I have found the holy grail.
I’ve had problems with consistency running full out with my AAA Condor. I finally decided the valve, rather than the hammer, was bouncing, causing minor, but annoying, inconsistency. So I ground a fiber washer down to 0.030 and slipped it under the tophat. Instantly solved the problem. But wait! There’s more! 85fpe with nail-driving accuracy. With real potential for 98fpe for 10 shots accurately. No shit. With some lovin’, this bastard will shoot.
The wind’s been rough lately, so I’ve pulled in to my scope’s near zero at 28yds. This group was shot at the magic moment when the wind dropped.
The velocities read straight off the chrony for EJ 43grn slugs. Close enough to 85fpe for bragging rights with a little more work.
The second part needs some explaining. A while back, some guys were discussing stuffing steel bb’s in a pellet skirt to boost mass. This seemed like an idea worth some effort. I scored some .177 roundball and various sizes of lead shot. A 43grn EJ with a #8 skeet pellet under an 8.2grn ball yeilds damn close to a 52grn slug with a bit of silicon to hold everything together.
I whipped up five each of two different designs. The Condor will toss ’em at 925fps, maybe a touch more. I shot 98fpe today and got groups. I think this is gonna work.
Next step is to grind my damper / shim to 0.020. I want a little headroom. All this has the Condor maxed. I tossed a Predator at over 1100 for grins. C-rack!
John
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Forty shots is awesome if you’re shooting paper, but the whole point of this gun is to shoot shit that annoys me or critters that look tasty. In that context, forty shots lets me flip powder burners and their absurdly expensive ammo the bird. For my purposes, this Condor vastly exceeds my needs. It’s all I had hoped for and just a shitload more.
Wish you many calm, sunny days.
John
Thats looking really good J.I.T. …. Ive been running the larger restrictor.. 880-903 getting 42 shots. power wheel around 8.6 with usb 25.4’s I have shot many groups with it yet. been so cold. plus i got a a mad dog stock on the way.
I’ve backed away from trying to drive the EJs over 900fps, at least until the weather improves. Pushing so hard makes the gun twitchy so every time I think I’ve got it, things go to shit and I’ve lost patience. I don’t know how many times I’ve been sure I had it, set up to shoot a group to prove it, only to have the POI go to shit. I finally got to the point of screaming and throwing shit, so I screwed in the smallest restrictor, pumped it to 3000, and started pumping JSBs. With the power wheel set to twelve, my first shot was 805fps. Velocity peaked at 827 at 9 shots. At 30 shots, I was getting 815fps and getting bored, so I switched to polymags. Velocity dropped to 805 with the heavier pellet, then fell to 796 over ten shots. The Condor held stable velocity for forty shots, and I gave up before the gun did. Accuracy? See below. That’s four ten shot groups.
This thing never ceases to amaze me.
John
Thank you John! Got it saved.
I raise over fifty types of chiles, maybe ten different ones per year, so the chile part is easy. Man, that sounds delicious! Bet it works well with venison.
Gonna steer the next Pork Butt away from the sausage grinder and into the crock.
I don’t have problems at night much. Some of my pens are thirty years old and still in great shape. The newer ones are improvements on the really sturdy design. Once I close up for the night, nothing can get to my stock. Daytime is a problem. A while back, I stood and watched a coyote snatch a hen not 20yds from where I stood at 10:00am. Bastard grabbed the hen and vanished into the brush and never broke a dead run.
My brine is based on a traditional Central American barbeque sauce. It’s intended for game, but works great for pork.
Boil enough water to dissolve a quarter cup of canning salt per pound of meat. Maybe a gallon per 25lbs. Add a dozen dry ancho chiles broken up, per gallon. You can saute the seeds until dark brown and add to the brine for a dark rich flavor. Boil until the chile skins release their pulp. Strain the brine and let it cool some.
Add cheap canned orange juice equal to the amount of brine. It’s important to use the cheap, unsweetened juice. I keep brine-cured chile petin. I add a generous measure of petins and their vinegar brine. Also a pint of lemon juice or fine vinegar per (original) gallon. For pork, I’ll add a pint of honey per gallon.
I have a ten gallon stainless stock pot that can brine a couple of big turkeys (halved) . Make up the brine with water to cover your meat. Refrigerate for a week or ten days, turning and stirring daily.
Hot smoke over pecan or mesquite.
You asked.
John
John,
Poultry thieves suck. Had a bad feral dog problem here, but they kept coming out in the middle of the night. A working person needs to sleep.
