Oh my velocities were for the 457 challenger using 200 grain for the 1145 fps velocities. The thing isn't working right anymore, somethings wrong. Will be in touch with bin tac. It's now making velocities as if it were stock again
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Probably smack the valve pin too hard. In the last 10 years PCP has had issues breaking the valve because of the material used. Using high pressure and a big heavy hammer and spring put a lot of stress on those parts. That stress is much reduced on a gun that is regulated so your valve is not being tortured with 4,500 PSI. If you look at FX airguns they run the reg under 2500 PSI and Never break the valve.Oh my velocities were for the 457 challenger using 200 grain for the 1145 fps velocities. The thing isn't working right anymore, somethings wrong. Will be in touch with bin tac. It's now making velocities as if it were stock again
Well if it's under warranty send it back otherwise take it apart. It's probably not the valve pin but more likely an o-ring. Sometimes you can be lucky with an o-ring kit but some of these o-rings are custom. The machining edge were an o-ring makes sometimes is sharp and I like to take a little wire brush on a low speed drill and just buff the edges a little bit. If you run your finger along the edge and it feel sharp then what do you think it'll do to the o-ring?When I broke a valve pin on my terminator way back, it dumped all its air and wouldn't fire at all. Why is this one still firing and not dumping air I the pin is broken?
The hammer spring is really easy to take out!The gun won't be under warranty but the new valve might be. Still waiting to hear from bin tac.
I have silicone oil and grease, but I don't think it's an o ring. Didn't notice any leaks. I'm inclined to think it's a bad hammer spring but could be wrong. I live in western Colorado but thanks for the offer
On the pro basic the reg is a real pain to adjust. The reg is putting pressure into a 100cc plenum, while elite is 170cc plenum. Without a reg the velocity can vary on each shot [lookup bell curve shot string] because the hammer spring struggles when the pressure is at 4500 psi and then the pressure drops and the valve opens more [lift and duration] and subsequent shots go faster. the the pressure drops to a point that the shots loose velocity. Downrange accuracy suffers. My pro 357 was only doing 140 FPE with mr HP 99 grain slugs and the reg was about 2900 psi. Raising reg to 3100 psi only gave me about 10 to 15 FPE more. I added 2 machine bushings [washers] to add weight to the hammer and .15" preload and the result was 195 FPE ! The magazine holds 8 and is only .455 deep so 100 grain is max but easy to hand load 150 grain. (Elite magazines are much deeper.)Just curious what you think. 1050 price tag. Looks sweet. Not sure a reg is really necessary?
Wouldn't surprise me. I got one of the original so called 457 challengers and they actually had groove diameters closer to .461. Luckily mine is accurate with both 467 and 460 slugsI know this is an old thread... but I think it's important to share my experience on this topic.
A little backstory...
Before buying the challenger elite 51 I watched as many videos as I could find. The two that stuck out were the video from terry fox, and the video from mr hollow point. After watching those I picked up the same ammo they used in those videos at the same time I purchased the CE 51. That was mr hollow point 255 and 305 grain slugs.
I struggled for days just trying to sight in the rifle. Come to find out the mr hollow point ammo was keyholing, which is a pretty dramatic difference compared to that same ammo in the videos I had seen.
I spent weeks trying to get it to shoot well. Some ammo doesn't keyhole, some does. None of the ammo types I tried, including AEA brand, make a consistent group at 50yds. To be fair, I did have a few decent groups, though they were not consistently repeatable. I tried yet again at the range yesterday and could barely keep on target at 50yds. Meanwhile my heavily customized HP SS Max is banging 3 inch groups at 100yds.
The seller swapped it out with a replacement.
Same exact problems as the original, so the seller put me in touch with AEA.
I did my best to explain what was going on, and what I think is the problem. (I'm 99% sure it's an issue with the barrel. Both barrels had a bore so big that a .510 slug barely touches the rifling.)
AEA has offered no useful suggestions nor have they offered to help in any way. At this point they've been ignoring my emails for weeks.
There's more detail between the lines here, but I think I've summarized the situation pretty well without writing a novel about it.