Question about regulator reliability?

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crittahitta

crittahitta

Member
Mar 10, 2017
1,704
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Long Island NY, United States
Well i sold my hunting/shooting property upstate (very sad) but my wife took mercy on me and said to get a new "quiet" gun you can shoot at home. Gotta love an understanding wife. She even upped my budget a little bit. Lol. I am now thinking of the 177 brocock bantam sniper hr because it has the huma regulator. But.... i have never had a gun with a reg. I keep reading about reg issues and im worried about spending an extra couple hundred for a gun with one if it has problems and needs to be serviced. I need the truth. I want one gun with a good consistent shot count and is a repeater but dont want to keep having to send it back for service. Thanks
 
Well, most of my air rifles are regulated and frankly I find the regulators to be quite reliable. A far greater portion of my servicing has been for O-rings and a distant second is poppets.

Based on what I read, a good portion of the issues people experience is either with initial installation of a regulator or not fully understanding how to tune the rifle for consistency. Once set up, they are reliable in general...notwithstanding some specific examples of bad designs or manufacturing defects.
 
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I think you'd be fine with the Bantam HR, since the Huma regs. are top notch and have a good reliability record. However, if I were you, I'd just get the .177 Bantam without the reg. They are on sale new at AoA for $899. In .177, there really is no need for a reg., since the Bantam has a bottle, lots of air, and the Daystate Slingshot hammer system. This gives the gun a pretty linear response when in the "sweet spot". And since the air volume is so large, the sweet spot will be around 90 shots in .177. My .177 Bantam can be filled to 250 bar and shot down to 110 bar for about 140 shots. The ES when doing this is around 50 or so, which is not acceptable for good accuracy. However, if you fill to 220-ish bar, and shoot it down to 150-ish bar, you'll get around 90 shots with an ES just as good as a regulated gun. Mine was under 20 fps in that sweet spot. Gun is lightweight, easy to shoulder, shoots penny sized 5 shot groups at 50 yards with JSB 10.3 or H&N 10.65 pellets. Put a DonnyFL Tatsu on there and you have a mouse fart quiet gun that shoots right at 20 fpe. Don't order the "reflex" moderator that they are now selling as an add on. Its a POS, and doesn't do much...
 
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For the last two+ years I've gone regulated....can't beat repeatability. With that said my air guns are P-rod and synthetic Mrod with Huma regulator and a Taipan Veteran. Both Huma regulators have began leaking so had to be rebuilt. I don't shoo that often, can go 6months w/o, but when I do I go thru a tin or two in a few weeks then back to sitting for 6months. I'm not sure if it is the lack of shooting that makes the o-ring leak but I leave them filled at about 3KSI but since the rebuild leave them sitting at 2KSI. That way if there is some pest that needs to quickly taken care of I'm lock and load while keeping the load/pressure lower.
 
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In the lsat 3 years I've had to send 4 regulated PCPs away for professional service, two of them twice. So I wholeheartedly agree with Centercut's post above. That said, I can usually service non-regulated PCPs myself. I ordered a .22 Brocock Bantam Hi-Lite beech yesterday.
Click to expand...

Congrats. I'd love to see a chrono'd shot string on that .22 HiLite after you receive it. A nice looking rifle.
 
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Regulators shine at 50+ yards in accuracy. So if you are a 100 yard group shooter, you'd love a regulated rifle. I avoided them also. I bought a used RS with Altaros set up with Chrony. Do not, do NOT mess with it unless you want to reset reg depth, hammer preload, etc. & Have a Chrony & reg tester. Guns are personal. I've spent & lost enough to buy 3 I really want. Lost enough in resale. No one needs a 2K rifle but it's their perogative. I found out a under $800 rifle with a $200 reg (rounded up prices) can hang or beat anything. It's the shooter past junk rifles & even Marauders are not junk. A reg is going to give you incredible consistency. My personal opinion is if you want short & awesome contact Charlie Frear. If you want wood, metal, traditional looking superb accuracy contact Will Piatt. Both rifles set up by either is under 2K by far. I don't know what you desire exactly for all reasons other than quiet .177, regged, dependable. My Altaros is over 6 years old & is due as I fill to 3 & within 4 days it levels at 2500 sitting in safe unfired. Slow leak. 6 years is really good for an Altaros. A factory warranty installed one? I don't know policies. You might want to check warranties but I doubt more than 2 years. If anyone ever comes out with a lifetime warranty please alert me. 
 
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Very good advice to keep filled at medium pressures. I store at 1500-2K & only too offwhen going to fire enough to need a refill. Same as store break barrels cracked so as not to set breech seal. The air guns need a little more care but the fun pays off & price of gas not driving to range? Well worth it. I know air gunners are the best shots in the world as we actually get trigger time.
 
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"I want one gun with a good consistent shot count and is a repeater but dont want to keep having to send it back for service. Thanks"

Critta, the operative words in your post are "consistent shot count"! My advice is to get the most reliable and consistent rifle you can afford...first not last. The Brocock Sniper with the Huma reg factory installed and tuned to perfection is the answer to your question on Brococks' if you can afford the extra money for it. Why settle for a so called sweet spot when you can one big regulated sweet spot all the way from first shot to last shot?

Another thing for you to consider is resale value...every airgun manufacturer is jumping on the regulated bandwagon for good reason. There will be a day when you won't hardly be able to give away an unregulated air rifle, whereas the top name regulated ones will always fetch fair value upon resale. 

One last thing to consider is who deserves the best more than you do? :) Good luck with your decision.

Best regards, Chuck

http://www.airgunsofarizona.com/precharged-pcp/brocock-bantam-sniper-hi-lite/
 
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hey chuck. Thanks. This may be my last airgun purchase for a while so i want it to be right. I have never sold a rifle. I shoot them til they die like my cars. I use them and "lightly" abuse them in the woods and range. Lots of little dings and scrapes but they are all memories of something to me and for some reason i cant sell them. So resale is never an issue to me but the sniper HR is awesome. But the reg issues and maintenance keep me on the fence. This is a tough one for sure. Im waiting for AirnGasman to do a quick review.

edit: AIRNGASMAN i will try them all I promise. lol. but my son just started college and my daughter is getting close so all play money has slowed to a trickle. Once they are done i plan on needing a spare room for my airgun collection of fine regulated and non regulated air guns. God willing.
 
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