If TX allows snares or conibears, and you can assure pets/little ones stay away (i.e. set only at night>unset them in the early AM), that’s something to consider, too. Snares are more selective and many have been designed to catch ‘yotes; many with “deer stops” to avoid snagging them. I use conibears a lot, but they’re dangerous. (No kids or pets here.)
Years ago, while I was away from home-at work, a couple ferals were eating two laying hens on the porch. My mother in law tried to whack them with a broom, but they snapped at her. She went inside, opened the top half of the porch’s French door, and tossed a stock pot full of boiling water on them! Bastards came back a few weeks later and, under moonlight, met Mr. 12 gauge, Nitro-mags.
Now…about that barbecue!!! Is that special mix a secret? If you don’t mind sharing the recipe, there are those that don’t mind learning.
Your Kill’n Me John! 😥
Knife
Knife
You get one that dresses around thirty pounds, brine it in my special mix, and smoke it over pecan wood, and you’ll shed tears knowin’ it won’t last long.
John
Hard to beat those small pigs for fantastic eat’n! 😀 😉
Knife
AGT,
The camera thing sounds interesting. I may have to try that. I’ve got a feral dog problem. In the last six months they’ve all but wiped out my poultry. And lately my not at all squeamish 15 year old granddaughter is afraid to go out at night due to coyotes. I need some reliable punch. Once these problems are managed, I’ll mostly be knocking Blue Jays out of my Pecan orchard. Bastards wiped out the entire crop this year. Never saw such a thing.
The point being that I’m trying to get a lot out of this rifle, and it’s giving. When the feral pigs hit 40-50lbs come June, I may have a new chore for ol’ Bessie. Hmmm… Maybe there were fall pigs…
John
JT, I have to agree with you about the stability thing. My condor loves the JSB’s. I’ve spent a lot of time testing the speed limitations. My needs are not so much about the shear energy but a lot of my shooting is across open ground (80 +.yards sometimes) so I need trajectory.
I’ve have found my gun will shoot JSB 25.4 @ 975 and still maintain excellent groups at 90 yards and I’m happy with that.
I have used a camera rig (via ted’s holdover) and watched pellet flight path to determine what speed the pellet starts to wobble. I’ve done this with all of my guns and have found that not all of them have the same speed for wobble.
I crank up the speed until I detect wobble/spiral and back down the FPS a bit. Unorthodox I know but like you say, works for me. 😉
Like to see some more groups when you get to stretch it’s legs out a bit more.
Oh and sorry to here about the pump failure. That sucks. 🙁
I cut my tophat shim thingy down to 0.020 and took the Condor out shooting today. I stripped it and cleaned everything, including really working the barrel over. It took twenty shots to settle everything, zero the scope, and start shooting.
Thing is, people talk about pellets going unstable at high speed. It reminds me a lot of sound. Really, an unstable pellet is kind of a sound wave with a bit of lead up front. Sound waves change behavior abruptly, in stair steps. That what an octave in music is. So maybe a pellet that shoots great at 870fps has another stable range at, say 940fps. I’m probably full of shit, but it works, so I don’t much care.
With the thin shim the Condor at PW 10 pushes a 43grn Eun Jin with the peak of the curve just below 950fps. Unfortunately I’m sneaking up on valve lock, or something, when I try to get further over the curve. (3300psi by the rifle, 3150 on the pump, I pretend it’s 3200) I decided to try for ten good shots to finish the day, but my pump went to shit. I’m so unhappy. This stable zone is narrow, 925-950fps, and that may be optimistic. I’m sure I’ve tuned the gun to give ten shots in that range. But that fucking pump (already fixed) screwed up the final proof.
Bastard.
Oh yeah. This thing is amazing. This is a clear case of exceeding my (absurdly high) expectations. Thanks Tony!!
John
Glad to hear that I’m not the only one who keeps the “Keepers”. Congrats! 😀 😉
Knife
Bet you that target is in a frame right now! 😆
What distance were you from the paper?
Thank you. Thank you. :bow:
28yds. It’s the close zero on my scope, good for windy days. The far zero is 50yds. In this case, the groups look a lot more impressive than they really are, but I’m getting good accuracy at 50yds too.
John
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Congrat’s! 😀 😉
Yep, exactly why I am now casting my own in the .257 Talon/Dor. I love a good .22 LR. but the Talon/Dor has a lot more power, more accurate, and a hell of a lot cheaper to shoot!
That’s a Win-win-Win in my book. 😀
Knife