EDgun Matador R3 versus Kalibr Cricket, my comparison….
Hi guys,
Warning for those who don’t like images:
This is going to be a thread with lots of graphics….. 😉
As promised, I’ll try to share with you my personal opinion and findings while comparing these beauties:
As some of you may know, I have two Matador Std R3s and I have one Cricket (with access to another one). All are cal.22……
My wait for my Matadors should be well documented on this very forum…..
The Crickets were a part of a group buy masterminded from Europe somewhere. The Crickets were shipped in parts to Norway and reassembled by my good blueprinting friend Egon Olsen. In the process he had to remove a “restrictor” screw that had been put into the guns before shipment. Most probably because of Power limitation rules at origin….
The Crickets arrived with no documents whatsoever. No instructions, – no nothing. I don’t think this is standard procedure though…..
The Cricket weighs less than the R3, – and is approx 5 cm shorter. Not a lot, – but overall it makes the Cricket even easier to handle than the already tiny R3….
The side by side comparison was done from my modest little shooting table at my summerhouse:
– and the shooting range is here, – with my target set up at 46mts:
Why 46 mts ? Simply because I could not pull my shooting stand further back right now. A huge tree has fallen during winter, and all the branches have taken up my space… 👿
First problem: How to fill the f…. Cricket ?
The fillprobe nut is so tiny that a standard foster coupling gasket will not seal. The entire probe is small, – and you fear you may break it while trying to tighten it:
The above (sorry for the image quality) is a comparison between ED’s, Cricket’s and Falcon’s fill probes. You can probably see what I mean….
As I could not make a standard Fostergasket fit, Egon had to make special gaskets that we fitted into the Foster coupling itself. Not an ideal solution, – and I have no clue how long it will last…….. 🙄
On the fill probe: Matador 1, Cricket 0 points.
Air filling:
I honestly dont like any of the solutions that these two manufacturers have chosen………..
The Cricket people have come up with the worst. To expose the hole for the fillprobe, – you have to slide forward the tip of the reservoir. But that stupid tip is retained by a spring, – and slides back with a smack once you let go:
If you’re not careful when taking the fillprobe back out, the tip will spring back and ruin the fill probe O-rings faster than I can say my name….
While filling, the “tip” rests on the previously mentioned small nut. And there’s not a lot clearance. So a bigger nut (for those with lathe skills), – is not going to help you much. A thicker nut might…….
In short: A very stupid filling system, – BUT once you know how to operate it and care is taken, – at least it covers the hole when filling is over.
The Matador does not come with anything to cover the filling hole at all:
I use tape right now, – but a plug of some sort would be good….. 😉
My preferred system would be that of Falcon:
The tip of the reservoir has been turned into a curled “collar” that you rotate to expose the hole. Simple, easy and effective. And few moving parts that may break or go astray……….
Now, I have no idea how much air I can fill into the Cricket, – and the gun gauge certainly does not help much:
I trust the gauge on my fillkit, – and 3000 psi is roughly on the border between green and yellow…….
Points for airfill procedure: Matador 1, Cricket 0. In my opinion….. 😉
Cheers from Trygve 😀
To be continued……….. 😀
(if you so desire…… 😳 )
All Replies
Oh man, here too.. 27 degrees!! mmmmm…..
Perfect weather for comparisson tests, Zoco 🙂
zoco,
These pictures you take are just too good man, anyway to have a High Res. version to use as a desktop backround ??
Naser
You wouldn’t have been tempted to shoot any state property would you? What is that about a 150 yard shot to that buoy?
All,
I am still alive, – but somebody up there found the right switch. All of a sudden we went from +10C til 26/27 degrees….. 😆
I immediately jumped into my car and returned to my summerhouse. It does not get any better than this:
I have both guns with me pluss a few more……. 😉
We’re not done yet ……….. 😀
zocoloco can this gun be easily turned down to 12ftlbs(cricket) and might i ask the price of the gun..interesting thread although some of it is beyond me and some of the meanderings detract from the original thread.the photos are exellent and make it far more interesting interesting … 😎
Trygve: I am going to steal your topic for a moment, sorry! 😳
Kazzz, I have no doubt that you get the best indoor accuracy at 937 fps @100 meters. We have seen your results! But, you are shooting inside under controlled conditions.
Ed announced here that he was going to make 30, R2.5 25 cal longs, just to see what the demand would be for them. Mamcrackin and I started to drive Tony and Ed nuts begging to get one! When they came in, they were set to shoot the 35.8 grain Eun Jin pellets at 950 fps. The Jun Jin pellets don’t shoot worth a damn! JSB 25.4 grains were going 1040! We had to turn them down. Mam turned his down to shoot the JSBs at 935 and I was shooting them at 950. His average group size was better than mine.
