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Tuning Umarex Gauntlet Problems .22

I say problems because it's plural now. First, I'm posting this for a friend, he's the owner of the gun. He brought it over to have me help him zero the scope. I have a standard 72cu' tank from air tanks for sale. We filled his gun to between 2 and 3k PSI per the owners manual. To be specific, we filled it to 2900 PSI. I cocked the bolt to the rear, and loaded a pellet. Put the gun on fire, and all we get is the sound of the sere being released, the spring going forward and the sound of some other trigger action - but absolutely no air released. I had to punch the bore of the rifle with a .22 caliber rod to get the pellet out, because no air was being released. I thought maybe I had overfilled the gun when I read the 1250psi warning on the regulator, but realized later that this PSI only applies to the amount of air the regulator is to release and not the fill pressure of the bottle. Nowhere in the gauntlet's owners manual does it say you can't fill the gun to 3000psi. So we try again and again, and get the same result, no air being released, but the tank pressure showing a steady 2900psi. Second problem: I took the stock off and took the trigger housing group off to make sure nothing was out of order. Everything seemed fine. Next, we removed the trigger group all together and took the rear retaining plug off. Out comes some sort of polymer guide plug, a convex shaped plug with a threaded hole going through it, and a long guide rod with a spring around it. When removing the front screw to the trigger guard, we realized it was questionably loose. Once we had everything out, we decided not to go any further because there were no glaring broken parts or pieces that we noticed. The second problem comes in when I can't get the parts back into the gun. I put them in exactly the way that they came out, and the rear retaining plug will go in - but once the gun is back together, the bolt will not cock the gun and it won't go all the way to the rear. I am at a loss here and open to any suggestion. As it stands now we still have a pressurized gun that won't go bang - and now wont' go back together the way it came out. I cannot find anywhere online a diagram or disassembly video or assembly diagram of the gauntlet. Any help is appreciated, Thanks.
 
Going to be hard to degas like the instruction book shown as there is no air in the gun to degas. What I had to do is, release the air valve right on the bottle. Once degassed, I went and put new teflon tape and tighten it back up. This time, only air to 1000 and slowly tighten the bottle until you hear the gas enters the gun. Thats when you can fill it up to 3k. I had the same thing happed to my Umarex the first time I got it. 
 
Why would a person fill the bottle before installing it on the rifle?

Seems to be THE biggest "problem" with this is people trying to install full ( or 1/2 full ...) bottles & not depressing to bottle valve stem.


Now DO NOT DO THIS ( ReallY)
On my QB78 HPA using the Ninja bottle , it is possible to unscrew the bottle with air in it, it will blow a o-ring and could blast even a piece of dirt INTO you but.

I have never tried to install a full bottle, would think it rather hard and the instant it opened you would b e finished aliening it.

Install bottle then fill.


The instructions say something else? Hard to read? Other?

John
 
Hi Spysir, You ask why would a person fill the bottle before installing it on the rifle? Well as for myself I would reather take a couple spare 13 ci bottles to the range then to lug a big suba tank around. (using the Umarex gauntlet) You can put a lot of pellets down range in an afternoon when using a ten round clip. But I agree with you in most situations I am thinking about trying to add a manual off and on valve between the tank and the reg.
 
Bigtinboat.... The regulator is what screws into the gun so if you can keep 0 pressure in the regulator it will screw in easy....The off / on valve well keep the pressure isolated in the tank until the whole thing is screwed into the gun.

Bigben11.... My problem was totally different from what happened with you..But I know what you mean.... been there...That's one thing you have to watch out for with a gun that takes a malti clip.To tellyou the truth I keep a cleaning rod close be in case I get a brain fart and cock it twice jamming two pellets.. I think you are allowed to have those when you are 75 years old...
 
"press"Bigtinboat.... The regulator is what screws into the gun so if you can keep 0 pressure in the regulator it will screw in easy....The off / on valve well keep the pressure isolated in the tank until the whole thing is screwed into the gun.

Bigben11.... My problem was totally different from what happened with you..But I know what you mean.... been there...That's one thing you have to watch out for with a gun that takes a malti clip.To tellyou the truth I keep a cleaning rod close be in case I get a brain fart and cock it twice jamming two pellets.. I think you are allowed to have those when you are 75 years old...

