My Kalibrgun Cricket Mods – magazine & shroud
Received my Cricket 0.25cal 2 weeks ago, so far its awesome. I am getting 0.5 groups at 40yards, still in break-in period. This is my first interaction with Cricket, I noticed certain things and writing it down here to get some comments and similar experiences.
1. First 24-36 shots were very erratic. Barrel was very dirty, a good cleaning made a sea change. On my condor 0.22, barrel’s land and groove are of about same width. On cricket, lands are wider than grooves. This should not affect accuracy. Both barrels are made by LW.
Also, the crown on cricket is very ugly compared to condor, not sure how Kalibrgun can let this to go on. I am sure it affects accuracy.
2. Magazine auto-load. I have read complaints on mechanism going bad. Reloading was rough compared to my Marauder (spring loaded magazine), even then, cricket needs too much force to rotate magazine. The indexing pin fits very snug in magazine’s notch. I did a mod, ground off & polished metal adjacent to notches with a dremel, without touching deepest part. This helps indexing pin to slide out of notch smoothly without need of a jerk. Reloading is quite a bit easier now, indexing is not affected. Only concern is bare aluminum oxidation. I have applied some AR8300 to avoid it.
3. On 3rd shot, epoxy glue gave up and rear delrin bushing of suppressor blew out off the tube. Luckily it was floating on barrel and didn’t break. I cleaned up old glue and stuck it back with a good 3M epoxy. I also drilled 6 holes of size 1/32″ staggered by 3/4″ (to avoid creating a weak point in tube) towards rear end. I saw many people have done this before. Vents should release some pressure on delrin bushing and it also made rifle a tad quieter or so I feel.
I get 48 (4 mags) consistent shots from 250bar and POI drops on 5th mag, 60th shot about 1.25 inches lower at 40 yards.
Comments welcome and if anyone tries #2 or #3, please write back on your experience.
Happy shooting (ripping off Jacque Pepin)
All Replies
Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
Cricket, I think the o rings hit the bottom of the first Crickets,
I like that red and white on the magazine , I tried red finger nail polish , But I could not see the red in low light conditions…
Maybe glow in the dark finger nail polish, That might work..
Mike
In the factory are not so stupid engineers!! If there would be noticeable positive effect they should made a hole long time ago…. I have any hole for sure!
I would hold off on venting the shroud. My cousins Compact was vented with 4 small holes in the rear, and when put on a Db meter next to mine it was noticeably louder. Same guns , same ammo, same fps. He wrapped the holes with electrical tape and it immediately quieted down to sound like my stock Cricket. You may have different findings, but that’s a first hand account.
218bee
I tried the oring mod for magazines, didn’t work well at all for me, a different size oring would suit better IMO.
I marked my magazines like this, start at white, red is last pellet
I would love to vent the shroud but too scared to fux something up
Make sure you do the ZONK mod on the orings on the magazines, It really helps installing the mags,,,,
I also mark my mags to see when I am on the last pellet. I think Zonk posted this also, I used a dermal and then coated it with clear finger nail polish
Do this when the wife is not home, :butkick:
I also doing the same mod to my Mutant, maybe the O-rings to if I can find the right size….
Mike
Regarding your mod to smoothen the indexing cycle, you didn’t need to grind your magazines. The indexing ball-detent’s tension is actually adjustable. The screw is directly underneath it. Just remove the stock and turn counterclockwise the allen screw on the bottom of the action. You just removed the black paint on your magazines even when you didn’t need to. :smilen:
Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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Thank you all for feedback and comments.
Shroud vent holes are not uncommon (e.g: Huggett) among air rifles, this is just my touch (after rear bush blew off). I will try electrical tape and a db-meter app.
I will definitely apply Magazine reload marking stickers and try out thicker O-ring – simple but awesome tricks.