Question abt PCP Air tanks...

S

ShadowChaser

Guest
WHere does one find High Pressure air tanks to be used for charging PCP Airguns and what are good tanks to use?

Help, I need a crash course in airtanks...

After the match at Holbrook, once I was home again, I finalized my plan to purchase a PCP gun and placed an order for an Air Arms S400 MPR-FT knowing I had a SCUBA tank available... This gun is coming with a SCUBA tank charging setup, and today, looking at the tank I was planning on using, a mid 1980's vintage galvanized steel 80cf tank last inspected the summer of 1991, while its still in good shape having been stored fully charged, I realized its long overdue for a hydro test and inspection...

The old tank is also VERY heavy and at the meet Saturday I saw a number of carbon-fiber high pressure tanks that were much more compact and much lighter in weight so I spent some time on the internet looking for tanks. I found a number of paintball tanks advertised but they have a built in 800 lb regulator so those are not the right type.

Again, all I've managed to do is confuse myself so the question is: Where does one go to find tanks of a suitable nature?

What should I expect to pay?

Thanks again for your help and advice

Mitch & Shadow...
 
Bling Baby !!!!

I got this tank and the fill hose from AirHog. http://www.airhog.com/


There are a lot of links over at the Network 54 site http://www.network54.com/Forum/79537/

The seller of my CRX included an alum 88 scuba tank but they are still pretty heavy. I have some old neck injury issues so the carbon fiber tank is almost a necessity for me.


4500tankstand.jpg
 
Nice!

Hi Ray,

That's a great looking tank setup, did you build the protection cage or is that something that is available?

Thanks for the info on Airhog.com, I took a look at their website, the Carbon Fibre tank looks perfect, dry weight of 11 lbs would be great and now I'm sorry I orderd the SCUBA tank adapter/regulator with the gun...

See, thats the problem with being a "Newbie", I didn't know you could buy the tank all set up ready to go... If I can't get my old tank through another inspection, maybe I'll just keep the SCUBA adapter for backup and go this route...

Thanks for the reply and the help...

Mitch & Shadow...
 
Send the the scuba fill adaptor back for a refund. You don't want to be wrestling around with a steel tank.

The cage is something I made out of leftover junk from a prior life. I really made it so the tank would stand upright but I modified the design to protect the valve.
 
crb said:
Send the the scuba fill adaptor back for a refund. You don't want to be wrestling around with a steel tank.

The cage is something I made out of leftover junk from a prior life. I really made it so the tank would stand upright but I modified the design to protect the valve.
Click to expand...

That cage is a great idea... WX warms up here so I can work in my garage workshop and I can see building something like that... I'm retired from the Engineering dept. of a company that makes offshore oil field exploration equipment and that looks so much like the underwater equipment in the cylindrical pressure housings that are used... I think you have a great idea there...

Thanks again...

Mitch & Shadow...
 
Tanks.

Mitch,
Call Steve at Pomona Airguns or Van at Airhog and tell them what gun you will be shooting and they can tell you all about the tanks and what you will need to fill your gun.
The tank you have now will work after a visual and hydro but the number of fills you will get from it will be limited because of the 3000 - 3300 max pressure the tank will hold.
The other consideration is finding a dive shop in your area that can fill to 4500 PSI , not all can.
I know the Cape has its share of dive shops but you need to ask if they can fill to 4500.

Doug
 
PCP air tank school is out...

Folks, Thank You all for the help... A tank is on order from AirHog...

The day started with me taking my old tank to a local dive shop that does hydro testing and inspections and confirmed my worst suspicions, or even worse yet, they identified my tank as being a 2200 lb tank, not a 3200 lb tank as I thought...

The shop's tank technician, a very helpful and knowledgeable fellow, spent about an hour talking with me about what I wanted to do and what tanks would be most suited and in the end I could have walked out of there with a 3500 psi second hand steel tank, fully inspected, and a significant savings over a new one. This was a modern tank with a DIN valve and would have cost me about 1/4 what I ended up paying but having lugged my steel tank out to the truck and into the shop was enough to convince me that if I had to replace my tank, it would be with a carbon fiber 88 Cu ft @ 4500 psi...

So after an afternoon of research and reading comments by others, I placed an order with Van at AirHog for an 88 cu/ft carbon fiber tank with valve/regulator and hose...

Hopefully that puts my tank issue to rest for a good spell to come...

Thanks again for the help and advice...

