American Air Arms The new Evol HPS. How lucky am I to get to test such a thing?

[_CTAIRGUNNER_]

I am lucky enough to be able to test the new Evol HPS. I am also willing to answer all questions I can. This one is setup with a pellet barrel making over 100 fpe shooting zan 56gr.

The new hps is a very cool new offering from American Air Arms.

Some off the cuff things I can say about features are

-Full external adjustability from reg, to dwell, to hammer spring.
-Slayer gen 3 balance valve
-Improve HST system, smooth as butter and extremely light while maintaining that robust feel A A A is known for.
-42cc Power plenum (on this particular model)

I topped this rifle with my Valdada Gen 2 Recon w/ 40mm tube and needless to say it's a beast atop this rifle but it STILL SHOULDERS EXTREMELY WELL.

I will be taking this rifle out later on today for initial thoughts as I only have 1 box of zans on hand but have 10 more on the way.

I also plan to bring this rifle way down in power with other ammo and test accuracy. The new setup is far more efficient than previous models I've been told and I plan to test that out.

Anyways , , hope you all had a good Thanksgiving.


Also, of course I had to toss its bigger bore brother in a pic

 

[Centercut]

Looks great. I understand the HST and reg external adjust, but what is dwell? I understand it on electronic guns, not sure how that’s adjusted on a mechanical gun? Thanks.

 

[EDventure]

Based on the location, I'm wondering if it acts more like a transfer port like the Brococks. Just a guess though.

 

[Sound Tribe]

Luck.

So if this is the "300" HPS, with a pellet barrel. Do you know the exact calibers going to be offered for slugs? Still .223 and .257? If you upgraded to a pellet barrel would it be still a .30 303, .308 etc?

Any rumors on price difference?

 

[Ranchibi]

Congratulations on getting to try out that BEAST! Have fun loads of fun!

 

[_CTAIRGUNNER_]

Looks great. I understand the HST and reg external adjust, but what is dwell? I understand it on electronic guns, not sure how that’s adjusted on a mechanical gun? Thanks.

From what I understand from speaking with Tom is that his balanced valve differs from many on the market. His is air assisted from behind the poppet, instead of controlling how fast it shuts , the dwell adjustment controls how long it stays open on Toms design.

Luck.

So if this is the "300" HPS, with a pellet barrel. Do you know the exact calibers going to be offered for slugs? Still .223 and .257? If you upgraded to a pellet barrel would it be still a .30 303, .308 etc?

Any rumors on price difference?

"Luck"?

As far as the slug variations go, yes .223 and .257, in the future American Air Arms will be rolling out with caliber change kits as well as barrels. Slug oriented, lightweight hunting barrels, and pellet barrels. Not sure on time frame nor do I know anything as far as price difference between variations.


I am currently in the middle of testing and wanted to catch up here before the thread ran away, will have some reporting to do this afternoon/evening.

 

[Sound Tribe]

From what I understand from speaking with Tom is that his balanced valve differs from many on the market. His is air assisted from behind the poppet, instead of controlling how fast it shuts , the dwell adjustment controls how long it stays open on Toms design.


"Luck"?

As far as the slug variations go, yes .223 and .257, in the future American Air Arms will be rolling out with caliber change kits as well as barrels. Slug oriented, lightweight hunting barrels, and pellet barrels. Not sure on time frame nor do I know anything as far as price difference between variations.


I am currently in the middle of testing and wanted to catch up here before the thread ran away, will have some reporting to do this afternoon/evening.

Awesome luck* lol couldn't edit it in time

Sounds awesome though man, ty and can't wait to see groups

 

[_CTAIRGUNNER_]

Ok so

Tom had this rifle tuned before I got it. He sent it field used. So barrel needed to be cleaned, I needed to zero it, etc.

So I put it in my jeep and let the rifle acclimate to the 23* we had today.

I packed the rest of my stuff up and headed down to the range. Once there I took a few glamor shots and set up my shooting area.

Once I had everything setup I hooked my bottle up and let it slowly fill to 4000 psi, new fill pressure on the hps models is 4500psi but my tank didn't have that much in it.

While I waited for it to fill I decided to clean the barrel, it was filthy, pics show all.

 

[_CTAIRGUNNER_]

I immediately sat down at 100, and zerod.

Then I hooked up the chronograph and ran a string with the zan 56gr

Consistent is understatement. The rifle has a bit of bite and bark at this power level but nothing obnoxious. I am not going to post groups however. I don't know if I had an old batch of bad zans or what but I have never had luck with them.

I have 1500 of them on the way from. HpP and hope they're the new batch


I was getting 2 or 3 to group then 2 or 3 would fly 3 or 4 inches in any direction, I was watching them spiral in my scope.

So I said well, perfect time to test the quick adjustability of the new line.

Per Tom I shot the rifle 15 times with no pellet in the chamber and yup, brought it right down to 1000 psi to where I could now adjust the reg down, you can adjust up under pressure but not down.

So I brought it to its minimum setting and got to tuning.

I ended up with this tune on the trusty UNDERRATED (at least I think so lately) 44.75 .

