Tensioned or Free Floating?

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Centercut

Centercut

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Jun 9, 2017
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I’ve seen a lot of churn lately regarding “tensioning” the Impact (or other gun) barrels with a 3mm thick CF tube. I’m wondering a few things.

- Is this more accurate? I can see that it’s stiffer, but is it really more accurate? I haven’t seen any empirical data yet that would show that it is...

- If Frederick at FX thought this was better and more accurate than the current barrel and shroud set up, don’t you think FX would make them tensioned?

- For those that have tensioned their Impact barrels, do you notice a POI shift as the temperature changes significantly? Obviously the coefficient of expansion is different for steel than CF, so as temp changes wouldn’t that change the barrel tension?

I’m asking this because I’ve had issues with tensioned barrels, both in the EDGun R3 and the Cricket mini Carbine. Both great guns and tack drivers, yet both have a significant POI shift when say temp goes from 50 to 85 degrees when I’m out shooting. Sometimes by as much as 1 Mil at 100 yards...

Perhaps it would be better to use the CF tube to make the barrel stiffer, but skip the tensioning?

Thoughts? 
 
How it's tensioned will make all the difference. Materials expand and contract at different rates based on temp. What you use to give you that buffer is what I feel makes the difference there. If its metal to metal or plastic to metal. CF or what ever two materials butt together for that tension to take place. You need a non temp affected or at least minimal temp affected material as a buffer. I'm using Bellville washers between the outer shroud and the breech on mine and feel that gives me the least chance of POI movement because it can adjust for the expansion or contraction the best.
 
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Well I don’t have an impact but I have a dreamline which suffers from more noticeable barrel droop/movement than the impact and I can tell you once I put a carbon fiber shroud it made a huge difference. I wouldn’t say its more accurate, my groups stayed basically the same size at 75 yards. However, now I no longer notice any poi shifts, which would occasionally happen when I was transporting my gun to and from the range. The poi would move an inch or 2 and I would have to rezero. Now with the cf shroud I only notice very slight differences, which I just attribute to my personal shooting abilities. I live in sunny SoCal so I haven’t really noticed any poi shifts with extreme temperatures, however if it were a thing I would assume the regular shroud would be just as bad if not worse.
 
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Well I don’t have an impact but I have a dreamline which suffers from more noticeable barrel droop/movement than the impact and I can tell you once I put a carbon fiber shroud it made a huge difference. I wouldn’t say its more accurate, my groups stayed basically the same size at 75 yards. However, now I no longer notice any poi shifts, which would occasionally happen when I was transporting my gun to and from the range. The poi would move an inch or 2 and I would have to rezero. Now with the cf shroud I only notice very slight differences, which I just attribute to my personal shooting abilities. I live in sunny SoCal so I haven’t really noticed any poi shifts with extreme temperatures, however if it were a thing I would assume the regular shroud would be just as bad if not worse.
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Exactly the same experience with my Dreamline Tactical .25 cal. Accuracy did not improve, but there were no more POI shifts (except when the barrel was so badly leaded that i had to do a mega clean). I was so happy with. It that I purchase one for my 700mm Impact barrels. However I must add that i have not tried this in any situation where I had massive temperature shifts.

Chris
 
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I did not have as much trouble with POI shifts as some others they were just occasional. But I did a barrel tension mod anyway as I could easily move my barrel with a slight push and that just did not seem like a good thing. My three out of five .5 inch groups at 100 yards before the tension mod turned in to two out of ten after the mod. That might make some happy but not me I spent over a year and a half getting it to shoot that well halfway consistently. Things did change a bit when I was done with the mod though so I have some more tuning to do before I can really say if it is better or not. Still, in all honesty, I really can't see it ever getting any better than it was.

Screwed up my arms bad again doing something, I don't know what, so I can't go shooting again till they are better. I am so bored. Poor poor me in the first world. Lucky I just bought another brick of cheese it should go well with my whine. ;^)


 
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From what I have seen and read, especially with FX and Impact's, is they tend to shift point of impact based on how they are stored. And this has a lot to do with those o-rings in the blocks shifting under the weight of the barrel as it is sitting against the wall or in a foam case.

The simplest way to remedy this (without going to a tensioned barrel) is harder buna o-rings in the blocks, so they don't have the squishy "give" that the standard soft o-rings do.

