500mm Panthera and Hybrids

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GA_LeadHead

GA_LeadHead

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Jan 10, 2022
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Perry, Georgia, United States
I've had a rollercoaster of results with the 500mm Panthera shooting Hybrids. Keep in mind the 500mm comes with the standard superior liner and not the heavy. Mine is 30 cal. I need some brains to help me think this through.
Out of the box, it was horrible with hybrids, and excellent with pellets. Long story-short, I put in the 8mm hammer weight, upped the reg to 170, my micro is set on 3.5.
Presto, speed jumped up to around 975fps and it started grouping the hybrids. Great. I've been shooting it for a week or so with that setup, and no issues.
Yesterday, I get a pack of Zan 45.5 grain slugs to try. Didn't touch my tune or anything. Since they were identical weight to the hybrids. They did "okay".
Switched back to hybrids this morning and it is TERRIBLE again. All over the place? I ran a mag of hybrid pellets next as a 'control' and they were nearly shooting the same hole as I expected. So not a dirty barrel issue? What are your thoughts on why it just decided to go to crap shooting hybrids again?
 
Too much air. Your set up sounds more appropriate for a 700mm barrel where you have plenty of runway for the slug to use all that air.
Slugs are unforgiving little turds when it comes to your air pulse. A short (500mm) barrel exacerbates the issue.
Drop your reg to 150 bar, put your stock hammer back in, turn the power wheel to about half maybe lower and back the micro down to about 2.5. by doing this you will shorten the time the valve is open thus shortening the air burst and preventing excess air from washing the slug after it leaves the barrel. You can bump the reg from there and then work your hammer up when you start to lose speed. Just remember the more hammer you have the longer your valve stays open which is what you are trying to eliminate while maintaining a balance between the plenum pressure and the hammer.
The 8mm hammer is probably working against you forcing the valve to stay open too long.
Just my opinion after trying to get a Compact to shoot slugs. Never was happy with the slugs and went back to pellets with that gun.
There is a reason FX sends that 500mm version out with a standard liner and not a slug liner.
 
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Chukar60 said:
Too much air. Your set up sounds more appropriate for a 700mm barrel where you have plenty of runway for the slug to use all that air.
Slugs are unforgiving little turds when it comes to your air pulse. A short (500mm) barrel exacerbates the issue.
Drop your reg to 150 bar, put your stock hammer back in, turn the power wheel to about half maybe lower and back the micro down to about 2.5. by doing this you will shorten the time the valve is open thus shortening the air burst and preventing excess air from washing the slug after it leaves the barrel. You can bump the reg from there and then work your hammer up when you start to lose speed. Just remember the more hammer you have the longer your valve stays open which is what you are trying to eliminate while maintaining a balance between the plenum pressure and the hammer.
The 8mm hammer is probably working against you forcing the valve to stay open too long.
Just my opinion after trying to get a Compact to shoot slugs. Never was happy with the slugs and went back to pellets with that gun.
There is a reason FX sends that 500mm version out with a standard liner and not a slug liner.
Click to expand...
I get what you are saying, and totally agree that this is not an efficient setup.
I'm not talking about shooting a "true" slug. I referring to FX hybrids. I went with the 500mm panthera for the reason it came with the standard liner which works best with both pellets and hybrids. Did not expect this gun to be a true slug gun at all.
The tune you mention is basically the way the 500 came setup out of the box. 4mm hammer. Reg was 135 and the Mic was 3.75. Was getting around 880fps and TERRIBLE accuracy with hybrids. Bumped up reg in increments up to 160 and speed never got above 905 with the hybrids. Accuracy was still bad. The 4mm hammer couldn't handle higher than 160, so I mirrored the Tune Earnest sent Rick "Shooter 1721" on the 500mm Panthera/Hybrid setup. 8mm hammer (not tungsten), 170 Reg, Mic at 3.5 And instantly got great results. It was grouping extremely well with the hybrids. Ran a string of shots with this setup on my LabRadar and I was averaging 974fps, Extreme spread of 7.8fps, and standard deviation of only 2.8 fps.
Then, after shooting a couple mags of Zan's, this morning hybrids were ALL over the place again. Shot a mag of hades pellets just to see if they were bad again also, but no. The hades were stacking as they normally do. I was just curious as to why my "magic" hybrid / Pellet tune went to crap with hybrids all of the sudden.
I'm going to pull the liner out and clean it with balistol later today and try again.
 
