Confusion on 2,000psi vs 3,000psi rifles

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WN0912

Member
Dec 7, 2020
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Ohio, United States
Hello again. I love learning info from all the members here so thanks in advance.

I'm still researching my first pcp but getting closer. One thing I don't understand is the psi rating for the various rifles. What I mean is, a rifle like the Benjamin Maximus has a rating of 2,000psi and the Gauntlet (for example) has a rating of 3,000psi. But yet, both rifles have a similar 'FPS' rating around 850 to 900.

What is the actual psi that a pcp rifle shoots at? Is it different than what the air stored in the rifle air bottle is set at?

I'm guessing that the higher psi rating will result in more shots per fill, not counting the size of the air tank/bottle.

Just wondering how this all works.

Thanks! 
 
It's all about the efficiency of each gun. Everything else equal, having a higher pressure will mean more shots, but working pressure is mostly irrelevant when comparing between different guns. Some of the things that affects efficiency are, barrel length, size of the plenum, and caliber. Having any of those in bigger sizes will generally allow for lower operating pressures to achieve the same power as a gun with smaller of those measurements.
 
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If the gun has a regulator, the fill pressure and regulator setpoint can be different. If the gun is unregulated, you have to fill it to the pressure that it is designed to work at. There will be a range where you find the gun to be most consistent. If you look up reviews on unregulated guns you will see the reviewer post a graph of velocities shooting down from maximum fill pressure down to where it falls off too much to be usable. 
 
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Fill pressure is just that it's the maximum pressure the manufacture recommends that the gun be filled to. The guns can shoot at fill pressure or be regulated to a lower pressure and still shoot the same velocity although shot count is usually in favor of the guns with higher fill pressures. 

Velocities are dictated by the hammer weights, springs, and port sizes in the valve and barrels.
 
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The actual power level is set by how much air can flow from the valve through the chamber. That flow is restricted by a transfer port (like a carberator jet) that mostly decides how much power you can get. The hammer weight and spring can adjust power to a degree, but it mostly effects the fill pressure sweet spot. There are more details on tuning, but this is the basics.
 
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The MSWP variance of commonly 2K to 3K, and more recently much higher pressures appeals to different buyers for different reasons.

First, manufacturers safe working pressure is a guideline for folks not to overfill and obtain a locked valve or injury. 
The valve is designed to open within the fill pressure & hopefully give consistent flow. 
Most airguns can be adjusted to operate best/better within a smaller fill window. This gets technical when running pellets/slugs over a chronograph and calculating everything. In fact 3000psi is pretty dang high, and most of us in the know only fill to 2700psi even on Airguns that are designed to take a much higher starting point. Or so most would think. It doesn't matter that it's printed as MSWP 3000psi. I guarantee that gun works better at say 2700psi down to 2100psi. 
Shots are going to climb in speed as the 3K fill drops in around 2700. That's because the valve opens with less resistance, thus expelling more air/pressure, in turn increasing projectile speed. Companies count all shots within a 40fps spread from starting fill pressure to ending fill pressure. A 40fps spread in vertical stringing of projectiles at 50 yards equates to a 1/4" c-t-c. That, is how they claim the 80-120 shots per fill when listing a mechanical guns shot count. In real world a buyer is going to refil when he sees a 20fps spread at most nowadays. Add in the original regulators, improved custom Lane type, and now dual step down onboard reg system being utilized in the Mavericks? Well some folks definitely want any new airgun they buy to have a much tighter spread, like 5fps. Any airgun can be made to have a extremely tight spread. It doesn't mean the older ones are worth a lot less. Well, that's debatable but I appreciate the higher quality in materials and refined aesthetics over out of the box bells and whistles. 
Please consider my POV is based upon the fact that I have a big compressor, and don't mind shooting groups from a stationary spot while tethered to a 4500psi SCBA & a step down in-line reg. If I only had my Hill pump and a dive shop 1/2 hour away I would definitely be wondering about the optimal fill pressure. Remember optimal doesn't necessarily always mean maximum in direct comparison of starting fill pressure. I definitely remember wondering this & much more when discovering PCP's. 

When you get into Daystate airguns, you see incredibly efficient airguns because the solenoid operated valve is able to be adjusted by nano seconds. Talk about fine tuning for barrel/pellet/timing. 
A good example. Anyone with a say 28-32" barrel, on the long side, yes, but they can see they can produce more power on a 2000psi fill opposed to a shorter, say 20-24" barrel on any higher fill pressure, Same caliber/weight direct comparison. 



