I bought a Condor SS in .25 a few months ago.
As we all seem to justify the "need" for another gun, my original intent/rationale for the Condor was to shoot cast 47grain slugs, produced from the mold made by MP molds. The burning need (sarcasm) here was to create a use of the estimated 80+ pounds of airgun lead I've collected from my traps over the last couple years. Current rates of addition seem to average about 8-12 pounds per 6-8 months. And as a mostly small caliber guy, that's a lot of pellets!
A secondary justification for the Condor SS purchase was an un-used PARD electronic scope. I've found the PARD to be an excellent pesting/hunting optic, but less-than-ideal as an optic for fine target work. Having previously owned a Condor, and not liking the overall length of it + an added moderator, I decided a Condor SS would make a decent hunting/pesting/tinkering platform to put the PARD on.
With summer-time practice for matches and a couple other airgun projects here and there, the Condor has been an on-again, off-again endeavor.
Addition of Grip
One of the first projects was to fit one of the finger-groove grips to it. This being a current gen Condor, it'll accept AR-style grips. It technically will accept flat-top style AR grips, but with some coaxing from the Dremel, I got a solid fit from a modified beaver tail finger-groove grip. Feels quite nice in the hand now.
MP Mold
Next I needed to make some ammo for this beast. The MP mold drops slugs in the 47.6-47.8 grain range, when at the correct operating temps. Too hot and they drop at 48+ grains, and are almost impossible to chamber in the Condor SS. Too cold and they don't get proper fill-out, resulting in under-sized slugs less than 47.5grains.
Being an 8 cavity mold, this thing can really crank out high volumes of slugs in short order.
I'm still working on perfecting the slug-making process. I'd like to get to a point where I don't have to weigh-sort them. The next step in that will be another casting session with a different type of ladle. Just haven't gotten there yet.
Due to the known BCs produced by slugs of similar shape, they should have a pretty high BC. Ballistics charting of trajectory has shown that to be the case, but I haven't measured an actual BC yet so will hold off on stating a specific BC for these cast slugs.
I've tried the cast MP molds slugs from the Condor SS as fast as high 800s and as slow as 570-580. They start to get use-ably accurate in the high 700s (shot cycle and shot count and precision). Best accuracy is with speeds north of 850 fps, but shot count is drastically reduced when pushing them that hard. And I just don't need or want that much fpe.
On that note, I've found that AirForce's transfer ports ("Ring Loc" I think they call the system) are a much more productive means of altering the energy output than the hammer spring tension.
As for accuracy, the slugs from the Condor SS are pretty reliably 1 inch groups at 30-40 yards, and 4ish inch groups at 100 yards. That's fine for hunting, but I'd like better. And that's probably where the barrel choke comes into play. It's choked pretty tight, slugs pushed all the way through are coming out at a diameter of about 0.245. For .25 barrels, Lothar reports bores of 0.248 and grooves of 0.254. It might be that, if not including the choke, but certainly less than that when the choke is at play. The cast slugs produced at the proper mold temps (the ones measuring around 47.7grains) are measuring at 0.49," so at least I'm not undersized. I have been sizing the slugs, using a simple go/no-go sizer. This is mostly to homogenize their diameter.
I've been toying with the idea of chopping the choke and re-crowning, but again, just havent had the time to get there yet.
Here was a recent pesting foray on some prairie dogs, using the Condor SS .25 and these cast MP slugs.
www.airgunnation.com
As for the cast slugs, I'm hoping that the ladle with the pour nipple will get me more consistent fill-out of the molds. And I'm also considering picking up a cheap hot plate and monitoring mold temps better, focusing on keeping temps consistent. I'm hoping that can get me away from needing to weigh-sort and/or size the slugs produced by the mold. In short, I'm not done trying to achieve greater accuracy from the cast slugs out of the Condor.
.22 Barrel
I picked up an unused 18 inch .22 barrel from the classifieds here sometime in the past few months. It was brand new, still sealed in the AirForce tube, came with the bushings and everything. The only differences are that it's a 16mm OD barrel, and the bushings that came with it aren't perforated to allow backflow of the air blast into the entire "shroud" of the Condor frame. The OD of the .25 barrel it came with is 12mm, and the front bushing of the .25 barrel is perforated, allowing for a larger expansion chamber to absorb the sound of the report.
I recently installed the .22 barrel, sans cleaning or scrubbing or polishing. It was a somewhat quick and dirty experiment where I just wanted to see how it'd shoot.
