Stormrider Gen II

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Oldspook, 

Have you tried groups without the second barrel band installed ? I've read that some people were having issues with it because the first band can press the barrel downward slightly which means that the second more forward band ends up bending the barrel back upward slightly. Mine didn't have this issue in 177 and I haven't yet installed the second band on my 22. I also haven't tried shooting groups further than 30 yards yet. But several people have mentioned this. Just a thought .
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I'll have a look at that. I read that thread also but could only find the one reference on GTA and nothing anywhere else. The barrel bands on this one both feel like they are a good fit but it wouldn't hurt to take the front one off and see what happens.

Did you manage to get your moderator off?
 
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So today I got in an order of a few different kinds of pellets after shooting a few groups with each one the rifle showed that it liked the H&N Barracuda Light at 9.57 grains. So of the pellets it has been shooting it prefers them in this order: H&N Barracuda Light 9.57gr, H&N FTTs 8.64gr, Crossman Premier Heavy 10.5gr, H&N Barracuda 10.64gr and JSB Exact Heavy 10.34gr. The only ones which are "acceptable" as far as I am concerned are the first three and the only one I shot today worthy to talk about were the Barracuda Lights.

I shot five nine shot groups at 36 yards. The average group size for the five groups was 1.16 inches. That's not terrible but still far from what I am after. Using a quarter I could cover 40 of the 45 shots shown on the target. So eight out of nine shots went into quarter at 36 yards. For perspective the top left group just fits under a quarter. Here is a pic of that target:

1577588113_2343226365e08159186b1f5.43885537_5x9.jpg


It looks like more dremel work is in my future.

I also went ahead with the camo, even though I could not find all the colors I wanted. The end result kind of grows on me so I guess I'll keep this way till a better idea comes along:

1577588283_11776485145e08163be72f24.64960228_gun1.jpg


1577588298_1588408385e08164adf7f27.08931595_gun2.jpg


As it is, this is a 40 yard squirrel rifle. It holds 30 shots of air at a very consistent 965 fps for Barracuda Lights. That works out to three magazines at 16 fpe into a group that will stay on a squirrels head at 40 yards. Like I said I had hoped for more but, really that is a lot of bang for $425 when you include the regulator, extra barrel band, and 3x12x32 UTG.

I'm about done here but I will eventually add to the thread. I need to improve the trigger and that is going to take some time and some thought. Once I have that I will add it to the bottom of this thread.

Happy New Year to everyone.

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Oldspook, 

Have you tried groups without the second barrel band installed ? I've read that some people were having issues with it because the first band can press the barrel downward slightly which means that the second more forward band ends up bending the barrel back upward slightly. Mine didn't have this issue in 177 and I haven't yet installed the second band on my 22. I also haven't tried shooting groups further than 30 yards yet. But several people have mentioned this. Just a thought .
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Lots of nice effort from you guys for an affordable and light rifle. I no longer hunt but this package would have made an excellent squirrel gun to carry. I haven't added the second barrel band to either of mine but have considered it in the past. One really good idea I heard quite a while back but in relation to another gun was to open the barrel hole in the barrel band slightly and machine a groove it that larger opening for an o-ring which would still help stabilize the barrel but would allow a bit of "float". This was discussed in relation to changes in POI noted for that other rifle as pressure changed in the cylinder over a shooting session. If I add the bands I will probably try that approach but since I don't have a lathe I would have to have the bands modified by a machine shop and haven't considered it worthwhile for my non field use of the rifle.

The accuracy I am seeing is similar to the 9.57 H&N groups above but with JSB 8.44's and similar with 7.9 Crosmans. Air Arms Falcon 7.33's also shot very well. Weather has been intermittently cold and rainy here so not much shooting but this was noted on quick checks for initial zero. I didn't have the chronograph out and don't have any velocity figures. The trigger work may help with the accuracy as much as anything. I've polished the top of the sear that the trigger body screws work against as well as placing allen head screws in the trigger body that were cut to length and rounded and polished on the contact ends. The biggest improvement in trigger function came by replacing the spring under the sear with a much lighter but slightly longer (for plenty of preload to maintain cocking engagement) spring. I used one from an ink pen since I didn't have a light enough one in my spring kit for the small diameter needed. I did need to close the diameter of the ends of that ink pen spring to fit in the holes in the main tube and sear bottom that locate it. It takes a while and some trial and error but it's cheap and worth it for improved trigger feel. It's not necessarily the best way to do the spring and I'm still looking for a properly sized spring that only needs to be cut to length but I haven't located one yet.
 
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So I got out the dremel and made sure I got the crown and "forcing cone" properly polished and crowned. Then I shot the following targets. This is a slight improvement over what I shot on the cardboard in the above post but not what I expected. Group size went from about 1.2" average to about 0.9" average. So an improvement but not yet what I wanted. Here is the target. What we know for sure from talking with other Stormrider owners is that the crown will need work and the forcing cone will need polishing. The former improves pellet flight and the latter prevents pellet damage during feeding. In both instances on my gun the metal edges were still sharp and there wasn't any chamfer or bevel or crown of any type. The small squares on these targets are 1 CM square. Two and a half squares to the inch. Have a look at this target at 36 yards, nine shots in each group:

1578114981_13200408935e101fa58afe51.61140843_DSCN0422.JPG


After that less than stellar improvement, I removed the first barrel band and shot a one hole group with a couple of fliers. Then I put the barrel band back on and shot another group like the ones above.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, I will take the rifle out and shoot some serious groups with the front barrel band removed. If things improve further I'll add that by editing this post.
 
