Posts Tagged ‘quick-disconnect’
Sam Yang Dragon Claw .50 caliber big bore air rifle: Part 4
by B.B. Pelletier
The Dragon Claw from Sam Yang is a .50-caliber big bore air rifle.
This is the second accuracy test with Sam Yang’s Big Bore .50-caliber Dragon Claw single-shot air rifle. As you may recall, or you can check out by reading Part 3 again, the rifle shot all over the place last time. I decided that I was not seating the bullets into the rifling as far as they needed to be, so this time I took special pains to seat all the bullets. I’ll tell you how that went as I report my findings.
Air use
I’m still filling the rifle from the same Air Venturi 88-cubic foot carbon fiber tank that I was using when I started this report. The tank has not been refilled, and there are now about 150 shots on the Dragon Claw (at the very least!), as well as a couple fillings for a Talon SS reservoir. The gun is still being filled to 3,000 psi, so that carbon fiber tank is definitely the way to go.
A customer test
While I was testing the rifle, a Pyramyd Air customer needed some help getting his Dragon Claw filled, so I spent some time working with him. He sent me a picture of a target he shot with his rifle at 30 yards. I’d like to show it to you to use as a basis for comparison with the results I’m reporting today.
A customer sent me this 30-yard group from his Dragon Claw. It corresponds with what I’m seeing with the test rifle.
This customer also reports that the discharge sound wasn’t as loud as he’d thought it would be, and the recoil wasn’t as great as expected. He felt it was just a gentle push. I would agree with that observation. It isn’t until you get into the 500+ foot-pound region that these rifles really start kicking, and even then, they’re more like a .243 than a .30-06.
Slugged the bore
I finally broke down and slugged the bore of the test rifle. To do that, you drive an oversized lead slug through the barrel so that it takes the impression of the inside of the bore. The swaged 225-grain round-nosed bullet I used as a slug measured 0.497 inches before it passed through the bore. The slug that came out also measured 0.497 inches across the widest point and 0.494 inches across the grooves. I do see striations from the walls of the bore on all the high points around the circumference of the slug, so this bullet completely fills the bore of the rifle and nothing more. The slight displacement caused by the shallow rifling is apparently enough to push the rest of the circumference out to make perfect contact with the bore. A 0.495-inch lead ball would be too small for the rifle I’m testing.
Thread protector gone
When I shot, I removed the thread protector from the muzzle. A reader thought that because it projects a half-inch beyond the muzzle, it might reflect back a pressure wave that disturbs the bullet as it leaves the muzzle — and I agreed. The threaded muzzle is just there for a silencer that is useless to U.S. shooters, anyway, so if this were my rifle I would leave the protector off.
Shooting begins
Now I was ready to shoot the rifle with both the Air Venturi 200-grain round-nosed lead bullets and the 225-grain Air Venturi round-nosed lead bullets. I didn’t know how the air in the tank was doing at this point; since the gun’s fill level is 3,000 psi, I started the test on low power. Five and even six shots can be gotten on low power, and the gun will still have about 2,000 psi remaining in the reservoir.
I was careful to seat every bullet into the rifling at the front of the breech. For this, a medium-sized Allen wrench worked very well. I actually walked the tip of the wrench around the base of the bullet and could feel it squeaking into position. I pushed until there was no more movement possible with every bullet that I shot.
Starting with the 200-grain bullet, the shots were slightly left and high at 50 yards. The photo shows each bullet is striking the paper square, so we know they’re stable at this distance.
Five Air Venturi 200-grain round-nosed lead bullets made this 4.198-inch group at 50 yards.
Next, the 225-grain round-nosed bullet was tried. This was also on low power, so the rifle had to be refilled between strings.
Five Air Venturi 225-grain round-nosed bullets made this 5.14-inch group at 50 yards. Notice that it’s a vertical stringing, indicating some large velocity variations.
Shooting on high power
When you switch to high power, you have to remember that the Dragon Claw gives only three good shots per fill. So, a five-shot group means the rifle has to be refilled after shot three.
The 200-grain round-nosed bullet grouped best on high power. This 3.322-inch group is the best of the entire test.
On high power, the 225-grain bullet also surpassed the results of the low-power test. Five bullets went into a group measuring 3.727 inches across the centers.
What have we learned?
The first lesson was that the bullets need to be properly seated in the rifling. You have to use a tool like I did to ensure that this happens, otherwise you aren’t going to get any accuracy.