So you have an ON/OFF that goes between the regulator and the tank? Do you have a link or pic of this?

If you are talking one of the below ON/OFF valves, they do not work well with HPA. But they do not screw between the regulator and the tank as you describe. They are supposed to allow you to bleed for removal and also charge as you assemble but all I have tried with HPA have leaked. I think since they are designed for paintball they may work with 450psi to 850psi but 1150 is to much, based on my personal results.
 
"press"BTB... Thanks for the comeback, I was thinking more of one like in your picture of the paint ball gun, with the control knob. But like you say it may not do for hpa..
OOPS....looking closer I see that that is not a control knob ...but a gage. But they do make a shut off valve with a control knob...right?
Yes, you are talking about the below, right? Now if you screw a charged bottle into this adapter (with the knob in the closed position) it will be under pressure once the pin hits the pin valve and it will get harder to turn. If you do it with the knob open it will release all the air.
Now if you were to purchase one of each of these (additional $20) for each one of your tanks and attach them prior to filling then it would work. But in this case you would have to purchase (5) 13ci tanks as well as (5) of these valve just to equal the amount of air within a 90ci CF tank. So you could spend $500 and carry (5) of the 13ci tanks to the range or you could get just a single 90ci tank (with fill hose) for $300 and refill the bottle on the gun 5 times.
Personally I think carrying a single 90ci tank and refilling 5 times would be easier and less time consuming then turning off/degassing/removing/replacing/turning on 5 different 13ci tanks........not including the $200 or the hassle of trying to get all 6 of your regulators set to the exact pressure so that the gun is consistent thru tank changes. Then think about how regulators change as they break-in. What if they don't all break-in the same?

With the 90ci tank you install empty and then just fill.


 
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Received my Gen 2 last Saturday but only got around to begin looking at it on Monday. Unfortunately, I wanted to put a DonnyFL short barrel and a moderator on the Gen 2, as I had n my Gen 1 .25 cal. When I removed the shroud on the Gen 2 I found that the Barrel Shroud Rear Port (part 42) was not secure by the setscrew and was able to spin around freely on the barrel. That led me to take a look at the barrel locking screws which are visible if you remove the front Weaver rail. Sure enough, both setscrews were loose. OK. Somebody overlooked something. I positioned the barrel holes over the detents, making sure none had hit an "O" ring and that both screws made it securely into the detents. I then did the same to the Shroud Rear Port (it also has a detent). The DonnyFL short shroud installed OK after fighting the barrel band spacer plastic ring for a long time to get it to go back into the barrel band (it's a REALLY tight fit. I do not recommend it unless you have a lot of patience and a very small punch). OK, good. The DonnyFL short shroud installed just fine (it was not problem on my Gauntlet 1, but for some reason it was hell to get back into place on the Gen 2 for me). Time to install the air cylinder. The recommended oil was applied to the "O" rings and the valve port hole. I screwed the cylinder all the way into the port and attempted to back it out 1/4 turn per the manual. Not possible after multiple tries to reach 1/4 turn so I positioned the cylinder gauge to the best position I could get to make it visible along with the filler fitting. That left the bottle unscrewed almost a half turn (best I could do). I began filling the bottle with a Nomad II. By the way, I found nothing in the supplied manual about only filling the cylinder to 100 psi or so before going to a full 300 bar fill. If it is in the manual, I totally missed that. I would like to know where that info resides. Anyway, My nomad made the fill. Since it is not a fast machine, it took a little time to reach 300 bar so I the seal rings did the job. Next problem was that I could not get a magazine into the breach without a great deal of difficulty. I have 8 Umarex magazines for the .22 cal and all of them are a tight fit. Next issue is that the very large lever would cock the rifle OK but it ran into something before pushing a pellet into the breach. I was almost convinced that it was not possible to get the probe completely through the magazine. After trying a number of magazines, I discovered that it took some force to actually get past whatever impedes the probe from smoothly doing it's job. I was able to fire off a couple of magazines with the discovery that the probe needed more force by far than my Gauntlet 1 needs to smoothly seat a pellet. OK. I'm working on trying to discover what goes on there. Next issue is that the air cylinder looses a little pressure in a full day and night when filled to 300 bar. I'm working on that, too. I may have to try some Teflon tape to make to cylinder seat properly 1/4 turn before the end of rotation. OK. That's about it for now with my saga of the Umarex Gauntlet Gen 2. This has not been a happy experience. I normally don't have this much trouble with a new airgun but I am wrestling with sending it back for repairs. If I can get the breach probe to push a pellet smoothly into the breach without needed a lot of time or an unusual amount of force to get the job done, and if I can determine that it is only seating issues causing the loss of a little air overnight, I will be a happy camper and not return the Gen 2. I am patient and not totally devoid of skills but there is a limit to how long I will work on a new airgun before giving up and asking Umarex to fix the probe issue and the air leak. I hope others have had better luck with the Gen 2 than I have. I really like the rifle and do not want to return it if I can resolve the issues myself. I will have at it again today.
 
