Condor home build help
Hey guys, my name is Dave from the UK. i’ve been lurking around on the forum for a while now and have decided to start my first project.
I am planning on making a home build condor. I have an 18″ .22 barrel and a 1400psi regualted tank.
I have all the materials and tools but have a few questions
How is the breech set up? Im making imne from aluminium and was wondering if it ran on the inside of the frame or just on the outsede of the barrel or both?
I know that the hammer runs on the inside of the frame but I realize that I have to make some kind of bushings so the steel hammer isn’t rubbing on the inside of the frame. Would some O-rings at each end be sufficient?
And some measurements please
How long is the “Thinner” part of the barrel that the breech slides on?
What is the OD and ID of a condor valve stem?
And lastly what would be a good hammer weight for 1400 psi regulated air with an 18″ barrel
I know it looks like im asking for quite a lot but i just want to get things right before I start cutting
Dave
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Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
I don’t have a talon with me at work, but I always thought the taper was so that when you change out the barrels they are easy to insert as the taper will guide the barrel into the hammer and spring which are not tensioned yet. I don’t know if the spring will reach the taper during a cocking cycle, I guess that would depend on what kind of hammer you are using; but if you have a boingy spring that tries to squirm away from the sidewalls enough so it catches your 90 degree shoulder, you may run into inconsistent strikes. I don’t think you’d see enough of an improvement in stiffness from machining a shoulder vs leaving the taper there. I do know there isn’t much difference when you change the taper angle. The factory uses a pretty good taper around 30 degrees from the bore, which I thought was pushing it; so on my barrels I use a 45 degree taper to give a beefier shoulder just in case.
walt
Walt do you know if there is a reason the breech slide area of the barrel is tapered down instead of having a 90deg. shoulder. I don’t think it’s for clearance and I can fillet the corner if it’s an issue of strength.
What I’m getting at is if this tapered area could be squared off and brought back closer to the breech this would give more area for a barrel guided hammer to run on.
Dave, from the end of my barrel to the shoulder on the tophat with the breech open is 1.125″. Since the breech is 2″ long this leaves you with .875″ of the breech still guided by the barrel.
Like the barrels Walt turned my factory barrel is .310″ diameter on the breech slide area. I reamed the aluminum breech I made to .3125″ so it’s a fairly close fit. If I ever turn my own barrel I’ll make this a little tighter to eliminate side to side play in the breech bolt but a 5/16″ reamer was all I had on hand and I don’t have a boring bar thin/long enough to single point it out smaller. With the breech O.D. about .015″ smaller than the frame I.D. I don’t get any rubbing from the breech flopping around (only slight movement with the .0025″ clearance).
I decided to make the aluminum replacement because as you are describing the delrin factory piece was worn on my gun and you’d have a lot of free play when only supported by the barrel end. My factory breech I.D. was .314″ on the t-hat end and ovaled out to a max of .318″ on the barrel end. Be careful laying out your breech bolt dimensions as to not have your cocking knob threads run into one of the o-ring grooves.
My Condor valve stem O.D. is .250″ and the I.D. is .210″, very thin walls!
Make sure to post your progress 😀
Thanks for that, just one more thing that has been bugging me.
When the breech is closed, how much of the barrel is inside?
I also have the feeling that when pushing the cocking knob forwards then the breech would be tilted off to one side after leaves the top hat. Or do you just cut the ID of the breech VERY close to the OD of the barrel so that there is no room for it to move
Thanks for all of the replys so far. You have helped so much
Dave
good guess. The slide area I measured off a LW barrel and which I used to cut all the .25 cal barrels for the group buy was 2.585″ from the end of the breech to the beginning of the tapered portion (base) and does not include the tapered ramp up to full diameter. Diameter of the slide area on all the barrels I cut were maxed at .310-.311″ as I wanted the thickest walls possible since the .25 is a large bore for that tiny slide diameter.
I cut them at .312″ and polished down to .311″ finished diameter.
aloha,
walt
That is awesome, thanks for that
I will be starting about the middle of next week
Dave
I know the breech is 2″ long so I’m going to guess the slide area is around 2 1/2″.
Roughly how long is the breech slide?
Okay I might have to make some of my own bushings then is an O-ring would be too much friction
I might start off with a 50g hammer and go from there
Dave
Just a few other things to think about:
There are arguments that a barrel guided hammer works more smoothly than a frame guided hammer. My next project will be building one so I can see for myself.
I don’t have a measurement in front of me on the necked down area of the barrel but this will depend on how you set up your trigger. It only needs to be long enough to allow you to push the breech forward to where the sear catches the hammer.
I just made a breech out of aluminum myself, I aimed for the tight end on o-ring clearances but I’m going to have to go back and open up the groove diameter to the loose end as the o-rings are creating too much drag on the breech making it difficult cock.
Breech rides on the barrel (O-Ring’s for a seal). The barrel in that area is .308 to .311 and because the breech slides over from the barrel to the valve stem that should have the same outer diameter as your barrel. I’m not sure of the ID because I have a non stock valve.
The factory hammer has delrin (acetal) bushings at each end to keep the metal from rubbing on the frame directly. Because the hammer needs to move freely O Rings in that area would have too much friction and slow the hammer.
Hammer weight depends a lot on the springs you use – would hate to give you a number, expecially when your using 1400 PSI. I run a 107 gram hammer but thats with 3000psi and a blodnob valve, I’d expect you’d need something much lighter.
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Ah, I bet your right about the barrel swaps. I wasn’t thinking about losing the taper in order to stiffen the barrel as much as giving a barrel guided hammer more area to ride on so it doesn’t “fall off” the tapered area like the breech does when not hooked to the tophat.