Power mods, who needs ’em!?

Okay, that may be a LITTLE overstated, but it got your attention, huh :-)? But I have something very interesting going on with my TSS and 18″ .177 barrel I just got from Sharpshooter.

When I got the barrel, my intent was to set the gun up with Kodiaks at about 900 fps. Problem was, I couldn’t get the damn thing to slow down! This one’s an older TSS, had a delrin hammer, and the barrels had 1 hole delrin bushings. The delrin hammer is too light, so I’m using a late model stock Talon hammer. Stock Talon valve and spring. The initial setup had the TH @ .050 or so and the PW @ 4. Velocity with Kodiaks was 1100+ fps. Needless to say, accuracy wasn’t there and it was noisy. Well, I kept turning everything down until I got Kodiaks under 900 fps, TH is now @ .034″ and the PW is @ 0. Kodiaks are doing about 880 fps, CPL’s are at 945 but still very accurate, and it hardly uses any air. On a 3K fill, 30 shots only drops it to ~2700 psi. And even without a shroud of any sort, the sound level is little more than a pop and the hammer slap.

Here’s where it gets a little odd. If I try to turn the PW up, the velocity goes DOWN instantly by at least 100 fps. My theory is, the TH is set so low that any increase in hammer preload has it slamming into the valve body. No air acting as a cushion, so instant rebound and less air, so less velocity.

This setup has plenty of power. I took a 10-12 lb. ground hog with it this week, entry just under the right ear and exited just under the left, and near instant lights out. It kicked a bit, but didn’t move from where it fell. Range was right at 20 yards. Pellet was a CPL. I was anticipating birds, so that’s what I had loaded, I was pretty surprised at it’s effectiveness.

So has anyone gotten similar results with a similar setup, or is mine a fluke? Or is it a quirk of the longer .177 barrels? Right now I’m really glad I’ve got 2 TSS’s, this one seems so perfectly balanced I don’t want to change a thing. I still need to run some longer chrony strings to verify my results, so far I’ve just done a quick series of 10 shot strings to see about where the different pellets are shooting at. Oddly enough, everything from CPL’s to Kodiaks is shooting to virtually the same POI at 30 yards. The only exception was CPH’s, and this setup doesn’t like them anyway.

Sorry this rambled on so long, will post additional info when I have a chance to get serious with the chrony, hopefully sometime this weekend. Later, people.

Dave