EVOL HPS First day out with the HPS 300 test rifle.

[CTAirgunner]

Ok so



Tom had this rifle tuned before I got it. He sent it field used. So barrel needed to be cleaned, I needed to zero it, etc

So I put it in my jeep and let the rifle acclimate to the 23* we had today.




I packed the rest of my stuff up and headed down to the range. Once there I took a few glamor shots and set up my shooting area


Once I had everything setup I hooked my bottle up and let it slowly fill to 4000 psi, new fill pressure on the hps models is 4500psi but my tank didn't have that much in it.





While I waited for it to fill I decided to clean the barrel, it was filthy, pics show all.

 

[CTAirgunner]

I immediately sat down at 100, and zerod.

Then I hooked up the chronograph and ran a string with the zan 56gr





Consistent is understatement. The rifle has a bite
of biteand bark at this power level but nothing obnoxious. I am not going to post groups however. I don't know if I had an old batch of bad zans or what but I have never had luck with them. Not saying this rifle cannot shoot them, today they just wouldn't roll with me.


I have 1500 of them on the way from. HpP and hope they're the new batch


I was getting 2 or 3 to group then 2 or 3 would fly 3 or 4 inches in any direction, I was watching them spiral in my scope


So I said well, perfect time to test the quick adjustability of the new line.



Per Tom I shot the rifle 15 times with no pellet in the chamber and yup, brought it right down to 1000 psi to where I could now adjust the reg down, you can adjust up under pressure but not down.



So I brought it to its minimum setting and got to tuning.



I ended up with this tune on the trusty UNDERRATED (at least I think so lately) 44.75 .



Again consistency is an understatement, especially in these Temps. The rifle was too cold to hold with a closed grasp for extended periods of time. I left it outside even when I refilled my air tank.


As you can see , my fingers were quite cold, purple/red and a bit numb at this point. So these were the best groups I could pull off.



The quick tuning on this rifle is awesome. It doesn't feel gimmicky, nothing feels cheap, everything still feels robust even the tuning components.



The other big improvement is the new HST system the effort needed to cock the rifle is far less.



I will be doing more testing as time allows but so far I have to say the improvements I got to use today are impressive and I welcome them now after using them. They made today super simply.

 

[Woogie_man]

That's warm weather..lol

Looks like the rifle is wanting to shoot for sure, and the ability to quickly tune is a big plus.

Looks promising for sure.

 

[CTAirgunner]

That's warm weather..lol

Looks like the rifle is wanting to shoot for sure, and the ability to quickly tune is a big plus.

Looks promising for sure.

It's just breaking into winter here, I acclimate every year. Cold exposure is a part of my life.

Come December we will be sub 15 degrees quite a bit till end of February. Single digits quite a bit and below zero a handful.

All things considered , yes was "warm" per new england winter standards. T-shirt and a long sleeve with a ball cap today. The finger tips start to get numb after being outdoors since 630am lmao

 

[Woogie_man]

How does the new hammer and cocking feel on the rifle? Epically in the cold if things function well the in the heat it will be better.

Any change in the report of the rifle or anything like that?

4000 psi fill how many shots are you getting at 100 ftlbs?

 

[CTAirgunner]

How does the new hammer and cocking feel on the rifle? Epically in the cold if things function well the in the heat it will be better.

Any change in the report of the rifle or anything like that?

4000 psi fill how many shots are you getting at 100 ftlbs?

I didn't even check shot count at 100 foot lbs, shot count means nothing if the rifle wouldn't group. Accuracy first, then check and tweak the rest.

I will check if I end up getting the zans I have coming to group.

I will be testing shot count on the 44.75 this week at some point though.

The new hammer spring system felt the same indoors as it did outside today. It is a huge improvement over our models. Arguably at first use, the most noticeable improvement.

 

[PA_AirHead]

If I put my mind to it, I could have one of those glorious rifles. After being able to shoot the Paradigm, I have no doubt about the quality that Tom produces. For the time being I will enjoy your reports and remember fondly the day I got to squeeze the trigger on the paradigm. I look forward to more reporting on that awesome American made beauty. I hope the ZAN’s perform for you, but maybe they just don’t like that barrel or they may need to fly faster or slower. I’m sure you’ll give it a go to see if you can get the accuracy out of them. But we all know that JSB makes a fine product.

 

[CTAirgunner]

Also let me add, with the new adjustments it literally took only several minutes to get the tune from 100fpe on zans to 80 fpe with 44.75 and consistency stayed the same.

 

[Slugslinger]

I'm guessing that HPS is in stock form without any plenum extensions

 

[CTAirgunner]

I'm guessing that HPS is in stock form without any plenum extensions

This hps has a 42cc plenum.

The biggest limiting factor on this particular rifle is the 18 inch barrel.

 

[igolfat8]

Do they offer any optional longer barrels? Perhaps 24”?

 

[CTAirgunner]

Do they offer any optional longer barrels? Perhaps 24”?

There will be other barrels available in the near future. I do believe the first ones to roll out will be the mini 30 hps and this variant I am testing here.

 

[CTAirgunner]

I plan on taking this out saturday to do some more testing, I did receive a shipment of new Zan br100 pellets , but they seem to be the old batch still. Was not happy about that at all. I will try washing one package of them in my ultrasonic cleaner and relubing them with ballistol to see if that will help. If not I will melt them down to cast slugs for my slayer.

I also plan to test the JTS 45gr , my work hours are long right now, going in when its dark and leaving work when its dark , only reason I can't provide any updates during the week.


The quick adjustability on the new model has me feeling that the process is a lot less tedious which is certainly nice.

 

[pan60]

If not I will melt them down to cast slugs for my slayer.

i wunder what chance the squirrels would have against the Slayer?
i might need a Slayer?

 

[CTAirgunner]

i wunder what chance the squirrels would have against the Slayer?
i might need a Slayer?

That might be a bit overkill lol

 

[pan60]

NEVER : )

 

[Woogie_man]

Dead is dead...... and you need to make sure it is dead!

Have hit squirrels with my 22-250 and that made sure they were dead

 

[CTAirgunner]

So I took the HPS out today




I left my Allen wrenches so couldn't play with the reg to test the br100 pellets I washed and relubed. I will say I was able to get them up to 850 fps , with a lot of hammer... and they showed promise after being washed.

Anyways, it was 45* today and I let the rifle acclimate to ambient temp so it shot a little hotter than last weekend.



Well thank goodness for the quick adjustability, simply brought the dwell down and boom back to spot on. Both of these were from a 3900 fill , this new hps is 4500 psi fill.





The groups I shot were very similar to last time , but this is just an update and I'm very pleased, as you can see Tom has put great reference points so you can return to a previous tune.



Now that the ultrasonically cleaned and lubed zans show promise my next test is going to be power, what is the max power I can achieve and keep the rifle accurate.

 

[Woogie_man]

That's awesome to hear. The ease of tunability is s HUGE plus. Have you attempted to take down the rifle? Always fun to see the guts as well.

 

[CTAirgunner]

That's awesome to hear. The ease of tunability is s HUGE plus. Have you attempted to take down the rifle? Always fun to see the guts as well.

No sir, no need to