Haley Scandalous, initial fill pressures and bore dimensions
I did about all I could today considering I did not have that stock as of yet.
I slugged the bore, it slugged out at .257.
I tested for fill pressures by filling to 3500 PSI and shooting one shot over the chrony and then repeating every 200 PSI unti velocity quit increasing, then I shot a strig with the 74 grain bullets and the 94 grain bullets. It was hard to keep it level over the chrony without a scope and holding the action, the speeds may in fact be a little faster if I had it perfectly level.
74 grains
3500 PSI=1074 FPS
3700 PSI=1096 FPS
3900 PSI=1100 FPS
4100 PSI=1088-1101-1083-1042
1101 is right around 200 FPE
94 grains
4200=970 FPS-1028-1005
top FPE is right around 220 FPE
Jack is sending out some more springs to raise the opening pressure.
And I am leaving to look for that stock at the PO.
Regards,
Roachcreek
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I have a Wheeler engineering kit that I have used a few years before, it is the 2nd kit I have had, I got it from Midway.
Give me a few minutes, I just lost the post I was doing on this.
RC
Tof, Roach said that he had an unopened “kit” and I would bet that the kit came from Veral Smith:
http://www.lbtmoulds.com/measurebore.shtml
Caboose, you could tether a Haley gun easy as it takes up to 4,000 psi. As long as your tank wasn’t over 4,000, you just hook the hose from the tank up to the Haley and keep shooting. You would need a regulator, on the tank, before the fill hose and set to a lower pressure, to tether to an air gun that used less air pressure.
Alright, Thanx RC.
Question for you too. I’m a NOOB when it comes to fire lapping barrels but i know the term.
I could Google the term “FIRE LAPPING BARRELS” but i would rather ask you to explain the benefits in your experience.
I’m hearing that term more and more now since the 257 arrived.
I know the barrels from TJ Enterprises are Hammer Forged and i have a TIKKA in 6.5×55 that has a hammer forged barrel and the thing needs little cleaning and drives fricken tacks. IIRC, the manual said the barrel needed no break in and i never did. Third inch groups all day long at 100 yards with Lapua and Hornady bullet handloads.
I’ve read that JOHN talked to some barrel making GURU about fire lapped barrels and that’s part of the reason why John’s Haley shoots so good. Its too bad so much info goes OFF THE NET. I wish folks would share more info so we all can learn.
Or shall i say, I WISH JOHN WOULD PARTICIPATE HERE ON OUR FORUM….lol
So hammer forged barrels and fire lapping, i’m just trying to see if i might need to do anymore to not only my Tikka (probably will never touch that barrel) but to my 257 TalonD also
silly question, but how would one go about tethering the rifle to a larger tank for bench shooting/testing? and what tank would you guys suggest? what are your setups? would I have to go with different tanks if I wanted to also use it to fill “standard” PCP’s? 3k psi. I’m just wondering, so that I can get all my ducks in a row for the JH rifle.
Tof,
Yeah I cleaned it and then slugged it, Jack also lapped it.
It went thru 1700 PSI, about the same as my Ranger.
RC
My rifle seems to like the heavier slugs, so yes I do need a heavier spring. I have a .257 sizing die that I can try also.
It is my intention to get the rifle shooting the heaviest slug at the boundaries of transonnic flight as I can accurately.
I took me months to get the 25 LBT shooting like the Haley does now, so with work, and that is what these guns need is a lot of attention and learning to feed aned shoot them, it will tighten up.
I alo\so will fire lap the bore in the near future, I have a unopened firelap kit setting on my shelf. Then I will slug it and see how it changed it if any.
I also noticed that I have leading already, so time to clean.
Regards,
Roachcreek
I actually shoot my slugs sized to .25730″. My barrel slugs out at .25695.
I agree 100 percent MAW. I slugged my barrel and it came out to .2573. My custom LEE sizing die sizes them to .25775. So the bullets are just .0004+- over the groove diameter.
A thousandths of an inch can be the difference between a 2.5 inch group and a 1.5″ +-. I did a video of just that very thing over on the Big Bore forum using the Haley 457. 1 Thousandths made a big difference. And .001 smaller will equate to MORE velocity.
