Remove/Disable The Regulator On A Diana Outlaw

[ray6520659]

I have an issue with my .22 caliber Diana Outlaw, 30 yard groups have opened up to about an inch and a half at 30 yards. I shot it over the Chronograph, getting 60-200 fps extreme spread over 11 shots. I suspect the regulator is causing the issue. I would like to take the regulator out of the equation for testing and tune it like a non regulated gun. I can't completely remove the regulator, the bleed hole breaths through the threads on the pressure tube so no way for it to seal without the regulator installed. I am thinking if I back out the adjustment screw on the regulator, which as near as I can tell moves the seat farther away from the needle, or remove it all together, might be able to run it like a non regulated/knock open valve rifle?

At this point I think the regulator is doing more harm than good. Pretty sure I can tune a non regulated gun/hammer spring for a bell curve and do much better than a 60-200 fps extreme spread. If it reduced my shot count between fills from 5 clips to 2 clips, if the two clips had the accuracy this gun used to have, I would take it!

 

[Skip-in-WV]

It sounds like a faulty regulator. If under warranty get it replaced. If no, clean or rebuild it. Pay close attention to the orientation of the Belleville washers. The Field Target Tech channel s on YouTube shows how to clean a regulator.

 

[Eaglebeak]

If you can be sure it's the regulator that's causing the problem, you will find trying to tune a gun that is ported to work with a regulator, to work without one, to be a can of worms that you don't want to open. I would try cleaning, lubing and new Orings first and if that doesn't work, swap it out with one from Huma. I'm fairly certain that they make one to suit that gun.

 

[nervoustrig]

I tend to agree with the others that bypassing it may lead to other unforeseen complications but if you still want to experiment with bypassing it, the way to do it is to make the spring so stiff that it won’t compress to allow the valve to close. It stays open all the time to allow input=output. The way to accomplish that is to turn all the Belleville washers the same direction, for example ((((((((((. It doesn’t really matter which way you point the stack when you reinstall it (i.e. whether the convex side is against the piston or against the reg body).



If the height of this new stack is substantially less than the original stack, you may need to add flat washers to ensure it’s tall enough to keep the piston from reaching the valve seat. But just try it first without any flat washers. If you need washers, it will be apparent because you’ll have little to no output pressure.



FWIW, it’s pretty much impossible for the regulator’s O-rings to cause such inconsistency. It could perhaps be burrs on the Belleville washers or on the piston…anything that impairs linear movement of the piston. For example, I’ve worked on a regulator whose brass piston was getting gouged by a sharp edge on the much harder stainless steel Bellevilles.



Is there a time element to this massive extreme spread? Meaning shots taken within 15 seconds are consistent but if you wait 10 minutes or an hour or more, the velocity is vastly different. If so, the problem is regulator creep.



Also, if you haven’t already, consider factors that may be affecting the consistency of how the hammer is striking the valve. For example, sear drag (typ. from overtravel being set too aggressively). Or burrs on the hammer or the tube preventing the hammer from moving smoothly. Are the any fasteners that put a squeeze on the tube in the vicinity of the hammer’s travel that could be causing it to bind? That’s just a few of the common causes.

 

[John "spysir" Blount]

I vote disable. Unfortunately ( as I like trying all airguns) I've not seen that model but almost all regs can just be gutted and run, might be able to over shim it and leave the guts?

Now naturally ( without ever seeing rig eh) I would "think" - but it is your life- it IS engineered to take fill non-regulated psi w/out issue.



Either of these you could simply pull all the guts out of reinstall and tune away.

John

 

[nervoustrig]

I may be misunderstanding what you mean by gutting it but if it means removing the Belleville washers, that will not work. The piston would have nothing to hold it off the valve seat, therefore it would cycle closed with a very low output pressure.



The one scenario I can think of where gutting the regulator would apply is for one with no vent hole, in which case you could remove the regulator’s internal O-rings and let input flow directly to output. Although in that case, the option to simply remove the regulator altogether is probably on the table.



The OP indicated this one has a vent so he needs the O-rings to separate the atmosphere from both the high and low sides.

 

[prfssrlee]

@Ray- Wondering if you've gotten your Outlaw reg figured out. I recently bought a used Outlaw and am having the same issue with inconsistency in velocities. I've rebuilt the reg several times and also explored lots of combinations of reg settings and hst settings. I also played with the washer orientations. When I got the gun, it came with the following stack: )) (((( )))) ((. This didn't make alot of sense to me, so I switched it around to be like this: ))) ((( ))) (((. Still getting way too much variability shot-to-shot. I'm about to buy a Huma and toss this reg - I really like this gun and how simple it is to work on, just not sure what's going on with the reg. Wondering if you've had any luck figuring out the issues.

 

[RTEXPRESS]

I purchased a .22 Outlaw last summer other than a bad o-ring in the tank causing it to bleed down it's been a really nice reliable gun. I just had TKO Airguns rework the stock moderator by installing their stage 5 setup which really quieted it down. I did notice about a 7% increase in FPS after it installed, I ran it across my Caldwell chrony this evening with a 225 bar fill. It gave me the following numbers: 803,801,803,803,790,804 & 806 which I felt was really good! So I don't think I will be messing with the regulator unless it starts having issues. I was shooting 16gr H&N Terminators and if I took my time shooting I was able to put 5 shots in one hole. I want to run several different brands across the crony and see if my FPS match up with what I've been seeing on line, mine seems to be about 100fps slower but it may be the crony.

I have a 10 yard range setup in my shop, I've added the IR sun shields to the crony but there are florescent lights in there that may be causing issues even with the shields. If it works out for me tomorrow I might run out to a local range recheck my 35 yard zero which is good range for pest critters around here. I would like to move up to an Daystate or FX some day but for now the Outlaw will do just fine.

 

[prfssrlee]

@RTE- I just put up a lengthy post about my .25 Outlaw, which is really sweet now. The OEM reg in the gun is working quite well. It just took me being patient enough to learn it. And a good, careful cleaning of the regulator. I should've maybe posted it here instead of the other thread, but the post is here:

https://www.airgunnation.com/topic/does-anyone-own-and-actually-shoot-a-diana-outlaw-with-any-success/#post-485029

-david

 

[Bowhunter73]

I had the same problem with the SPA M16 25cal low fps or high then low bounced around so I gutted the reg filled the bleed hole with epoxy to seal it and that worked for awhile but I ordered another reg and some other parts from spa the new reg is working now I also opened up the barrel port and its shooting JSB 25.4s a little over 900fps I'm getting 3 mags from 900ish to 880fps. There's a thread on GTA about a fellow in Crotia I think making a plenum extension for the air tube but we haven't gotten a price yet.