Sorting out the Delta Wolf HP 0.22

[Macros]

Cheers man!

Pity about the long wait but at least you should have everything ready to go by the time it arrives.

I expect you'll be quite shocked by the difference.

Looking forward to hearing about your results!

 

[deadeyedick63]

Hi, I thourght I’d better do some benchmarking before changing the barrel plus our indoor range is now open for the first time in 18 months….

Two cards were shot with three to five shot groups indoors no air movement good rest set up. Jsb 18.1g straight from tin reg set to 140 then speeds changed from 840 upto 920 second card shot with H+N 21.4 all at 920. All shots were taken in Factory mode. At 25 meters. With a 23” barrel .22 High power delta wolf.

Very few positive conclusions apart from the groups getting smaller as the speed increased and possibly the heavier pellets were better, next visit I’ll up the speed some more possibly upto 1100? And try heavier pellets I’ve some monsters etc to try out, the gun at the moment is only pushing 35ftlb against its possible 70ftlb so I’m probably not near it’s best efficiency. Some of the flyers can be attributed to the poor fit of the magazine so pellets are hard sometimes to push into the breach possibly causing clipping on the skirt. Il start on a single tray loader today! 

 

[deadeyedick63]

Hi, Another thing I’ve come across which seems to me to add to the rough pellet feeding is the shape of the probe, it seems to push at an angle and therefore tip the pellet slightly? 

 

[Pmanuk]

None of my pellet probes look anything like that on my DW, what the hell happened to it!

 

[deadeyedick63]

It’s brand new only got the rifle in August and not used much till last week barely 200 shots so far. Initially I thought it was broken but now looking at the probe closer I’d say it was machined/ground like that very odd as it was straight from the factory.

 

[Macros]

Yah mine came from the factory like that too. Apparently all the newer ones do. Almost looks like they hand grind a machined part. 

I think it's the main cause for shorter slugs etc diving into the stock FX transfer port, but as long as you use longer projectiles it seems to work fine. On the OEM barrel the port is so small it doesn't matter.

It causes obstruction to airflow if you use the bridged slug transfer ports and will lose you a fair bit of power, so a pin probe replacement is a must I think.

 

[deadeyedick63]

I think I’ll try a pin probe and there’s one available for the fx mavrick that looks very close and is adjustable so a bit of tinkering may see it work.

if I recall my Walther lg400 had a pin probe pushing pellets although this was not through a magazine I wonder in which case why manufacturers only recommend pin probes for slugs?

 

[Pmanuk]

I was going to say I’ve got 3 barrels and probes for mine and none of them look like that, this said my delta wolf is one of the first high power ones they made lol

 

[deadeyedick63]

So I thought why not and spent a hour in the workshop, extended the pin a bit to seat the pellets to the same depth, it immediately feels better to load a pellet into the breach let’s see if it works?

I think the original is made from stainless steel which is why they use a bolt at the rear to contact a magnet to hold the arm open, mine is from silver steel as that’s what I had available.

 

[Pmanuk]

Looks fantastic, be very interested to see/hear results!

 

[deadeyedick63]

So I managed to get a couple of shot strings done today just to check the velocity using the pin probe vs the tube probe.

Reg set 150, JSB Jumbo monster 25.39gr 5.52 3600y 77v. reg had dropped a bit from the recommended 155 but left it alone during whole 22 shots dropped a bit more to end of test toward 145.

The feeding of the whole mag felt a lot better with the pin probe, the temperature was probably well below 8degs in the workshop so I wish I had topped up the bottle and shot more than 2 shots off before as I felt the gun settled down a bit once "warmed up" But I would say that the pin probe at this power level does not rob any power or decrease the air flow, also I am quite pleased at the consistency of the velocity with either probe shooting the 2225 "factory" custom tune. Will now go ahead and make another pin from stainless.

Pin probe (av 958fps 2.44std dev. 51.75ftlb 70.17J)

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Tube probe /45deg cut. (av 953.5 fps 1.9 std dev 51.27ftlb 69.51J)

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[deadeyedick63]

So just a little left to do but new barrel arrived and a productive weekend in the workshop later, possibly first tests tomorrow night…

 

[Macros]

Nicely done

Looking forward to the test results 

 

[deadeyedick63]

First evening done, at this point there’s no point in showing the results but my impressions were a bit disappointing to start, the first attempts should have given me a clue as to what was the biggest issue as the point of aim had changed by over 5 ft at 20 yards! I was set up with the new carbon shroud and a sumo muffler, and the groups were about the same as a shotgun pattern.

Once I removed the shroud and the air splitter and chrono the groups started to shrink. Using the factory setting for 18.1gr (how it works without the chrono I don’t know) and pellets straight from the tin at 25m now I could get groups of 1 ragged hole. Shooting a good dozen or so groups I could see the point of aim move fairly significantly for 3-5 shots then move somewhere else for a while and so on. This was with all the extra weight taken off the front of the flexible fx barrel. But also this was a huge improvement over the stock barrel and shows a great potential.

