About a month ago I was contacted by a member of another airgun forum asking if I would be willing to help him out and install a regulator and tune his S410. The only stipulations for the work would be that the rifle was to be tuned between 18-20 fpe with a non removable shroud/ldc and the rifle had to be completed and back by August 1st. I was reluctant to do the job because I had an 11 day vacation coming up and my son was getting married a week after my vacation at our property so we were really busy getting that ready. That gave me a few weeks to work on the rifle while getting ready for the wedding. So after talking to the wife she said I should go ahead and do it. So here we are ;D
This was an older S410 with the small shroud and shorter air cylinder.
Here is a pic of the rifle in its original state:
First order of business was to get that non functional shroud off the rifle and put something in place that would actually work. I ordered some material to make a completely new shroud that would also have an ldc as part of the shroud. The shroud and ldc had to be non removable so that limited the size I could use. The older style fill adapter is fairly large so the ldc couldnt interfere with filling the rifle. I also wanted to keep the rifle as close to the original length as possible since this was a hunting rifle used in the woods. After a week of measuring and designing I finally came up with the best design to fit all the needs. My only concern would be how much noise it was going to cut out.
Heres some pics of the shroud/ldc as it came together
Measuring and double checking that it would fit.
Here everything had been cut and fit to the rifle.
I made the new shroud to the same OD as the original so the barrel band would work without altering it.
With the new shroud and ldc the rifle was within 3" of the original length.
Pic of original shroud laying with the new setup for reference.
With the shroud/ldc design finished it was time to move onto the regulator.
I shot a string out of the rifle before touching anything so I would have a solid base line to go from. With such a short cylinder the string wasnt impressive for shot count but it was very consistent. The rifle gave a string of 13 shots with an ES of 18 fps.
Heres a pic of the string:
As you can see its a very short string but consistent. I had my doubts about how many shots I could gain with the reg install and tune and I figured if it got 20 good shots I would be happy.
Heres pics of the accuracy pre work at 45 yds. There was a breeze blowing during the groups that you will see in the video.
First group.
Second group.
second group including the flyer.
Here is the video of these groups being shot. The video is un edited to show how fast the shots were taken and to show nothing was done to skew the actual results.
I used a Robert Lane regulator because the huma was out of stock and we didnt have time to wait around to see if it would be available. I have read great things about the RL regulators and a few bad things. But we didnt have any choice so RL it was. The RL regulator goes in just like the huma. You have to drill the air cylinder and prep it the same way. Drilling the cylinder isnt hard you just have to get it in the right spot and if you take your time measuring its quite easy. When you order a RL reg the site asks what fpe you are looking for so I ordered it as 20 fpe. Sry I didnt get any pics of the process for installing the regulator. I was getting short on time and it felt like I may have bit off more than I could chew with the amount of stuff that was going on. But I pressed on and I was determined to get this rifle done and out on time. So with no pics of the install I only have the results to show you.
When I shot the rifle the first time after installing the reg and balancing out the valve and hammer energy I thought it was way under power because it was so quiet. So I grabbed the chrony to see what it was at. I was very surprised to see it was right in the range I wanted it to be for the final tweaks to the valve and hammer energy. I polished up the hammer, hammer guide rod and installed a stiffer valve spring and cut the hammer spring slowly until I got what I wanted. I didnt have to reduce the hammer weight.
Heres the shot string after all the work had been done.
So after all the work I was very surprised to see this string. I wasnt expecting to gain that many shots with such a tight ES. The rifle now has a solid 31 shot string with an ES of only 8 fps! This is from a 200 bar fill so no over filling to achieve this performance. I was very happy to say the least. The next thing to do was to shoot for accuracy to see how the shroud/ldc and reg impacted its performance.
Heres a photo of the 5 shot group at 41 yds.
As you can imagine I was very pleased with this group. This was shot outside with a slight breeze.
Video of the group being shot.
