The future of PCP

[SpindleB]

I'd like for low-hanging fruit improvement, more technical data, somewhat accurate. A 14.3 Crosman pellet went 550 fps, not this gun reaches 650fps. Actual barrel diameters. Rate of twist, and is the barrel choked?

I was on the Reximex site and down at the bottom of their detailed specs:
"* Velocity figures are tested with 8.44 grain 177cal-18.13 grain 22 cal and 25.39 grain 25 cal JSB pellets."

 

[jps2486]

Seriously?

1. Design more air efficiency to get more shots per fill. Daystate seems to have that figured out.
2. Higher pressure? Nah. How about lower pressure. See No. 1.
3. Hammerless actions
4. SLugs? Your rifle either has to be designed as a slug gun or pellet gun. I don't believe one can do both. I hate slugs, but I'm not a hunter.
5. Better barrels? We already have good barrels available, but the gun manufactrurers don't want to pay to use them.
6. Design simplicity and fewer parts count, O rings in particular.
7. Simpler and less complicated tuning without all the knobs. See Kalibrgun Snipe. You only have to adjust the reg.

 

[SpindleB]

Seriously?

1. Design more air efficiency to get more shots per fill. Daystate seems to have that figured out.
2. Higher pressure? Nah. How about lower pressure. See No. 1.
3. Hammerless actions
4. SLugs? Your rifle either has to be designed as a slug gun or pellet gun. I don't believe one can do both. I hate slugs, but I'm not a hunter.
5. Better barrels? We already have good barrels available, but the gun manufactrurers don't want to pay to use them.
6. Design simplicity and fewer parts count, O rings in particular.
7. Simpler and less complicated tuning without all the knobs. See Kalibrgun Snipe. You only have to adjust the reg.

#5, #6 and #7 have existed for decades.
Airforce utility platform.

 

[FL22]

#5, #6 and #7 have existed for decades.
Airforce utility platform.

Just got an email from UA that they have a half price sale. If someone is on the fence it might be time to get off the wallet.

 

[SpindleB]

Just got an email from UA that they have a half price sale. If someone is on the fence it might be time to get off the wallet.

Just looked already out of stock
HARRUMPH I say, HARRUMPH!

 

[Danman]

#5, #6 and #7 have existed for decades.
Airforce utility platform.

Ahhh, AirForce should be paying close attention here ....silly safety/decock mess, no magazine, no regulator, no pic rail? I am back and forth with getting a .25 Condor, but I'd probably buy a better buttstock cover, the 50cc plenum & reg combo, 300B smaller bottle, annndd for the cost I might as well just get a .25 barrel for my ghost which throws down 70fpe, has a great mag system, good reg, ZERO frame flex, comfortable grip etc. AF is waaay behind the eight ball in every category except simplicity and monster power. As for slugs, some of the smaller caliber ones shoot em well, others do not

 

[Danman]

Look at one of the original PCP rifles, the Girardoni, circa early 1800s?
-800-900psi fill.
-buttstock/bottle field replaceable
-came with a small service kit/pump
-Had a 20rd MAGAZINE, over 30shots per fill
-Power to kill (a man) at 100y
Now in 2025 we have some really good advancements, esp in power, overall gun length, reliability, etc. But...have we really improved that much in efficiency or design?? And no....running 4500psi + is not the answer! This is kinda what I was thinking when starting this discussion

 

[SpindleB]

Ahhh, AirForce should be paying close attention here ....silly safety/decock mess, no magazine, no regulator, no pic rail? I am back and forth with getting a .25 Condor, but I'd probably buy a better buttstock, the 50cc plenum & reg combo, 300B smaller bottle, annndd for the cost I might as well just get a .25 barrel for my ghost which throws down 70fpe, has a great mag system, good reg, ZERO frame flex, comfortable grip etc. AF is waaay behind the eight ball in every category except simplicity and monster power. As for slugs, some of the smaller caliber ones shoot em well, others do not

I just put 40 JSB Heavy King mk2 33.95gr pellets down range.
Condor .25
Cricket Max-ATH regulator with 50cc plenum at 1750psi
1.1L bottle filled to 4500psi
Power Wheel at minimum.
Average 907fps 62FPE
End pressure: 4,000psi

If that works out linear ~225 pellets to reg drop off.

There is a ton of upside power left. But I have to drain the bottle to set the reg higher higher.

