I will do mate 😉 Got a few different pellets in the range I want to try out and also do some real long range work with the thunders 😉

Hi mate, 65yds with a springer is going to be pretty challenging, especially In my hands 🤠 Regards the types of pellets, generally the dome headed ones are going to give the best performance at the longer ranges. I'd be inclined to try some of the jsb and derivatives ,being softer they often run a bit faster than some of the harder lead alloys. Most important thing really is to test as many options as you can,as every so often a complete random pellet will give the best performance for you and the barrel... And thanks for being a part of the channel 😀

@@tillysgunstocks Comparing the JSB Exact Jumbo Diabolo options, they have a 15.59 grain and a 18.13 grain Heavy version. I assume targeting 50 yards and even 65 yards, the lighter of the two would be best? I was also looking at a brand Stoeger X-power precision copper coated pellets but they come in at 21.12 grain. Maybe just getting them all and having fun. :)

Cheers mate 😉

That would be a great experiment to try mate, It would also be super interesting to see whether there's a correlation between pellet weight and number of pumps for optimum group size. 😉

Hi mate, the muzzle mounted chronos will drop the poi a bit.thats almost rifle dependant though.some with barrel bands are less affected. I don't chrono whilst shooting the measured groups though. The actual muzzle velocity in this instance is of less importance than any improvement (or worsening) of group size, sight picture and general shot cycle. Mainly the chrono figures are to give some baselines for monitoring the temperature sensitivity. 😉

It definitely took me a little time to get a accustomed to the higher mag. It also meant I could better see my pulse and work to correct it and dial in my technique, I pretty much shoot everything on the channel between 15-30mag now where I can 😉

I'm getting through the majority of different pellets slowly mate. It's great fun trying them out for sure.. Re the sizers yes some barrels will perform marginally better with a sized pellet, but the most important thing is that the best barrel in the world won't shoot inconsistently manufactured pellets 😉

Hi mate, work and life got in the way of dragging the katran to any major competitions but it's not really that ideal tbh. The geometry of the rig is a bit peculiar and it doesnt shoot hft prone very well without a fair bit of re jigging.. it also doesn't deal with the cold very well so not the most practical platform for an hft comp rig. It's a nice compact pest control rig but for the majority of target disciplines there's way better stuff available. You're well into used Steyr/FTP900 /walther money for the price of a katran. That's where my money would go... 😉

I don't know for sure mate,but given there's a dedicated lefty action I would guess there will be lefty grips and chassis options too.😎

Hi mate,I've not done a comparison video as yet on them. I do plan too in the spring as I'd like to run them out to the extreme ranges with the lab radar to monitor the BC downrange and the accuracy 😉

🤯😆 I dunno about that mate I'm just a bloke in a shed.. You're dead right about the complexity of this stuff though. The more we learn and build a better understanding of how our gear performs will only lead to hitting more targets.. plus it's good nerdy fun trying it all out😎

Springers are a whole new level of madness 😆 The reduced recoil and improved sight picture running them detuned a bit well exceeds the minor improvements in wind drift mate. Often the improved group sizes of the detuned springers outweigh the extra drift by a long way 😉

Hi mate, to make your life easier it'd be best to have as much of the cut horizontal as you can make it,whilst keeping the lines with the stock body looking nice. You could then screw another long piece of wood to the underside the cheek piece,a screw at the front and rear ends. You can then make the cut through the screwed on piece and into the cheek with it inverted. it'll give you a decent way of keeping it true. 😉

@ wow matey many thanks for the swift reply,you are a true gentleman!, I have stripped my stock down to bare wood and applied a coat of primer to it this will make the marking easier to see ,this is a winter project with a spare S400 stock ,my objective is to fitted comb riser as mentioned,I shall then be fitting a home made hamster as per your other video ,the finish is hopefully going to be diy hydro dipped in a carbon fibre ,silver/black then the rising part of the comb and hamster will be finished in black ,then I’m fitting a black 3D printed butt hook to the rear ,that should keep me busy during the colder months,hopefully my battered old stock should emerge in the spring like a beautiful butterfly 🧚thank you again for providing the impetus to attempt this project .kind regards to a true craftsman

Hi mate. I'm super happy how it's performing so far. It's early days yet but it shows huge potential. I've not had the barrel out yet, but I will be soon as I'll be making a shroud for it. I'll do the cotton bid trick then 😉 Hopefully I can tighten the groups up just a little more with pellet sorting and then I can make use of all the express I have. I'm certain though,that it will group better with some of the batches of jsb shorts I have here.but at this point I don't want to waste them as they're hard to get. 😎

Thanks for watching mate 😉

Hi mate. Depending how the next round of testing goes I'll probably make a tuner of sorts to go Infront the air stripper. It's at that point now where any gains will be so marginal it'll be hard to consistently test for them. I need to shave 0.6mm off my group size 😆 it's absolutely mental really when you think about it like that... Luckily my own natural wobbles are surprisingly consistent so I just need to get my act together in competition 😉

@tillysgunstocks 0.6mm....yes I can imagen chasing your tail if your not careful. I would think the crono makes some change. Hope you sort it.

