Western Airguns Western Airguns Mordax Venom

[AlanMcD]

Super helpful, thank you. Its not that different from a hammer-hits-valve gun in that regard. The "best" theoretical tune would be a crazy high reg pressure with just enough of a bang to open the valve. That would launch a pellet fast with not much air volume. The realities of spring forces, hammer power, and valve opening times means that it's just not practical to get good accuracy that way on most guns. The hammer force makes the gun jumpy and the valve dwell time and air released get too variable for consistent accuracy.

I'm glad it helped, but the firing mechanism really is massively different from a hammer-hits valve gun in this regard. The valve opens the same regardless of closing valve setting and probably even regulator pressure too - it is basically a "blow open" valve held close until the sear releases, and it simply opens and lets air flow. It is the closing valve setting that determines how much air flows, and my experience with this system one can get lower power best with a lower regulator setting - although Western recommends that we not lower the regulator setting below the factory level (not so with the Huben - I have run mine as low as 90 bar with great success, but usually have it around 110 for other reasons).

I have not seen an animation of how the Sidewinder works, but here is one of the Huben and they are very similar. The first eight seconds is of the regulator, but after that is shows the action cycling - it is worth seeing a few times to catch everything going on. It is hard to see but the closing valve sits in the air stream and stops the firing cycle (which is why these guns can dump most of their air on a jam - the blocked air flow path leads to resistance that keeps the closing valve open). Note also that the closing valve does not fully seal off the air flow, but merely interrupts it enough for the gun to reset - there is actually a small "leak path" in the valve seat to let the high pressure air through to refill the firing chamber and reload pressure on the opening valve (although you can't tell this from the video). It really is an amazing ballet of mechanical action . . .

 

[TomAnonBear]

I'm pretty sure you have to dump all of the air out of the tank, and then dial down your reg screw. Then you fill it back up. You can increase power with air in the system, but you can't lower it.

I read through the owner's manual, and I was wrong here - if you want to lower the regulator pressure you have to empty the tank.

You can adjust the power up or down without having to do anything but turn the pressure screw one way or the other.

Obviously, this is for the original mordax regulator. Has anyone found any literature for thy Venom Booster Kit? I'm going to email Western Airguns to see if they have anything.

I found the following power specs interesting too. Note a min of 135 bar is required for the full auto function to work. The lowest they recommend setting it to is 110 bar, and in the regulator adjustment specs they advise against adjusting the regulator altogether.