Maybe in a few weeks when the pressure is down in the low 2,000 ill set the reg to 2250psi.

Zero frame flex on any of my AirForce guns.

 

[Arzrover]

Great topic thanks for the start.
Guns in general have a ton of room for improvement. While the general plinker wouldn't notice a competitor like myself and an engineer I see tons of room for improvement.

Barrels: If I can design and build a better barrel that has made me very competitive I would say. Shame on the manufactures that supposedly know what their doing to get beaten by a beginner.

Gun: Quality, performance, and design improvements are basically ignored by manufactures in my opinion. I would use the number of times I have had my regulator, value and hammer apart and trying to find consistent performance as well as repairs far more than enough evidence quality and design improvement are not thought of at the factory.

Electric: I like electric guns as tuning and finding performance is better and easier. Also you won't find a better trigger.

Ammo: I'll start with pellets. Basically have not seen any improvements in performance (ever?). This may be my next project as it is low hanging fruit. Yes I think airguns should stick with pellets but come on somebody think outside the box.............. Slugs, they are cheaper tooling and faster to make but the manufactures charge us more for them because you can shoot them farther. But for the rare cases are just not that good of ammo. For us city dwellers a hundred yards is 5-6 houses away, and everyone should ask should I take that shot?

So in general YES there is a lot of room for improvement. Who is going to develop a gun that produces consistent SD's, what company is going to produce a barrel that wins every comp without doing anything more than put it on your gun. What company is going to create a pellet that is accurate and can be that way past 100 yards. Just more good questions.

This always strikes a cord with me...
Having been inside of hundreds , if not more than a thousand , different airguns... and seen firsthand some of the inner workings of AAA, Daystate-BRK, Thomas and FX, I very much understand they are trying to bring us a product that will sell.
You can absolutely, no question, buy your perfect barrel and most likely any other components ... just bring money... LOTS of money... Back when Woody managed LW-USA, I had that very discussion with him about barrels. LW can and will make you a perfect barrel if you're willing to pay for it. Lillja can and will make them to your spec as well. If you're willing to work for it, TJ can give you a less expensive one that can possibly be really good... they just take a LOT of work to finish.
Most ALL products we use are tradeoffs... airguns are no different. There are decreasing returns for very rapidly increasing costs and effort so perfection is more a combination of getting good enough performance at an sellable price.
For a couple of opposing views, Mike of Thomas rifle fame delivers a pretty finely designed and built competition rifle that I generally think of as expensive, but ready for competition. With the work involved in assembly , tuning, and testing, his hourly wage is quite low. Why does he do it? Love of airguns and competition , I would guess... Tom at AAA is similar but on the hunting end of airguns, not so much competition. At the other end is Crosman. We could buy parts direct from them at one time and I bought a spare barrel for my 140. It was $9 and this was not a closeout or special deal. How in the world could they make a fitted, rifled, and blued steel barrel and sell it for $9? They had just refined the process and designed out every bit of wasted cost with the plan of making a LOT of them. You can see that in every product they sell. I read a statement at some point that they felt they could be more successful selling 1 million for a $1 profit than 1000 for a $1000 dollar profit.
Anyway ... I tend to look at things in their value to me but can easily see the surface costs of the product manufacturing... it's either worth it to me or not but I am not a person who expects to get something for nothing...
Ammo is similar ... apparently there's a good number of people not old enough to remember what ammo was like at one time. Shooting 100 yards with a wadcutter ... Fifty yards with a 6 ft lb springer and wadcutters JSB has kind of revolutionized pellets with their higher bc domed offerings, much like Crosman did with the Premiers in the late 90's. Others are following now...
I feel we are in kind of a Golden Age ... carbon fiber tanks that weigh so little and hold so much, affordable compressors, ammo, accessories ... it's all so GOOD...
I think that valving still has some room for gains like the hammerless and balanced valves , for instance. Not so sure about anything else on the rifles as it's all cosmetics or ergonomics from my perspective. Probably some combinations of features in there, also...
Just my $0.02...
Bob

 

[PasadenaMike]

I’m over spending thousands on BB guns

 

[hameditor]

