condor running on helium
Does anyone have any experience with helium? Velocity, constanty, overall safty, helium leaking from the bottle etc? I’m planing to do some experimenting with 177. condor ,blodnob valve, gun running on helium and shooting bullets not pellets. 😀
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exactly BC,
the reason why there was no crack when it goes over the chrony is that he is in a small space and you do not get the supersonic crack.
although outside you do as it has room to spread out.
This helium thing has got me intrigued, from what i have been reading about it, it would seem to be a relatively safe gas to use in a HPA tank at 3000 PSI. The only negative is the smaller helium molecule will leak from our tanks. This isnt such an issue if you fill and shoot, rather than fill and shoot and store overnight.
Teflon reckons on a 75% increase in power or velocity. So lets allow a 50% increase in velocity as a conservative estimate . I have gotten 1030 FPS in my condor using 28 Gr Eun jins. a 50% increase means 1500 FPS using helium. Using a heavier hammer and a bloodnob vavle i have read of velocities again with eun jins at 1400 FPS. add 50% onto that…2100 FPS !!!! 😯 IE CURRAMBA !
I dont see any use in shooting at these velocities with a Diabolo type pellet. for one they are unstable and inacurate at that speed, and secondly they have very high drag, so will slow down below supersonic very quickly, possibly whitin 50 metres. If we are to shoot at these incredible velocities, we need air bullets. A bullet with a BC of .09 to .1 will retain velocity better and if shaped properly will be accurate.
My advice is to look up the airguns of arizona web site http://www.airgunsofarizona.com/ scroll down to daystate pellets and there you will find hollow point .223 bullets. even the rangemaster look good for supersonic flight. I live all the way in OZ so its hard for me to get this stuff, or else i’d have bought and tested them allready.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf8kQFLMlWg listen to that loud crack.
to decrease leading, and possibly increase velocity slightly you could use one of these:
http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=222645&t=11082005
http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=183655&t=11082005
look forward to hearing some results 😀
Would really like to see your swage setup!
Thanks
Walter….
Tnx!
I designed this system for Lee press, the dies are interchangeable so making other calibre bullets is easy by just replaceing three components.

The Lee cast press i’m using is this one:

Thats a good looking rifle. Anyone handle them in the US?
http://www.phoenixairguns.co.uk/
Anyone tried these?
Very nice design!
Would really like to see your swage setup!
Thanks
Walter….
what bullets?
I’ll be using .177 cal. self-swaged 21 grainers for this experiment