Some fiddling with transfer ports and paper at 30 and steel at 60, 70, 80, and 90 yards and I had a quick "tune" and profile built in the ballistics app of the PARD. Didn't even use a chrono, but speeds are probably in the 880 range, based on typical BCs of the JSB .22/18.1s that I was experimenting with.
Made this video of the steel paddles after the down and dirty "tune."
I think those paddles at 90ish yards are around 2inches. Not too dang bad for a budget-focused gun, and in the wind none-the-less.
General Thoughts on AirForce, and the Condor SS
I like it. I like it a lot. and in some regards I like it more than I liked the non-SS Condor. And here are the reason why...
I really like that the barrel is protected from bumps and dings by the frame of the gun itself. I set it in the passenger side of my pickup to head to the prairie dog towns one day, and had a bit of a flashback to when I would travel with rimfires as a kid on the ranch. Standard practice then was to place the muzzle against the floorboard of the old farmtruck, and I never once worried about poi shifts. With moderators and shrouds and muzzle adaptors and free floated barrels, that's something I simply don't do with airguns, maintaining a constant awareness of what the end of the gun is touching, in attempts to minimize any point of impact shifts. BUT, the Condor SS, with it's full length, one-piece frame and shroud, seems to do quite fine being treated the same as a beat up old Marlin rimfire. And that's a bit refreshing.
Going along with the barrel being "inside" the gun, is the out of the box moderated nature of the SS. The 18inch barrel ends fairly short of the end of the integrated "shroud." AirForce utiiizes that dead space by shipping the SS models with some quite effective baffles/air strippers. In the videos I'll share later on here, their is a noticeable ping, but it's much more pronounced in the videos than in real life. I suspect that's an artifact of having the recording device literally mounted to the gun. Regardless, the SS is pleasantly quiet, even at 70+ fpe. I've spent $120+ on moderators from well-known airgun brands that didn't hush as well as AirForce's OEM SS configuration.
Overall length, as previously mentioned, is also a big improvement of the SS over the regular Condor. Handling an SS doesn't feel like hanging onto a broomstick with a bayonet on it, like it does when handling a 24inch barreled, moderated Condor. And that six inch shortage of barrel in the SS sure doesn't seem to affect the power output much, at least not for someone like me who prefers modest power. For my personal methods of enjoying airguns, losing the 6inches of barrel (and the extra FPE capacity there-in) is more than a worthwhile trade-off to making the gun much more convenient to handle.
I've now tinkered with the Condor platform in two variations and 3 different calibers (.20, .22, and .25), and in all of that, the pressure range that current production Condors seem to function best at is filling to 2200-2400, and shooting down to 1700-1800. From an air supply perspective, low fill pressures are a PRO, and not a small one. The same size 4500psi supply tank will produce A LOT more shots when only needing to max fill a gun to 2200-2300, versus needing to top off to 3600 (250 bar) or more at every fill. With everything optimized to a happy medium of power output, shot cycle, and shot count, usually 30-40 hunting-consistent shots per fill is pretty typical.
The latest Condors accept AR grips, previous iterations did not. The basic grip supplied with previous Condors was just that, pretty basic. The acceptance of AR grips is a huge improvement. The afore-mentioned finger groove grip make the gun so much more ergonomic and, to state it plainly, much more enjoyable to handle.
The Ring-Loc transfer port system. Being able to swap out the transfer port, without needing to disassemble the gun in any way shape or form is extremely convenient. Being unregulated and mostly valved with a priority towards max energy output, the ability to neuter the power to something reasonable by simply reducing the transfer port, is a feature that I find quite valuable.
Tinker-ability. In my time with airguns I've found that I like having a gun that I'm "working on." I've stated before that I don't like to tinker, much preferring to just shoot. But I've slowly realized I actually do like having some sort of ongoing project gun. Something I can feel a sense of accomplishment from making "better" in some way. The Condor is currently scratching that itch. I might cut chokes off the .22 and/or the .25 barrels, to make them more slug-friendly. I might leave it as .22 pellet shooter to play clean-up crew for all the orphan midweight pellets that I've got collecting dust in my gunroom. I might tune it for sub 20fpe with low weight .22 pellets and take a stab at shooting a monthly field target match with it, just because. I might get tired of fiddling and list it for sale. I don't have a set endpoint or end goal for this gun, and I kind of like the stress-less nature of that.