A stronger spring you can move up to a higher pressure and possibly a better shot group, I would probably goe the other way and see if the lower pressure and spring would work better first. Hey another thing shoot some 257’s instead of 258’s
Butcher,
Its not that difficult. The PB guys HAVE figured it all out. The faster you wanna push a bullet, the harder that bullet needs to be.
So if an airgunner wants to shoot 1100-1500 fps, he or she just needs to either ADD more tin or more linotype or whatever to harden the bullet when they cast.
RJ has already experienced the leading issue and he uses GUM for lead (very PURE lead)…lol!
Also, a barrel that has been polished or fire lapped might not get as much leading as lets say and unfinished or unpolished barrel but, no barrel is impervious to leading.
I’ve already shot/tested my new barrel in the rough (new with no polishing) vs it being polished with JB Bore paste. The polished barrels DOES clean easier and with fewer patches and it has a much better feel to it when i do clean it vs when it was new and unpolished. My answer to it all is just to keep my barrel clean with a cleaning every few outings. I also apply just about 5 drops of FP10 for shits sake just to keep a small layer of lube in the barrel with each bullet passing. But i don’t like too much lube. Especially the wet ones. So far so good
HOLY SHIT RC! 3 SHOTS gulped down 2000 psi. That’s over 660 psi per shot for a damned 257 cal. OK, i know the gun is new so i’m gonna have to be patient but, common sense tells me that if you go to a heavier mainspring, it’s gonna get worse with the air consumption. MORE is NOT the way to go but that’s just my initial impression.
Also, have you cleaned the barrel? Yeah, it’s new but that don’t mean it aint clean. Most new guns have dirty barrels. I know, I know, you just got the thing. I won’t even shoot a group till i go through the gun to remove any roughness anywhere in the gun. Starting with a internal polishing and bore cleaning/polishing first.
That thing is moving some serious air thru that .257 barrel.
As far as the leading issue (lubing aside):
I can’t help but think that extensive experimentation with different lead/tin ratios and diameters (I hear diameter is often the leading culprit in some PB’s, even when using the correct alloy) will lead to a formula that severely decreases leading. Testing different lead would be very educational to see the effects on velocity/efficiency as well.
If the PB guys could figure-out leading issues with cast upwards of 2200+fps, why not the airgun guys at these velocities?
I hypothesize that it would be easier to deal with leading in an airgun than a PB, as we don’t have the PB’s FOULING to contend with (my understanding of fouling is that it is the cooked-on stuff resulting from the PB’s propellent).
It would be awesome to see some truth-seeking on this issue performed by impartial casters/airgun owners that have no interest in stacking the deck in their testing procedures in order to reinforce a preconceived conclusion.
Thing is, this sort of testing would require A SHIT-TON of time and especially documentation. Key word being SHIT-TON! A guy would have to shoot one diameter, made from one alloy hardness for several hundred shots before moving on to the next candidate that will only be about 1 or two BHN in hardness different, or 1/1000th diameter different, never changing the alloy/diameter simultaneously. Everything one at a time, from BHN5, to BHN?? and however many thousandths on either side of .257
My guess is that the Hunter Supply stuff is around BHN9-10 or so (about in the range of the oh-so-common 50-50 wheel weight/pure lead mix). Seeing as BHN9 is about %90 harder than pure lead (BHN5), and commonly used alloy out of PB’s shooting at the same velocities we see here in this .257, the harder lead (still relatively “soft” when speaking PB’s, though) may go a long ways towards helping with the pure leads’ leading issues at those velocities.
Riff,
I almost always do , by wrapping electrician tape around my cleaning rod and then pushing a brush down the bore from the muzzle almost to the breech so the tape lodges in the muzzle.
That seems to center the rod in the bore so you can check it.
But saddly I did not do that this time. I just drilled it by hand. I leveled the break in leather jaws in my vice, and I have a bubble on my drill, so I lined it up with the 1/8 inch exhaust holes on the top of the break, held the bubble level on the drill and drilled it. The job went so easy I thought for sure I had it working.
Problem seems to be the hole is just not quite big enough.
I will drill it out further in the next week or so.
