The rate of inflation.

[secretagentmole 1,701]

Stuck at home you may be tempted to pull the pcp out and indulge in some back yard plinking. Some may be lucky enough to live on their permissions. Either way those of use with pre-charged-pneumatic rifles need a source of air that isn't going to run out. 

 

You have two choices. High pressure stirrup pump or charging your own cylinder with a high pressure air compressor. 

 

There are a variety of these around but I went for a New Warrior off of Amazon at £210 delivered. The seller claimed to have UK stock and it was delivered in under a week. 

 

The beast is shipped dry so you will need some oil. The handbook says you can use 5w 40 motor oil, so got a litre of that for under a fiver. I replaced the oil cap with the breather plug as per instructions and then spent 15 minutes looking for where the power supply to the coolant pump was. 

 

It was recommended by other users to get an additional filter. £25 saw an Airmega filter with molecular sieve purchased (Amazon again). The purpose of this is to remove any moisture or oil from the output high pressure air, a bit belt and braces but better safe than sorry. 

 

The brass filter supplied with the machine has a cotton fibre plug (aka a tampon) only. I screwed this into the Airmega and have a double filter system. I have an additional Foster fitting on the end so with a decanting coupler it is a matter of seconds now to attach the whip from the bottle. 

 

My coolant reservoir is a plastic builders tub which holds 40 litres of water. The compressor works damned hard so the little submersible pump needs a good sized reservoir. Running the compressor from 240 bar to 300 bar took about 20 minutes. The temperature the cylinder head got to stabilised at around 50 degrees. 

 

The New Warrior first run. 

 

The temperature gauge showing result after switch off... 

 

The coolant pump in reservoir heels in place with 4 suckers. 

 

The double filter system. 

 

You can charge a cylinder up from empty if necessary and the compressor has enough guts to fill a large cylinder, so how do you do it? 

 

1) prepare coolant reservoir, ensure pump is connected (when you switch on at the mains the coolant pump starts) and submerged in the coolant reservoir (tub, bucket, barrel). Ensure the coolant return pipe is also in the reservoir (or wear wellies and have a sodding big reservoir, like Rutland Water). Switch on at the mains and watch the cylinder head temperature change. Then check pressure remaining in the cylinder. 

 

2) connect air cylinder. Obvious but worth saying. Make sure that the whip is empty of air and tighten up the bled screws. 

 

3) start er up. When the pressure in the whips and filters starts to approach the pressure in the cylinder open the valve up fully. Keep an eye on the temperature, if it gets to 55 degrees switch it off. Then more the pressure on the bottle, do up the valve on the cylinder. Bleed the system and wait for the pump to cool the head back down. Do up the bleed screw, start the compressor up again and when the pressure in the whip line approaches the bottle pressure, open the valve up. 

 

The compressor has a 300 bar burst disc safety system, so overfilling isn't going to be a problem, but clean underwear might be if it goes. They do supply a good few spares but don't make a habit of it. 

 

When you have filled the bottle switch off the compressor and do up the bleed screw. Then undo the high pressure bleed on the compressor to clear the water trap. Uncouple the cylinder, then remove pump from reservoir let the coolant drain (I used tap water) pack away. 

 

Well worth the money.