Talon Shorty
I thought this might of interest to a small crowd here.
My goal was the shortest Talon possible with reliable (consistent) power, minimal POI impact from user influence, reasonably appropriate for 10m and 20y indoor offhand shooting and 20 and 30y bench shooting off the bipod. So, in short – the right indoor and backyard gun FOR ME.
Starting with a Talon frame, I used a 12 inch .177 barrel with a vented front bushing and SS endcap. I decided to stick with CO2 only for this one. Met my needs for power and consistency. 3 problems – this was too loud for indoor use on a regular basis, was not balanced well for off hand shooting (front end was way too light with the 20oz tank on the back end), and even with the short frame the slightest diff in hold made a big POI difference when shooting off the bipod (frame flex).
My efforts at solutions –
Prob 1 was addressed by hacking up an old mini shroud. NOT mouse fart quiet but still comfortable for indoor shooting while only adding about 2 inches. Cut most of the insert off, opened up the end to fit around/overlap the barrel and cut some gaps to allow some flow to the vented bushing.
Prob 2 and 3 needed to be addressed together. I needed to move the bipod back as far as I could, reinforce the rail mount and add some front weight… A tri-rail solved the weight issue (balances much better now) but didn’t fit with the foregrip. Thanks to 80Grit I was able to get the forgrip right – cut it to just in front of where the frame starts to curve into the trigger group… Hmmm tri-rail was still too long. Cut about 3/4 of an inch off and shaped the cut end to slide inside the (now) open gap in the cut forgrip.
Both the chop on the mini shroud and trirail will look better after a little clean up and I may try to shape the foregrip to round off the edges and a better mount for the bipod wouldn’t hut, but I’m very pleased with the result. Rifle is less reactive to hold fluctuations off the bipod and very comfortable to shoot offhand.
The end result is about 1.5 longer than my EDgun 😀
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Nice little gun!
Where did you get that comfortable looking bottle cover?
Looks good…..I thought about doing something like that for a backpack rifle using air.
Very nice set up
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Where did you get that comfortable looking bottle cover?
I tossed the packaging but that’s a neoprene cover for either a 9 or 12 oz co2 bottle. Stretches just fine to cover the 20oz bottle. They are way overpriced but I found a pack of 10 on ebay a while back for cheap.
Thanks guys.
I built a mild 2250XT (9oz tank with the B&A adapter and longer barrel with steel breech) for the same purposes described above and it just didn’t feel right. This is much more satisfying – so much so that I picked up a second Talon (thanks again Russ) that should be here next week. I’m going to do something similar in .22, decide which I like best then use the other to play with the other barrels and such that I have.
btw – I’m keeping the 2250XT but mostly for the kids to shoot when the weather improves.