FX impact - my cylinder few across the room when changing it out for a fresh one

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shortslide

shortslide

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May 19, 2017
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Hi all, I have been shooting once a week, I have had my 25 caliber barrel on my FX Impact for the last two months. The rifle shooting great as always. I have two carbon fiber cylinders so about 100 pellets before i have to run downstairs to fill them both up from my 75 cubic foot air tank. I normally shoot both cylindars to about 140 BAR and end my shooting session, filling both back up so they are ready for my next shooting session. I don't shoot much, having to fill my air tank with my compressor once every two months or so - I have not been shooting as much as I used to. Partly because I am now competing with my Wilson 9mm and 45ACP at the local plate matches, so my pistol shooting takes up most of my shooting time each week

Today's session ended badly and I am a shook up. I started with my first Cylinder at about 230 BAR, shooting until the Cylinder got to 140 BAR, so about 50-55 pellets (25 cal Mark II's). I lost track because I am a bit shook up. Anyways, it was time to switch out my 140 BAR cylinder with my other, fully charged cylinder. As I unscrewed the 140 BAR cylinder, air started to leak out, with the amount of air leaking out becoming loud. In the past, I would unscrew the first cylinder and a little bit of air would escape, not even noticeable. But this time it was bad. I should have re-screwed it back on and sent the rifle back to service. Instead, I kept unscrewing and BAM, the cylinder, now almost free from the threads, shot across the room, flying ten feet and hitting a hard plastic fire safe. No dent on the carbon fiber cylinder, and the threads on the rifle seem fine. 

Has this ever happened to any of you? Not sure how many people ever unscrew their cylinders as only one is really needed. For me, having two means less trips to the basement to fill them up, and also means that I could take my airgun to a friends house or into the woods and have double the shots I would have otherwise had with one cylinder. I plan on calling AOA tomorrow and sending this back to them for service.




 
Likely my next purchase from AOA. A small pony tank seems to be the way to go here. AOA will likely check all my seals for me. I just don't have the guts to screw on my fully charged cylinder now. I shoot 600 to 800 rounds a week through my 45ACP and 9mm pistols so that will keep me occupied until my Impact comes back from AOA (depending on what they tell me tomorrow).
 
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I would suggest that you have the cylinder checked out somehow by a pro after having flown across the room and hitting something hard. If that Impact, no pun intended, damaged the cylinder in any way I wouldn't want to fill it to 250 bar and be within 50 yards of it with a possible unknown weakness.
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After today, I am not sure I ever want to use a high pressure airgun again. In five months, my 300 Blackout (SBR with Silencer) can come home with me - it's a two stamp weapon so it takes a while to clear. They say it shoots subsonic ammo at only 134 DB - how loud (in DB) is my impact I wonder. With Subsonic it's powerful. At 100 yards, a 220 grain round traveling at 1050 fps has the same power that a 44 magnum (as fired from a six inch revolver) does at point blank range. With supersonic ammo it has roughly the ballistics of an AK-47.

But I trust AOA implicitly - hopefully they will inspect the rifle and have a solid explanation for what just happened to me. I have a fair amount of money sunk into this system, plus I can't wait to take a raccoon at night with my Trijicon Reap-IR scope. Snaps onto my Impact's rail in seconds. Will take no chances with the cylinder, should have gone the pony bottle route from the get go. I suspected that constantly screwing and unscrewing my two cylinders might put the whole system in danger. That said, those cylinders came on and off so smooth - never an issue until now.
 
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I am sorry that incident occurred but glad to hear no one was injured.

If your Tank that flew across the room tests ok, perhaps another option than a pony tank (which is a good option) would be the dual bottle adapter?

https://www.airgunnation.com/topic/dual-bottle-adapter-fx-impact/

Also showed up at the 6min mark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPc_jqmKqmI
 
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Well, that was a great ending. I called AOA yesterday and they said that the cylinder was out of warrantee (I had purchased my FX-Impact over a year ago), so I would have to go thru FX. AOA then told me my other cylinder could be used, that the rifle was likely fine, and I should go ahead and shoot it. As it was not yet dark when I got home last night, I screwed my other cylinder on and took about 25 perfect shots before the light faded. No time to put my Reap-IR on the rail but will do so this weekend. The FX Impact, with my good cylinder, is again up and running, I did not even lose zero, stacking pellets at 40 yards.