Here are some pics of the final results:
After all the crazy things going on during the last month were over and I got the rifle back on time I was glad I took on the job. I was very pleased with the results of the tune and the build overall. I want to thank Steve for trusting me with his rifle and giving me the opportunity to work on it. Steve is a stand up guy and I would deal with him or help him out in a second.
This was an older S410 with the small shroud and shorter air cylinder.
Here is a pic of the rifle in its original state:
First order of business was to get that non functional shroud off the rifle and put something in place that would actually work. I ordered some material to make a completely new shroud that would also have an ldc as part of the shroud. The shroud and ldc had to be non removable so that limited the size I could use. The older style fill adapter is fairly large so the ldc couldnt interfere with filling the rifle. I also wanted to keep the rifle as close to the original length as possible since this was a hunting rifle used in the woods. After a week of measuring and designing I finally came up with the best design to fit all the needs. My only concern would be how much noise it was going to cut out.
Heres some pics of the shroud/ldc as it came together
Measuring and double checking that it would fit.
Here everything had been cut and fit to the rifle.
I made the new shroud to the same OD as the original so the barrel band would work without altering it.
With the new shroud and ldc the rifle was within 3" of the original length.
Pic of original shroud laying with the new setup for reference.
With the shroud/ldc design finished it was time to move onto the regulator.
I shot a string out of the rifle before touching anything so I would have a solid base line to go from. With such a short cylinder the string wasnt impressive for shot count but it was very consistent. The rifle gave a string of 13 shots with an ES of 18 fps.
Heres a pic of the string:
As you can see its a very short string but consistent. I had my doubts about how many shots I could gain with the reg install and tune and I figured if it got 20 good shots I would be happy.
Heres pics of the accuracy pre work at 45 yds. There was a breeze blowing during the groups that you will see in the video.
First group.
Second group.
second group including the flyer.
Here is the video of these groups being shot. The video is un edited to show how fast the shots were taken and to show nothing was done to skew the actual results.
I used a Robert Lane regulator because the huma was out of stock and we didnt have time to wait around to see if it would be available. I have read great things about the RL regulators and a few bad things. But we didnt have any choice so RL it was. The RL regulator goes in just like the huma. You have to drill the air cylinder and prep it the same way. Drilling the cylinder isnt hard you just have to get it in the right spot and if you take your time measuring its quite easy. When you order a RL reg the site asks what fpe you are looking for so I ordered it as 20 fpe. Sry I didnt get any pics of the process for installing the regulator. I was getting short on time and it felt like I may have bit off more than I could chew with the amount of stuff that was going on. But I pressed on and I was determined to get this rifle done and out on time. So with no pics of the install I only have the results to show you.
When I shot the rifle the first time after installing the reg and balancing out the valve and hammer energy I thought it was way under power because it was so quiet. So I grabbed the chrony to see what it was at. I was very surprised to see it was right in the range I wanted it to be for the final tweaks to the valve and hammer energy. I polished up the hammer, hammer guide rod and installed a stiffer valve spring and cut the hammer spring slowly until I got what I wanted. I didnt have to reduce the hammer weight.
Heres the shot string after all the work had been done.
So after all the work I was very surprised to see this string. I wasnt expecting to gain that many shots with such a tight ES. The rifle now has a solid 31 shot string with an ES of only 8 fps! This is from a 200 bar fill so no over filling to achieve this performance. I was very happy to say the least. The next thing to do was to shoot for accuracy to see how the shroud/ldc and reg impacted its performance.
Heres a photo of the 5 shot group at 41 yds.
As you can imagine I was very pleased with this group. This was shot outside with a slight breeze.
Video of the group being shot.
Here are some pics of the final results:
After all the crazy things going on during the last month were over and I got the rifle back on time I was glad I took on the job. I was very pleased with the results of the tune and the build overall. I want to thank Steve for trusting me with his rifle and giving me the opportunity to work on it. Steve is a stand up guy and I would deal with him or help him out in a second.