The beige card is the proper nsra card but it does seem to tear up a bit on group testing. I'll have a look at that tape as it'd be great to get cleaner holes for filming duties especially when pushing for micro groups 😉

🤔 hmm I'm not sure... Er yes actually you're right i definitely do ... That's a fun project to build 😆

Awesome stuff mate,let us know how you get on 😎

Hi mate, I was just restricting the transfer port. The xti has 2 venturi screws that can be used to throttle the port down. The hammer currently is untouched. It's a crude way of doing it as it's effectively wasting air at that point. But now we know it's working I can back the hammer off and sort a tune to suit the slower speeds probably drop the reg pressure a bit too and see a bit of a shot count increase and tighten the consistency up a little more. At this stage it's more a proof on concept before going too mad. Pellets are generally quite forgiving in their sweet spot , these run lovely from 730-760 FPS. Next is sizing and prep.. I'm desperate to find a use for all these express I've got 😆 Not a bad start for no cost though 😎

Agreed mate! The lower speeds can help reduce spiralling at range and make the whole rig feel nicer/calmer and easier to use. That in itself will drop more targets than trying to push the limits of physics 😉

@tillysgunstocks AGREE!! To many people over here think they have to shoot stupid fast. They typically think I'm full of something when I tell them to slow the speed.

🤣🤣🤣 I tested some gold plated pellets years ago... Absolute pony 😆

I've been looking at them recently mate as it goes.. what I'm more curious long term is how I can use the test rigs to test the various stock materials against each other. Ofcourse the density of laminate varies to hardwood and polymer could go either way. I've got some pretty good data already regards stock building on the Springer's and the distribution of mass through the stock to change the recoil characteristics. It'll be cool to bring that Into the PCP world... We're looking for incremental improvement but I'm always pushing for better 😉

Hi nick, it's absolutely fascinating stuff eh. Even for me ,doing it every day there's always something new to learn. That's why the sport has its claws in me... 😉

It's good fun though eh.. remember we don't do this because it's easy, we do it because it isn't.. It might seem a little daunting at first but if you're methodical with testing and setup it all makes sense and will see you hit more targets 😀

@@tillysgunstocks Fair comment! It seems very far removed from me and my mate arguing whether Marksman or Bulldog were best in out multi-pump Corpsman 766's back around 1977!

I'm not sure what my local league rules are regards Indoor/outdoor but it's nice being inside for sure in the winter evenings.although the big temperature swings are hard to account for right now😬

I got lucky with this so far mate. It's definitely best to test first then fine tune but I've got to find a use for all these express 😆 Definitely some more to be gained with a dialed in tune(hammer and reg balanced for the lower FPS) and some prep I reckon

I'll need a pretty savage sizer to get your .22 Into the xti mate 😆 I'll have to film it over a few weeks with work and range time but hopefully it'll be a thought provoking video. So far just pitching the speeds down has been a good start but I want more 🙄 I'm desperate to put these express to good use one way or the other..I've got 26 tins to use up

It's something I learnt many years ago mate, especially when shooting the hft worlds when it was an Easter comp and usually freezing cold and the rifles were stored in a warm hotel. That soon stopped...and acclimatised over night locked in an outbuilding. You've also got the physical shifts that can happen in a cold rig that suddenly gets pretty warm. Some action to stock fit isn't the best and the rapidly warming cylinders can move in the stocks and cause a physical mechanical shift. Some are more resilient than others to temp related mechanical poi shifts. That is one of the reasons that many of my comp rig builds have floating cylinders and barrels. the xti chassis does too now 😉

Absolutely mate, annoyingly I was just dropping off reg in my second chrono string. Now I've got some ideas as to the down range performance at the lower speeds a proper tune to suit will follow.😉 Interestingly with my experience of the ev2 and FTP platforms the consistency tightened up with a little restriction on the transfer port when everything else is balanced, especially in the cold. Early days with this action yet. The older xti is absolutely bone stock Internally and still has all the anti tamper in place. That one is incredible especially at the extreme ranges

Hi mate, on the right side of the block under the stainless hex bolt is the fine tune adjuster. That's not got any anti tamper on it from factory to allow a bit of a fine tune 😉 Regards barrels In my personal testing id favour the lothar walther ,followed by the Anschutz, then cz and BSA about evenly matched. Had some really peculiar results with cz barrels over the years. Generally they're mint but some really aren't. I did a vid on barrel indexing on here..check that out,that's a cz and it's certainly peculiar... I've tried loads of different ones over the years from most brands and I can 100% say in my experience that the LW barrels are the most consistent in manufacture.😉

Thank you for the reply your testing is a huge help to the community 😊

@@hawkslayers1 hopefully mate we can all learn something new, I sure have since starting the channel 😉

I've spent tons of time with various tuners , weights, air strippers,indexing and all sorts of gadgets over the years mate. Seldom will 2 rigs ever perform the same 🤔 My 9015 for instance just simply won't shoot it's best with anything on the barrel. The carbon shroud I have is purely cosmetic and barely touches it. No baffles or anything inside. We've also often found that adding additional fixings bolts in the block to secure the barrel more rigidly would surpass the improvement by any tuner on its own. Air rifles are weird mate, that's why I love them...😉

@@tillysgunstocks My 9015 does the same .. Nothing on the front works.. Just found that Baracuda FT works best with this barrel .. Never ending testing.....

