Altaros Regulator

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"Regarval"I think your reg is set for a .22 cal, I had to adjust my to get the speed up, to me 785fps is to slow for a .25 cal, I set my Condor @ 870fps, I havent shot my Condors for a while but remember shooting the Predators at that speed.
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I set it to that speed deliberately. I've had the gun running at about 55 fpe but I just don't need that kind of energy and I don't shoot well enough to make head shots on squirrels farther than about 60 yards. 800 fps is just about right for my limitations.
 
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Wow! I set the regulator to about 140 bar and got more than 60 shots at 693 fps with an SD of 2. Power wheel was at 5-8 and the largest restrictor was installed in the Talon Tunez valve. Unfortunately I could not get any more velocity than that out of it by increasing the power wheel... The valve was draining the plenum when set down around 4-1 so I've drained that bottle and will be cranking the reg up to 150.
 
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So more notes on the regulator:

Cranked it up to 150 bar and removed the restrictor in the Talon Tunez bottle valve. Velocities went up to 811 fps with PW set to 13-1 and down to 773 fps with PW set to 1-1. I dialed it in to 795 and re-zeroed at 25 yards, yesterday. Today I recharged the rifle and set up a target at 87 yards down hill at about 10 degrees. I shot a group and that data is going to be included in a piece about the reliability of the ballistic calculator in the ATN sight sometime next week.
 
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"oldspook"Just today I got my Altaros regulator for the Condor. It lengthens the pull to just about perfect for me but I am six foot two so it would make a 0.5 liter bottle too long for most folks unless they went with a shorter fatter bottle which would work fine I think. Before regulator I was getting 18 shots at 785 fps with JSB 24.4 gr. .25 caliber pellets. That was starting at 2600 psi. Now I can fill to 3000 and work down to 2000. If the function is linear with respect to pressure, that means I should get 30 between 3k and 2k now. That is good. Thirty shots at 35 fpe. Charge it the first freeze of the year and again on New Years day and hunt all winter.

It took me about an hour to do the job but I could do another one in ten minutes now that I've done the first one.

So here is a pic of the reg on the tank.

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What was involved in installing it? Just curious. I don't need detailed instructions I would just like to know if it involved modifying your air rifle and the tools needed. Sounds like it was worth it.
 
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"zebra"
What was involved in installing it? Just curious. I don't need detailed instructions I would just like to know if it involved modifying your air rifle and the tools needed. Sounds like it was worth it.
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Very easy. You put a coin in your pump adapter or valve protector cap and screw it down slowly till air starts leaking and drain the tank. Then you remove the valve assembly from the tank with an allen wrench and screw the regulator into the bottle. Then you screw the valve assembly into the regulator. Done. No modifications to anything. Was it worth it? I don't know. That is for you to decide. Today I confirmed that I get 24 regulated shots @36.5 fpe between 3000 PSI and 150 bar (~2175psi). That is a lot less than I expected given that I got close to 60 @27 fpe between 3000 PSI and 137 bar (~1987 psi). Either setup would stone squirrels to death between 20 and 50 yards but I'd say a .22 would benefit more from the regulator than the .25 does. Still I'm not at all unhappy with the results an SD of 2 fps over 50 shots at 700 fps isn't bad. ;)
 
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"Sam63"I read that lightening the H/S or replacing the H/S with a lighter one will increase efficiency when bringing the power up on some regulated guns.

Link to post by rsterne. A respected engineer/airgun tuner.
http://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=74919.0 



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Yeah, Bob is a really well educated and highly experienced engineer and he is gracious and helpful to a fault.  He helped me work through the tuning of a BSA Lonestar with an Alteros regulator. We did all of that in a thread on GTA. Meh, GTA... 'enough said.

But in this instance I think the trouble with tuning down a Condor to Talon performance levels is pretty straight forward, the whole system was built for power and more power. The easiest way to tune down that Condor to Talon levels is to rip out all the guts and put Talon guts in it. That is more than I feel like doing. I've put it back to a stock hammer and I think the hammer spring is stock but maybe I should have a look at replacing that just to see if it makes a difference.

Anyway thanks for the reference to Bob, he is a true treasure in the community and one great guy.
 
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"oldspook"
"zebra"
What was involved in installing it? Just curious. I don't need detailed instructions I would just like to know if it involved modifying your air rifle and the tools needed. Sounds like it was worth it.
Click to expand...
Very easy. You put a coin in your pump adapter or valve protector cap and screw it down slowly till air starts leaking and drain the tank. Then you remove the valve assembly from the tank with an allen wrench and screw the regulator into the bottle. Then you screw the valve assembly into the regulator. Done. No modifications to anything. Was it worth it? I don't know. That is for you to decide. Today I confirmed that I get 24 regulated shots @36.5 fpe between 3000 PSI and 150 bar (~2175psi). That is a lot less than I expected given that I got close to 60 @27 fpe between 3000 PSI and 137 bar (~1987 psi). Either setup would stone squirrels to death between 20 and 50 yards but I'd say a .22 would benefit more from the regulator than the .25 does. Still I'm not at all unhappy with the results an SD of 2 fps over 50 shots at 700 fps isn't bad. ;)
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I'm not expert on regulators but one thing I do know is that in order for them to work efficiently they have to be set up to work in harmony with the valve spring and hammer spring tuning. In other words, just having a regulator won't necessarily give you more shots. It's still possible to waste air by using the wrong tension on the HST or valve poppet. 

Also, is it necessary to have it drop off the reg at 150bar? Maybe it could be a little lower.

I don't think the fact that it's a 25 cal is the issue. The difference between my regulated and unregulated 25 cal guns is huge in terms of efficiency and noise. 
 
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It is necessary to have it drop off reg at 150 bar if I want the existing system to shoot over 750 fps with the regulator. It is probably worth mentioning here that this is a Condor SS with a 12 inch barrel. I think it would do quite a bit better if it had a longer barrel. Maybe I should get an 18" barrel and take the baffles out but then it would be too loud for the yard, probably. Anyway, I'm happy with it as it is. I might go ahead and see if a lighter hammer spring would improve things a bit. As I said, when shooting at 700 fps I get a lot of shots.

I should also mention that this regulator sits between the cylinder and the rifle thus lengthening the pull. That put a constraint on the size of the plenum for the regulator and may have impacted the engineer's ability to have sufficient regulated volume to give a .25 cal (especially a 12" barrel .25) the kind of velocity that Condor's are famous for attaining. As I said, the gun is hitting 810 fps with the JSB 25.4 gr pellets and the power wheel set to max. That is with no restrictor in the valve. I frankly believe that the plenum is being completely evacuated with each shot when the power wheel is set to max. Essentially the gun is shooting as hard as it can given the pressure, barrel, caliber, and regulator constraints.

Turning the power wheel down (reducing the preload on the hammer) from maximum to minimum goes from 810 fps to 770 fps. That is a nice spread although a little shorter than I would have expected. Adding the restrictor in on the top hat valve reduces the maximum velocity to about 740 fps and takes the minimum down to about 680 fps at the same pressure. I would expect those velocity numbers to go up about 15 percent if the gun had an 18" barrel. The short barrel is inefficient but very convenient.
 
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