More fun with strippers

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scotton

scotton

Member
Nov 2, 2016
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TX, United States
It's been exactly 2 years since I played around with an air stripper on a Walther LGV. Well, I can no longer ignore the stripper even though I'm using a different gun so it's time for Air Stripper Post 2.0!
This time, the tool of choice will be the Hammerli AR20FT in .177 shooting Air Arms Field 8.4 pellets (4.50 diameter sized) at 11.8 foot pounds. The test will be conducted off the bench at 50 yards on a warm and windy day. The stripper in question is still the Hatsan Air Stripper using a 3D printed thread adapter on the AR20.

Conventional wisdom says the cone gap in the air stripper should be 1-2 pellet diameters, so the testing range would be 5-9 mm. (That's a lie, but more on that in a second).

So I put a 6mm hex wrench in the stripper to set the gap at 6mm. I intended to use a 5mm wrench, but I didn't. We are starting at 6mm.

I marked at target with 6mm, 7mm, 8mm and 9mm. Then I shot 6 shots at 6mm. Not a bad group, about .75 inches. I carefully pulled the cone out 1 mm and shot at the 7mm target. First 2 shots were pellet on pellet. Next 3 shots didn't hit paper. Hmm, that's not good. Took off the stripper, no signs of clipping. Looked at the threaded adapter, no signs of clipping but it was a little loose. It's held in the shroud with a grub screw and I didn't want to put too much on it because that might deform the plastic. I carefully tightened the grub screw and shot 5 shots without the stripper. Everything went fine so I put the stripper back on and resume the 7mm test. Group was fine, a little better than the 6mm group.

Changed to 8mm. Got a great group, all 5 pellet touching in a lateral line, a little over .5 inches long.

Adjusted out to 9mm with the very scientific method of looking at it and thinking "That's probably 9mm".

Decent group with some lateral movement, about .75 inches across. I remember being impressed with this group at the time, but according to the pictures the 8mm group was better.
I decided to check out 8.75, 8.5 and 8.25mm.
8.75mm was a bust, worst group of the day.

8.5 was pure magic. 2 in one hole (x2) and the 5th was just off. This was the one! I marked the stripper cone with a red sharpie so I can remember this setting.

After action thoughts:
I'm currently printing a new threaded adapter that will be a glue-in.

I measured the gap in the stripper and it is not 8.5mm. Nor is it 9.5mm. It's a whopping 13.25mm! 3 pellet diameters! This shouldn't work, but it does. Next time I go to the club I'll bring calipers for better testing, but it was so windy today I didn't bother.

I'm not going to upload all of the pictures, I'll just show the 6mm group, the 8.75mm group and the 8.5mm group. More to come soon...

6mm.jpg8_75.jpg8_5mm.jpg
 
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Last winter I built myself a one piece rest, for tuning purposes in mind, and what it does and how it does, I kept it as my all time BR equipment. Nomore bipod or bags or tripods for BR
I just told you this my story how I eliminated the human induced error.
I like strippers and have couple different styles, and I modified most.
From my perspective I can confirm the stripper makes a difference, either way if a tune is almost perfect or almost there.
I have couple in .22 and couple in .25.
 
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Stripper follow up
I was at the 50 yard range trying to find any kind of accuracy from my Avenger (partial success) and I decided to play with the stripper some more on the AR 20.
I printed a new threaded attachment for the air stripper that is more robust but I wanted to see if there was any effect on group size. I had my calipers ready to go for some mad science.

Unfortunately, the wind was kicking way too hard for any kind of accurate group size calibration. However, I did want to put a group down with the previous air stripper setting of 13.25, just to try to compare things with the previous threaded adapter.

I plopped out a 5 shot group that was one big ragged hole. I was feeling it, so I sent 5 more down range. The group opened up a little but still the best windy day group I've ever shot with this rifle. At this point, I'm calling this experiment on hiatus. I can compete with this setting, so until I'm bored on a nice day with no wind I don't see the need to do any further tweaking.

20230107_101414.jpg
 
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Something weird happens every time I look decide there is no wind and I should head to the club. Someone turns on the fan, and when I get to the club the flags are all standing straight out.

Be that as it may, I did some more stripper evaluation today. Same deal, AR20FT, 12 fpe, Air Arms Fields at 4.50, 51 yards from the bench.
First group was with the stripper (who I will call Krystal from now on) removed, so just the threaded insert in the shroud. The group was an unimpressive 1.583".

20_no_stripper.jpg

Then I screwed Krystal onto the barrel with the same setting as last time (13.25mm gap) and shot a 1.195" group, mostly vertical stringing.

20_13-25.jpg

Then I dialed the gap down to 9mm and shot a perfect domino 5 pattern, .961" CTC.

20_9.jpg


Next I set the gap to 6mm and shot the best group, .636"".

20_6.jpg

Then I set the gap to 4.5mm and things opened back up with a lateral group of 1.263" (group height of .14)". Due to the low group height for this group, I may revisit this gap setting when the wind is cooperating.

20_4-5.jpg

I tried a couple of other gaps around 5 to 7mm but settled on 6mm as being the best gap setting given the conditions.

Then I decided to try a different stripper. I 3D printed a stripper that replaces the shroud cap on my HW97K and I was curious to try it out. (We'll call this one Jasmine).


So, sans stripper I put out a pretty typical group of 1.29" CTC", mostly vertical stringing.

97_no_stripper.jpg

Then I threaded Jasmine in and shot a group a little bigger (1.442") but mostly lateral stringing (group height .614" compared to 1.252" for the no stripper group).

