Tuning Heliboard for Red Wolf Standard power?

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thumper

thumper

Member
Feb 16, 2016
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Huntsville AL, United States
Has anybody used or have experience with a Heliboard in a standard power Red Wolf? I recently acquired one in .22, its a GCU-1 gun at 35ft/lb. Would love to be able to turn the power level down farther than it is currently for the Low setting. Going from Sub 12ft/lbs and up to 35fpe would be pretty dang cool.

Currently mine is setup from the factory as follows with 18gr JSB Heavy: 

High- 910fps 33fpe

Med- 815fpd 27fpe

Low- 730fps 21fpe

Not much spread there..

......and for anybody that knows me, you're right. I don't know what I was thinking buying this and it is well outside my wheelhouse LOL. But it's pretty damn cool so far! 
 
Electronic guns just don't offer the flexibility of mechanical guns IMO. From servicing to tuning they are just not as user friendly, again IMO. By the way, I own a Pulsar.
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The fact that you can have 3 power levels (or 12 with the Heliboard), with full optimized shot strings at each power level, seems pretty flexible to me. I have yet to see a mechanical gun do that? 

But I get it, and I'm still a fan of mechanical guns overall. Especially the triggers, these electric triggers SUCK. 

Just figured this would be something fun to tinker with. 
 
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Electronic guns just don't offer the flexibility of mechanical guns IMO. From servicing to tuning they are just not as user friendly, again IMO. By the way, I own a Pulsar.
Click to expand...

The fact that you can have 3 power levels (or 12 with the Heliboard), with full optimized shot strings at each power level, seems pretty flexible to me. I have yet to see a mechanical gun do that? 

But I get it, and I'm still a fan of mechanical guns overall. Especially the triggers, these electric triggers SUCK. 

Just figured this would be something fun to tinker with.
Click to expand...


When I say flexible I mean "out of the box" flexible. My Crown is out of the box very flexible for power, and user serviceable to boot. Impacts, even more so.

My Pulsar has only 3 "out of the box" power choices. As for service, when there's an issue about the only things the owner can do are change batteries and look for loose wires. As an owner of both, I prefer the mechanical. But that's just me, others may feel differently.
 
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Thumper, I don't know how much you have played with the trigger, but I agree with your general observation, a good mechanical trigger is much better. I often think that the folks who rave about the electronic triggers have never had a true, match quality mechanical trigger. With my Red Wolf, I quickly gave up on trying to simulate a decent two-stage trigger, just adjusted out all the initial travel, making it a simulated single-stage trigger. Once you get all the slop out, of it but not so much that the switch will not reset (cock), you can then fiddle with the pressure adjustment for release of the shot. This can be frustrating, since you are dealing with a sensitive micro-switch rather than spring-loaded, metal-on-metal parts. After much experimentation, mine releases at around 5 ounces. It will never have the same crisp feel of a good mechanical trigger, but it is very usable, and consistent. I shoot the RW mostly from the bench, for which I prefer a single stage trigger anyway. I will not likely own another electronic rifle, and I'm not going to spend any money on the electronics, since I shoot it only on one power setting anyway. You should call AOA and ask about tuning options. Your rifle seems to have the general 100/90/80 power level settings. I don't know how independent the three levels are, whether you could leave levels H and M as they are, and drop L way down. I've heard conflicting reports on that, but I've never looked into it. The Heliboard sound like a desirable product with additional features. But I'm just not sufficiently interested in the electronic platform to investigate it further. Good luck with yours. 
 
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Thumper, I don't know how much you have played with the trigger, but I agree with your general observation, a good mechanical trigger is much better. I often think that the folks who rave about the electronic triggers have never had a true, match quality mechanical trigger. With my Red Wolf, I quickly gave up on trying to simulate a decent two-stage trigger, just adjusted out all the initial travel, making it a simulated single-stage trigger. Once you get all the slop out, of it but not so much that the switch will not reset (cock), you can then fiddle with the pressure adjustment for release of the shot. This can be frustrating, since you are dealing with a sensitive micro-switch rather than spring-loaded, metal-on-metal parts. After much experimentation, mine releases at around 5 ounces. It will never have the same crisp feel of a good mechanical trigger, but it is very usable, and consistent. I shoot the RW mostly from the bench, for which I prefer a single stage trigger anyway. I will not likely own another electronic rifle, and I'm not going to spend any money on the electronics, since I shoot it only on one power setting anyway. You should call AOA and ask about tuning options. Your rifle seems to have the general 100/90/80 power level settings. I don't know how independent the three levels are, whether you could leave levels H and M as they are, and drop L way down. I've heard conflicting reports on that, but I've never looked into it. The Heliboard sound like a desirable product with additional features. But I'm just not sufficiently interested in the electronic platform to investigate it further. Good luck with yours.
Click to expand...

Ive played with the trigger quite a bit, and have ended up like you with a single stage. Personally, I can't get it heavy enough! I'd like to hunt with it, but a cold finger would be tough on a trigger this light. 

I think the inherent problem with the setup is that you can't account for/adjust out the travel in the switch itself. The switch has travel before and after the "click" and this is a variable with no adjustment. I think Daystate could come up with something a little better than an off-the-shelf microswitch. I've got a couple ideas to tinker with, I may or may not get around to them lol. 

As far as the power settings, I believe you are right. I just think the gun would be a lot more versatile if the power was a little more spread out. But I get that most people want full power, and that the power levels are setup to basically tailor the gun to different weight pellets, and not so much overall speed. 

Anyway, this thing is polar opposite from my other guns. And I'm enjoying messing with it so far. Keeps things interesting. 

Thanks for the info bud, I appreciate it. 
 
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