥 I wanted to see if there was going to be any reg-creep after letting my Cricket sit overnight; when the gun was set to 12 FPE the first shot would be around 30-40 FPS higher than the average if I let the gun sit overnight. I attribute it to incorrect HST setting. It looks like at the current setting, I am not getting too much creep (or maybe none at all judging by the string). At any rate, I’ll continue where I left off on the chrono work once I’ve restocked on pellets to see how many more shots I can get while maintaining a 15 FPS extreme spread. Anyway, here’s the data plotted on an Excel spreadsheet I created. What do you guys think?
Just for kicks, while chronying I decided to shoot the LED bulb out of this mini flashlight.
The flashlight set on my target box at 27 yards.
The end-result.
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due to limit sub 12fpeThanks Jan! But sell it? Nuh-uh! No way, no how! :biggrinn: My Cricket is staying with me until it falls to pieces. It is the only PCP out of the rest I have and have owned that can consistently shoot over half a tin of pellets from a single fill of air. It’s the gun that has made me turn my eyes away from non-regulated guns. Also, the Cricket is the first bullpup I’ve always wanted after analyzing its design and being pleased with it and its performance now that I own one. Even though there is now the Mutant, Vulcan, Ataman, Wildcat, etc., it’s the Cricket’s design, in addition to its performance, that I like the most and still do to this day even with the newer bullpups out on the market.
How’s your shooting my friend?
Nice shot count Spinj. You can sell the cricket to the UK now due to limit sub 12fpe
This is the final testing of my Cricket at 10 FPE for my backyard shooting at 27 yards. On the first session, I first started with unlubed pellets (shots 1 to 70) then lubed pellets from shot 71 to 308. After looking at the data from the previous shooting session, it was clear that the lube increased velocity and consistency slightly. Therefore, on this test I wanted to start from the beginning to end using lubed pellets. And to my astonishment, I was able to achieve 320 SHOTS! :suprisedn:
Also, here again is that mini-LED flashlight that I set out to fill with stacked pellets. This is the end-result. The bulb housing broke off when the main tube was filling up with lead. Make no mistake, 10 FPE is still plenty powerful. Look what it did to this thing! And it’s even made out of aluminum. Even though I clamped the flashlight tightly to a vice, each consecutive hit pushed the thing back and gradually destroyed it. I always had to keep going back to it to tighten it further after a few hits.
The flashlight was being held by my table vice.
The view through my scope. Sorry for the lousy photos. They were taken with my iPhone.
Added another 15 shots to the spreadsheet.
Also, I stacked those 15 pellets into the flashlight. The second pellet blew off the first two that were on it. After that each consecutive pellet pushed the previous ones further into the flashlight tube. Then it started to rain and the winds severely picked up due to a dust storm heading our way. I had to stop because it became gloomy and my chronograph probably wouldn’t have been able to register the pellet speeds as a result of the adverse lighting conditions.:sadn:
I agree Chad. I think all tinkering stops here … at least until I decide to go high power like you! 😀 Heck, I may have to buy another bullpup for that application and leave my Cricket the way it is now. But yes, my Cricket is perfectly set up now for backyard sniping. It’s quiet (has Donny’s shroud and LDC), laser accurate, and gives tons of shots. I’m thinking my neighbor is probably laughing because he thinks I’m shooting an airsoft gun or a toy. 😆
DUDE! Dont touch your gun at all that thing is perfect!
Darn it, I accidentally deleted the original post that had a full write-up of the second day of shooting (post number 9). Anyway, I didn’t want to redo it so I just posted the photos only with key information.
Anyway, on that original post, I included my post shooting session commentary which stated that if I used lubed pellets in the beginning, the standard deviation and extreme spread could have been lower. To confirm my presumption, I did some shooting again today. As evidenced from the data, I believe that my presumption was correct. See spreadsheet below.
I also decided to put another pellet on top of the first one on the mini flashlight. Hmm…maybe should stack one a day.
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Yeah I wouldnt either!
thanx spin!
:rofl: You’re welcome Chad! You know, at around the 210 shot mark, I said “Sweet Jesus, when is this stupendously-marvelous string going to end? This guy’s gotta eat!” I thought my chronograph was fooling around with me! 😆 There were so many shots that when I created the final graph, it was too long, and it extended far to the right on the spreadsheet. 😆 You can actually see a portion of it in the photos. I tried to include the whole line graph but Photobucket compressed the photo and shrank it so much that everything became unreadable. So I omitted the rest of it. I kid you not, it’s way longer than what you see in the photos. :biggrinn:
Right now I am so afraid to open up the gun again as I am so liking where it is right now and that it is fit for my purposes. When I do though, I will post another update.
Holy flying flee shit! That is a lot of shots! Yes I do think you can tighten the extreme spread and I think you have your regulator dead on! Good work and write up.
thanx spin!
Dang it! I accidentally deleted the original post that belonged here. Anyway, I don’t want to retype the whole thing.
Before I continued the next day (starting on shot number 71), I cleaned the barrel and lubed the pellets with Break Free CLP. As the spreadsheet illustrates, there is a slight increase in velocity and just a bit more consistency.
308 shots!!!
25-shot group at 27 yards.
Pressure at the end of the shoot.
Here’s a squeezed-up line graph to illustrate the trend of the string. Note how the velocity is slightly increased after cleaning the barrel and using lightly lubed pellets starting on shot number 71 as per the excel chart above. This can mean that the choke area of the barrel had some lead build-up which resulted in more friction of the pellet when passing through it. Also, perhaps each subsequently-fired lubed pellet made it possible to prevent the lead build-up at the choke area.
Sounds good my friend. Cant wait to see your upgrade results :biggrinn:
Chad, although the current FPE setting is ideal for my (backyard) shooting, in which I have 27 yards max shooting distance (30 yards if I get creative), I’ll try and polish the internals to see if I can lessen the extreme spread even further. Things look pretty good for now, and the 16-gr JSBs are very accurate even at those velocities. I just need to get more pellets to continue the chrono process to see where the spread begins to widen. My aim (no pun intended) is getting rid of the higher-than-average-velocity first shot when the gun is left sitting for some time.
Thanks for the link!
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Thanks for question Spinj 🙂 I´m shooting every two day when I have time on evening. Is little bit hotter than usually 🙂 so I can get more shot count 😛 Yesterday I got from 200bar to 115bar 60shots 880fps and poi still on place – warmer time makes miracles. 😉