I try and take stab at answering your questions. Let me work in the reverse order of asking.
No, the plenum doesn’t make the gun any more accurate.
No, there are many guns that use a large plenum, Maverick, Wildcat MK3, Vulcan3, Prophet and Prophet2 are a few examples.
Yes, the cost of a large plenum can be justified.
Ok, the hard one to explain with out boring you.
Clift notes:
The plenum is the area of the reservoir that is at the regulator set point. All regulated gun have some sort of plenum area. By increasing its capacity this allows the dwell time the valve to be increased. This allows the gun to release a large burst of air at a lower pressure. Giving gun the ability to push a projectile at a higher speed with a lower set point on the regulator. Also Increasing the guns usable cc of storage air and not sacrificing ability to produce high FPS with heavy loads. Hence giving a higher shoot count with the higher speed. Something that had always be a trade off before the larger popularity of a large plenum.
Now there’s one caveat. Low plenum pressures will require a longer valve dwell. Longer dwells tend to make gun louder and burpees sounding. And lower power guns don’t benefit as much from large plenums.
General when looks at plenum sizes, you want 1cc for every 1lbs of energy you need.
Example: .177 with a 8gr pellet 12lbs gun only needs 12cc of plenum
And a .30 with a 50gr slug 100lbs gun can use 100cc plenum
Hopefully this will serve as quick notes!
Mont