I had a full day at the range and plenty of air and pellets. The wind was around 6-7 mph, 90 degrees from right to left. I thought that I would try to find the best fps for a moderately windy day. I could easily adjust the HST down and shoot 5, 5 shot groups at each speed. I refilled after each 25 shots and I got consistent enough fps per each HST adjustment to get useful data.
As I went down from 950, the groups tightened up. At lower speeds, I had less vertical and horizontal displacement, with less of the dreaded fliers also. The best groups of the day were at 860! The groups at 880-900 weren’t much worse and, being the power junky that I am, I settled for 890. Over 900, the groups got progressively worse as the speeds increased. In independent testing, Mam found the same results.
I agree with you, I think that we have reached the limits of the diablo design. They were made for guns that shot 300-400 fps and not the speeds that we are trying to push them. I am going to try the Hart custom made .224 barrel and swaged bullets as soon as I get the barrels and swaging equipment in. Down to 5 weeks, I hope!
ED: I am glad that you posted that you can get a JSB 22 cal Monster 25.4 grain pellet shooting at 320mps/1040fps! I know that I am going to have a lot more bore friction shooting straight side bullets instead of the 2 friction points of a pellet. I hope to be able to shoot .224” 25-30 grain bullets at 890 or so out of my R3 22 long. I know that I am going to have to turn the gun up and I will break air valve rods a lot sooner, I have 6 in stock. 😆
I am not really concerned about regulated shots, if I can get 30, with good results, I will be happy. 40 shots with great results would be even better!
OK Trygve, you can have your topic back. 😳
Trygve, that is a very interesting comparison on air efficiency between two guns. There is no doubt the “Mr. Matador” beats up “Lady Cricket” in this category. You should be able to calculate the air efficiency of these two guns since you have the info on air-tube capacity, start and end pressure of regulated shots, number of regulated shot, and the energy of the gun spitting out in regulated shots. How about the extreme spread and variation between shots? It seems that “Lady Cricket” slightly edges out “Mr. Matador.” But it is difficult to tell because the scaling in Y-axis is too large to tell in the graph.
Please keep feeding us…
Regards,
Endo
I bought some .25 daystate 36 grains pellets, these have better BC, as i like to shoot long ranges. My Range is setup upto 192 yards, JSB are by far the best pellets but they are too light in .25 & it would be nice to have a higher enrgy with good BC for long range shooting like these Daystate.
You can even make special order barrels for these or any other heavier pellets that people can buy as an upgrade. The H&N 31 grains are good pellets too but dont shoot well as JSB kings, pitty.
It also says on the box that these pellets shoot best from unchocked barrels & i might cut the chocke off & see how well they do.
Here is a comparison between other heavy .25 pellets.
H&N 31gr,EunJin 35gr,Daystate 36gr,EunJin 43gr.
Zoco, sorry not trying to hijack this thread but your threads always has great info & direct feedback from Ed & they help every Edgun owner, if you think this post still should have its own thread, than i will delete it ASAP.
For more pictures check out photobucket.com/naser404
It is quite difficult to get a high energy with small calibers with air. So I consider that is almost impossible to run .223 to the speed good enough to have accuracy. I managed to run JSB Monster .22 up to 320 m/sec but it was too much air per shot and not good results.
JSB is the most accurate pellets in this caliber, I tried many of different brands and know that.
I know Ed, you don’t hear me saying they are not. But when you push the pellets + 70meters, I think a .223 pellet is much better. And I’m sure they will be at 200 meters. A JSB is .22 or .25, I’m speaking about .223, 41 grain pellet.
JSB is the most accurate pellets in this caliber, I tried many of different brands and know that.
I may not be the right person for that. My experience with shooting beyond 100 mts is veeery limited indeed, and I have no problems admitting that….. 😉
Always welcome my friend 🙂 Our country maybe not as big as you said, but we have some good shooters here 🙂
Still love your comparison!! Keep up the good work and always willing to help..
OFFTOPIC:
And for the optimum speed of JSB, OG says idd 890, mine flies best at 937 🙂
ps. Ed, maybe try a .223 barrel and pellet? BC is much better, I think the JSB is your biggest problem..
Every gun has its own sweet speed, even with the same barrels. It happens due to the fact that PCP system is very relevant to many components and changing one you can dramatically change the others and the whole system. Trygve makes the comparison of two guns from the box, I consider that is a right way, as it give the preliminary information for users about guns and what they can have not making any changes. But the second stage is to get know your own gun as well as possible, to learn to feel it. And you have to change the speed for few m/sec just to find the best one. Besides you should know that sweet speed differs for different distances, quite often it can be not good accuracy at 50 meters and perfect at 150 meters at one speed and vise versa at the other speed on the same gun and the same shooter. So, no recommendations, only you own experience. My task is to make a gun with the definite characteristics suitable for 99 % of users but it has some potential to be better, for sure.
