Modded 25 Armada, Tuning is Difficult, Pulling The Bolt Back Moreso

[Maskeno]

Hey all. New to the forum. New to pcps. After a few weeks of playing with my new .25 armada, I decided to go all in and drop a huma reg, and the hill max power kit into it. After stuffing it all together, the results were somewhat disappointing.

Now I'm not 1000% certain a didn't mix up the hammer springs while swapping. But it seems like the hill spring (provided its the thicker/heavier spring) can't be tuned at all. 0 turns to 6 turns, I get nearly identical fps, and an abysmal shot count. With the factory spring I can only get to a consistent 40 foot pound range of 35-40 shots at 1&1/4 turns clockwise with jsb hades 25.54gr pellets.

I followed the instructions dead on, but shot placement seems somewhat inconsistent (I need to test more when the storm passes) and the bolt, dear God the bolt! Wrenching that sumbitch back is a herculean effort. My middle finger is throbbing at the point where the bolt contacts my hand after testing my shot count on 3 different pellets. The king mk2s are still the most consistent (but not as consistent as my stock setup +reg was) in terms of accuracy. The hades are okay. The Hn hornets are awful, but they almost hit 1000 fps.

Does anybody know what I might have missed? The reg is currently set to about 2100psi. Is there anything I can do about that spring? (I'll attach a photo of both so maybe some eagle eye can tell me which is which to be sure.)

View attachment 20220702_143527.jpg

 

[pnwairgunner]

Turn your reg down to around 1900 psi and try using the shorter spring. The original spring is heavy so that it can open the valve at 3000 psi, and your new valve is no longer reaching that pressure inside. You should not be needing a heavy spring with the reg set at 1900 psi and shooting pellets as opposed to slugs. Slugs need more air behind them to get them up to speed so a person would use a heavy spring to accomplish that.

 

[pnwairgunner]

I have a marauder that has a lighter than factory spring, and a now discontinued WAR valve that gets 16 great consistent shots and I only fill it to 1900 psi. Super easy to pull the bolt back, less air used from my scuba tank and still getting excellent accuracy.
Somewhere around 850-920fps is what you most likely want to achieve for good accuracy with 25gr JSB and 33gr jsb.

 

[Stretch]

Turn your reg down to around 1900 psi and try using the shorter spring. The original spring is heavy so that it can open the valve at 3000 psi, and your new valve is no longer reaching that pressure inside. You should not be needing a heavy spring with the reg set at 1900 psi and shooting pellets as opposed to slugs. Slugs need more air behind them to get them up to speed so a person would use a heavy spring to accomplish that.

Interesting topic because I'm looking for a good slug shooter in .22 and never considered an Armada/Marauder. How well do they do with slugs? Can a .22 be tuned to push a 25 grain slug over 950 fps (without major surgery)?

 

[Maskeno]

I have a marauder that has a lighter than factory spring, and a now discontinued WAR valve that gets 16 great consistent shots and I only fill it to 1900 psi. Super easy to pull the bolt back, less air used from my scuba tank and still getting excellent accuracy.
Somewhere around 850-920fps is what you most likely want to achieve for good accuracy with 25gr JSB and 33gr jsb.

So the shorter spring is probably the Hill spring and I did indeed mix them up. So I feel dumb, haha.

I'll turn down the reg, do you think that'll give me less headaches wrenching the bolt back?

 

[nervoustrig]

The Marauder hammer and tube are susceptible to galling.

Smooth and polish both parts with wet sanding. Clean thoroughly and lubricate by burnishing with molybdenum disulfide or tungsten disulfide powder. You can go a step further and upgrade the poppet to PEEK. It will knock open easier so less hammer spring tension is needed.

You can also look into buttoning the hammer. It involves drilling the hammer to accept plastic at the key bearing points that want to dig in while cocking.

 

[pnwairgunner]

Interesting topic because I'm looking for a good slug shooter in .22 and never considered an Armada/Marauder. How well do they do with slugs? Can a .22 be tuned to push a 25 grain slug over 950 fps (without major surgery)?

