Budget home made tuner

harro

New member
G'day

I have been experimenting with a home made tuner on my old Anschutz 54.
It is made up from parts that I had lying around ,and so far I have achieved reasonable success with it.
But I have a question about the fine tuning of the device.
As you can see in the picture the weight is a metal collar that slides along the extended tube, and is held in place with grub screws.
This method of adjustment is very crude as opposed to a thread and nut type tuner.
I have been experimenting with adjustments of 0.5 mm (accurately measured).
But I am unsure of how small an adjustment is usually made to a proper commercial tuner.I have no experience with tuners at all , in fact I have never seen one in the flesh only in pictures.
How much should I be moving the weight between tests??
I understand that this is a long way removed from a proper tuner, but it is all I have to play with at the moment, and I find enjoyment out of experimenting in my home workshop.
Can anyone help with my questions??

Thankyou for your time

harro

tuner.jpg
 
It's not nearly as crude as the original Calfee tuners. That was just a glob of weight at the end of the barrel. We used to bracket those. Move out 1/4" at a time until we found a good spot then move on out until it disappeared then start using a smaller bracket until you get optimum accuracy or you're tired of fooling with it and satisfied enough. It should work fine.

Of course, Calfee could tune fast even with those so I've heard.
 
Harro,

It’s definitely not crude if you can repeat 0.5 mm settings....just slower.
Heck, before I buy a tuner I use adhesive wheel weights and also the lead tape used to swing weight golf clubs....that defines crude and it’s definitely not what you’re doing.

I can’t help you with the amount of adjustment though, because the majority seems to believe as little as a click or two on a Harrel type tuner makes a difference and I don’t.

Good Luck
Landy
 
i can say for sure a click or 2 on a harrels tuner does make a difference. i'd say your on the right track, but a click on my harrels tuner isn't .5mm. you'll figure it out. just give yourself a little time and alot of ammo in different speeds. you'll do alright.
 
Haro, when tuned properly you should be able as on the harrell tuners to move 4 to 6 clicks in each direction and it have no effect. how you determine that too much weight or you have gone too far is. 1, the groups drop way low, that is a sign the bullet is leaving the barrel in it's way down. and 2 the shots vertically will open up and extend far worse vertically than when the barrel is moving upwards. for whatever explanation one wants to use it's like the rounds are all droppers as oppesed to flyers. when setting a tuner flyers and the resulting adjustments to eliminate vertical are good. droppers and vertical are bad.
 
Haro, when tuned properly you should be able as on the harrell tuners to move 4 to 6 clicks in each direction and it have no effect. how you determine that too much weight or you have gone too far is. 1, the groups drop way low, that is a sign the bullet is leaving the barrel in it's way down. and 2 the shots vertically will open up and extend far worse vertically than when the barrel is moving upwards. for whatever explanation one wants to use it's like the rounds are all droppers as oppesed to flyers. when setting a tuner flyers and the resulting adjustments to eliminate vertical are good. droppers and vertical are bad.

So, you don't want to get it the downswing for whatever reason. You want to get it on the upswing even though movement would be the same. Looks like you would want to get it where a continuous curve crosses itself. What do they call that? Oh yeah, it's a node. The curve of the wave is crossing itself producing very little movement. Now I bet you would want that to align with the axis of the barrel in a certain way. Parallel maybe. Other than that, looks like the only way you would gain anything would be to launch the bullet at the exact crest or trough where there would be no movement.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
i can say for sure a click or 2 on a harrels tuner does make a difference. i'd say your on the right track, but a click on my harrels tuner isn't .5mm. you'll figure it out. just give yourself a little time and alot of ammo in different speeds. you'll do alright.