I called FX late in the day yesterday, and they immediately offered to replace my cylinder free of charge, and then sent me a pre-paid Fed-Ex label via e-mail. Costs me nothing to send my Cylinder back and get a brand new replacement. I was told the internal valve was likely stuck open, but they would not know until they inspected the Cylinder. Fantastic customer service - I did not expect to get a replacement cylinder shipped to me for free.
 
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I called FX late in the day yesterday, and they immediately offered to replace my cylinder free of charge, and then sent me a pre-paid Fed-Ex label via e-mail. Costs me nothing to send my Cylinder back and get a brand new replacement. I was told the internal valve was likely stuck open, but they would not know until they inspected the Cylinder. Fantastic customer service - I did not expect to get a replacement cylinder shipped to me for free.
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Good for FX USA! Can't place a price on safety...
 
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Glad no one was injured.

POOR design that should have been thought of before any prints were even drawn up. If the design is such that removing a bottle w/psi and a faulty valve creates a rocket I am somewhat surprised no one has mentioned or attempted to address it. 

Another bottle valve WILL become stuck open. As little as a small vent hole or even a dowty washer would make this a safer design.

Any chance owner could fit in a dowty and still depress the pin?

Hopefully FX is currently addressing this issue.



John
 
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I called FX late in the day yesterday, and they immediately offered to replace my cylinder free of charge, and then sent me a pre-paid Fed-Ex label via e-mail. Costs me nothing to send my Cylinder back and get a brand new replacement. I was told the internal valve was likely stuck open, but they would not know until they inspected the Cylinder. Fantastic customer service - I did not expect to get a replacement cylinder shipped to me for free.
Click to expand...

Good for FX USA! Can't place a price on safety...
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Agreed about safety. But it was funny, AOA seemed surprised this happened, I suspect because this is a 6 sigma type event that I made worse by continuing to unscrew the cylinder. Which was a bonehead move. Thinking back, the sound of the air escaping was very loud and spooked me. As I shoot 400 rounds a week sometimes from my 45acp pistols, loud noises do not as a rule spook me. The right thing to have done would be to screw the cylinder back on and stop the release of pressure. Then maybe back it off real slow and let the pressure release slowly. I have not heard anyone pipe in on this thread and report that these cylinders suffer from jammed or damaged valued all the time. Maybe a good thing to ask when a large group of airgunners gather, say at the AOA championships for instance. For those that don't have an FX impact, these cylinders screw on rock solid. And come off very easy, turning on threads that are accurate to very tight tolerances. If there is one thing I do know, it's high end 1911 pistols. Having three Wilson Supergrades and one high end Cabot, I know what a finely tuned piece of metal feels like. Unscrewing the cylinder on my FX impact reminds me a lot of racking the slide of one of my $6,000 Wilson Supergrades - something that has to be experienced to appreciate trust me on that. My rifle is a super tight piece of machinery that I have the upmost confidence in.

That I handled the situation wrong is my fault, that FX treated me like they did was unexpected but welcome. I would have expected them to first inspect the cylinder and then make a determination about free replacement and such. Which tells me that they can probably count on one hand the times this has happened to a customer in all their years of business.
 
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Agree with both comments above. At the first sound of anything out of whack, (like shortslide says) undo what you are doing if possible...and/or take cover... At the same time, like John said, this should not have happened (if properly designed)....unless the bottle was unscrewed further even after air started escaping. 

Shortslide, the main thing is that the possible tank-valve failure did not lead to any injuries and will be addressed by FX, and that should not continue to unscrew the tank, but let air escape first.

I once reinstalled a barrel on one of my PCPs (I think it was the Impact or maybe the Vulcan) and forgot to tighten the barrel setscrew(s). Fired a dry shot (glad no pellet was inside) and the barrel launched out about 5-6 feet but luckily glided to a stop on my carpet hitting a paper box. Was a bit shaken, but no damage except to my ego :)


 
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This could have happened to me, but I noticed it was doing what you described. Lesson learned stop unthreading it if it doesnt seal itself. Did it take any threads with it?
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Not sure about that. But it was one of the things I was looking for. There was no metal fragrments or threads from the rifle inside the cylinder. The threads looked fine on the rifle, and I also looked to see if any were ripped off the rifle. I can't post pictures for some reason, could anyone here post a picture of your rifles threads (so remove your cylinder and snap a picture) or post a link to a picture so I can compare to mine?
 
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