tuning questions
Ok so i have used the pw to adjust my velocities and have a good idea what velocity i get for pw settings 4 to 8. So my question for tuning the condor is what does the top hat do on the condor exactly? I have an idea but i dont know if i am correct. Does the top hat act like the meter screw on an mrod closing off the air flow in a sense by reducing the amount the valve will open and does it also affect how long it will stay open? During my tuning do i use the factory top hat setting and adjust the power wheel to my desired velocity and then adjust the top hat for final accuracy tuning? Or does the top hat have a setting that works best and then use the pw for final adjustments? I am just looking for some direction for what i should adjust first in my quest for power and accuracy. With my mrod i adjusted everything to max then adjusted the hammer throw and meter screw down until i achieved my best accuracy keeping max pre load to keep from having hammer bounce. I dont think trying to tune a condor in the same manner as an mrod will work since they are different. The condor has no hammer travel adjustment or meter screw and i dont know if the top hat replaces those or even has the same effect on the tune. I am looking to get the most velocity with the heavier 31 gr. pellets but maintain accuracy at the same time. If i can get about 60 fpe and still get .750 groups at 75 yds that would be great.
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Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
Charlie, it isn’t the “O” ring that can get into the tank, but rather the valve it’s self. At the end of the valve stem, there is a derlin stopper if you will, that seals the tanks air from excapeing from the tank until fired. When you fire the gun, the valve stem being pushed inside the tank, caused the cork to lift off the seat, allowing air to excape through te valve stem, and fire the pelet out the bbl.
The plut is only held on by pressure. With an empty tank, there is nothing preventing the darned thing from being exected backwards. Yes there is a valve return spring preventing it from actually being ejected into the tank. 😆 But it can jostel it loose, It’s a good Idea to never fire any airgun in a dry fire condition. Even with air in the tank, the absensence of a pellet in the bbl. causes a condition of no back pressure, leaving nothing to cussion the valve seat, (cork) from battering its self and start leaking. 😉
KnifeMaker
Yes I also noticed that when I pull the trigger the trigger guard flexes some. The rubber seal may be in the tank cause I’ve been firing it with out using a pellet in the house trying to determine why it is so hard to cock. I let all the air out of the tank getting ready to add the altaros regulator. But I did fire it several times while it was pressured up. I just found knifemakers reply in the junkmail of my pc. Wierd that I’ve been getting the other stuff from this forum normally except for this kinda important one. I’m goona think about how a o-ring can get out of it’s groove and past the other parts of the valve and into the tank though.
I think he is saying he needs to put the muzzle on the floor and push with both thumbs to be able to cock it not shoot it. Sounds like you have some issues that are not suppose to be there. I did one mod to my condor that i hope is going to help keep it consistent and that was making a trigger guard that helps stiffen the gun and makes it look much better as well.
Well, the salesman was right! You do not cock and fire the gun unloaded with an empty tank. It can eject the valve seal back into the empty tank.
On FX airguns, it can ruin the metal seal in the valve.Even with a full tank of air.
In springers, it can dammage the piston and seals. So DON’T do it. I have seem far too many ruined airguns at places like Cabelas, Gandermt. Bass Pro. Enough that I would never buy an air gun from a store off the shelf. Un-opend box only.
And no, sticking the muzzle into the carpet and pulling the trigger does nothing. 🙄
Same crap goes on at regular Gun Shows. Drives me nuts seeing what is done to these guns out of pure ignorance and don’t give a damed attitudes.
I once was a Knife show with a well known dealer of High End Custom Knives. There was a Knife Throwing exibition there. A very serrious young man picked up a Loveless Big Bear and ask could he walk over and see how it threw. The dealer said sure. Just put a 25K deposit down on it. 😯 Thats right, the idiot wanted to throw a 25 thousand dollar Knife. 😯 😯 😯 (That belonged to someone else of course),. And was pissed that we wouldn’t let him. He still didnt’ get it, so I ask him what kind of car he drove. He said BMW. I ask, Do you mind if I go out and drive yourcar and test out the bumpers and air bags while I’m at it? He was really pissed then. 👿 😆
Treat good equipment like good equipment and follow the advice of those that know somthing about it. Or buy bb guns. 😆 😉
Knife
Interesting that you posted the question on the 10th and some people woke up and replied on the 24th with some good starting instructions. This was a topic I have been searching for for about a month. I thought I would just keep reading till something soaked in. It may be me but my condor seems like it will need a lot of re-engineering to make a good hunting tool. I expected a more refined gun than it is. Actually I jumped on a purchase because I was afraid the gun would not be available long without researching the condor ss fully. Most things I am interested in get re-engineered any way but this gun seems to need a lot to just get started, maybe it’s just this forum that brings all the weak areas out. Without this forum I probably would have just taken the gun back and waited till I thought I really wanted a high end airgun. What burns me is the salesman said i couldn’t cock the gun or pull the trigger when I looked at it. If I had tried to cock it at the store I would have walked away that would have been all for me. Course it didn’t have any air in the tank which no one knew at the time but when the salesman said you can’t un cock it and he wouldn’t let me pull the trigger that should have been a signal that this was a different world than I am used to. I will be reading as much as I can before I start on fixing this gun, starting with the two thumbs and the muzzle on the carpet cocking.
I think all you need is to get the tune nailed down with the right pellet and you will see similar results.