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I managed after much frustration to get the rifle shooting acceptably. It ain't perfect but it is now shooting well enough that I can say it is at least as accurate as my best tuned springer. It may be a bit better. Groups are averaging just under 1.5 MOA at 25 yards.

So lets backtrack a bit. I thought maybe I had an issue with a hyper critical eye relief and parallax. While that little 3x12x32 Bug Buster UTG does have a pretty small sweet spot in the eye relief a number of groups finally convinced me that was not the major issue. However; I do believe I could shoot better groups if I put one of my SWFA scopes on it.

So I pulled the moderator and opened all the ports to 0.25" thinking maybe I was getting some clipping. No joy. I again removed the moderator and shot half a dozen shots with no moderator. It was very loud. It became immediately apparent that the moderator was not the problem as groups went from about quarter size to about tennis ball size at 36 yards.

As I was reassembling the moderator I decided to reverse the order of the first two elements. There are half a dozen "stripping" cones and half a dozen "spacers" inside the moderator. Just forward of the muzzle is a large spacer about an inch long. It is followed by a stripper cone. I reversed those two so that the stripper was closer to the muzzle. My thinking was that the burst of air coming out of the muzzle was rebounding inside that first spacer and creating yaw in the pellet. My intention was to catch that puff of air as the pellet exited the bore and slow it down enough to alleviate that issue if it existed.

While I had the rifle down I reduced the regulator to 120 BAR. The rifle now gets 40 shots at ~14 FPE with a heavy pellet and 13.6 FPE with an H&N FTT.

Here are all the targets I shot in one sitting after that change:

1578341224_6656692155e139368c75213.70013534_srhnftt1.jpg


1578341247_6354744095e13937f1701e8.57690363_srhnftt1d.jpg


1578341264_3904025425e1393909ab870.84000695_srhnftt2.jpg


1578341279_10848519205e13939f2e3989.73226347_srhnftt2d.jpg


I think I will go clean out some pests. 😁
 
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Well, just a brief update. Today I was again shooting this rifle. It was again disappointing me. So I ran through half a dozen different pellets again. And again decided something just wasn't right. I removed the moderator and installed the barrel bushing that serves as a crown. It comes in the hardware with the rifle.

Talk about LOUD!!! Once you get used to a silencer your forget how loud a PCP is without it. Well I measured 72 dB behind the rifle without the silencer. Then with the baffles removed but the silencer attached, I measured 64 dB behind the rifle. With the factory baffles installed l measured 61 dB behind the rifle. My son tells me the one I sent to him is much quieter than the Diana 350 he already has.

I noticed something else. This rifle is picky about it's choice of pellet but it shoots them all better when the silencer is removed. I guess my earlier observation was made while switching pellets. So I shot half a dozen different pellets with the moderator removed. It liked the JSB 8.44gr and the H&N FTT 8.64gr. pellets best with both of those shooting into dime sized blobs at 25 yards.

Well I decided to reinstall the moderator and remove all the baffles. That quieted the rifle and the groups immediately opened up to about an inch or so at 25 yards for the two favored pellets (mentioned above). This is getting frustrating. The groups were better than they were with the baffles installed but worse than they are with the moderator removed. I'm thinking some baffle testing is in order.

To that end I am running some baffles off on my 3d printer tonight and will get back to this thread when I have tested with those.
 
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This will likely be my last post in this thread for a while. I took the Stormrider out with the 3d printed moderator baffles. That did not go well at all. Then I decided to just shoot for groups with it's favorite pellet. Moderator was on the rifle but the baffles were removed. It shot as well as one could expect a $200 PCP to shoot so I am happy.

So what have I learned about this rifle that I can leave you with if you also have one?

1) The rifle probably needs a crown job from the factory. Mine had no crown.

2) The feeding cone probably needs some dremel work from the factory. Mine was mangling pellets during feeding.

3) The baffles are causing accuracy issues. I don't think this is a clipping issue, I suppose it could be. Simply removing the baffles made a very significant improvement in the accuracy of the rifle. You might find simply rearranging the baffles works for you. The rifle is still plenty quiet without the baffles.

4) The magazine has sharp edges around the feeding port. That is mangling pellets during feeding.

5) I don't like the plastic stock but there really isn't anything wrong with it. I replaced mine with a Gen 1 stock I bought from PA.

6) The rifle makes meat just fine.

Average group size on the target below was 0.6" at 25 yards. Plenty good enough to take the squirrel pictured in the hunting thread. The rifle isn't that hard on the eyes:

1580159464_8539871745e2f51e8de4d22.37078552_Looks-good.jpg


and it can be made to shoot.

1580159065_3063402835e2f5059a72463.19823469_shoots-good.jpg


There was a slight wind. I think the rifle can do a little better in the hands of younger eyes with a better optic... But it makes meat:

WARNING -- This link leads into the hunting threads where you will see dead critters.

https://www.airgunnation.com/topic/little-sister-goes-hunting/
 
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