Next, we learned that there are six shots at low power and three at high power per fillup. A carbon fiber air tank is the only way to go.
Did the thread protector make any difference? Not that I could tell. It’s still unnecessary for operation, though, and I think I would remove it.
Round balls did not work in this rifle. One reader says they work fine in his Dragon Claw, but he also slugged his barrel and got a much smaller dimension than the test gun.
Both Air Venturi bullets worked equally well, with a very slight nod going to the lighter ones. High power did better than low with both bullets.
And, finally, from the target sent in from the Pyramyd Air customer, we see that his rifle performs very much like the test gun. He may not have seated his bullets as rigorously as I did because his 30-yard group is larger than my 50-yard group, but it looks similar and is in the same general size range.
Is the Dragon Claw the rifle for you? Only you can answer that, and the answer will depend on what you expect from a big bore air rifle. They’re vastly different from smallbore airguns, and you have to come to them with the right frame of mind. Don’t buy one because you think it’s a substitute for a centerfire hunting rifle, because there’s still a wide gulf between this and a typical deer rifle. If you’re interested in owning something that’s a little different, the Dragon Claw certainly qualifies.
Sam Yang Dragon Claw .50 caliber big bore air rifle: Part 3
by B.B. Pelletier
The Dragon Claw from Sam Yang is a .50 caliber big bore air rifle.
Today, we’ll look at the accuracy of Sam Yang’s Big Bore .50-caliber Dragon Claw single-shot air rifle. Thanks for being so patient on this report. It took three separate trips to the range to collect the data for what I’ll tell you today, and the report will not end here. This rifle has some more secrets to reveal, although I now know a lot more about it than when I started.
Break-in helps
For starters, this airgun needs some break-in time, so plan on it. When I started this test, the rifle was very stiff and hard to cock, but now it has smoothed up considerably. The hammer spring is still very stout, so cocking the rifle isn’t that easy; but at least the hammer comes back smoothly now. In the beginning, it was actually difficult to stop the cocking mechanism at low power because the hammer required such a yank to retract. Well, that’s behind us now; and the rifle can easily be cocked for low power or high power. Plan on about a hundred shots for a break-in.
Open sights could not adjust for the barrel droop
I never planned on using this rifle with open sights since it has such a nice scope base on top of the receiver, but just for fun I tried shooting several groups with the open sights during the initial chronograph testing. Naturally, all testing was done at the rifle range due to the incredible power of the airgun, so the targets were at the same 50 yards I would normally shoot using a scope.
But even with the rear sight adjusted as high as it will go the rifle still shot about 6 inches too low at 50 yards. I tabled the report on open sights and moved on to a scope.
The second time at the range, I discovered that the adjustable scope mount was not adjusted for the amount of droop this particular rifle has, so that was another day I couldn’t really test the rifle. I did discover, however, that .495-inch round balls scatter all over the place. They shoot about two feet low and group in 12 inches or more, so I decided not to test them further. Both the Air Venturi 200-grain round nose lead bullets and the 225-grain Air Venturi round nose lead bullets from Pyramyd Air seemed to hold some promise, and they were the ones I brought back for testing the next time.
Scope and mount
I was using an AirForce 4-16×50AO scope mounted in an old B-Square (American-made) one-piece AA adjustable scope mount. You can’t get that mount anymore, but you can use a Beeman 5039 adjustable mount in its place.
Before the test
Going into the accuracy test, I had a couple notions that proved to be wrong. Maybe not entirely wrong, but certainly not completely right, either. The first that was the rifle was going to be more accurate on low power than it would be on high power, and the second was that the 200-grain bullet would outshoot the 225-grain bullet. I will address these faulty ideas at the end of this report.
How the test was conducted
I learned (I thought) during the chronograph test that the rifle had enough air for two good shots on high power and five good shots on low power. The assumption for low power proved correct, but during the testing I discovered that a third shot on high power was possible with reasonable accuracy. I say “reasonable” because of another variable that I’ll have to conduct another test to resolve.
The five-shot groups you see that were shot on low power were all shot with a single fill, but the five-shot groups on high power were shot using two fills. The rifle was refilled after the third shot.
Let’s see the targets!
