Problem with .25 Lemak Condor (valve)
I just got this .25 Condor but it’s only shooting 300-450fps through the chrony with a 2800 & 3K psi fills and it sounds really weak (w/o a shroud).
Previous owner said that the gun was stored for 8+mos and he always left the power wheel all the way up and filled to 3k psi. Is it possible the hammer has lost its properties and now has a smaller spring rate, ie: it got weak from being compressed all this time without being uncompressed?
Has anyone heard of that or experienced it? I tried the tank from my .22 Condor and it shot relatively fine, 875fps with 31gr Kodiaks (I had already taken 15+ shots with it w/the .22 so it was probably down to 2300psi from 2500 initial fill). This .25 is supposed to shoot 950-1,000fps with 42gr pellets so I ‘m curious how I can correct this problem so I can get the gun working the way it should. It could be there something wrong with the valve or top hat.. I don’t know.
Any ideas/help would be appreciated.
Harry
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How about an update on the valve. Did you get the problem ironed out.
My stem fits very tight and I got pissed a few times with it. Went to shoot and pellet came out like a pee shooter. Harry, just take some needle nose pliers, wedge em under the top hat , between the bottle top, and work pressure up and down till the stem comes out. Clean it with anything soap and water and clothe, no abrasives though, and then silicon it and put it back in. Now I’ve never heard of a non locking breach, what kind of bullshit is that, I wonder if it blows back open or not, I dont know a whole lot, it may work just as well.
Thanks guys. This is a Lemak gun. Lee also suggested taking out the valve stem and cleaning it, buffing it a little and putting it back. He thinks it might be getting stuck. Never done it before and not sure I won’t to go through all this after I paid all this money for a gun in “excellent condition”. This is all very weird because its previous owner said he only shot it like 30 times and then stored it for a very long time..
The tophat is way out. There ‘s a big gap there. I ‘ll have to measure it. So much that the breech slide doesn’t go all the way forward and lock. Lee said that was ok. It has the old style/standard valve/stem, and the top hat is oversized, bigger than the newer top hats. The top hat is completely custom from what I gathered from Lee as is the breech slide which has been enlarged to fit over the oversized tophat, as well as the barrel which has been re-worked by Lee. He suggested I buy a new high-flow valve, get a stock breech slide, send them to Tony/T.Tunes, and have him re-work the barrel, polish the valve, etc. and make sure everything matches up. I ‘m not doing all this because I paid a lot of $ for this gun and it should be working properly. If the previous owner doesn’t correct the problem or pay to have it fixed, I will be returning the gun.
I thought I could throw another high-flow valve/tank on there and have it work good but Lee indicates that it won’t. This is indicative of when I used my high-flow tank (from my .22 Airhog Condor) on the Lemak gun, and only got 875fps with 31gr Kodiaks (~50fpe). My .22 Condor shoots 31-32gr pellets much faster than that. The Lemak gun is supposed to be a 90+fpe gun (w/42gr). The barrel has to be modified to work with the smaller top hat Lee said and a new stock breech slide must be installed which is no big deal but I ‘m not paying to have the work done on the barrel. Besides a new high-flow valve would have to go on the old tank because it has permanent oak wood on it. I ‘m not confident enough to swap out the valve, polish it and all that, to make it a 90fpe gun. Lee had put a lot of work on this valve to make it shoot strong, so I ‘d like to get the old one fixed if I could. Maybe it’s just a stuck stem but I ‘ve never taken one out before.. and don’t think I have the right tools or anything to polish it or buff it with.
Anyway Lee said that this gun will shoot fine at 3K psi but recommended 2800 where it’s more consistent. I got it down to 2300-2400 psi and it was still shooting 400fps.
process of elimination, but I missed the part were you tried it with the new bottle, if all is working with the new bottle then you have a valve problem on the used one
The spring is not the problem. the problem is in the valve somewhere, from what you said in your post. First of all what is the gap of tophat to valve face?
maybe there is a lot of pressure on the valve stem due to the valve spring and it might need to be unscrewed a little.
Do you know if you have the new type of valve stem or the old one?
Pull the stem out, and clean it, then put some silicon on it, put it back in,and shoot it -at 2400lbs.
try reducing fill pressure on the new tank to about 2400 and see if velocity goes up.
What would this prove? We know with the tank/valve from my .22 Condor, the .25 works fine. Come to think of it, I should not suspect the hammer in the .25 because it worked fine with my own tank.
put the .25 barrel in the old one and see what happens
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Just shipped the tank out to Lee today. I will give an update on it when he gets to take it apart and contact me.