Well if you want a project to take on, you can make the marauder do just about anything. But it’s a money pit. You could easily find another rifle that already more suited to shooting slugs from the factory, for about the same amount of money (or less) than you’ll eventually have in your marauder.
The Crosman barrels are not great. The old .25 marauder had the Green Mountain barrel, which was a very good barrel. The old .22 marauder barrels were crap. Lots of accuracy issues. Now they have allegedly improved their process but you still get mixed results. So you’ll need to source a good .22 slug barrel, a good balanced valve, and so on and so forth.
I’ve done a few marauder builds just for the enjoyment of it, but it’s never economically prudent unless you already have the parts laying around or are a person who can machine their own barrels, etc.
I’m not saying don’t do the project, but if you aren’t dead set on dumping money into a marauder you could probably buy an fx Dreamline set up for slugs for about the same money you’d have in the Armada build, or even just buying an Airforce condor and cut the choke cut off from the barrel.

 

[Motorhead]

Stock porting ( valve body / transfer port / barrel ) is generally @ .140" and is just too restrictive to make higher power using a factory length barrel.

Ideally for high power .22 in the M-rod platform porting of @ .165" is where it needs to be.

 

[pnwairgunner]

So the shorter spring is probably the Hill spring and I did indeed mix them up. So I feel dumb, haha.

I'll turn down the reg, do you think that'll give me less headaches wrenching the bolt back?

Having a softer hammer spring DEFINITELY will make the bolt cycle easier. The more spring reassure you have the harder it is to pull it back.
And like nervoustrig said below, make sure the tube and hammer are clean and lubricated lightly to prevent galling.

 

[Maskeno]

Having a softer hammer spring DEFINITELY will make the bolt cycle easier. The more spring reassure you have the harder it is to pull it back.
And like nervoustrig said below, make sure the tube and hammer are clean and lubricated lightly to prevent galling.

I ordered some lube and a ball hone to smooth out the chamber plus a peek striker. Is there a way to balance the spring beyond that? Any more turns clockwise past 1 full turn and my shot count drops massively. Do you think the peek will be enough to soften up the spring safely?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm just trying to understand the physics of it all.

 

[pnwairgunner]

I ordered some lube and a ball hone to smooth out the chamber plus a peek striker. Is there a way to balance the spring beyond that? Any more turns clockwise past 1 full turn and my shot count drops massively. Do you think the peek will be enough to soften up the spring safely?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm just trying to understand the physics of it all.

No problem, no one here minds people asking questions. Do you have a chronograph? What are you trying to achieve? Maximum fps does not equal maximum accuracy. What is the actual fps you are getting at 1900psi reg setting and zero turns on the hammer spring? You should not need a massive amount of spring tension to open the valve. Adding more spring tension causes the hammer to keep the valve open longer which in turn makes your shot count go down down down. You are wasting air. If the valve is still open once the pellet has left the barrel then it’s doing nothing but wasting air, making more noise, and causing you to have to pull harder on the bolt to operate the action. And probably destabilizing the pellet to some degree which is going to ruin accuracy.
Your tube may not need honed at all. All the marauders I ever worked on have had mirror smooth inner surfaces already. Usually I’ve found that just cleaning the surfaces and applying a very thin layer of silicone grease is sufficient to keep things moving effortlessly.

 

[Maskeno]

No problem, no one here minds people asking questions. Do you have a chronograph? What are you trying to achieve? Maximum fps does not equal maximum accuracy. What is the actual fps you are getting at 1900psi reg setting and zero turns on the hammer spring? You should not need a massive amount of spring tension to open the valve. Adding more spring tension causes the hammer to keep the valve open longer which in turn makes your shot count go down down down. You are wasting air. If the valve is still open once the pellet has left the barrel then it’s doing nothing but wasting air, making more noise, and causing you to have to pull harder on the bolt to operate the action. And probably destabilizing the pellet to some degree which is going to ruin accuracy.
Your tube may not need honed at all. All the marauders I ever worked on have had mirror smooth inner surfaces already. Usually I’ve found that just cleaning the surfaces and applying a very thin layer of silicone grease is sufficient to keep things moving effortlessly.

Okay, so now I'm really confused. Because my results seem to be going in opposite directions here. Basically I'm trying to keep my accuracy at 50 yards with overhead for 100 yards if/when I decide to push that. It seems like the bolt is harder to work the *looser the spring is (the further counter clockwise) and going down to about 3/4 turn clockwise is about the only way to keep a decent shot count, but it also makes working the bolt a gnarly effort.