This always strikes a cord with me...
Having been inside of hundreds , if not more than a thousand , different airguns... and seen firsthand some of the inner workings of AAA, Daystate-BRK, Thomas and FX, I very much understand they are trying to bring us a product that will sell.
You can absolutely, no question, buy your perfect barrel and most likely any other components ... just bring money... LOTS of money... Back when Woody managed LW-USA, I had that very discussion with him about barrels. LW can and will make you a perfect barrel if you're willing to pay for it. Lillja can and will make them to your spec as well. If you're willing to work for it, TJ can give you a less expensive one that can possibly be really good... they just take a LOT of work to finish.
Most ALL products we use are tradeoffs... airguns are no different. There are decreasing returns for very rapidly increasing costs and effort so perfection is more a combination of getting good enough performance at an sellable price.
For a couple of opposing views, Mike of Thomas rifle fame delivers a pretty finely designed and built competition rifle that I generally think of as expensive, but ready for competition. With the work involved in assembly , tuning, and testing, his hourly wage is quite low. Why does he do it? Love of airguns and competition , I would guess... Tom at AAA is similar but on the hunting end of airguns, not so much competition. At the other end is Crosman. We could buy parts direct from them at one time and I bought a spare barrel for my 140. It was $9 and this was not a closeout or special deal. How in the world could they make a fitted, rifled, and blued steel barrel and sell it for $9? They had just refined the process and designed out every bit of wasted cost with the plan of making a LOT of them. You can see that in every product they sell. I read a statement at some point that they felt they could be more successful selling 1 million for a $1 profit than 1000 for a $1000 dollar profit.
Anyway ... I tend to look at things in their value to me but can easily see the surface costs of the product manufacturing... it's either worth it to me or not but I am not a person who expects to get something for nothing...
Ammo is similar ... apparently there's a good number of people not old enough to remember what ammo was like at one time. Shooting 100 yards with a wadcutter ... Fifty yards with a 6 ft lb springer and wadcutters JSB has kind of revolutionized pellets with their higher bc domed offerings, much like Crosman did with the Premiers in the late 90's. Others are following now...
I feel we are in kind of a Golden Age ... carbon fiber tanks that weigh so little and hold so much, affordable compressors, ammo, accessories ... it's all so GOOD...
I think that valving still has some room for gains like the hammerless and balanced valves , for instance. Not so sure about anything else on the rifles as it's all cosmetics or ergonomics from my perspective. Probably some combinations of features in there, also...
Just my $0.02...
Bob

@Arzrover thanks for the great analysis!

 

[Luis Leon]

I’m over spending thousands on BB guns

You went “fast and hard” chasing, chasing, chasing… they’re are not BB guns…

 

[PasadenaMike]

You went “fast and hard” chasing, chasing, chasing… they’re are not BB guns…

I know , I ruined it for me.

 

[hameditor]

OK, I'm late to this party but here goes...

The good news is that I have given this topic a LOT of thought. The bad news is that you may not like what I have to say.

To make a simple analogy, I'm going to compare the current state of the PCP market with cellphones. (Like it or not, we all are familiar enough with them).

So I'm going to say that the 2009 Benjamin Marauder of was something like the original 2007 iPhone. A MASSIVE step forward that contained almost all the essential basics to make PCP shooting popular to a large number of people. It was a potentially MASS MARKET product that included magazine feed, an excellent silencer, was extremely adjustable for tuning and could be very accurate indeed.

(Of course the problem is that Apple is now making the iPhone 16, but the Marauder has never changed in any meaningful way. But that's a different discussion...)

Since the Marauder was introduced, the main system-level improvements for PCPs have been regulators, larger calibers (if you want them), improved ammunition and the revolution that has taken place in the price/performance of HPA supply systems.

The result is that the PCP market has taken off. But the essentials were really there in that 2009 Marauder, much as they were with the original iPhone. (In this analogy, I would see the earliest Daystate PCPs from the 1990s as something like the Blackberry. This had many "cellphone-like" features, but was of an earlier generation. Daystate, of course, continued to develop and is still ultra-competitive however Blackberry is long extinct.)

Of course price/performance has improved for both airguns and cellphones since that time. We have more power, features, bells and whistles. More power and generations of improved design have honed both current model cellphones and air rifles to heights undreamt-of before 2010.

But I think that both cellphones and PCPs have substantially plateaued in deign at their current level of perfection. Both technologies deliver potential well beyond the capabilities of most of their users and it's becoming tougher than ever for companies to make "game-changing" improvements.

Going forward, I see PCP improvements to come as being mainly in two areas.