The groups are too large to show actual size, so they’ve all been reduced to fit the screen. The target is a 50-foot timed and rapid-fire pistol target whose bullseye includes a 9, 10 and X ring and is 3-1/16-inch or 7.9cm in diameter. I will explain each target in the caption.
Five 200-grain bullets at 50 yards on low power are all over the place. This group measures about seven inches between centers.
Five 200-grain bullets on high power only look better by comparison with the others. this group measures about 4-7/8″ between centers.
The five 225-grain bullets shot on high power are scattered just like the 200-grainers on low power. This group measures about seven inches between centers.
Five 225-grain bullets shot at low power almost did well. Three are in an acceptable group of about one inch. The other two open it up to about 4.25 inches.
What’s going on?
While no big bore airgun is a tackdriver, they all do shoot better than this. I vowed, therefore, to discover what the problem is, or at least to test the rifle more thoroughly. I even told Edith I would clean the bore with J-B Non-Embedding Bore Cleaning Compound, the way I do when a smallbore performs erratically like this. Only I don’t think that’s what’s happening in this case.
Look at how the bullet is loaded.
The bullet is loaded by pushing the breech cover forward and laying the bullet in the loading trough, which is the back portion of the breech.
The difficulty I think I’m encountering is the bullet is not being seated uniformly in the rifling. When I load it, I push it forward with my finger; but that must not be far enough. Perhaps, sometimes it is and other times I don’t push it far enough forward. Look at the last target and you’ll see three holes of what I would consider an acceptable group and two that are wild. Maybe those two were not seated far enough forward to engage the rifling, so they slammed into it at high speed and in a tilted position.
In the next test, I’ll take care to use a special tool to seat every bullet as deep into the breech as I’m able. I think that will solve the problem, but only testing will tell us for sure.
Until I know for sure that I’m seating all bullets correctly, I can’t really say which of the two ways is more accurate. The same goes for high power and low power, which seemed to reverse in accuracy when I changed bullet weights.
Too much is unknown at this point, but at least this rifle is getting a very thorough test!
How much air does the Dragon Claw use?
I now have over 100 total shots on the test rifle, and my Air Venturi 88 cubic-foot carbon fiber tank is still filling the rifle to 3,000 psi. I also filled a Talon SS tank twice from the same carbon fiber tank during this same period. Those of you who plan to get a big bore rifle are well-advised to also get an 88 cubic-foot carbon fiber air tank to fill your gun.
Sam Yang Dragon Claw .50 caliber big bore air rifle: Part 2
by B.B. Pelletier
The Dragon Claw from Sam Yang is a .50 caliber big bore air rifle.
Today, I’ll test the velocity of the Sam Yang Big Bore .50 caliber Dragon Claw single-shot air rifle. For this test, I used two Air Venturi bullets and a swaged round ball that are available from Pyramyd Air.
The rifle is supplied with a probe-type quick-disconnect fill device, and I can finally report that the Koreans have now conformed with the rest of the world in supplying these adapters with standard threads that attach to common 1/8″ BSP fittings. In the past it was a chore matching these adapters to hoses you might have on hand (if you’re already into PCP airguns).
The No. 1 recommendation I have if you’re buying the Dragon Claw as your first PCP is that you also purchase the Pyramyd Air Quick-Disconnect male fitting and switch out the fill port on your rifle. Then, you can fill from a variety of high-pressure air devices, including the Air Venturi 88 cu ft carbon fiber tank. You’re going to want something that large to keep this monster gun supplied with air.
Let me address the air issue right now. This rifle does use a lot of air. I found that I got four useable shots on high power or eight shots on low power, and each time I did that the gun dropped from 3,000 psi to 1,500 psi for high power and 1,200 psi for low power. This number of shots per fill is fairly good considering the caliber of the rifle, but you’re going to refill it often. Don’t even think of using a hand pump for this rifle!
Shot with open sights
I decided to shoot the velocity test shots with open sights to simplify things at the range, and in so doing I learned that this rifle shoots very low at 50 yards. So low, in fact, that it was impossible to move the point of impact up to the point of aim. That’s good to know, because I’ll want to use a scope mount with some droop correction for the accuracy test.
While I chronographed the Dragon Claw, I also got to see how it shot with open sights.
The rifle actually grouped pretty well with open sights, considering I was shooting three different projectiles at two different power levels for each. Of the approximately 25 shots I fired, about 21 grouped in a hand-sized group. Unfortunately, it was below the target paper, so I’ll leave all accuracy testing to Part 3. But this test did show me a couple things about the gun.