What I think is happening is the fx barrel is nowhere near as stiff as the original added to this the only meaningful support is the area by the breach ie the brass bit which on the delta wolf does not support as long as it is in a fx, the front support ie through the O ring provides very little support at all the hole is 16mm with a 2mm section O ring in a grove. Using 15mm copper pipe does not really compress the oring enough to help the flexible barrel.

Im planning on fitting the FX carbon tube liner support this week which should hopefully stiffen the barrel assembly and making a taper or stepped front bush to load up the front O ring more. I realise this might not be the fully floating barrel that seems to be the norm but some extra support I believe is needed as the grouping was getting worse with the more weight that was added. 
Any thoughts?

 

[deadeyedick63]

So with the work mentioned above the gun has been transformed, very easy to achieve one ragged hole groups with pellets from the tin at 25m.

Just as Macros has stated a extremely unfussy barrel combo attached are 3 cards all with 18.1gr JSB pellets in 5.52 straight from the tin shot at different velocities, also tried but not shown was some 26gr slugs which were as good but at 880fps probably needed a bit more speed.

Realy looking forward now to try some different weighted pellets and to begin with the advanced mode to see if these results can be achieved with a lower reg setting currently 140bar..

All thanks to Macros for the work he has put in on this project…

 

[woogie_man]

If I remember correctly did the old Air Wolfs have the same issues? They also had the chrony in the barrel that caused the same issues. If I remember correctly many people just removed the unit and things got better.

Really a shame that a $3500 rifle has so many issues! You should be able to just grab and shoot for this price. Really glad I haven't had any issues with my RedWolf!

 

[Centercut]

None of my pellet probes look anything like that on my DW, what the hell happened to it!

Exactly. That’s not a stock DW probe. 

 

[Macros]

So with the work mentioned above the gun has been transformed, very easy to achieve one ragged hole groups with pellets from the tin at 25m.

Just as Macros has stated a extremely unfussy barrel combo attached are 3 cards all with 18.1gr JSB pellets in 5.52 straight from the tin shot at different velocities, also tried but not shown was some 26gr slugs which were as good but at 880fps probably needed a bit more speed.

Realy looking forward now to try some different weighted pellets and to begin with the advanced mode to see if these results can be achieved with a lower reg setting currently 140bar..

All thanks to Macros for the work he has put in on this project…

Awesome! Great to see you getting good results

Sorry I've been avoiding AGN because of the recent difficulty in actually loading it up.

My FX barrel had a CF sleeve in it from day one to help with stiffness. If you remember my first few posts I also put on an ABS bushing in order to center and support the barrel before I got the copper pipe. I made it so it wedged in between the barrel and the aluminium frame just in front of the o-ring to take the o-ring out of the equation completely. That got things aligned nicely and kept away any poi shift. 

Perhaps the OD of the pipe I used thereafter is slightly thicker than yours, as mine was actually quite tight going through the front o-ring and I doubt tolerances on those pipes are very tight... Either way centering and supporting that barrel is a definite must.

Have you been able to refit the shroud, chrony and airstripper and maintain accuracy now?

None of my pellet probes look anything like that on my DW, what the hell happened to it!

Exactly. That’s not a stock DW probe.

Yep, it is, or at least was on some batches of 0.22 DW'S. Confirmed it with the factory through our local ASP shooters as well as the local daystate technician. May well have been a short lived, failed experiment and they could have gone back to pin probes by now.

 

[deadeyedick63]

Hi,

I can confirm that the tube probe pictured above is a stock probe on the High Power .22 (70ftlb) it is ground at an angle to gain better airflow, it is correct as confirmed with the factory. I have made a pin probe to check that my pellet feeding issues were down to the probe pushing at the top of the pellet and tipping it causing feeding issues.

whilst I’m at it the three cards above were shot with the modified probe, the chrono, and the new air stripper fitted into a new carbon shroud. I can’t confirm 100% that the air stripper is helping the grouping over a bare barrel but once I’ve sorted a favourite pellet and velocity and so sort a custom profile I still need the chrono once complete I’ll try the barrel bare as a test. The barrel is a fx superior 600mm and with the extra length of the new stripper it means the rifle now won’t fit in the case !!!!!! I guess if I knew that I may have gone the whole 9 yards and fitted the 700mm barrel.

The front support bush is made to 15.85mm and the hole in the frame is 16mm with a o ring in I had to machine a very good taper to get this to slide in easily. That and a carbon fx tube has helped the barrel stiffness. One other thing was the small piece with pic rails to the sides that’s holds the chrono pins once mounted has a bit of poor design/manufacture and was pressing on the top of the new barrel bush and so needed a bit of relief.

 

[Macros]

The stripper allowed me to achieve the same accuracy with the chrony and shroud attached as with a bare barrel. I certainly wouldn't say it improved accuracy over a bare barrel, but without it the chrony tube wrecked accuracy completely. Plus it allowed the shroud to work properly and made the gun lovely and quiet vs stock.

Pity the 600mm barreled gun doesn't fit in the box... I find that sort of unexpected development quite irritating