Just an update to the above posting. I was not successful in fixing the issues that I ran into with my new Gauntlet 2. After discussing with Umarex, I returned the rifle using a return UPS shipping level that Umarex provided. The gunsmiths at Umarex took a look at my rifle and sent me a new one the next day. I expect they thought trying to repair the returned Gen 2 it would be more cost effective to just swap it out. They simply transferred my DonnyFL short shroud to a replacement new Gen 2 and sent it to me. The replacement I received was better than the first but still had issues. The barrel screws were tight but the shroud end port was loose, as it was on my first Gen2. I had to tighten the screw holding the end port. The cocking lever on the new rifle also wiggled in the bolt. This appears to be a manufacturing issue but is not a game changer for me. Cocking is very stiff but hooking the thumb on the end of the receiver seems to be the only way to get the rifle cocked using the least amount of energy. The magazines are still hard to insert but not impossible. So, I was able to fire a few magazines with no issues but I did learn that I needed to be much more careful in cocking than with any of my other rifles. There is a bit of play in the bolt action so you definitely need to be careful to complete the loading cycle in one operation, which means giving the cocking lever a sound 'thump' with the palm of your hand to do the job. It is very easy to allow a little slip of the bolt and end up with a second pellet being pushed into the breach. The last 1/4 inch of the bolt action almost feels as though there is an obstruction in the breach, stopping the end probe from finishing the job. Once I realize that is the case I was OK and have not double-inserted a pellet since. Accuracy on my home range was descent, although my home inside range is only about six yards. Shooting on my outside long range at 50 and 80 yards, results were not the best but I'm still getting used to the Athlon 6x24x50 scope and am still in the break-in period for the rifle. I did find that a good cleaning of the bore with Barrisol, a nylon brush and a whole lot of cleaning patches works wonders for improving accuracy with this Gen 2. I was also surprised to find that a .22 cleaning rod and accessories was just not going to fit into this .22 cal barrel, so I had to use my .177 cal cleaning rods and accessories. By the way, the folks at Umarex were most responsive. They tend to just shake their heads when a new problem is reported about the Gen 2. It seems they are no longer surprised by the problems that pop up with this rifle. But they were patient while we discussed my issues and were very responsive in replacing my first Gen 2. Don't hesitate to call them if you need to discuss a problem. At this point I am very satisfied with the Gen 2. The rifle does have issues out of the box but the features vs price point makes it worth some extra effort, in my opinion. It's a lot of airgun for the money.
 
radduci, I’m at the point of sending mine back for lack of accuracy. I believe that the bolt probe is having trouble inserting the pellet, and that the rifling at the breech needs to be chamfered. To test it I inserted a pellet, closed the bolt then pushed it out with a pushrod. The pellet was cut up by the riffling, coming out of the breech with lead flakes. I believe that is where I’m loosing my accuracy. 
2E12B33E-4F31-4DDD-9CAA-9AF9687633E8.1635392946.jpeg

 
.20calguy; that's very interesting. Someone suggested that I start a new thread here and I think that is a good idea but I really don't know how to do that.