I know why there’s a low-power level
First, you may remember that I was skeptical about using the low-power level. Now I know why it’s useful. With the Air Venturi 200-grain round nose lead bullet, the rifle gave eight good shots on low power — and they all went into that group I mentioned. When I scope the rifle for the accuracy test, this is one power level I’ll definitely try.
On low power, the 200-grain bullet ranged from a low of 562 f.p.s. to a high of 613 f.p.s. The average was 598 f.p.s., which gives us a muzzle energy of 158.85 foot-pounds. That’s for eight shots on low power.
On high power, I got four good shots from all the bullets. The 200-grain bullets ranged from 687 f.p.s down to 610 f.p.s., with an average of 640 f.p.s. That’s an average muzzle energy of 181.95 foot-pounds. So, I got half the number of shots for a 23 foot-pound gain. It doesn’t seem worth it to me. They did group with the other 200-grain bullets, though.
The 225-grain Air Venturi round nose lead bullets also gave four good shots on high power. They ranged from 652 f.p.s. down to 581 f.p.s., with the average at 614 f.p.s. That’s an average muzzle energy of 188.4 foot-pounds. That’s not much better than the 200-grain bullets, so I think I’ll stick with the lighter bullets. These bullets also went into the main group with everything else.
On low power, the 225-grain bullets gave eight good shots, ranging from 614 f.p.s down to 521 f.p.s., with the average at 563 f.p.s. That’s an average muzzle energy of 158.4 foot-pounds. They also went into the main group at 50 yards.
Round balls
It was the Hornady .495-inch round balls that didn’t do so well in this gun. They averaged just 465 f.p.s., so they must fit the bore very loosely. Since the balls weigh only 183 grains, the average energy was just 87.77 foot-pounds. They did not group with the other bullets. They were about six inches lower than the main group, though centered with it.
Shooting behavior
The Dragon Claw has a heavy trigger. I would estimate that it releases with about 8 lbs. of pull, and there’s considerable creep in the pull. The rifle recoils about like a lightweight .22 Magnum rifle or even a .38 Special fired from a rifle. A friend at the range noticed the recoil when I fired.
Cocking
The gun cocks by pulling back on the spring-loaded hammer. It’s stiff in a new gun, and it takes a bit of finesse to stop on the low-power setting. The tendency is to haul back as hard as you can, which takes you right to high power.
Observations thus far
The Dragon Claw is a handy big bore that’s got plenty of power and is priced right for the category. It seems to be very good on low power, and I’m looking forward to shooting it with a scope.
Are there .17 caliber firearms?
J-F, one of our Canadian blog readers, asked this question and I thought I’d answer him here. Yes, there are plenty of .17 caliber firearms; though, just like the .22 calibers, they’re not the same size as airguns. In the case of .17 caliber, the firearm bullets are all smaller.
Two very popular .17 caliber firearms these days are the .17 HMR — that’s a .22 Winchester Magnum rimfire necked down to .17 caliber — and the .17 HM2, which is a .22 long rifle necked down. The HMR leads the HM2 in the popularity contest, even though the ammunition is three times more expensive.
I have a .17 HM2 rifle that a friend of mine built for me on a Hungarian single-shot .22 long rifle action. You’ve seen this rifle before, because it’s the same gun I used for testing the Blue Wonder cold bluing process. And, the blue is still beautiful on that barrel, despite my never wiping the gun down and purposely handling the barrel to see if I could get the finish to wear.
The .17 HM2 cartridges are based on the .22 long rifle round.
My .17 HM2 rifle is based on a Hungarian single-shot trainer. I blued the barrel with Blue Wonder cold blue in another report.
I cleaned the barrel just for this report, so naturally I had to shoot several rounds to foul the bore again. A clean barrel almost never shoots to the same point of aim as a slightly dirty one. Once I was satisfied that the rounds had stopped walking, I adjusted the sights and shot a five-shot group at 50 yards. It’s no great group, and several PCPs I’ve tested will beat it hands-down, but it’s in the right place.
Not great but also not terrible for open sights at 50 yards. The .17 HM2 is a nice, inexpensive varmint cartridge.
So, yes, there are .17 caliber firearms, as well as pellet guns. That’s my report for today. Next time, I’ll have a scope on the Dragon Claw, and we’ll see how well she can do.