As you can see , my fingers were quite cold, purple/red and a bit numb at this point. So these were the best groups I could pull off.

The quick tuning on this rifle is awesome. It doesn't feel gimmicky, nothing feels cheap, everything still feels robust even the tuning components.

The other big improvement is the new HST system the effort needed to cock the rifle is far less.

Again, consistency is understatement. Especially in these Temps. The rifle was too cold to hold with a closed grasp for extended periods of time. I left it outside even when I refilled my air tank.

I will be doing more testing as time allows but so far I have to say the improvements I got to use today are impressive.

 

[Ranchibi]

You ALWAYS take such wonderful photos! Great tune and shooting...yeah your fingers tell the story of weathered reddish wrinkled freaking cold! LOL! My fingers look like that when I practice golf in the early mornings when it's cold...fingers look like YOURS! That is a beautiful Evol!

 

[_CTAIRGUNNER_]

You ALWAYS take such wonderful photos! Great tune and shooting...yeah your fingers tell the story of weathered reddish wrinkled freaking cold! LOL! My fingers look like that when I practice golf in the early mornings when it's cold...fingers look like YOURS! That is a beautiful Evol!

Taking photographs is something I'm trying to hone as a skill as well. So I'm quite active with the camera. Thank you for the kind words.

I don't mind the cold but at a certain point it does become something that slows you down a bit and halts the best results.

 

[woogie_man]

These guns always have some awesome consistency. My last time out I had an 88 shot string with 3 different slugs and some fx pellets. Over the entire string it was easy to see when I changed ammo due to the velocity changing and being withing a few fps of each other.

Tom has these things figured out and they just plane work.

 

[igolfat8]

Is the word EVOL being dropped in favor of 300? If so, I personally like that move. When will these rifles be available at AOA?

 

[Nomadic Pirate 66]

I love Tom's approach of gun building, ...rugged, minimalistic yet very technically advanced.

When I got the Slayer .357 in during Pre-production for field testing I was absolutely blown by the build.

 

[_CTAIRGUNNER_]

Is the word EVOL being dropped in favor of 300? If so, I personally like that move. When will these rifles be available at AOA?

They are going to be called the Evol HPS with a number designation for caliber.

Also not sure on time frame but sometime soon.

I love Tom's approach of gun building, ...rugged, minimalistic yet very technically advanced.

When I got the Slayer .357 in during Pre-production for field testing I was absolutely blown by the build.

Ruggedness is absolutely key in Toms builds.

 

[Vetmx]

You getting to test this gun has nothing to do with luck. Tom isn’t a dummy.

 

[Airgun-hobbyist]

Nice write up on the new Evol's. I'm glad to see someone else who doesn't mind shooting in the bitter cold as well! Frosting up the barrel and moderator really does test how an airgun performs in all weather conditions. I've found the Slayer's and Evol's are really good shooter's for any weather that you can bring yourself to be in, with the speeds and extreme spread super consistent.

The new tuning system for pressure, valve dwell, and hammer strike is going to make these Evol's and the new Slayer's highly tunable for a variety of ammo and superior accuracy. The possibilities are endless with the new barrel's and caliber change options too. They are great American made products for sure.

Seeing the ZAN's spiral in flight could be from several factors. They are quite a bit longer than a JSB 44.75 grain pellet, so it may be that they don't like the combination of twist rate and speed settings that you had. Waisted air could also be blowing the skirt upon exit causing instability too; though it's hard to say if that would cause spiraling seen all the way down range. This would be a good time to test the dwell setting on high power, versus just pulling hammer spring and reg pressure.

If you have a grain scale, it might tell a lot by putting the ZAN's on the scale to see how consistent the weights are with the new batches you get. For example, when the .30 Hades first came out the weights were super consistent and held very tight groups. Now after manufacturing them over these few years the weights are not as consistent. Having weight-sorted pellet tins by tenths of a grain, the groups from each tin are more consistent again with less fliers and tighter speed spreads, tending to show the true capabilities of the gun and shooter.

 

[_CTAIRGUNNER_]

@Airgun-hobbyist Tom sent the rifle tuned for zans, I know he said for him they were flying at 910-915 , here in CT that tune yielded the 900fps shown. Maybe the 15fps difference caused the spiraling ? Others have told me old batches of zan pellets had some consistency issues due to a cleaning process they used.


As far as the tuning , it literally took several minutes to tune, it just went so smooth. The tuning components are well thought out, easy, and rugged. I see this as a huge game changer for the line even though most Evol owners are set it and forget it.

 

[igolfat8]

I have .30 Zan pellets that were bought this spring and the weights are extremely consistent. However, they would not shoot worth a hoot from my Ghost at any speed or harmonic tuner setting. Have you tried JSB 50's yet?

 

[_CTAIRGUNNER_]

I have .30 Zan pellets that were bought this spring and the weights are extremely consistent. However, they would not shoot worth a hoot from my Ghost at any speed or harmonic tuner setting. Have you tried JSB 50's yet?

I haven't tried any 50s but plan too. I also plan on revisiting zans.

From what I understand older batches had issues due to a new cleaning process , and it's since been remedied? I can't say for sure but I will 100% give the new boxes I have coming another try.