Top Hat setting (there seems to be two ways of thinking)
At the advice of some of the TAG members, I have set my top hat out enough to keep the breech slide from having any play in it when cocked. That brings my Tophat up to around .083 or thereabouts. And this is real close to how the factory had it set.
If I go any lower with the Tophat, the breech slide has some play in it. Not much….but some. So do I adjust top hat for maximum efficiency (air usage and velocity), or do I need to leave the Tophat where it’s at so that there’ll be no breech slide play?
I’m getting a bunch of Kodiacs delivered tomorrow and am gonna get serious with this thing. I tore it all down today and first thing I did was rip that little tag off the spring. Then I polished the I.D. of the frame real smooth with 1500 grit (didn’t come close to removing anodizing). I thin polished the narrow part of the barrel to a mirror shine. Plumbers silicone on that part only.
Removed safety and cleaned trigger components….lightly lubed them. Reassembled.
I noticed that one of the plastic ends of the hammer was already flattened and nicked pretty bad. Smoothed it down. Put it all together and fired it several times to check functioning. MUCH SMOOTHER. And somewhat quieter….don’t know how that happened, but glad it happened.
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You can’t, when ready to fire the hammer is an inch or two away from the breach/bolt thingy.
I think he meant to say TopHat… 😉
I adjusted my hammer so there is no breech movement then added a rubber bushing behind the tophat to reduce valve travel. I hate the idea of the tophat smashing against the brass with each shot, plus I can just use shim washers behind the rubber bushing to fine tune things.
Airforce really has a terrible design with those little setscrews grabbing on the ridiculously thin walls of the valve stem. The tophat and rest of the valve should have been made one piece to begin with. No idea what they were thinking 🙄
Oh, I’ve also had problems with the tophat coming loose, so I JBwelded the tophat in position. No chance that will ever move and no need to adjust anything if you use the shim washer trick.
How do you adjust the hammer, so that there is no breach movement?
I have a problem with the breach knob chewing up the frame.
When firing the gun and the breach knob hits the frame, it makes a really loud noise, and it is pissing me off.
Thanks.
RiffRaff,
Sounds to me that the surfaces where the breech bolt supposedly latch, right or left, or deformed or on a slight angle. Can you lay a straight edge across from side to side and put a light beneath to view for straightness?
No idea. If I leave the bolt centered, between the locking slots, it stays put when I fire the rifle and the POI remains where I want it.
Lock it left, it flips to the right and vice-versa, and the shots move to the side I locked the knob. Its so predictable its not even funny.
Ive had this rifle apart so many times, swapped EVERYTHING out at one time or another and the same issue rears its head.
Ive even rotated the bottle collar and nothing changed.
Just a thought RR , if the bolt if moving from one side to the other after every shot , it may be that the breach or hammer are not perfectly square on their mating surfaces causing the movement .
aloha,
walt
Interesting you should ask Walt. The breech I was using is the one that split apart on me with the Brad Valve. It split laterally between the 2 screw holes that I needed to install my cocking bolt I was testing.
When it split, I had gone back to the knob itself because the bolt mount had broken. I had a grub screw glued into the 2nd hole.
Until failure, no sign of any leaks.
Anyway back to the POI change. With my Condor Frame, it still happened even with the new breech. I tried many different bushing designs, it even happened when using the .25 barrel you sent me with your bushings. Nothing seems to be out of alignment, the breech never struggles to slide over the tophat.
So maybe my rifle is irritatingly unique in this respect? But I do find better shot-to-shot consistency when I just pull the breech back and leave it centered.
Everytime I “lock” the bolt right or left, then fire the rifle, the bolt handle ends up locked on the other side. It flips across.
Its really a non-issue to me now. Just thought others might figure it out when I explained it.
It doesnt happen with the side cocking frame YN sent me, because there are no locking detents machined into the frame. The knob stays centered in the slot.
I have the Subssonnic bolts on my three rifles, so I do not have the option of adding the spacers. Combined with the extra Bolt weight, having it tight against the Top Hat is the only way it works consistanly.
I had been doing this for quite some time and wondering if it was correct, then like you Rob, I began reading that others do that also and felt vindicated.
Actually where I started doing it was after getting the Airarcher, which as you know has the to Hat setting way out, then when I got the Subssonnic bolt to help cock that heavy spring, it just worked out well for me to do it that way.
As far as pushing it back into place each time, The type of shooting I do, where often I stick the barrel thru grape vine foilage to take my shot, I find that the branches will move the breech out of place if it is not tight, so this tight against the Top Hat does double duty for me.
My rifles definately give noticable weak shots if there is play and the breech is not tight against the Top Hat.
Roachcreek
I’m curious as to where that came about as well. I’ve seen it recently and wondered who started that.
If you adjust your tophat properly and find there is play on the breech slide, you can always add a bit larger diameter washer or collar on the breech knob…
I looked for it and found it (in the trash can) and tore the rifle down again and ever-so-carefully reattached it to the spring. Thanks for the heads up………….yeah right! LOL
Oh, jeese, I was re-reading,someone removed a silencer tag, man they will track you down and lock you up for sure. I heard it’s a 10,000 fine or 10 years or both.
Riffraff, your problem interests me. Did you try a different breech? Offhand, I would have said it probably has something to do with either the barrel being off center (bushings might not be true… or frame might be tweaked) or the breech being slightly out of true or the breech face being slightly canted or the tophat being slightly canted so when the hammer strikes it delivers a slight vector to the side which tries to nudge the barrel sideways slightly… hard to tell without actually testing the installed barrel with a micrometer and seeing if its centered. But a quick way to isolate it if it starts happening again is to try different breech first. Then different tank/valve and if that fails, different bushings and/or barrel.
aloha,
walt
Thanks for the tip on the nail polish. I actually had damaged threads on the stem…and the tophat would literally fall into place, not thread 🙁 I figured the JBweld would keep things in place, so far so good after 500 or so shots.
Try some hard as nails nail polish works good, and you can break it loose later if you want to change it.
There might be a 3rd method…..
I adjusted my hammer so there is no breech movement then added a rubber bushing behind the tophat to reduce valve travel. I hate the idea of the tophat smashing against the brass with each shot, plus I can just use shim washers behind the rubber bushing to fine tune things.
Airforce really has a terrible design with those little setscrews grabbing on the ridiculously thin walls of the valve stem. The tophat and rest of the valve should have been made one piece to begin with. No idea what they were thinking 🙄
Oh, I’ve also had problems with the tophat coming loose, so I JBwelded the tophat in position. No chance that will ever move and no need to adjust anything if you use the shim washer trick.
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I just close the breech and shoot now, my tophat is adjusted to highest speed possible, but I have another that is set for more shots so lower top-hat. I use black tape to take up the slack, under the cocking knob on that one.