Not meaning to hijack but To quote Ed “I can differ in few times and a lot depends on the barrel and how the pellet goes through it and the correspondence between its speed and angle speed (revolution per minute). After a year of test I found quite a good solution for our speeds, JSB heavy pellets and accuracy not only at close range (like 50 meters) but at long range shooting (up to 200 meters)”
Just wanting to what he determined to be optimum FPS in the Longs with new barrel specs.
This has been very informative thread.Im sure I speak for everyone else when I say we want to see the guts of these two compared 😀
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Well, – this kind of temperature didn’t last for too long. But enjoying approx +30 Centigrades or so for a week with veeeery little wind is unusual in this country. It was quite amuzing too to see that Oslo was for several days the hottest capital of Europe………
Some brief comments/answers to above posters:
@ Naser/OldGoat/Ed: I agree that we have probably reached a level of speed for existing/known pellets where any additional speed would just kill the accuracy. The old “supersonic syndrom” I guess. I have tried the Daystates and never again. Shot them at various speeds with my DS AirRanger 80 with an unchoked barrel. One would have expected DS to come up with something better for their own gun. At the promised fpe level of 80 (1000 fps with 36 grs), I could not hit a barn door at 100 yds (probably not even the barn itself).
They grouped a little better at lower speeds (you get to see that very quickly with the unregulated AR80, – it can only keep the promised 80 fpe level for a few shots. The shotstring is terrible………. 🙄 )
@ Endo: Yes, it appears air efficiency is much better in the R3 than the Cricket. I guess it has to do with distance from reservoir to chamber which is shorter (less volume) in the R3 than in the Cricket. It may also have to do with the different regulators. Scientifically accurate measurements are difficult to achieve with the gauges I have. To be able to measure correctly, – you need a very accurate gauge to ensure the same fill in both guns. While fairly accurate, – the scale on my gauges are not precise enough for exact measurements……. 😳
@ Moonbear: I am sure it can be adjusted down, – but how much I have not tried. However a full powered gun (FAC) would normally need more than just hammerspring adjustments to produce a stable sub 12 ft/lbs shotstring, – especially over time. I my experience a different hammerspring would be needed and also a more narrow transferport…….
Price: I have no idea what it would retail for. They’re probably even more difficult to find than the EDguns due to lack of export out of Russia…. 😉
@ LTLurker: That buoy is roughly 350 mts from where I sit. Belongs to a local yacht club. And believe me I have tried, – not only once but maaaaany times to hit that thing……
With no luck I may add……. 😳
@ Naser and others:
If you would like high resolution copies of my images for whatever use/reason (not commercial though), drop me a pm or an email and tell me which one. My pleasure only……. 😀
So now, – after this incredible week, I have gained a lot more experience with these two beauties…..
But nothing that would change the initial impression…..
My thinking is that Lady Cricket may have been optimized/originally designed for the JSB 15.8 and that she delivers at her best with that particular pellet. The JSB 18 was not around at the time and was only introduced a few (three…???) years back if I’m not mistaken…..
As Ed suggests, – trying to shoot her at R3 levels with JSB18s would probably be to “overstress” her ladyship in the long run with the risk of destroying her as a result………. 😉
It seems her maximum comfort level is around the 30 fpe mark……
But at that level and with the JSB 15.8 she shoots like a dream with accuracy unmatched by most guns I have tried. I am veeery impressed with this little lady’s performance…….. 😆
And I love the mag. ED please………… 😉
The R3 as I understand it, has been oiptimized for the JSB 18 and tuned to deliver some 920 fps which gives you close to 34 fpe. Not an enormeous difference, – but still…….
That said, I don’t think the JSB 18s should be sent out at higher speeds as it would most likely hamper accuracy. In my own experience, I would say around 890 fps is ideal. But then again, – every gun is different. Even the same model from the same supplier. My two R3s are not identical either, – be it in “feel”, smoothness of action or accuracy. But then again it is very hard to finetune hsp and regulator in exactly the same way in both guns…….. 😉
In short, – while the R3 and the Cricket both look the same and both are Russian made bullpups, – a side by side comparison may not be fair. Simply because they were designed with different objectives in mind (my thinking only)…
But it is indeed an interesting exercise, and there’s more to come……… 😉
Comments/questions appreciated………
Cheers from Oslo in plus 6 !!!! 😯