Harrel Tuner and James Pappas Noodle

A

andyd1179

Guest
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Well I have just been to the club this morning to play with my new Harrel Tuner and James Pappas Noodle and what fun I had!

The conditions were sunny with light breeze of around 5-7 mph just about right for tuning in a new tuner. As posted on this sight I use the Hopewell Method which is simple to use. The first thing I would say is that both are great bits of kit in the way they are made, I have had a few tuners in my time but this is by far the best I have had, and a big thank you to my mate Brian for boring it out for me so that it fitted the barrel.

As you can see I have an Anschutz’s 1913 with Cicognani Stock and a Cicognani ADJ rest and I recently got myself a SEB rear bag from Fox Firearms here in the UK which at £35 plus shipping is well worth it in my view to others that are around.
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So what with having to get use to a new tuner I had to get use to a new rear bag, which is still settling in but a great piece of kit.

I tuned in the Harrel and then screwed on the J J Pappas and set in on the larger wholes, then the medium and small, best group was on the medium. I have not had time to play as much as I wanted to as I had to shoot a match card but I was well happy with the 5 shot group I ended up with which was 9x5mm. It makes me wonder what the grouping would be like under enclosed conditions, anyway I tried a couple of targets and it was hitting the spot.
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As it has been said on other forums the noodle does work the why is to do with the gases, over the coming weeks I will play with closing the wholes to see the variation but you need to do this in similar conditions otherwise it would be a waste of time.

I had a good play with the SEB bag as well and found that once I had slide the stock backwards and forwards I needed to give the rear of the stock a couple of taps and she was ready to go. The SEB bag is much higher than my original Cicognani bag but it does run a lot smother in the SEB due to the material it has for the ears, the rubber plate is very solid and with the use of the rubber component it doesn’t slide around as much on a plywood table top.
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So I had a break and went into a match card, it been a busy month and unlike me I have left it to the last minute which I don’t like doing. The wind had started to rise a bit but I was feeling confident enough to get on with the job. Well I shot a 249 with 3-4, the one shot might just score in with a gauge but I will have to wait to find out on that one.

As I have said I only had the morning to do it all but first impression I am real happy, the score are up there with our top guys and with more time I am sure that I can start to get those to 250’s that I keep missing out on.

The Harrel Tuner is a great piece of kit and so well made, the noodle again is so well crafted and seems to make that extra bit of difference.

Getting the gear is one thing, but getting to know how it works and feels in another thing which takes time to adjust to, practice and setup is just as important and then hopefully it all comes together with you as the shooter to high performance.
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Sorry about the dogy table but that is what winter weather does to garden furniture here in the UK

If you have questions, then please ask.

Gatekeeper
 
Tuner

I'm just about to try my Tuner a J&J slider on my Anschutz 1913 too. Is that the 7" or 9" slider? About what number did you end up on so far on the tuner setting?

Thanks Scott
 
Hya Scott,
I have the 7" model and the tuner is set around 250 but i want to play with this a bit more to see if i can get this tighter but its a great bit of kit.

Cheers, AndyD
 
Last one is a nice group but is it really that much different in grouping than the cicognani tuner you had?I have one and am pleased with it.
 
Hi Pieter,
I have always been a big fan of Cicognani equipment but I have to say that the EFAT tuner that I got and so did others was not finished of very well in that I had to spend a week having to polish the inside of the tube, it still had the tool markings in it that had to be wet and dried to remove them so that it was to a polished finish, friends of mine had the same problem. You have to see a Harrel Tuner first hand to be able to make comparisons; the tuner gives you smaller increments than the Cicognani to dial in with, the finish is well polished to a standard that you would expect when purchasing something like this. As you say the group may well be around the same but this was accomplished in a matter of an hour compared to the 3 weeks I spent with the EFAT. As I said I will be spending more time to find out what more I can do to improve upon something just out of the box that I did within an hour.

Cicognani do make some great products but they are in the next month or so increasing their prices which I have been told I due to production cost, but this is the wrong time to be putting prices up with the economy around the world as it is, I feel that they will end up out pricing themselves out of the market.

The UK and Europe have been dependent on European gunsmiths like Cicognani but changes are at foot in the UK as we are working with good UK gun makers, stock makers and with our friends in the States to provide quality equipment here in the UK and this will be seen over the coming months.

I know that you purchase the Farley rest which is a good rest but not at price tag of a €1,000 when you can get almost the same design rest like SEB for £495 (€875) here in the UK, but its each to their own.

Cheers, AndyD
 
They aren't the budget friendliest on the planet,that's true.But if I have to import something myself like the Farley it will cost about the same but you have all the problems of import.Cicognani gives good service in my opinion,you can ask 100 questions they still answer you.Now I had my rest in two weeks at my doorstep without bothering customs.And they are a P in the A here.I have some Edgewood bags there for about 2 weeks now and nothing moves.Or maybe it's the postal services.Nobody has contacted me so far.I hope the spare parts from Farley will not give me this much problems.The Butch Lambert tensionscrews came in a week.It's always a risk.

I have a fat 1 and find it well made.It is anodised well but isn't polished.I don't get the point of that frankly.Polished or not it has to be cleaned once in a while.It's true it's adjusting more coarse but I found some nice sweet spots on mine.

Question:what is the purpose of the extra tube you installed?Does it change grouping too,it seems a lot of work to find the sweet spot as it is a combination of the 2.With mine I shot at every full turn and after that I started fine tuning by first 3 clicks and than 1.Found the sweet spots in one day.

Al this doesn't make the rifle a non brainer.Today I shot a lousy clubmatch.I shot the sighters and was still a bit high,so I clicked...the wrong way.And started the first target.Started high left,then just high.It took 3 targets before I realized what I did.Luckily competition here is very far behind :)
Doing stuff like that still makes me a novice.

Have fun with the new toys,Pieter
 
I guess so , your three feet closer with all that on the end :D Just kidding but it does look a little odd
 
Wait awhile and the day will be here when a rimfire benchrest rifle without a noodle will be the odd looking gun. Change comes slowly but it comes. bob finger
 
bob finger said:
Wait awhile and the day will be here when a rimfire benchrest rifle without a noodle will be the odd looking gun. Change comes slowly but it comes. bob finger
Click to expand...
If the noodle is designed primarily to evacuate the gases behind the bullet as it exits the muzzle, then it's again a case of what goes around, comes around.

IIRC, some ten years ago a similar (European) product was used for a short period of time in ISSF events, almost immediately banned because it "worked too good."
 
deadwooddick said:
If the noodle is designed primarily to evacuate the gases behind the bullet as it exits the muzzle, then it's again a case of what goes around, comes around.

IIRC, some ten years ago a similar (European) product was used for a short period of time in ISSF events, almost immediately banned because it "worked too good."
Click to expand...

The J&J slider works because of the air being compressed in front of the bullet not the gasses behind the bullet.
 
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