 
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Get the Maximus if you want to start as cheap and easy as possible and if you specifically intend use a $50 Wal-Mart hand pump regularly.

Any 3000psi or higher fill pressure gun you really won't want to shoot it much due to the sheer difficulty to pump past 2000 - 2400psi realistically.

After pumping my first 3000psi 400cc bottle I thought screw that and immediately spent big bux and ordered TWO HUGE TANKS.

I would have wanted to quit PCPs if I had to constantly hand pump to 3000psi on a daily basis.

I got to Really appreciate shooting my RWS54 spring guns in the mean time.

If 2000psi PCPs were available early on I probably wouldn't have bought 80% - 90% of the springers I own today.
 
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Thanks everyone. Now I understand.

Odoyle; I've almost hit the 'buy' button several times this week on the Maximus. The only thing that's holding me back is the small amount of rounds per fill. I've heard that with the 22 cal, you get about 20 shots. Then it would be back to the hand pump. It seems like I'd be pumping more than shooting!

On the other hand, I've been looking at the Yong Heng on Amazon. Without the auto shutoff, it's $305 with free shipping. I've read a lot of good reviews for this compressor on this forum.

Eh, sooner or later I'll figure this out.

Thanks again everyone.
 
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I'd rather pump to 2000psi every 20-25 shots instead of pumping to 3000psi every 50-60 shots because the pumping effort past 2000psi is really hard progressively gets worse the closer you are to 3000psi where you want to drop dead thats even morel work than sex. Pumping from 1200psi to 2000psi is a piece of cake.

You don't need any Chinese compressor that has bad or questionable or unproven long term reliability that can fail at any unexpected time when you want to shoot. A hand pump as a backup is recommended and you will grab the lowest psi rated gun first when the compressor fails..
 
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Cutting 2 coils off the hammer spring of the Maximus will get you about 10 more shots to a string and move the velocity curve from a straight downward trend to a bell curve. It only takes removal of 2 action screws to remove the rear cap and spring. There are more mods and tuning options, but they don't get you much more than this very simple one.
 
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I agree that manually pumping to 3000 PSI is much harder than 2000 PSI. With that said, there is no requirement to fill a gun up to maximum pressure before shooting. Regardless of the gun, the manual pumping effort per shot is similar for a given FPE. A gun with a bigger capacity and fill to a higher pressure gives user options regarding shot count. For example, my gun will fill to 3600 PSI and get 100 shots on the regulator. If I only fill it to 2000 PSI, it still gives me 29 shots. Indeed, for the type of shooting I do, I rarely fill it up to more than 3000 PSI, but I still like the option to go higher for more shots if I ever need to. My parents have a lot of rodents in their backyard that my dad is trying to control as well. Every time we spend some time there, I pump my gun to 3000 PSI and leave the pump at home. This gives me 70 shots which is enough for a couple of days' pest shooting. At home though, my gun is usually sitting below 2500 PSI.

With a 20 shot, 2000 PSI gun with a small reservoir, 20 shots is all you're ever going to get without having to take the pump with you.

The only negative I can think of in getting a gun with a big reservoir that you plan to hand pump is if you're constantly tinkering with the gun and you have to constantly completely degass the gun for disassembly or if the gun is leaking. A big reservoir will take a much longer time to manually pump to at least regulator pressure than a smaller one.
 
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When I bought my first PCP rifle, a .22 Benjamin Marauder, I bought a hand pump to go with it. I only had to pump that sucker up once to figure there had to be a better way. So, I contacted Joe Brancato and he set me up with a 4500 psi air compressor, a 66 cu ft tank and a regulator, Costly, but I've never been sorry. Now, I don't mind shooting my PCPs
 
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I have been handing pumping for years,not bad at all to say 2800psi,more than that is a chore.

My PCPs have small air reservoirs,that is why hand pumping is not hard.None of them get more than 28 good shoots,except 1701 and Challenger.

Hand pumping saves me money$$$,now I got a little compressor....=more money$$ going to spend on bigger and more powerful PCPs.,I get to play with the big boys now,LOL.nay actually small low power PCP are great for shooting out to 30yds are so plus they can be really accurate and just as much FUN.
 