As we all seem to justify the "need" for another gun, my original intent/rationale for the Condor was to shoot cast 47grain slugs, produced from the mold made by MP molds. The burning need (sarcasm) here was to create a use of the estimated 80+ pounds of airgun lead I've collected from my traps over the last couple years. Current rates of addition seem to average about 8-12 pounds per 6-8 months. And as a mostly small caliber guy, that's a lot of pellets!
A secondary justification for the Condor SS purchase was an un-used PARD electronic scope. I've found the PARD to be an excellent pesting/hunting optic, but less-than-ideal as an optic for fine target work. Having previously owned a Condor, and not liking the overall length of it + an added moderator, I decided a Condor SS would make a decent hunting/pesting/tinkering platform to put the PARD on.
With summer-time practice for matches and a couple other airgun projects here and there, the Condor has been an on-again, off-again endeavor.
Addition of Grip
One of the first projects was to fit one of the finger-groove grips to it. This being a current gen Condor, it'll accept AR-style grips. It technically will accept flat-top style AR grips, but with some coaxing from the Dremel, I got a solid fit from a modified beaver tail finger-groove grip. Feels quite nice in the hand now.
MP Mold
Next I needed to make some ammo for this beast. The MP mold drops slugs in the 47.6-47.8 grain range, when at the correct operating temps. Too hot and they drop at 48+ grains, and are almost impossible to chamber in the Condor SS. Too cold and they don't get proper fill-out, resulting in under-sized slugs less than 47.5grains.
Being an 8 cavity mold, this thing can really crank out high volumes of slugs in short order.
I'm still working on perfecting the slug-making process. I'd like to get to a point where I don't have to weigh-sort them. The next step in that will be another casting session with a different type of ladle. Just haven't gotten there yet.
Due to the known BCs produced by slugs of similar shape, they should have a pretty high BC. Ballistics charting of trajectory has shown that to be the case, but I haven't measured an actual BC yet so will hold off on stating a specific BC for these cast slugs.
I've tried the cast MP molds slugs from the Condor SS as fast as high 800s and as slow as 570-580. They start to get use-ably accurate in the high 700s (shot cycle and shot count and precision). Best accuracy is with speeds north of 850 fps, but shot count is drastically reduced when pushing them that hard. And I just don't need or want that much fpe.
On that note, I've found that AirForce's transfer ports ("Ring Loc" I think they call the system) are a much more productive means of altering the energy output than the hammer spring tension.
As for accuracy, the slugs from the Condor SS are pretty reliably 1 inch groups at 30-40 yards, and 4ish inch groups at 100 yards. That's fine for hunting, but I'd like better. And that's probably where the barrel choke comes into play. It's choked pretty tight, slugs pushed all the way through are coming out at a diameter of about 0.245. For .25 barrels, Lothar reports bores of 0.248 and grooves of 0.254. It might be that, if not including the choke, but certainly less than that when the choke is at play. The cast slugs produced at the proper mold temps (the ones measuring around 47.7grains) are measuring at 0.49," so at least I'm not undersized. I have been sizing the slugs, using a simple go/no-go sizer. This is mostly to homogenize their diameter.
I've been toying with the idea of chopping the choke and re-crowning, but again, just havent had the time to get there yet.
Here was a recent pesting foray on some prairie dogs, using the Condor SS .25 and these cast MP slugs.
Short pesting vid with some cast .25 slugs
This has been a bit of a back burner project for a few months now. It was actually not even on the back burner for the last bout 8 weeks, while I was practicing for a couple big matches with other guns. Anyway, had some time to revisit lately and this was yesterday.... This is what they...
www.airgunnation.com As for the cast slugs, I'm hoping that the ladle with the pour nipple will get me more consistent fill-out of the molds. And I'm also considering picking up a cheap hot plate and monitoring mold temps better, focusing on keeping temps consistent. I'm hoping that can get me away from needing to weigh-sort and/or size the slugs produced by the mold. In short, I'm not done trying to achieve greater accuracy from the cast slugs out of the Condor.
.22 Barrel
I picked up an unused 18 inch .22 barrel from the classifieds here sometime in the past few months. It was brand new, still sealed in the AirForce tube, came with the bushings and everything. The only differences are that it's a 16mm OD barrel, and the bushings that came with it aren't perforated to allow backflow of the air blast into the entire "shroud" of the Condor frame. The OD of the .25 barrel it came with is 12mm, and the front bushing of the .25 barrel is perforated, allowing for a larger expansion chamber to absorb the sound of the report.
