She has finally landed, Initial thoughts on the King (Kral)
I have been waiting to get my hands on the Kral from the time I heard about it from SHOT. Finally, a bullpup PCP at Marauder prices!
My first thoughts on the Kral Puncher Breaker Silent right from the box is how top heavy it feels holding it from the pistol grip but once your shoulder it, it balances out well. This is my first bullpup so the ergos will take a little getting accustomed to. Things I really like and was surprised how smooth the side cocking lever and trigger is. The lever being under some spring tension in the closed position, seems to aid in locking the lever back while engaging the sear. No grit or grinding whatsoever through its whole travel. The trigger out of the box is quite good! The first stage is a tad heavy but short as you feel resistance as you make contact with the second stage, which is very crisp, no creep and no noticeable over travel. The trigger is fully adjustable. The plastic stock feels like a real stock and not some cheap toy.
The couple things I am not impressed with is the provided rail which fastens underneath the handguard, is made of a flimsy plastic with a deep counterbored hole for the cap screw makes for a poor mounting system. No matter how tightly you turn the screw, the rail won’t stay in place. This should have been made of aluminum with extrusions to keep the machining cost down which would eliminate the flexing. The last thing is the shroud. It would seem the design is more form over function and will require some work before the Kral can be enjoyed in the backyard. I will being machining 1/2-20 adapters and air strippers for it.
Overall, I am impressed with the build quality, especially for its price point. The machining on the exterior is smooth without any tool marks (except for the safety level pocket). It handles well in my hands as I shoulder it and feels natural when I am acquiring the sight picture in my scope. I hope she shoots as good as she looks. I am curious how well an in-house barrel with preform. I will clean and lap the barrel and polish the crown before I run any pellets through. If the barrel is a lemon, I will machine a LW for it.
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I lengthened the nut on the trigger bar and want a difference it makes in the trigger pull. The 2nd stage has lightened up quite a bit. Still a little on the heavy side. I am going to smooth out the engagement surfaces with the stones and see how much it lightens up the pull.
Weather be dammed! I wanted to see if all my efforts payed off tuning the Kral. It did not disappoint!
It was cold and raining today and I wanted to collect my data and go back inside as fast as possible. These groups were not cherry picked. I fired 15 shots total, 5 at each target at a range of 25 yards. This was done in a seated position with the Kral rested on the fieldpod and a damn heavy trigger.
The pellets were JSB Diobolos at 18.1 and 15.89 grains. The last used was the HN Barracuda Match 21.14 grain pellets. All holes touching, not bad at all for an entry level bullpup.
Now to work on the trigger……
No kidding, if a flood comes through, might as well be prepared.
Same here, rain and wind since a few days, starting to think that maybe the diver’s bottle might serve to it’s initial task if the rain continues :rofl:
The weather was unfavorable today with rain and wind. My chrony software on my phone is acting up too so I was unable to do any testing today. Stary tuned for tomorrow… :5:
someone like yourself to help them to design a real working gun .
FROM : THE BIRDMAN
Thanks for the compliments. It is a price point gun so I wasn’t expecting to get a first tier gun at $499. With that being said, I enjoyed modding it and with a few improvements, we can get close to first tier performance. Seeing how the gun’s internals, mainly the action borrow heavily on Evanix/JKhan, I wonder if one of their barrels could be swapped with the Kral without having to any fitting.
Lee5 , looks like you made the gun better than the makers did . Maybe you should tell them that they need
someone like yourself to help them to design a real working gun .
FROM : THE BIRDMAN
I finished up all the machine work, aside from needing to remake the air stripper after I enlarged it too much and took a hit on sound reduction from 70~ to 84 dbs. I did shorten the shroud an inch too so that will have some effect as well. I wanted to keep it compact as possible while balancing sound reduction qualities. At 31.5 inches and now being very backyard friendly at full stock power (28 FPE), I can’t complain too much. I redesigned the air stripper and I now I am on to something. I confirmed this by swapping only the air stripper on my Gamo Urban and it dropped the dbs by 10!
The barrel band needed a few thou bored out before it would accept the new shroud. While I was at it, I chamfered the fill probe because the first time I used it, I shaved off part of the oring while charging the gun. If you get a Kral, I recommend deburring the edges before you charge your gun. Now it’s as good as my BSA’s probe.
The weather was nice enough today that I could mount my scope and sight it in. I had my sound meter 10 feet in front of the gun and this is was I got.
This is a cheap meter so consider it a point of reference, not actual values. With that said, the action noise and impact is WAY louder than the pulse.
And now here she is, all dressed up! I replaced the flimsy plastic rail for a real one.
Going forward:
*The accuracy testing comes tomorrow. I will post my shot string and results. All testing will be at 25 yards. That’s the furthest I can shoot in my backyard.
*The spring twang on a bullpup with you face on the action is way more noticeable and annoying. I will see what I can come up with to dampen it.
*The stock power output is a little weak for a 22. With a little valve work, I’d like to see in the mid to high 30’s.
What’d you do to quiet her down that much?
I machined a whole new shroud complete with a highly effective air stripper and baffles. It only added 1.5 inches to the length but that nothing for the performance I am getting!
Yeah, already subscribed to Steve’s channel since a while. Like his reviews a lot.
What’d you do to quiet her down that much?
Check out this review by the Airgun Exploration & Advancement Channel
That’s ALOT of value!!
Keep us updated, maybe also with some groups, always interesting to see.
Will do so this week. I have been busy doing a couple mods to it. I got the Db down to 70 so I am really pleased with that. It was 105 out of the box. Too loud to shoot in the back yard.
Thanks Lee for this first review. I think there’s a lot of people out there being curious about the performance of this gun.
Keep us updated, maybe also with some groups, always interesting to see.
Evanix uses a tank drop block in their X2 model:
It’s either direct fit or just make a copy that fits your valve housing nose.
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I’ll be following the trigger comments with interest. My trigger is really creepy. BTW, how far were those groups shot from?
Thanks,
Rusty