Q:

Bolt play normal?

❓ I notice that when my condor is cocked and I close the bolt and turn the bolt handle to left (or rt.), though it all the way to left, I can pull it rearward another 16th”, there is that much slop foward and back. That can’t be good? Is that normal? Just got gun, am feeling a little depressed about it all. See my other posts for today and the problems. Seems like alot of problems and I havent even be able to shoot it yet (not much). Should I try to return it, bought from AA?

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I think we may be worrying about nothing! I know that we are all used to the way a bolt locks up on a powder burner, and a normal PCP for that matter, but the AF guns work on an entirely different firing mechanism. First, the Bolt isn’t really a bolt at all. It does enclose the chamber, but it is for all practical purposes, the chamber it’s self. Secondly, the “O” rings are what seal the air blast in the “chamber”. But more importantly, the breach slide acts as a transfer bar. In a modern revolver, the hammer doesn’t actually touch the firing pin. Nor is it a part of the hammer. The hammer strikes the transfer bar, or (in our case) the breach slide. This transfers the energy from the hammer strike to the firing pin. Or in our case the Top Hat. In both cased, the transfer bar, or breach slide must be free floating to operate properly. Any binding, and some of the energy world be lost to the surrounding bracing. When the hammer falls, there is a great deal of force that is transfered to the top hat. This very same force is being applied to both the breach slide by the hammer, and conversely to the rear of the breach slide by the force needed to open the top hat. The top hat forcing its way back under both air pressure, and the force caused by the valve return spring. Lastly, there is the rebound wave that is generated gack through the breach slide by the force originating from the hammer, transfered Thur the breach face, to the top hat, and back again. The breach slide is Very tight at the instant of firing. No other breach lock is needed or required. In fact, it would be detrimental to this design.

If you don’t believe it gets tight, place a piece of rice paper between the breach slide, and the valve on an empty bottle. “No this isn’t good for the valve. valve stem” And pull the trigger. You will see very visually just how tight it becomes during actual firing. .

Mike

7 hours later and the 500kb file still has not loaded, WTF!!!

Sorry, no video, either my DSL or Photo Bucket sucks ass… 👿

Uploading the video now, should take a bit even though it is only a few seconds long…

The video will show the play and what happens when the rifle is fired (the bolt jumps)…

Will do some Chorny work and test different locations of the bolt to see if that changes anything… 😉

O yea, thanks Voltar for putting me on track to experiment with bolt play. Brian

Yea Dave it might be nice to have a grove there to hold a o ring. Makes alot of sense in light of my little experiment. I’m starting to believe that “bolt sloop” may be a design feature because when no sloop allowed by holding knob with my hand, there is greater tendency for my mico-meter tank to dump its air,( I’m baseing this on my now low charge in tank)well it does dump. It should be noted that (at least on my gun) when knob is turned to rt or lf, the bottom of knob provides some resistence to the recoil effect of the valve train by pressing againts the fram there at the knoch. So my micro-meter tank with its aparently overly weak valve spring for .177(being sent to AF for adjustment),will dump when handle is to rt or left, but not when handle is left in the middle. I think maybe I feel a little better (just a little) about “bolt sloop” I think it would be nice and maybe good for consistency to at least have the bolt spring loaded to the top hat, so it allways goes there.

I glued a hard oring onto my top hat for just this reason at one point. IIRC, I had to fiddle with my PW setting to get the hammer strike consistent again, but other than that, it worked great, negligible if any velocity loss. The biggest problem was keeping the rubber oring stuck to the SS top hat, I used weather strip cement but there’s probably a better choice out there. Don’t remember what size the oring was, but it fit snug on the top hat and in the recess in my breech. I’ve been doing other things to my gun so I’ve taken it off, but once I’m through messing with it, I’ll put it back :-). Good luck!

Dave

Wow , I had just sugested that and decided not to send it threw. But I still would like to get rid of at least some of what seems like a considerable amount of play, maybe 3mm in my gun.

breech needs to have ‘some’ play or the valve will waste air and possibly not close leading to a dump.
Walter…..

It seems to me any shiming must be of a very hard material and must be one peice with the tophat,any thing floating around or not hard like steel would seem to invite inconsitency and simply not be durable. With tophat somehow properly shimed, tophat could be screwed out to meet the bolt face and therefore no bolt play. ??

Yea Synopsys is rt, anything wide enough on bolt stem won’t go down cocking slot. But what about a longer tophat to take up the play and still adjust to a small enough tophat gap? Anybody got one? Would it work?

It is threaded into the ABS breach so it will take some effort to remove, remember that the breach will still need to slide forward to cock the rifle and you filler shim thing cannot be larger that the slot the cocking knob follows…

Unless I missed something really simple… 😕 😳

quote 48Brian:

Brillant WalkonKing, such a simple soution I could not see! Now got figure how to get the bolt knob off. Thanks all.

Just remove the bolt cover and inside there will be an allen screw. Turn the bolt all the left or right, unscrew and walla – it’s removed!

WOK, I tried that but to cock the rifle the ‘shim thing’ doesn’t let the breach slide forward and if it is small enough to slide forward it doesn’t take up all the play…

A266, if the tophat is set to a decent gap when the breach is slid all the way back and the cocking knob is rotated (locked position) right of left you can push it back and forth, where if the tophat is set factory far forward (big gap) when the cocking is rotated the breach will no have front to back play.

When (on my rifle) the gap is small (correct) the breach bounces even if it is locked right or left when the trigger is pulled…

I left the cocking knob straight vertical thinking the bounce would increase and it doesn’t happen, so I just make sure it is set snug against the tophat and everything works fine…

I will see if I can take a video but on DSL in may take a day or two to load to Pbucket… 😆

Brillant WalkonKing, such a simple soution I could not see! Now got figure how to get the bolt knob off. Thanks all.

What you can do to keep the bolt tight against the top hat is this…..take off the cocking knob and make a little tubular bushing to go over the threads. The thickness of this little metal or plastic tube can be adjusted to take up any gap between the nothced area of the frame and the cocking knob threads. So if you have a gap make the OD of the little bushing thicker until you get it to rest against the frame notch and the top hat securely.

That will allow you to have a properly adjusted tophat and still allow the cocking knob to sit against the frame notch.

I made mine from a piece of delrin but you can buy nylon bushing and drill and sand it to fit the cocking knob.

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