1. Accuracy. Particularly long-range accuracy. This - in my opinion - requires a system-level combination of ammo and bores. In other words, barrels and pellets/slugs that are specifically designed and manufactured to work with each other.

2. Efficiency. More shots per fill for a set power level. Like others, I see ever-higher fill pressures as being a "brute force" approach to this and I'm resistant to move beyond fill pressures much above 4,000 PSI. But from a fluid dynamics perspective, having two abrupt 90 degree turns for air between entering the valve and appearing behind the projectile doesn't make much sense for efficient use of High Pressure Air. Maybe AirForce had it right all along with the "straight through" design. But again, I struggle to see much (any?) significant improvement in that base design concept since it appeared in the last century.

So fundamentally I see future PCP improvements much like cellphone improvements. Largely incremental enhancements to the technology base that we have today. Improvements which are appreciated by power users - the "specialist" or enthusiast market - largely like HAM readers.

Final thought.

I consider that the Umarex Komplete "PCP in a bottle" concept is really outstanding and the latest real game-changing introduction in the PCP world. Why? Because it has the potential to exponentially grow the PCP market at the low end with beginners - the future of our hobby. Most objections I see to the Komplete are price-related, not concept-related. If there's to be future mass growth in the world of PCP users, this is the best chance we have.

Phew! That's enough...

 

[PasadenaMike]

I think we’ve pretty much topped out as much as we can . Sure there may be small improvements but just like iPhones how much more can you improve?

 

[SpindleB]

But from a fluid dynamics perspective, having two abrupt 90 degree turns for air between entering the valve and appearing behind the projectile doesn't make much sense for efficient use of High Pressure Air. Maybe AirForce had it right all along with the "straight through" design.

As an Engineer that has been my biggest design issue with poppet valve guns. It became even more so when I started experimenting with plenums. AF guns really benefited from big plenums. The poppet valve guns between poppet dwell and 90° turns really reduced the effectiveness of plenums. A couple (looking at you Gauntlet) adding a plenum did nothing due to those issues and other inline restrictions. Most aftermarket plenum for poppet valve guns are 10-20cc when they should be 3-4x barrel volume to be fully effective.

 

[SpindleB]

I think we’ve pretty much topped out as much as we can . Sure there may be small improvements but just like iPhones how much more can you improve?

I'm sure there are some highly creative mechanical engineers out there that will come up with a brilliant design.

Currently all we see are incremental changes released as "exciting and innovative new generation", for another $300 over the previous incremental changes.

But you are an Airforce aficionado, 25 years or so of "we don't need no stinkin' innovation". Variations on a theme, because the design is so damn simple that it really can't be improved.

 

[PasadenaMike]

I'm sure there are some highly creative mechanical engineers out there that will come up with a brilliant design.

Currently all we see are incremental changes released as "exciting and innovative new generation", for another $300 over the previous incremental changes.

But you are an Airforce aficionado, 25 years or so of "we don't need no stinkin' innovation". Variations on a theme, because the design is so damn simple that it really can't be improved.

I’m an AF guy because I’ve owned FX, Edguns, Daystate, BRK, AAA, AA……I’ve come to realize the AF had it right for me . I don’t need anything fancy when AF does it simply and reliably with a lifetime warranty and the guns are not $3000 with one year warranty and crappy customer service you can’t get a hold of. As I get older the less BS I want to deal with. Tomorrow I’m getting a pager and an 87 K5 Blazer ok maybe not but would be fun.

 

[SpindleB]

I’m an AF guy because I’ve owned FX, Edguns, Daystate, BRK, AAA, AA……I’ve come to realize the AF had it right for me . I don’t need anything fancy when AF does it simply and reliably with a lifetime warranty and the guns are not $3000 with one year warranty and crappy customer service you can’t get a hold of. As I get older the less BS I want to deal with. Tomorrow I’m getting a pager and an 87 K5 Blazer ok maybe not but would be fun.

My only issue with AF guns is the simplicity has an end limit to modification. As an Engineer I find that disturbing. You hit a certain point and there just isn't anything more that doesn't include requiring machine tools. And I don't have a shop

 

[PasadenaMike]

My only issue with AF guns is the simplicity has an end limit to modification. As an Engineer I find that disturbing. You hit a certain point and there just isn't anything more that doesn't include requiring machine tools. And I don't have a shop

I agree if you’re into mods and things like that then AF probably is limited. For my life style with almost no time to shoot anymore it works great because it works all the time