Chukar,
amen to market bling! I’m leaning toward buying the rifle new with any trick installed by a reputable dealer, i.e. power block, Barrel tensioner, etc. if you were buying any of your M3’s again, what would you buy new in terms of tricking them out? It seems there’s quite an aftermarket in used bling at sufficient discount to make it and appealing proposition for such things as I might find appropriate, but I’m not generally a fan of hanging every available contraption on anything I care to use.. I hope you’ll reply to my question and I thank you again for your comment.
Edo.
My suggestion for any new M3 buyer is that no matter what you plan to shoot out of it, buy 1000 pellets and just shoot it. It will take that many to break it in and let it settle. Given a convenient air source you can shoot 1000 pellets in no time at all.
Then buy pellets in a couple weights. For example on 22 cal 18 & 25 gr pellets. You will need two different tunes for those weights. Then learn to tune the gun. An Impact is a poor choice for someone not willing to learn to tune. Rather defeats the reason to own one.
Once you have wrapped your head around tuning for pellets, move up to slugs if you like. It is not a big step. You will now have the foundation required to tune for slugs. You will understand the interaction between the hammer and the plenum. You won’t be on here asking about a tungsten hammer just because some YouTuber said it was a great idea.
Once you have attained that level of comfort with your M3 you can make an informed decision as to what aftermarket products would benefit you.
I am not anti-aftermarket. My needs from an Impact do not require them. I am against people people buying an M3 and then start hanging every accessories that they can off it without a competent knowledge of what it is supposed to and how to measure the actual benefit.
The Impact is the most hyped and over exposed air gun in the world. The same can be said for the aftermarket products produced for it.
Unfortunately, the preponderance of aftermarket products and the marketing and exposure have created two false narratives.
One: the Impact needs all of this to perform. No it does not
Two: all of this high performance stuff is simple and any moron can do it. No they cannot. Tuning takes time to understand. There is no shortcut to that reality. The higher the performance the More knowledge and experience it is going to take to achieve. Simply hanging goodies off your Impact and twisting and turning dials without a pretty thorough understanding about what is going in the gun will produce nothing but another FX hater.
Keep your expectations in the realm of reality. Don’t try to turn your Red Ryder into a 300 Win Mag and you will enjoy it.
Tungsten hammers and plenum pressures in the 170 - 180 range will beat your valve mercilessly. The gun will do it. but for how long and how reliably?