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GA_LeadHead said:
I get what you are saying, and totally agree that this is not an efficient setup.
I'm not talking about shooting a "true" slug. I referring to FX hybrids. I went with the 500mm panthera for the reason it came with the standard liner which works best with both pellets and hybrids. Did not expect this gun to be a true slug gun at all.
The tune you mention is basically the way the 500 came setup out of the box. 4mm hammer. Reg was 135 and the Mic was 3.75. Was getting around 880fps and TERRIBLE accuracy with hybrids. Bumped up reg in increments up to 160 and speed never got above 905 with the hybrids. Accuracy was still bad. The 4mm hammer couldn't handle higher than 160, so I mirrored the Tune Earnest sent Rick "Shooter 1721" on the 500mm Panthera/Hybrid setup. 8mm hammer (not tungsten), 170 Reg, Mic at 3.5 And instantly got great results. It was grouping extremely well with the hybrids. Ran a string of shots with this setup on my LabRadar and I was averaging 974fps, Extreme spread of 7.8fps, and standard deviation of only 2.8 fps.
Then, after shooting a couple mags of Zan's, this morning hybrids were ALL over the place again. Shot a mag of hades pellets just to see if they were bad again also, but no. The hades were stacking as they normally do. I was just curious as to why my "magic" hybrid / Pellet tune went to crap with hybrids all of the sudden.
I'm going to pull the liner out and clean it with balistol later today and try again.
Click to expand...
Best of luck on it! Please let us know what happens. I will learn something new.
PS: out of my M3, Zan’s shoot better than Hybrids at any velocity I tried.
 
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GA_LeadHead said:
Cleaned liner. Have already put 4 mags through it. Grouping a bit better but not nearly as good as it did before. 2 in group at 35 yards. Yeah. That is not acceptable.
Click to expand...
I'd pull that shroud and make sure it isn't clipping there is a gap between the liner and the "air stripper" just like the crown and dreamline barrels
 
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Well, I've cleaned the liner. Pulled the shroud and moderator off and there is no sign of clipping. It will sporadically produce a 2" group at best with hybrids.
As of this morning, I've put the stock 4mm hammer back in. Settled the reg down to 135 and I'm almost punching the same hole with hades pellets at 915 fps. I have only shot it at 50 yards this morning. Probably will back down on the hammer and settle them in somewhere around the 875-880 mark and see how they perform when I stretch them out there to 100.
Looks like the little panthera will NOT shoot hybrids and is pellet only. WIth the dual bottles I went 5 mags before needing a fill. For a 30, That will most definitely do.
 
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GA_LeadHead said:
Well, I've cleaned the liner. Pulled the shroud and moderator off and there is no sign of clipping. It will sporadically produce a 2" group at best with hybrids.
As of this morning, I've put the stock 4mm hammer back in. Settled the reg down to 135 and I'm almost punching the same hole with hades pellets at 900 fps again.
Looks like the little panthera will NOT shoot hybrids and is pellet only.
Click to expand...
Gearhead;
I've tried hybrids in a Crown MkII, a Dreamline Classic and a Wildcat MKIII BT compact. They have not shot well in any of my guns. I've had much better luck with slugs from H&N, ZAN and NSA. Honestly I've never found a setup that shoots a slug as well as pellets. (Not for lack of trying.)
Guess I'm a certified FX loon. Love their guns, but the Hybrids just don't work for me.
 
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Accuracy and speed, they don't go hand in hand or have a linear relationship. The 500mm barrel should not be pushed well pass 900fps, sweet spot is around 800-850 fps. If you want 1000fps then get the 700mm panthera or 800mm impact.

This is like saying I want my 4 inch stub nose to shoot 3400fps with accuracy like my bench gun with 28 inch barrel at 1000 yards.
 
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qball pretty much summed it up. But all it takes is one guy saying his 500mm is shooting XXXfps then showing some internet groups, then it’s off to the races. Every gun with a certain length barrel is going to have its parameters on how fast it will shoot a bullet accurately because of how it delivers its air. It can take a good bit of lead to figure that out. Having a gun that shoots great for a week then suddenly goes off it’s nut is more common than you think. Guys just don’t talk about it because they would have to find last weeks bragging topic and delete it.
 
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