I make 3 slightly differen size 4.48: 4.50; 4.52, i will experiment what works best in condor. I belive they should stabilize quite good on higher velocities (helium), only consern will be leading but not before 1600-1800 FPS. I’ll post results when i have done some testing. In the future i’ll be also making heavier if the results with my current lenth are good, i will try to find the maximum length for the .177 bullet to stabilize. If my calculations are correct, i will get BC near to 22LR bullets somewere around 1.0
Muzza, not to split hairs, but as I understand it we’re talking a 50% to 75% POWER increase, not a 50-75% VELOCITY increase. In order to get your numbers up to a 50% POWER increase, we only have to push that 28gr Eun Jin at 1262 feet per second, or about 23% faster. 28 grains at 1030fps yields 66 foot pounds of energy. 28grains at 1262 fps will make just over 99 fpe, or a 50% power increase. On the other hand, if it is the velocity that actually increases 50%, that 28grain, 66 foot pound rifle of yours would pump out an astounding 148 foot pounds. Taken to the absurd, if you could use a Blodnob valve to push helium to 2100 feet per second, you’d have 274 foot pounds of skull crushing energy. And prolly not hit much of anything past 15 feet away.
Now, with that said, I know we’re just pulling percentages out of the air, since we just don’t know what the helium would do.
I watched the video and a few others from Cronicrash and one thing puzzled me. There is a 100 yard group he shoots, before that he chronies the gun at 1300 FPS. Now i have no doubt you can attain those speeds, but firing a pellet at 1300 FPS even with a silencer will make one hell of a crack. I didnt hear anything when he shot at those velocities.
This helium thing has got me intrigued, from what i have been reading about it, it would seem to be a relatively safe gas to use in a HPA tank at 3000 PSI. The only negative is the smaller helium molecule will leak from our tanks. This isnt such an issue if you fill and shoot, rather than fill and shoot and store overnight.
Teflon reckons on a 75% increase in power or velocity. So lets allow a 50% increase in velocity as a conservative estimate . I have gotten 1030 FPS in my condor using 28 Gr Eun jins. a 50% increase means 1500 FPS using helium. Using a heavier hammer and a bloodnob vavle i have read of velocities again with eun jins at 1400 FPS. add 50% onto that…2100 FPS !!!! 😯 IE CURRAMBA !
I dont see any use in shooting at these velocities with a Diabolo type pellet. for one they are unstable and inacurate at that speed, and secondly they have very high drag, so will slow down below supersonic very quickly, possibly whitin 50 metres. If we are to shoot at these incredible velocities, we need air bullets. A bullet with a BC of .09 to .1 will retain velocity better and if shaped properly will be accurate.
My advice is to look up the airguns of arizona web site http://www.airgunsofarizona.com/ scroll down to daystate pellets and there you will find hollow point .223 bullets. even the rangemaster look good for supersonic flight. I live all the way in OZ so its hard for me to get this stuff, or else i’d have bought and tested them allready.
Cronicash has some videos of him hitting a 300 mm target at 200 yards with supersonic velocities. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWLSrsKGixA
I played with some numbers and if that 75% figure proves accurate, and you shoot a 7 grain .177 pellet at 1400fps with air, it would yeild 30.47fpe. In order to get to 53.32fpe, (75% power increase) the helium would need to push the pellet at 1850fps. That’s wicked fast! Probaably worthless as tits on a boar-hog, but wicked fast.
For shits and giggles, I figured that with one of Tony’s hot-rodded AAA Condors, the one that he pushes a 42gr at an average of 88.2fpe, at 973fps (my GAWD that sounds delicious!), when run on helium, and if it would in fact produce 75% more power, that would mean it’s pumping 154.35fpe. To do that, the 42 grain slug’s gotta haul ass at 1286fps.
Now, assuming Tron’s recollection that helium does in fact produce 75% more power, we’re still faced with a projectile flying super-sonic. Can a Condor barrel stabilize the bigger Eun Jin’s any better than it can a light pellet at the same velocity?
Not to keep rambling, but where could a guy get some sort of written “proof” of the inaccuracy of diabolos moving thru the sound barrier? I don’t have a gun that’ll shoot that hot (yet 😆 ), so I can’t test it to see just how bad it can be, but what are we talking here, 6″ 100 yard groups? or 6″ 50 yard groups? 6″ 25 yard groups? I guess my question really is, do we empirically know that supersonic pellets, in a variety of weights, perform radically worse than sub-sonics? Has anybody got any hard data?
Helium will make about 75% moe power than air, if I remember correctly.
what bullets?
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thats alot clearer bc.. makes a nice crack doesnt it? 🙂
And thats with those 30 gr eley bullets !!!
goes to show what is achevable in the condor. remember this is in a talon with an 18″ barrell. If he upgraded to 24″ he should see very close to 1300 FPS..
i read in another forum one guy half filling his gun with helium, like it was 1500 psi and he then filled with helium to 3000psi and went from 350 FPS tp 1030 FPS. Thats quite a bit more than the 75% increase we have been talking about.
I have another issue that may arrise by using Helium. I have found my gun is leaking air with every shot from the barrel o ring. I changed them today with 90 durometer rings but still the problem persists, i may have a gun with a incorrectly machined breech. I suspect the O ring groove may be to big. Would a bigger o ring stop this?
Imagine using Helium with its smaller molecules i would loose even more air hence efficiency. Even so i would like to try it. Can Helium be mixed with air? I a thinking to perhaps top off a tank with Helium as a starting point to see what difference i get with velocity. Gotta sort out the seal problem first !