Let's kick this off with a little background story.
I purchased the Avenge X Tacitical, Tube Version, in .177 New a few months ago.
The gun's purpose was to be as a loaner gun when friends and family come by so I did not have to sit like a " helicopter" hovering over them when they had one of my high-end guns in hand....
I went .177 mainly because I have roughly 15,000 various pellets and slugs in the bins, and that caliber is a very good teaching caliber as It will teach them good basics to get it to shoot.
The .177 Saga:
The gun was removed from the box, given a good visual inspection, Good barrel cleaning, then load up some mags with some 10.34 FX pellets to do my traditional 500 round barrel break in shooting.
The gun felt like, and sounded very hot, the hammer spring was only backed out approx 3 turns and with the power setting on high it was sending the 10.34's at 1050fps across the chrony.
So On to the tuning, what a ride!
I mentioned the hammer spring setting above, I forgot to mention what a HUGE PITA it is to adjust this, You have to remove the stock to do on the Tactical version, piss poor design there for sure..
Anyway pulled the for-mentioned stock, left it off while trying to tune this thing. I quickly discovered no matter where the hammer spring was set with the gun on high power setting it was still WAY too hot.
So lets go to low power, I finally get the 10.34's shooting at 850fps ,(lowest i achieved was 828) this was with the hammer spring turned in 1 turn, well now we should be good to go... Not so Fast mi amigo's....
I put the gun back together put my Known, Trusted, dead nuts scope on it and lets see what she does for accuracy..
Epic Fail, hell I may as well grabbed a handful of rocks and thrown them at the target, the gun was very irratic and just did Not sound happy .
I tried EVERY pellet known to man ranging from super light , to beast, wadcutter, domed semi domed, hollow point, copper point, you get the jest, and the same results terrible accuracy.
So back to the drawing board, lets check all the basics again, No obvious clipping, reg was left at the factory 2100, no breech seal leak, barrel looked pretty good after approx 800 shots, Took a look at the crown, or lack there of, Ah Ha maybe ???
So after a quick crown job throw it back together and we have a Huge improvment, perfect? No, but much better at least we had a 1" group at 40 yards.....
So back on to finding the "right" tune and pellet, or slug.
I won't bore you with the next 3 weeks of hell i went through, the heartbreak, frustration, aggravation will bleed into this post and it will Not be kid friendly. I did change reg pressure, i adjusted hammer srping multiple times and placing with various pellets and slugs and finally got it to shot some sub MOA groups at 40 yards, BUT i NEVER got it to shoot more tha 5 shots in a group with those results, there was Always several that flew the coop...
The conditions were perfect on the "good" days, 1-2 mph winds, perfect temps, low 70's etc....
The gun sat on the shelf for about a month, I was just too pissed off at it, the I had a thought, lets convert this pig tp .25....
Chapter 2, The .25 Version:
As you are aware the barrel change kits are Not availble yet, anothe aggravation,.
So I pick I sent an email to Pyramyd inquiring about the kits and shifting expected arrival dates.. I get call back the next day from one of thier reps, who I have had great succes with in the past, and she found a work around by giving me the part numbers for the Barrel the probe and the mags, the rest of the parts can swapped from my .177 barrel kit..
Parts arrived 3 days later and the gun was now converted over to a .25.
As with all my guns, cleaned the new barrel, and then did my 500 round break in shooting..
I did rest the hammer to a medium setting, rest the reg. to 2100 and turned the power selector to high.
I could tell Immediately the gun was Much happier, had that nice happy sound, I wasn't 100 shots in and the accuracy was WAY better ...
After the 1st 500 rounds it was time to fine tune her, spent a couple of hours over the chrony and got her just right.
She is slinging the JSB 25.39gr (King .25) Not the MKII at 890 fps and @ 40 yards drooping into the same hole damn near every shot, Groups are always well under 1/2" with those pellets.
Now with the FX 25.4 the groups do open up a tad, but are still MOA for the most part.
It shoots the 33.95 JSB's Very well too, almost as good as the King .25's but I prefer shooting the lighter pellet....
OK My Coclusion and Final Thoughts:
I honestly believe that this platform is Not designed for the smaller .177 caliber, sure i have seen the vids of the well known youtubers shooting the .177 decently, So Did I, after countless hours of frustration... And If you go to those same youtubers they have converted their guns to a larger caliber as well, or have plans to do so..
The gun has just Way too much power in current form, maybe include a different hammer spring, change the porting, something, but as of right now do Not waste your money on the .177
The Platform is a Great Platform, hopefully all of the much anticipated conversion parts are in stock sooner than later....
I honestly could Not be happier with the gun since switching it over to a .25 .
As a matter of fact you will see I treated it to a few "Upgrades" in the pic below.