If I turn it right to the middle (3 turns in either direction) the bolt is as easy as ever to work, but I only get about 14 shots at 45 foot pounds before significant drop off.

So to recap 1 turn clockwise over a chrono gives me around 830fps/40 foot pounds for about 27 shots with my reg set to 1900psi and makes cranking the bolt a monster. If I go a quarter to half a turn lower (counter cw) it gets closer to 40 shots, but the bolt starts getting so hard it literally bruises my shoulder to pull it. Weird right?

 

[Maskeno]

Stock porting ( valve body / transfer port / barrel ) is generally @ .140" and is just too restrictive to make higher power using a factory length barrel.

Ideally for high power .22 in the M-rod platform porting of @ .165" is where it needs to be.

I believe that was handled while installing the hill kit. It included a bit and deburring tool to open up the port, and a high flow transfer port valve to take advantage of the increased airflow.

 

[Motorhead]

Unless barrel was opened up as well ? all for not FYI !

 

[MileHighAirGunner]

I don’t think the max power kit was meant for a regulated rifle. Tim sells a kit specifically for regulated applications.
I suggest contacting Tim Hill directly https://hillairgun.com/contact-form-7-id1447-titlecontact-tim/ and see what he has to say. He’s always been very helpful to me. Not that others don’t know what they’re talking about here but no one knows Tim Hills stuff better than the man himself.

 

[pnwairgunner]

Okay, so now I'm really confused. Because my results seem to be going in opposite directions here. Basically I'm trying to keep my accuracy at 50 yards with overhead for 100 yards if/when I decide to push that. It seems like the bolt is harder to work the *looser the spring is (the further counter clockwise) and going down to about 3/4 turn clockwise is about the only way to keep a decent shot count, but it also makes working the bolt a gnarly effort.

If I turn it right to the middle (3 turns in either direction) the bolt is as easy as ever to work, but I only get about 14 shots at 45 foot pounds before significant drop off.

So to recap 1 turn clockwise over a chrono gives me around 830fps/40 foot pounds for about 27 shots with my reg set to 1900psi and makes cranking the bolt a monster. If I go a quarter to half a turn lower (counter cw) it gets closer to 40 shots, but the bolt starts getting so hard it literally bruises my shoulder to pull it. Weird right?

It definitely sounds like something is not correct with the bolt or the hammer. There’s no reason for the bolt to be harder to pull backwards with no extra tension on the spring. Dissassemble and find the source of your problem.

 

[Airgun-Revisions]

Ok. What’s truly going on is you changed how the whole gun pretty much operates from the factory. You change so many things up that you can’t get anything to gel.
Quite honestly this is where a highly experienced tuner needs to come in to play.
I get that you wanna do things yourself but you’re just beating your head against the wall and blaming the gun. Sorry for the bluntness I don’t think anyone here has the @&$@ to even say that. If you want it straightened out send it to somebody to do the job. No disrespect but there are reasons why Airgun technicians are out
there.

 

[Maskeno]

I don’t think the max power kit was meant for a regulated rifle. Tim sells a kit specifically for regulated applications.
I suggest contacting Tim Hill directly https://hillairgun.com/contact-form-7-id1447-titlecontact-tim/ and see what he has to say. He’s always been very helpful to me. Not that others don’t know what they’re talking about here but no one knows Tim Hills stuff better than the man himself.

I've been in contact with him. He informed me that as long as I left the o-ring off the gauge block closest to the reg it was fine.

 

[Maskeno]

It definitely sounds like something is not correct with the bolt or the hammer. There’s no reason for the bolt to be harder to pull backwards with no extra tension on the spring. Dissassemble and find the source of your problem.

Unfortunately I have now done this 10 times or do, but I'm just not seeing it. I'll pull the bolt again though. Only checked that once.

 

[Maskeno]

Ok. What’s truly going on is you changed how the whole gun pretty much operates from the factory. You change so many things up that you can’t get anything to gel.
Quite honestly this is where a highly experienced tuner needs to come in to play.
I get that you wanna do things yourself but you’re just beating your head against the wall and blaming the gun. Sorry for the bluntness I don’t think anyone here has the @&$@ to even say that. If you want it straightened out send it to somebody to do the job. No disrespect but there are reasons why Airgun technicians are out
there.

Honestly if I can't do it myself I'm not even interested. This is the fun part of any project for me. I like to tinker.