If i can get my gun to shoot 1/2 an inch at 75 yards i’ll be a happy camper 😀
I believe you can have the best of both worlds and come up with a good compromise. I want power with accuracy so the two airguns i have i wanted to tune to shoot the highest fpe i could get with good accuracy. My mrod does not shoot the heavier pellets as good as it does the jsb kings so i tuned it with jsb kings to the highest fpe it would shoot those with accuracy and I get 855 fps and under .500 inch groups at 75 yds with that tune. my condor shoots the heavies better than the kings at a higher fpe. When i shot the condor using the same tune that i was getting 980 fps from kodiak match 31 gr. pellets using the kings the groups opened up. I get 970 fps from my kodiak 31 gr. pellets and got under .500 inch at 75 yds as well. I do think if i shoot a bunch of groups at 75 yds it will be closer to .750 groups as an average but i can live with that for the power it is making and i believe that is very respectful hunting accuracy.
“If you have to choose between power and accuracy, take accuracy. It’s more fun”
I agree, like someone around here says in his signature ” What’s the use of 500 fpe , if ya can’t hit what yer aiming at” A miss is still a miss. whether it was 50 fpe or 500 do do what ya hours do to hit what yer aiming at. No critter ever died because the round that missed him was goin so hard.
Thanks for some input about how you tune this gun airgunsoftulsa.
Here is my “cut and paste” answers to your questions. Hope this helps.
Ok so i have used the pw to adjust my velocities and have a good idea what velocity i get for pw settings 4 to 8. So my question for tuning the condor is what does the top hat do on the condor exactly?
The top hat is an adjustable tunable valve for air to be released from the tank.
I have an idea but i dont know if i am correct. Does the top hat act like the meter screw on an mrod closing off the air flow in a sense by reducing the amount the valve will open and does it also affect how long it will stay open?
Yes, it preforms like the metering screw on a Marauder and yes it affects how long it will stay open by turning it out, thus allowing the breech to strike it harder when the gun is fired and driving into the tank further allowing more air to escape to the breech.
During my tuning do i use the factory top hat setting and adjust the power wheel to my desired velocity and then adjust the top hat for final accuracy tuning?
You can.
Or does the top hat have a setting that works best and then use the pw for final adjustments?
Everybody’s method of achieving their ideal velocity is a little different. I set my top hat to where it just contacts the delrin breech. This helps eliminate any rebound the top hat puts on the breech after the gun is fired. (You do have some tolerance of slack between the top hat and the breech due to the fact that the top hat fits into the breech which has an O ring and seals around the top hat. As long as the O ring stays in contact with the top hat during the firing cycle you should notice very little inconsistency from shot to shot.) Some have used a gap starting from .070″ to .090″ as a starting point between the bottom of the top hat and the top of the brass insert in the valve.
Then I start with my power wheel at zero. Having charged the gun to 2500 psi, and starting the power wheel on zero which requires less trigger pull to get the gun to fire. I then fire a shot. If the velocity is lower than desired, I turn the power wheel a small amount (half a turn) at a time until my desired velocity is achieved. If the velocity starts out too high, I put an o ring or a shim under the top hat to limit it’s travel.
I am just looking for some direction for what i should adjust first in my quest for power and accuracy. With my mrod i adjusted everything to max then adjusted the hammer throw and meter screw down until i achieved my best accuracy keeping max pre load to keep from having hammer bounce. I dont think trying to tune a condor in the same manner as an mrod will work since they are different. The condor has no hammer travel adjustment or meter screw and i don’t know if the top hat replaces those or even has the same effect on the tune. I am looking to get the most velocity with the heavier 31 gr. pellets but maintain accuracy at the same time. If i can get about 60 fpe and still get .750 groups at 75 yds that would be great.
The most CONSISTENTLY accurate pellet for your rifle is the JSB’s. The Kodiak are not bad but I’ve never be able to get anywhere close to 1 1/2” groups of five shots at 75 yards with them. As for the JSB’s, 980 fps is about as fast as I’m able to shoot them and not get spiraling. That is still a very respectable 56fpe.
If you have to choose between power and accuracy, take accuracy. It’s more fun.
I originally posted this after doing a search for top hat adjustment when that search gave me a thread from walkonking if i remember the author correct that gave a brief explanation of the adjustment but not how it relates to the order of use during tuning example being adjust pw to desired velocity then adjust top hat to flatten curve. The funny thing is that some one posted a question regarding the topic and was told to post questions in the board on the matter 🙄 i see where that got me 😀 No biggie im not trying to send a rocket to mars or anything so i did what i usually do and started to learn what effect settings have on the performance. Still have allot to learn about this platform but im getting good accuracy with good power and thats all i care about. Big power tight groups 
Just to big a question for Simple answers ❗
And wanting comparisons with the workings of an mrod, whatever that is 😯
If someone feels like writing a book on comparing the two they would jump right into this discussion.
There are gobs of info on this forum that can be searched out about tuning the AF Condor, so a little reading would be in order here. Then, simple straight forward questions would no doubt get answered.
I can’t begin to compare all the AF adjustments to something I don’t have.
BUT to sort of answer one question, YES, the top hat has something to do with tuning, volume of air released, and ultimate accuracy but it works with and in conjunction with the Power Wheel setting, theHammer Spring, the Hammer weight and momentum, the Top Hat setting, the valve return spring, the current air pressure in the tank, the pellet, and the length and condition of the barrel. Everything is inter related and dependant on the others. Individual parts may look similar to a different brand but may not have exactly the same effect.
Interesting that you seem to have a good understanding of the mechanics of airguns but that no one answered you. Maybe you are gonna have to figgure it out the hard way.
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Thanks for the explanation Mike, I guess I wil see these parts when I take the tank apart to put the regulator in place. I thought from reading that the seat was the delrin part the stem sticks into because it’s referred to as the delrin seat. I couldn’t say how many times I fired my old benjamin without a pellet in it. I might have even done it to my springers.