I hope this helps any future buyer....
I purchased the Avenge X Tacitical, Tube Version, in .177 New a few months ago.
The gun's purpose was to be as a loaner gun when friends and family come by so I did not have to sit like a " helicopter" hovering over them when they had one of my high-end guns in hand....
I went .177 mainly because I have roughly 15,000 various pellets and slugs in the bins, and that caliber is a very good teaching caliber as It will teach them good basics to get it to shoot.
The .177 Saga:
The gun was removed from the box, given a good visual inspection, Good barrel cleaning, then load up some mags with some 10.34 FX pellets to do my traditional 500 round barrel break in shooting.
The gun felt like, and sounded very hot, the hammer spring was only backed out approx 3 turns and with the power setting on high it was sending the 10.34's at 1050fps across the chrony.
So On to the tuning, what a ride!
I mentioned the hammer spring setting above, I forgot to mention what a HUGE PITA it is to adjust this, You have to remove the stock to do on the Tactical version, piss poor design there for sure..
Anyway pulled the for-mentioned stock, left it off while trying to tune this thing. I quickly discovered no matter where the hammer spring was set with the gun on high power setting it was still WAY too hot.
So lets go to low power, I finally get the 10.34's shooting at 850fps ,(lowest i achieved was 828) this was with the hammer spring turned in 1 turn, well now we should be good to go... Not so Fast mi amigo's....
I put the gun back together put my Known, Trusted, dead nuts scope on it and lets see what she does for accuracy..
Epic Fail, hell I may as well grabbed a handful of rocks and thrown them at the target, the gun was very irratic and just did Not sound happy .
I tried EVERY pellet known to man ranging from super light , to beast, wadcutter, domed semi domed, hollow point, copper point, you get the jest, and the same results terrible accuracy.
So back to the drawing board, lets check all the basics again, No obvious clipping, reg was left at the factory 2100, no breech seal leak, barrel looked pretty good after approx 800 shots, Took a look at the crown, or lack there of, Ah Ha maybe ???
So after a quick crown job throw it back together and we have a Huge improvment, perfect? No, but much better at least we had a 1" group at 40 yards.....
So back on to finding the "right" tune and pellet, or slug.
I won't bore you with the next 3 weeks of hell i went through, the heartbreak, frustration, aggravation will bleed into this post and it will Not be kid friendly. I did change reg pressure, i adjusted hammer srping multiple times and placing with various pellets and slugs and finally got it to shot some sub MOA groups at 40 yards, BUT i NEVER got it to shoot more tha 5 shots in a group with those results, there was Always several that flew the coop...
The conditions were perfect on the "good" days, 1-2 mph winds, perfect temps, low 70's etc....
The gun sat on the shelf for about a month, I was just too pissed off at it, the I had a thought, lets convert this pig tp .25....
Chapter 2, The .25 Version:
As you are aware the barrel change kits are Not availble yet, anothe aggravation,.
So I pick I sent an email to Pyramyd inquiring about the kits and shifting expected arrival dates.. I get call back the next day from one of thier reps, who I have had great succes with in the past, and she found a work around by giving me the part numbers for the Barrel the probe and the mags, the rest of the parts can swapped from my .177 barrel kit..
Parts arrived 3 days later and the gun was now converted over to a .25.
As with all my guns, cleaned the new barrel, and then did my 500 round break in shooting..
I did rest the hammer to a medium setting, rest the reg. to 2100 and turned the power selector to high.
I could tell Immediately the gun was Much happier, had that nice happy sound, I wasn't 100 shots in and the accuracy was WAY better ...
After the 1st 500 rounds it was time to fine tune her, spent a couple of hours over the chrony and got her just right.
She is slinging the JSB 25.39gr (King .25) Not the MKII at 890 fps and @ 40 yards drooping into the same hole damn near every shot, Groups are always well under 1/2" with those pellets.
Now with the FX 25.4 the groups do open up a tad, but are still MOA for the most part.
It shoots the 33.95 JSB's Very well too, almost as good as the King .25's but I prefer shooting the lighter pellet....
OK My Coclusion and Final Thoughts:
I honestly believe that this platform is Not designed for the smaller .177 caliber, sure i have seen the vids of the well known youtubers shooting the .177 decently, So Did I, after countless hours of frustration... And If you go to those same youtubers they have converted their guns to a larger caliber as well, or have plans to do so..
The gun has just Way too much power in current form, maybe include a different hammer spring, change the porting, something, but as of right now do Not waste your money on the .177
The Platform is a Great Platform, hopefully all of the much anticipated conversion parts are in stock sooner than later....
I honestly could Not be happier with the gun since switching it over to a .25 .
As a matter of fact you will see I treated it to a few "Upgrades" in the pic below.
I hope this helps any future buyer....