Please prove to me that two clicks or less shows a difference.
This is no challenge, nor is any disrespect meant....I just want to see evidence it's true.
At the present time, I've yet to see anyone show any testing that definitively proves a click or two causes a change and that it's repeatable.
 
harro, I think your tuner will work. and thanks for sharing, please keep us posted I'm curious as too wether lighter is better. do you know the total weight ? the harrell's tuner weight is 9oz.
 
ok d.c. you old middle packer. could be worse, if you were a bottom packer.
 
harro, in your testing here's someting else to think about. the more tapered the barrel the more sweeping of an upward travel is noted. a heavier barrel will rise, then fall and continue to rise in a peak and valley motion. do not interperet a valley for the barrel dropping to it's lowest point. the sweet spot for optimum release is prior to the barrel being at it's uppermost angle.
 
G'day

Man for awhile there I thought I had been the cause of a "Good old fashion fist fight".

I thank everyone for replying to my questions, and some of the answers have created more questions in my brain.
Does anyone know how much movement is created by one full turn of a harrels tuner ,and also how many clicks are there in one full turn.Any tuner advice ,or information would be gratefully received.
Can I just add ( I hope I'm not out of line here) I don't wish for this thread to turn into an argument about different opinions, I just wanted some advice on my little project.

Thankyou for your time

harro
 
on a harrel tuner it's 25 clicks to a turn. just move it about a 1/2 inch at
a time, keep track of things, when you find the best spot go back there and
go up and down from there in smaller movements. you'll find it. it can take
awhile, or not depending on whether your name's bill. no fighting just a
bunch of guys pecking on a keyboard.
 
G'Day Harro,
Got a bit of a "barney" goin' on here.:)
ON my Hoehn tuner, the increments are 0.001.
Increments are numbered 0 - 25, four turns gets you one full number.
There are five full numbers in total, EG one half inch total travel - .500.
Your tuner looks OK, a threaded weight block would make things easier for
you to move, and repeat a setting.
Hope this helps,
Regards,
Don.H.
 
harro,

I would mark your tube in 1/4" lines with a fine marker, your collar should not remove the lines, give it a try, this way you will have a reference to where you are at when moving the collar fore or aft. Have done it many times using collars on different tuner designs similar to yours. Also keep notes where you are at. The lines can easily be removed with a little bit of brake cleaner on a patch.


Good luck,

Joe
 
harro, I hope it doesn't either as a good point such as Joe made with a refrence point comes up. one full revolution or 25 clicks at the mid point of the tuner moves the tuner approxamatly .025. from start 000 to 500 the harrell's tuner expands .500
 
Last edited by a moderator:
DSCN0858.jpg harro, when the kids can get to this they will upgrade my graphing skills. what you are looking at is 3 sets of testing targets overlayed. first 1044, 1056, 1077. second 1054,1082 third 1054,1071 and they all tell me the same story. when a round is fired the result is violent. the barrel moves upward and downward, at a certain point the barrel reaches it's uppermost travels the the weights and gravity pull it down sharpley. to set your tuner properly you must determine when the downward barrel movement is. from there you can back off a 1/2oz or 1.0oz if it's a heavy barrel. the reason guys are getting flyers and droppers is the tuner is set somwhere in the middle of that violent shaking and not near the top of it's travel where the shaking subsides. in that graph it told me that 8.0oz was nearing but not at the barrel's most upward travels. setting a tuner prior to this puts the round in the middle of when a round is most likely to cause a flyer or dropper.
 
G'day

Thankyou for your replies
What I have realised is that I have have been to precise in my initial testing( not moving the weight far enough between tests).
I will now move the weight 5 mm between tests and see if I can see a trend happening ,then fine tune it.
This I hope will speed up the process and save some ammo ( I am using Lapua X-Act and over hear it is about the most expensive ammo you can buy, and my budget is low )so cutting down on the amount of ammo used while playing with this thing will be an advantage.
While on the subject of testing, how many shots at each setting do you believe are necessary to get a true representation of results.
In my initial testing I was shooting 4 x 5 shot groups at each setting ???

Thankyou for your time

harro
 
if an apple falls from a bouncing tree limb, will it fall farther from the tree on the downswing, upswing, or top ?
if mh ain't there to see it does it even hit the ground ?:D

just kiddin;)
 
Back
Top