Another remedy that I Ihave been working on is sandwiching an o-ring in the front barrel block, essentially smashing the existing O-ring tight to the barrel liner and thus holding it in place. This is done by having a machinist open up the front block to the O-ring groove, threading it to the groove, and also manufacturing a hollow bolt that screws into that block to hold the o-ring tightly in place. (Same concept as the plenum o-ring being held tightly in place by the bolt for the valve rod seal.) Going this route may not be as excessive as a completely tensioned barrel, as the barrel tube and other parts would probably be allowed to expand or contract in length during changes in temperature, so it would be "fixed but semi-floating."
 
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If you follow my Saga with the FX Wildcat, you will see that fixating a Carbon Fiber liner around the drinking straw barrel was what actually fixed my problem. Prior to the mod my gun was shooting all over the place. That’s as empirical as I can give you. 
As for tensioning, it definitely requires some. Mine was trial & error until I got it just right. 
Don’t forget to face Meca under a blue moon while Jupiter is aligned with Venus.....oh yeah, wash, weigh, & lube pellets....

*As for why FX doesn’t do it in the first place is beyond me. Perhaps to sell you the fix later on, in the shape of a “new & improved” barrel? Who knows. I have asked & have gotten nowhere. 
 
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I can see the idea behind tensioning something like an fx liner, but have a harder time following the logic of somebody tensioning an actual BARREL. 

I also see the tensioning of the liners as people trying to remedy a problem created by a cost cutting measure that was/is marketed as being Superior. Whether it is or not is certainly up for debate, but I know that my 6 guns with 14-16mm OD barrels don't suffer from any poi shift, across 4 different barrel manufacturers (CZ, LW, HW, FWB) and 5 different airgun manufacturers (Veteran, MAC1, HW, FWB, Brocock). And none of them are tensioned. 
 
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I can see the idea behind tensioning something like an fx liner, but have a harder time following the logic of somebody tensioning an actual BARREL. 

I also see the tensioning of the liners as people trying to remedy a problem created by a cost cutting measure that was/is marketed as being Superior. Whether it is or not is certainly up for debate, but I know that my 6 guns with 14-16mm OD barrels don't suffer from any poi shift, across 4 different barrel manufacturers (CZ, LW, HW, FWB) and 5 different airgun manufacturers (Veteran, MAC1, HW, FWB, Brocock). And none of them are tensioned.
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What he said. A barrel should be stiff enough ON ITS OWN to preclude tensioning. PB guns make a great example. While the "want" to be able to exchange "barrels" on a certain platform is a nice idea, doing it with limp barrels, "liners" or "sleeves" leaves a lot to be desired. This is not only an FX problem, but an industry wide problem with AG's. IMHO

For the prices FX and many other charge for AGs, these AG's should also be able to wax my cat, balance my check book and take me out to dinner. LOL!

"Beat me, whip me, make me write bad checks..." Back a long time ago, I knew a girl who loved to say that... it seemed to fit here for some reason. That was long before this song came out...



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXlBBcv-kaQ


 
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Nation, 

Regardless of the brand of gun, it is a known fact that a free floating barrel is the most accurate. The Thomas Benchrest rifle, and the Rapid Air Weapons platforms are testament to that.

Tom Holland 

Field Target Tech 

Fieldtargettech.com
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I might agree when RAW, FX and all of the other "high end" AG makers make a reasonably priced AG for folks like me who can't afford $1500+ and it can't even wax my cat...

$1500+ is not reasonable for most people. $500 is too much for the majority. A high quality PB can be had for much less than that.
 
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Good quality PB can be had for very reasonable price. High quality PBs are even far more expensive than air guns even though they have far fewer parts! Remember we are carrying over 4000 psi of propellent where PB only need to load cartridges. Thanks to the air supply making airgun light isn’t easy.


free floating barrel no doubt has the best accuracy, maybe one day FX will make fully carbon wrapped barrels with high tension mount like PB because that’s about only way to achieve ultimate accuracy without the gun weight 10-15lbs. Or a thread in system that still allows caliber change. 
 
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As to this recurring cost debate, an airgun that has as many parts to manufacture as the Impact is rightfully going to cost what it does to make. The new Maverick has fewer parts and shares several parts with the Impact. So, it is rightfully $500.00 cheaper to buy. Other airguns are made with far less parts but are hand-made and ported, polished and tuned, and are in demand. So, therefore, they command a good price. Other big -name companies mass produced with roughly the same amount of parts in cheap labor markets and sell for far less; go figure. The same principles holds true in the powder burner world as well when a low-end AR full of parts costs as much as a simple but high-end bolt action.

