From the post
Doux Technologies Plenum Upgrade for Air Venturi Avenger, I was asked this question:
I can't speak to a comparable AEA gun to mine from looking at their product lines, I'll move to the low-mid-high point of this comment.
While I don't feel like I have done a whole lot to my gun, I have spent some money to get it to where it is. It looks a whole lot like an FX Crown at this point, which is $1800 on Utah Air right now. I'm not saying they are the same, but I am just giving a point of reference. Here is a picture of my Avenger today.
View attachment 207712 I'm going to round these off to the nearest $10 so that I can do this from my head and not pull receipts, and also I am not planning on including the DonnyFL, Accu-Tac, or the Element Optics in this as you can use whatever you want, but these are the "essentials" that are part of the gun.
- $350 Basic Avenger 22cal with synthetic stock
- $150 Doux Technologies bottle upgrade
- $100 Plenum Upgrade with tool
- $75 450CC Aluminum Bottle
- $50 Custom barrel band from JB3DPD.com
- $50 DonnyFL Barrel Adapter
- $50 Carbon fiber tubes to stiffen barrel and O-Rings for Spacers
- $60 Bottle clamp to Picatinny adapter
- $10 Replacement 60Duro Rubber Pads for Bottle Clamps to get better grippage
- $895 Total
Now that I have reduced my regulator pressure down to 2000psi (138bar), and my hammer spring down to two turns in, I would imagine that I will be getting over 100 shots on this thing at 40FPE before I need to refill. I can tweak my hammer spring from 819FPS to 905FPS on my current tune shooting 21.15grain pellets. I don't see what there is not to like about this. At $895, I am at just under 50% the cost of an FX Crown, and I would be REALLY SURPRISED if you can say that an FX Crown will perform twice as good as my Avenger as it is. I guess we will find out at RMAC because I am bringing this gun.
I have a Crosman 2240 sitting right beside my Avenger that easily has $500 in upgrades to it (Not counting the scope), and this is a $60 pistol! This said, I can shoot the UPC code off of a can at 75 yards consistently in 10+MPH cross winds...so it sure isn't performing like a pistol any more.
So what is a "Cheap" gun? What is a mid-range gun? We all know that a "high end" gun has an externally adjustable regulator and hammer spring. The Avenger checks those boxes, while starting life in the "cheap gun" category. Since FX recently started using two regulators, let's rule that out, as well as Daystate's electronic control. We all know that makes them "high end" in today's market, but what does "mid range" mean, and what does it take to push a "budget" gun up to those specifications when you have an externally adjustable regulator and hammer spring??
What are your thoughts? What does it take to transition a gun from "cheap" to "mid" to "high". I believe that the guy that took the EBR Big Bore was using a Benjamin Armada chassis with electronics integrated in, etc. He had a custom barrel, etc. Was that still a "Mid range" gun?