97_stripper.jpg

Due to the wind, I was happier to see lateral stringing than vertical stringing. So I'm calling this a success. Jasmine has a non-adjustable cone which appears to have about a 6mm gap. This wasn't on purpose, things just worked out this way.

I just remembered I have OnTarget, so I'll measure the actual group sizes and put them in the post.

Since it was a nice day and no one was at the range, I decided to do some FT practice and shot both rifles seated off the knee (one at a time, I'm not a maniac). The AR20 had a nice little group of 1.089" CTC. The HW97 had a group of .980 CTC. It's great to have both guns shooting about the same, but that really highlights the fact that once you straighten out the arrows, it's all about the archer.

ar_seated.jpg hw97_seated.jpg
 
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Well,hmmmm,I was expecting a happy ending. Wishful thinking OK! So,since that didn't work out. U got got me curious about that Hatsan stripper. Lets call her Cher,lol. What is Cher made of ? And will she let u try different positions? Or was that your handiwork? It sounds like Crystal will but I lost track what with the missionary and the cowboy shot strings,,,WHOE THERE,,sry.:LOL:
 
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scotton said:
It's been exactly 2 years since I played around with an air stripper on a Walther LGV. Well, I can no longer ignore the stripper even though I'm using a different gun so it's time for Air Stripper Post 2.0!
This time, the tool of choice will be the Hammerli AR20FT in .177 shooting Air Arms Field 8.4 pellets (4.50 diameter sized) at 11.8 foot pounds. The test will be conducted off the bench at 50 yards on a warm and windy day. The stripper in question is still the Hatsan Air Stripper using a 3D printed thread adapter on the AR20.

Conventional wisdom says the cone gap in the air stripper should be 1-2 pellet diameters, so the testing range would be 5-9 mm. (That's a lie, but more on that in a second).

So I put a 6mm hex wrench in the stripper to set the gap at 6mm. I intended to use a 5mm wrench, but I didn't. We are starting at 6mm.

I marked at target with 6mm, 7mm, 8mm and 9mm. Then I shot 6 shots at 6mm. Not a bad group, about .75 inches. I carefully pulled the cone out 1 mm and shot at the 7mm target. First 2 shots were pellet on pellet. Next 3 shots didn't hit paper. Hmm, that's not good. Took off the stripper, no signs of clipping. Looked at the threaded adapter, no signs of clipping but it was a little loose. It's held in the shroud with a grub screw and I didn't want to put too much on it because that might deform the plastic. I carefully tightened the grub screw and shot 5 shots without the stripper. Everything went fine so I put the stripper back on and resume the 7mm test. Group was fine, a little better than the 6mm group.

Changed to 8mm. Got a great group, all 5 pellet touching in a lateral line, a little over .5 inches long.

Adjusted out to 9mm with the very scientific method of looking at it and thinking "That's probably 9mm".

Decent group with some lateral movement, about .75 inches across. I remember being impressed with this group at the time, but according to the pictures the 8mm group was better.
I decided to check out 8.75, 8.5 and 8.25mm.
8.75mm was a bust, worst group of the day.

8.5 was pure magic. 2 in one hole (x2) and the 5th was just off. This was the one! I marked the stripper cone with a red sharpie so I can remember this setting.

After action thoughts:
I'm currently printing a new threaded adapter that will be a glue-in.

I measured the gap in the stripper and it is not 8.5mm. Nor is it 9.5mm. It's a whopping 13.25mm! 3 pellet diameters! This shouldn't work, but it does. Next time I go to the club I'll bring calipers for better testing, but it was so windy today I didn't bother.

I'm not going to upload all of the pictures, I'll just show the 6mm group, the 8.75mm group and the 8.5mm group. More to come soon...

View attachment 319847View attachment 319848View attachment 319849
Click to expand...
Good information, thanks for sharing.

ThomasT
 
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HeyU said:
Well,hmmmm,I was expecting a happy ending. Wishful thinking OK! So,since that didn't work out. U got got me curious about that Hatsan stripper. Lets call her Cher,lol. What is Cher made of ? And will she let u try different positions? Or was that your handiwork? It sounds like Crystal will but I lost track what with the missionary and the cowboy shot strings,,,WHOE THERE,,sry.:LOL:
Click to expand...
I thought this was a happy ending. I am very pleased with these groups in a swirly 15 mph wind. And the Hatsan stripper is Krystal, all of this testing is trying different gaps in the Hatsan stripper. The stripper on the HW97 is fixed at 6mm.
 
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DesertSilver said:
Well, they do that to get more dollar bills. 🫣
Click to expand...
Capitalism at work :)

Just got a stripper for my Wolverine & have some trials planned for this Friday. Already very precise, so not expecting huge improvements... but any little bit will help, & it's a relatively cheap experiment (for this hobby).

Haven't gotten her name yet, maybe Friday :ROFLMAO:
 
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wolfmangreg said:
Capitalism at work :)

Just got a stripper for my Wolverine & have some trials planned for this Friday. Already very precise, so not expecting huge improvements... but any little bit will help, & it's a relatively cheap experiment (for this hobby).

Haven't gotten her name yet, maybe Friday :ROFLMAO:
Click to expand...
I can already hear "Pour some sugar on me" ramping up in the background.
 
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I don't know what you mean. The only strippers I'm aware of attach to the barrel of a gun or remove paint.


Sorry, my wife was in the office for a minute. She's been asking a lot of questions lately, like "Why are you covered in glitter every time you come home from the gun range?" and "Why does your gun case smell like cheap perfume?"
 
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