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I agree that manually pumping to 3000 PSI is much harder than 2000 PSI. With that said, there is no requirement to fill a gun up to maximum pressure before shooting. Regardless of the gun, the manual pumping effort per shot is similar for a given FPE. A gun with a bigger capacity and fill to a higher pressure gives user options regarding shot count. For example, my gun will fill to 3600 PSI and get 100 shots on the regulator. If I only fill it to 2000 PSI, it still gives me 29 shots. Indeed, for the type of shooting I do, I rarely fill it up to more than 3000 PSI, but I still like the option to go higher for more shots if I ever need to. My parents have a lot of rodents in their backyard that my dad is trying to control as well. Every time we spend some time there, I pump my gun to 3000 PSI and leave the pump at home. This gives me 70 shots which is enough for a couple of days' pest shooting. At home though, my gun is usually sitting below 2500 PSI.

With a 20 shot, 2000 PSI gun with a small reservoir, 20 shots is all you're ever going to get without having to take the pump with you.

The only negative I can think of in getting a gun with a big reservoir that you plan to hand pump is if you're constantly tinkering with the gun and you have to constantly completely degass the gun for disassembly or if the gun is leaking. A big reservoir will take a much longer time to manually pump to at least regulator pressure than a smaller one.
Click to expand...

That’s a very awesome point. Big reservoir gun + Tinkering + Hand Pump = not a good combo. Even if you replaced the hand pump in that equation with a tank, that’s still not a good combo due to more trips to the dive shop to get the tank topped off. I learned that right away. The minute I bought a chronograph, that led to tinkering, and my Marauder became an air hungry machine, requiring me to go to the paintball shop for a top off twice a week.
 
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I'd rather pump to 2000psi every 20-25 shots instead of pumping to 3000psi every 50-60 shots because the pumping effort past 2000psi is really hard progressively gets worse the closer you are to 3000psi where you want to drop dead thats even morel work than sex. Pumping from 1200psi to 2000psi is a piece of cake.

You don't need any Chinese compressor that has bad or questionable or unproven long term reliability that can fail at any unexpected time when you want to shoot. A hand pump as a backup is recommended and you will grab the lowest psi rated gun first when the compressor fails..
Click to expand...


This right here is the words of the wise. I wouldn't even stress the system to 2000 PSI. Think about it math wise that's 2000 atmospheres and we only got us one earth here. I'd pump to one atmosphere and that way you never tax teh system. It's hard to create pressures man I know it's why when I'm a racing and driving fast I'm keeping my windows open. That pressure would crush my car if I drove fast enough. Nothing wrong with the compressors as long as you get that 4 year warranty. Plus you get FREE PARTS. And you can do things with 'em. You'll never know when this stuff is gonna blow up in your face. Or even all over you face like trying to eat cheese grits in your lap and doing the Nascar street course instead of the oval laps!

Also these reCAPTCHA's I 'aint driven past more street lights and cross walks than that time I had to urinate and the only bathroom open was at Billy Madison's!
 
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One of the advantages of the 2000 psi guns is that you get a ton of fills from a inexpensive scuba tank. I paid $80 for mine used and $38 for fill and recertification. I have a Maximus and get 35 shots per fill at 12 fpe. Looking at the stack of empty pellet tins from this summer I’ve shot a lot of pellets on 1 $8 fill. You won’t get nearly as many shots with a 3000 psi gun.
 
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Update:

I decided to take advantage of the MidwayUSA deal of $145 plus free shipping for the Maximus 22 cal. Bought it yesterday, already got notification it shipped. Then I bought a 4 Uncles hand pump for $65 on Amazon, free shipping, delivery date is Sunday. Guess I'm now officially in the pcp arena. :)

I also found a local welding tank, medical tank etc., company about 15 minutes from my house. They fill tanks for paintball and air rifles for $5., will fill while I wait for it, and they said they use nitrogen instead of air because there's less moisture with nitrogen. Sounds logical but I'm wondering what you guys think of that. He said it doesn't matter what size tank it is, but they are limited to 3,000 psi which I'm thinking would be fine for a 2,000psi air rifle, right?

With that said, I still don't know what kind of tank, hose, regulator setup I need for a 2,000psi rifle.

I found an air tank on Amazon for $59 but I'm still not sure what I need to buy. This one is called a Maddog 48/3000 aluminum compressed air tank with regulator for $59. It's got and output pressure of 800 to 850psi. I'm guessing that's too low. Is there a difference between paintball and air rifle specs/requirements?

As you have figured out from all my posts, I'm a real cheapskate. I just bought the least expensive pcp rifle and a really inexpensive hand pump. Now I'm looking to piece meal together a tank, hose, and regulator (I guess), and if the tank setup is going to be $300 or more, I'll just hand pump.

Any help with a setup for 3,000psi tank and the other things I need is appreciated.

Thanks again! 




 
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