On another note of contention recently brought up, though some models are out of some individuals budget, and that sucks, a good platform of an inexpensive airgun can be made to get the job done just as accurately without all of the extra moving parts and bells and whistles. Those individuals are probably better off or in a better place in life than the guy who simply opened up the check book...
 
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As to this recurring cost debate, an airgun that has as many parts to manufacture as the Impact is rightfully going to cost what it does to make. The new Maverick has fewer parts and shares several parts with the Impact. So, it is rightfully $500.00 cheaper to buy. Other airguns are made with far less parts but are hand-made and ported, polished and tuned, and are in demand. So, therefore, they command a good price. Other big -name companies mass produced with roughly the same amount of parts in cheap labor markets and sell for far less; go figure. The same principles holds true in the powder burner world as well when a low-end AR full of parts costs as much as a simple but high-end bolt action.

On another note of contention recently brought up, though some models are out of some individuals budget, and that sucks, a good platform of an inexpensive airgun can be made to get the job done just as accurately without all of the extra moving parts and bells and whistles. Those individuals are probably better off or in a better place in life than the guy who simply opened up the check book...
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The economics is likely much more complicated than simply looking at the number of parts. 

Two things come to mind: profit margin and perceived value. In both these regards FX is brilliant, from a business model perspective. Reduce the overall dollar amount (in this case by doing away with a real barrel but there's likely other ways this is happening) that it costs to produce a gun, while concurrently and aggressively acquiring industry figures (read YouTube) and paying them to convince people that FX guns are worth the price. End result of that game plan for FX is greater profits (through a more favourable profit margin and increased demand). Brilliant and should give any FX owners peace of mind since those are the types of business decisions that keep companies afloat.
 
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As to this recurring cost debate, an airgun that has as many parts to manufacture as the Impact is rightfully going to cost what it does to make. The new Maverick has fewer parts and shares several parts with the Impact. So, it is rightfully $500.00 cheaper to buy. Other airguns are made with far less parts but are hand-made and ported, polished and tuned, and are in demand. So, therefore, they command a good price. Other big -name companies mass produced with roughly the same amount of parts in cheap labor markets and sell for far less; go figure. The same principles holds true in the powder burner world as well when a low-end AR full of parts costs as much as a simple but high-end bolt action.

On another note of contention recently brought up, though some models are out of some individuals budget, and that sucks, a good platform of an inexpensive airgun can be made to get the job done just as accurately without all of the extra moving parts and bells and whistles. Those individuals are probably better off or in a better place in life than the guy who simply opened up the check book...
Click to expand...

The economics is likely much more complicated than simply looking at the number of parts. 

Two things come to mind: profit margin and perceived value. In both these regards FX is brilliant, from a business model perspective. Reduce the overall dollar amount (in this case by doing away with a real barrel but there's likely other ways this is happening) that it costs to produce a gun, while concurrently and aggressively acquiring industry figures (read YouTube) and paying them to convince people that FX guns are worth the price. End result of that game plan for FX is greater profits (through a more favourable profit margin and increased demand). Brilliant and should give any FX owners peace of mind since those are the types of business decisions that keep companies afloat.
Click to expand...




cost depends 100% on number of parts and cost of each part then steps and labor involved in each steps and finally assembly. Then NO ONE works for free! A small shop like FX with just about all parts parts made in Denmark will never make the amount of money value brands like Diana will make on the backs of cheap labor in China. how come you don’t apply your theory to diana? After paying their people FX’s profit margin might not be as great as you make it sound because they pay skilled worker livable wages locally. Do you own SPA made guns? They are “cheap” but directly from China so hardly a penny of profit stays in the market country. at least crosman still has some models made here in the US.



Then what’s wrong with pay people like Matt and Ted who actually contribute to the product design as product consultants, spokes person and ambassador ? I’ve learned a great deal from them and they made enormous contributions to airgun community and they shouldn’t eat? 



Many people complain of corporate greed and the Chinese are stealing all the jobs but the very same people run straight to Walmart and buy made in China from big greedy corporations because it’s the cheapest. For pure economical reasons lambo and Ferrari should not exist because Hyundai crushes them when it comes to profit! 
 
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