Looks like a great test to make. I am convinced that there is so much slop in the breach of this rifle that it would have to be re-machined to produce a smooth bolt action between the breach and the end of the barrel. You can actually see the probe wiggle. So, I think you are right about loosing a lot of accuracy because things on this rifle are very rough. At first I could not understand why it was so hard to push a pellet into the barrel when cycling the bolt through a load cycle but it because clear that the issue is mostly poor machining. Others have talked about how poor the accuracy is due to the thick coating of preservative done at the factory. It seems mandatory to do a thorough cleaning to get all the gunk out of the barrel before you even put a round through the barrel. Unfortunately, I did not do that straight out of the box and had put a number of magazines through the rifle before discovering the YouTube video review that mentioned a thorough cleaning first thing. My shots were all over the map on a 12 inch target at 50 yards. The spread almost looked like a shotgun pattern. Well, I did a cleaning and the pattern was a lot better but it is still not anywhere good enough, so I definitely need to do another hard scrub. I'm not sure if you did a cleaning out of the box but the flakes you have seen pushing a pellet through the barrel is probably normal if you have not scrubbed the barrel and cleaned it out initially when you received the rifle. That could also be the cause of the pellet deformation. However, I am convinced that there is just a manufacturing issue in the production of the breach and that the breach and the barrel are just not machined for a good alignment and that the end product is machined so that the bolt has enough slop in it's travel to compensate for the slight misalignment. I had the same need for a hard 'thump' on the bolt lever to get the pellet through the last 1/4 inch of the cycle through the magazine and into the breach on the first rifle I received and returned and the second rifle I received. At this point, I am just chalking it up to a bad product, but I will clean the barrel a few more times and see if the accuracy improves. I think the only real solution is to send the rifle to Hajimoto and let him do all of his fixes, but I am not enough in love with the Gen 2 to spend that much more additional money. I'll just put the money away for an FX system and get something that should work well out of the box. Most of my buying decisions have been good but every once in a while I make a mistake and don't ask for a refund fast enough :)

Be sure to post your results if you return your Gen 2. Umarex is pretty responsive but there is only so much they can do with this product. They still don't even have parts from the manufacturer in China as this point in time. Good luck.
 
Thanks for the response radduci. 
I hope you’re wrong about breech alignment issues. My bolt, and probe are not loose, but rather pretty smooth, and solid. My theory for the bolt closing problem is that I believe that the rifling comes into the bore, and is finished with a 90 degree cut off. So the rifling comes into the bore, with a sharp edge, and that is what we’re shoving the pellets past, in order to close the bolt. I explained this to Umerex, and got a return label, so we’ll see what happens. Not all Gauntlet 2’s are like this! I’ve seen people with smooth closing bolts, and accurate G2’s. I would like to see Hajimoto, address the hard closing bolt issue. First off I don’t think the G2’s with this issue would give him accuracy. If I wasn’t getting Umerex to deal with it, I would have find a way to smooth out the rifling in that breach. Like put sand paper on my Patch Worm, and pull it just past the breech, a bunch of times. I would have to determine if the transfer port, O rings, or anything could be damaged first. 
I’ll let you know how it goes. 👍
 
.20calguy, You are probably right about the barrel end. Someone commented the the barrel looks like it was just machined off at a 90 degree angle and left with no crown or smoothing. I suspect that might be the case on both ends of the barrel, so you may be on to something. After reading your post I checked the breach end of the barrel on my Gen 2. It looked pretty smooth to me. I could not see or feel any rough edges, but there may be an end piece in the breach so what I'm seeing may not be the breach end of the barrel but another fitted piece. I did push a single pellet into the barrel with the probe, but was not able to extract the pellet without severe damage to the pellet. Wish I had a wooden dowel for the job. I did again confirm that there is play in my bolt. I could physically lift the end push probe and had physical play pushing it down. It was very small play but less than a half millimeter. Unfortunately, I am not a gunsmith so there's not much I can further. I do think that the hard 'thump' to get the probe to go the last approximately 1/4 inch is probably the force it takes to actually finish inserting the pellet into the breach. The single pellet did not go 'smoothly' into the breach as they do in my Avengers and my Gen 1 Gauntlet, or my Hatsan AT44-10 which are all smooth actions.

I will be very interested in what Umarex says about your barrel. I listed a number of problems when I sent my Gen 2 back and asked them to fix a number of them. Instead, they just sent me a new Gen 2. I do not think they have time to look at specific issues. They are probably up to their ears in returns on this rifle, although I may just have had two bad Gen 2s in a row. Not sure Umarex is doing much to improve the accuracy of the Gen 2 at this point. As long as it shoots, I suspect it is deemed OK to ship. Hard to blame them when the Gen 2s come in that way from China. Bummer.

Good luck with your return and by all means, please let me/us know how you make out with your return.