Problem is with timing, I have two guns I want to shoot and my daughter is getting back from months of traveling and I am going to spend some time at the coast with her and her BF, so I have two really cool guns to shoot but will not be home.
I would love to take my Drozd with me, being at the coast with all those flying white rats would be more temptation than I could stand.
You living next to the Columbia I am sure you can understand.
RC
It will do better RC, I have no doubt.
Very nice piece of wood you chose. Thats one of my favorite laminates.
When you drilled that MB out, did you look at the alignment? I can’t tell if you can look thru the bore on a Haley, but Ive checked muzzle alignment with a 1/4″ dowel before on my fatherinlaws marauder. Not sure why this wouldn’t work for a Haley.
I know you don’t have a lathe, so I wont ask how you drilled it. 😉
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Tof,
I have done a few barrels, I have had better luck with fire lapping than doing the hand lapping with a lead slug.
Hand lapping is much more labor intensive and you can ruin a barrel easily, I did just that on the first one I did.
I first for years, read every article I could find on the subject in Rilfe, the American Rifleman and a host of other gun magazines.
I was using Corbin bullets with jackets made of 22 LR hulls which fouled badly, so my first rifle I used it in was a .223 barrel to polish the interior. I then used it on a Winchester Model 95, and then on a 03A3 barrel that was frosted badly and dark from corresive primers.
All were imporved, but all shot pretty well to begin with, it mainly made them easier to live with regarding metal fouling.
What your doing with firelapping is to polish the interior of the barrel. Not all barrels are created equally regardless of the technique used to make them, ie not all hammer forged barrels are the same quality as you have seen with the TJ barrels and your Tika.
TJ barrels were really not made to be air gun barrels originally I suspect. They were made to replace badly abused or shot out or corroded black powder and corrosive primer era barrels.
As a result they did not need the fine interior of what a modern high class target barrel such as a Lilja or your Tika would exhibit, they were mainly to get a unusable antique rifle shooting again.
And they to do a fine job of that.
With us ar gunners, we need a thin barrel, because to turn down a one inch blank does not always work well and it always involves a lot of expensive machining. Being as these are thin because they are made to be epoxied into a bored out original barrel they were ideal for the big bore air rifle construction by custom gunsmiths such as Haley and XPAir guns.
But they have a rough interior.
My first experience with them was with the XPAirguns Ranger 45, that barrel looked like 40 miles of bad road. I was not used to seeing a new barrel look like that. Dan Mcvey replaced it , but the newer one while not having the trauma that first one did was still rough.
I smoothed it out with hours of hand lapping with JB bore cleaner and in turn increased the interior diameter from .452 to .453, it is now very smooth and does not lead nearly as much as it did. Is it more accurate? Well it was very accurate to start with, as was the first barrel, and it still is accurate, it is now easier to clean out the lead and it leads less.
But firelapping would have been easier.
In short the JB worked, but involved hours of work that a retired guy like me can invest.
Firelapping is much quicker, safer and easier.
What your doing with firelapping, is to smooth out that bullet metal catching, rough interior so that is does not metal foul as much, is easier to clean and often increases velocity because it is smoother.
It may or may not improve accuracy, that will just depend on the individual barrel and how accurate it was before fire lapping.
You use decending grinding and polishing compounds, 220,320 and 600 grit, that is impregnated upon bullets usuing two small steel plates.
Each grit is a 20 shot program involving strings of 5 shots, cleaning and repeating for 20 shots. Then you move on to the next and smaller grit and repeat until you have fired 60 shots in 5 shot strings, with 220, 320 and 600 grit, again, cleaning every 5 rounds.
Cleaning before you start this and inspecting and slugging the barrel is very imortant for me, and at least for you, you should clean and inspect your bore to see what is going on before and during the process.
With firearms, you have to handload these bullets and you want reduced loads, because the gritty bullets will increase pressure.
With overbore calibers where your wearing your barrel out more quickly by erroding the throat, you need to know this will move that throat forward, so on a well used 300 Ultra mag, you might not want to do this.
I hope this helps explain the process, but I am sure it has created a lot more questions.
Regards,
Roachcreek