I recently installed the .22 barrel, sans cleaning or scrubbing or polishing. It was a somewhat quick and dirty experiment where I just wanted to see how it'd shoot.
Some fiddling with transfer ports and paper at 30 and steel at 60, 70, 80, and 90 yards and I had a quick "tune" and profile built in the ballistics app of the PARD. Didn't even use a chrono, but speeds are probably in the 880 range, based on typical BCs of the JSB .22/18.1s that I was experimenting with.
Made this video of the steel paddles after the down and dirty "tune."
I think those paddles at 90ish yards are around 2inches. Not too dang bad for a budget-focused gun, and in the wind none-the-less.
General Thoughts on AirForce, and the Condor SS
I like it. I like it a lot. and in some regards I like it more than I liked the non-SS Condor. And here are the reason why...
I really like that the barrel is protected from bumps and dings by the frame of the gun itself. I set it in the passenger side of my pickup to head to the prairie dog towns one day, and had a bit of a flashback to when I would travel with rimfires as a kid on the ranch. Standard practice then was to place the muzzle against the floorboard of the old farmtruck, and I never once worried about poi shifts. With moderators and shrouds and muzzle adaptors and free floated barrels, that's something I simply don't do with airguns, maintaining a constant awareness of what the end of the gun is touching, in attempts to minimize any point of impact shifts. BUT, the Condor SS, with it's full length, one-piece frame and shroud, seems to do quite fine being treated the same as a beat up old Marlin rimfire. And that's a bit refreshing.
Going along with the barrel being "inside" the gun, is the out of the box moderated nature of the SS. The 18inch barrel ends fairly short of the end of the integrated "shroud." AirForce utiiizes that dead space by shipping the SS models with some quite effective baffles/air strippers. In the videos I'll share later on here, their is a noticeable ping, but it's much more pronounced in the videos than in real life. I suspect that's an artifact of having the recording device literally mounted to the gun. Regardless, the SS is pleasantly quiet, even at 70+ fpe. I've spent $120+ on moderators from well-known airgun brands that didn't hush as well as AirForce's OEM SS configuration.
Overall length, as previously mentioned, is also a big improvement of the SS over the regular Condor. Handling an SS doesn't feel like hanging onto a broomstick with a bayonet on it, like it does when handling a 24inch barreled, moderated Condor. And that six inch shortage of barrel in the SS sure doesn't seem to affect the power output much, at least not for someone like me who prefers modest power. For my personal methods of enjoying airguns, losing the 6inches of barrel (and the extra FPE capacity there-in) is more than a worthwhile trade-off to making the gun much more convenient to handle.
I've now tinkered with the Condor platform in two variations and 3 different calibers (.20, .22, and .25), and in all of that, the pressure range that current production Condors seem to function best at is filling to 2200-2400, and shooting down to 1700-1800. From an air supply perspective, low fill pressures are a PRO, and not a small one. The same size 4500psi supply tank will produce A LOT more shots when only needing to max fill a gun to 2200-2300, versus needing to top off to 3600 (250 bar) or more at every fill. With everything optimized to a happy medium of power output, shot cycle, and shot count, usually 30-40 hunting-consistent shots per fill is pretty typical.
The latest Condors accept AR grips, previous iterations did not. The basic grip supplied with previous Condors was just that, pretty basic. The acceptance of AR grips is a huge improvement. The afore-mentioned finger groove grip make the gun so much more ergonomic and, to state it plainly, much more enjoyable to handle.
The Ring-Loc transfer port system. Being able to swap out the transfer port, without needing to disassemble the gun in any way shape or form is extremely convenient. Being unregulated and mostly valved with a priority towards max energy output, the ability to neuter the power to something reasonable by simply reducing the transfer port, is a feature that I find quite valuable.
Tinker-ability. In my time with airguns I've found that I like having a gun that I'm "working on." I've stated before that I don't like to tinker, much preferring to just shoot. But I've slowly realized I actually do like having some sort of ongoing project gun. Something I can feel a sense of accomplishment from making "better" in some way. The Condor is currently scratching that itch. I might cut chokes off the .22 and/or the .25 barrels, to make them more slug-friendly. I might leave it as .22 pellet shooter to play clean-up crew for all the orphan midweight pellets that I've got collecting dust in my gunroom. I might tune it for sub 20fpe with low weight .22 pellets and take a stab at shooting a monthly field target match with it, just because. I might get tired of fiddling and list it for sale. I don't have a set endpoint or end goal for this gun, and I kind of like the stress-less nature of that.
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