@@cliverkay I'm looking forward to trying the h&n through the second xti. It'd be great if it ran them well.. I do generally find that jsb work best for me,batch depending mind 😉

@@tillysgunstocks I find that the latest batches of JSB werent so good . I tried the QYS 8.48 in the Alpha Wolf and they were brilliant , only to find out that they have stopped making them ..Going to try the 9.50 QYS Streamlined in the Anschutz and see how that goes..Got a Steyr here as well to try with the 550mm barrel so more testing ...PS I only test indoors as wind makes it a guessing game..

Get in mate. I'll have a butty too cheers 😆 It's been so busy of late I've been struggling to get stuff filmed but hopefully over the winter I can get some time back to play on film 🥳

Are you spying on me mate? 😳😆 It's just died... Well last week. I've just had a service kit drop on the doormat this morning. I'll be doing a test down and hopefully repair vid shortly. It's been running well until it wasn't... I'm in pocket with it mind,it's paid for itself already so no big deal but should be easy enough to service 😉

Thanks for the quick reply, I've pulled the trigger on one as they're cheap at the moment. May go for a better dust, oil and moisture filter as well.

Oh mate please get stuck in... It's only as involved as you want to make it and all the br comps you would be pitched against others with similar averages so you won't be put against someone like Matt at airability... Not unless you wanted to anyhow Please don't be put off, it's great fun and once you get the swing of things we can all surprise ourselves at times. 😀

@@tillysgunstocks then can you help me. I have terminal cancer so i can walk but not far. can't lay down. I do bench rest, all the time. but it's mainly bypod on my gun and a bag on the butt end. what do you think i could have a go at. plus who do you think i could get in touch with?. for details. I thank you for the first reply. mate. top man.

Morning mate. It was a time consuming one to film for sure but hopefully it's useful info. I'm building up a pretty good picture now how this action performs. If you think about it most of us will happily run a jsb heavy barely breaking 700fps.but seem to be afraid to run the lighter stuff at similar slow speeds. I've seen a lot of lighter pellets have a sweet spot around the 750fps mark. Wether that gives a muzzle energy we like can't really be helped.its all good fun trying it out though 😉

Hi mate that's awesome 😀 If possible I'd aim for 1cm 3/8" thick as a minimum really. In my vids I was just u Der that and did eventually get through the lead and tray. So I upped it a bit and it's spot on 😉

@@tillysgunstocks Thanks T, I'm making 3 of them so I don't have to keep running up and down the range. I'll go for 1/2" the for starters as I'm shooting .22. How many lbs do you recon per tray as I'm going to phone up a roofer later to see if I can buy some used lead off him. TIA Graham

made me a tillys putty job -- had 1 of the small pellet catchers you see with the square bit on the backside (140mm square target face) -- popped some foam sheet into it to reduce the area by half then popped putty over it making 20-25mm of putty covering it and heh silence don't it work well -- works ok with rifles but I use mine for the most part pistol shooting -- tilly has a very practical head on him well-done matey

Ooh now that's a question.. I think although I can't be exactly sure that it was about 4kg in the 20x20 tray. Scrap lead should be about a quid a kilo too😉

Thanks mate 😀 If only I was allowed to talk about my actual work and what I get involved with 😞

@@Sae-fu5ch absolutely mate, thats the next avenue to explore a tune specifically for the reduced speeds. One thing I've got to be mindful of though is that I do actually want to have some restriction on the venturi/transfer port. Quite why I don't know exactly...but based on experience with the ev2 and FTP platform they would run tighter spreads with a bit of a throttled down transfer port.especially in the cold..🤔 It's all good fun and after that if I do settle on a much reduced power I might have a try with a different pellet probe arrangement and the stabiliser removed. 🤯

Morning mate, I've got a prosport barrel here stashed for a project as it goes 🙄😆 Heres the thing.. most rifles of reasonable quality are limited pretty much only by our ability and the pellets, to do what you are with a springer is mega too! Whilst I don't do much with Springer's myself nowdays I'm half handy with one still if a little rusty... Maybe I'll grab one next year for the channel 🤔

@tillysgunstocks I wouldn't say I was particularly good with it and there are many days I was off with it but there were days when I could shoot the head off a match stick at 20m indoors, I hope you do a series on springers in the future I would value your thoughts