Fittings and adapters

by Harley Ayre

If you already shoot precharged airguns, you know something about adapters. But, if you're looking to get into PCPs, adapters may be your biggest concern. Let's take a look at the situation.

Very few standards
If automobiles were built to the same lack of industry standards as precharged airguns, we'd all be riding horses! Only the military has screwed up the standards for fuel-filling nozzles to the same extent. NATO once needed 14 different fuel nozzles to accommodate all the different members' fuel tanks! Those days are (hopefully) over, but imagine if you couldn't put a gas nozzle in your car's filler opening because it was either too large or required a keyed connection to open the hose! Well, that's pretty much the story with today's PCP filler devices. There are standards - every maker has one - and very few of them interconnect.

I can remember 10 years ago when this was a serious problem. There were scads of little dealers selling guns they knew nothing about. When pressed for info about how to connect their guns to a scuba tank, many of them simply went out of business instead of seeing the thing through. That set the stage for Van Jacobi to start Airhog.

Mister adapter
When I first met Van, he was preaching standardization for PCP refill sets. When nobody listened, he took matters into his own hands and started supplying all the connectors he knew people needed to make things work. I saw him at the Rendezvous at Standing Stone (a big bore airgun shoot in Pennsylvania), where he had a trailer loaded with a compressor, scuba tanks and a chest full of the most exotic bits and pieces of hydraulica and pneumatica anyone could hope for. You could have showed up with a Norwegian Troll-Thunder Fifty, and Van would have had the lefthand twist 39.5mm tapered Whitworth fitting (with Teflon compression seals!) you needed to connect to the world. Perhaps I exaggerate slightly, but I never saw anyone stump him.

A very special page
Van is an airgun dealer, of course, but airgunners also know he's THE man when it comes to special fittings and adapters. Allow me to introduce you to a very special page on this website - the Fittings and Adaptors page Let's look at a few of the more than 100 special fittings he offers. My favorite is the scuba adapter. Van didn't invent it as far as I know, but Airhog is one of the few places that still offers it. What is it? Well, you may not know this, but in the world of pneumatic airguns, our kind of PCPs are in the minority! That's right. There are probably at least 10 to 20 target airguns for every sporting PCP in existence. And, they all use a DIN adapter, because they got their act together from the start. The majority of hand pumps are made with DIN holes in their bases. This adapter screws into that hole and makes the pump work like a scuba tank that will accept any refill device that needs a K-valve. Of course, this adapter will also screw into a DIN scuba tank valve and turn it into a K-valve.

Another special adapter is the firehouse adapter that you use to fill your carbon fiber tanks. Fire stations have a CGA 347 fitting on their compressors, but your carbon fiber tank has a 300 bar DIN inlet. This adapter connects the two.

I could go on and talk about all the other fittings on that page and many that aren't shown, but that's a waste of time. Don't think of it that way. Think of it as a phone call to Airhog. You tell them what you want to do, and they will assemble the special set of connectors that take you from A to B.

They don't just put parts together, they also fabricate entire refill sets, so don't miss the opportunity to add special touches like a microbore hose that conserves your air. When you bleed the connection to disconnect your refill device, you have to waste some air. A microbore hose cuts that to a minimum.

Once you have the adapters you need to fill your airguns, you cease to worry about them until the next time. With Airhog in the picture, there's no need to ever worry. Bookmark this website as a resource for all your PCP needs.

Energy, accuracy and pellet performance for hunters

by Harley Ayre

Muzzle energy is something new airgunners should become familiar with, because it is far more significant than muzzle velocity. When Daisy was being sued for a wrongful death due to improper design of one of their airguns, the junk-science consultant hired by the plaintiff went on 60 Minutes and told the interviewer that a BB from the gun in question traveled as fast as a .22 rimfire bullet. He even chronographed the BB gun and a .22 pistol to compare the results on TV. While the velocity part is true, this expert neglected to inform the interviewer that the difference in energy between a 5.3-grain steel BB and a 40-grain lead bullet makes the bullet about 10 times more powerful. Similar to the difference between being rear-ended by a golf cart or a tractor-trailer going the same speed.

During the Civil War, soldiers were sometimes fascinated that they could see enemy cannonballs bounding along the ground toward them. The speeds at which the balls were traveling were slow compared to rifle bullets, and their great size made them visible. Field commanders warned soldiers that these cannonballs were dangerous; nevertheless, some soldiers did stick out their arms to touch the balls as they bounded past. If they touched one, it usually ripped off their arm at the shoulder, thus imparting a valuable lesson in ballistics and energy transfer to a dying man.

Performance
Pellet performance is different than pellet energy, although the two are always connected. The more powerful a pellet is on target, the more it will do - there's no way around that. But - is it possible for a pellet to do too much of whatever it does? Certainly!

Over penetration
If a pellet penetrates well and the energy level is too high for the target, the pellet may zip through without much effect. Think about a piece of paper being hit by a centerfire rifle bullet traveling 3,000 f.p.s. The bullet goes through the paper with little effect, other than leaving a clean hole. When that same bullet strikes a deer, the effect is thousands of times greater.

It is possible for a pellet to transit the body of an animal without hitting anything vital and exit without imparting a fatal wound - at least not at that moment. That's why we always recommend larger-caliber pellets for hunting. A .22 pellet is more likely than a .177 to hit a vital spot, plus its greater surface area means it has to impart more energy to the target it hits. If you're shooting a powerful .22-caliber deep-penetration pellet, it can also go too far, so you may want to select a pellet that doesn't penetrate as far.

Controlled energy release
This discussion of over-penetration leads us to the world of hollowpoints and wadcutters. Both are great at releasing energy in a target, but neither has a very good record for long-range accuracy. However, the farther you go from the muzzle, the less energy a pellet retains, so the over-penetration problem might take care of itself.

After all the theories have been evaluated, we must remember that only the pellets that hit the target count, so accuracy has to be at the top of every list. But, accuracy can be relative, too. All that matters is that the pellet you select is accurate enough for the job you want it to do at the range you intend using it - not whether it's the most accurate round in a particular airgun.

The bottom line is that accuracy, pellet performance on target, range and caliber all play a part in the airgun question. An airgun hunter who doesn't consider these factors will not be as successful as he could be.