Mitch & Shadow...
 
crb said:
Send the the scuba fill adaptor back for a refund. You don't want to be wrestling around with a steel tank.

The cage is something I made out of leftover junk from a prior life. I really made it so the tank would stand upright but I modified the design to protect the valve.
Click to expand...

Ray,

As the day turned out, I was able to cancel the regulator I had ordered with the new gun, it was removed from the shipment before the UPS truck arrived to pick it up, and they applied credit to another order I have with the same people... So I was able to get out of that one cleanly... Now its just a matter of waiting on this end for the big brown truck to arrive here with the goodies...

Thanks again,

Mitch & Shadow...
 
I used mine for the first time today and I am pretty happy with it. The cage adds about 6 lbs but it is great having the thing just stand there ready to be used. I added a clip to keep the foster out of the dirt. The stand now has an AR15 sling that isn't in the picture.
 
AirHog 88 Cu. ft tank...

The AirHog tank is working quite well... I've had it 8 days now and with testing and evaluating pellets with two PCP guns, the tank is getting a real workout...

About three days into my testing, I received another gun to include in my testing and suddenly I realized it was taking a lot longer to fill than what I was expecting and with about 10 fills out of the tank at that point I thought I must be running out of air...

Being new to PCP and this being my first tank of this type, also not having a good gauge on it, I thought the tank must be getting low, time to refill it. As it turns out, the tank still has plenty of air, the issue seems to be the new gun has a finer filter on the input acting as a restriction and simply takes a lot longer to fill.

These little things are all part of the learning process and I'm now up to about 40 fills out of the tank and its still filling the guns without showing signs of running low on air yet...

My only complaint with the Tank and fill adapter at this point is minor, the gauge is calibrated in 20 BAR increments only, and the HPA hose that came with it is only about 10" long... When trying to control the air pressure in the gun to determine ballistics and velocity vs air pressure, a gauge calibrated in 20 BAR increments doesn't work very well!!!

But I found a solution, a call to Steve at Pomona Air Guns (who was the other source of a tank I'd considered) gets me a new gauge and filling adapter and hose and this gauge is calibrated in both BAR and PSI, glycerin filled, and 1% accurate according to Steve... Its due here Tuesday and hopefully, once I have it, I'll have an accurate way to tell how much air I'm putting into the gun...

Preparations for the match on March 7th are going well, its a good thing I'm now retired, I have plenty of time to establish what the S400-MPR-FT gun likes, its fitted to the Von Ahrens rest with an adapter plate from MWerksLLC.com and everything is working well and looks like I'm just about ready to go...

Happy Shooting...

Mitch & Shadow...
 
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I have the same gauge Mitch

You probably didn't look at it but I have the Pumona guage on my tank. It works fine and the only thing I would want to change is get it (gauge) in a bigger size.
I purchased a 3ft micro bore hose from Airhog because I didn't like the short much stiffer hose I originally purchased.
I'm surprised the fill rate is slowed to the degree that you would notice it. I have several guns (including the S400 MPRFT) and it never seemed to vary. Oh course I tend to fill a little faster than most people recommend in various internet posts. I suppose it will take picture or a posting about some hideous blowout to get me to slow down. I guess I just have a (possibly false) belief that most of these guns air tanks are a little overbuilt for protection from that kind of problem.
See you on the 7th!

Norm
 
One of the main reasons to fill slow is that the gun will get warm and that will give you a false presure reading.
 
Question on pressure

I have read that it can change one PSI per 10 degree in low pressure (35PSI) tires. What is the equivilent scale for a 3000 PSI tank? I typically fill my rifle tanks from 1800-3000 in 15-20 secs.
 
nlieber said:
I have read that it can change one PSI per 10 degree in low pressure (35PSI) tires. What is the equivilent scale for a 3000 PSI tank? I typically fill my rifle tanks from 1800-3000 in 15-20 secs.
Click to expand...

I timed myself this morning while raising the gun from 100 BAR to 150-155 BAR and it took about 20 seconds... You mean to tell me this is fast??? I don't think I can get it to go any slower with the valve that came on the tank...

Mitch & Shadow...
 
20 seconds is reasonable. If you feel the gun and it feels warm, I'll bet that the cool presure would be 100 psi less than when you filled it. If you have your presure/velocity curve down pat, it is something to concider during a match.
 
DonMatzeder said:
20 seconds is reasonable. If you feel the gun and it feels warm, I'll bet that the cool presure would be 100 psi less than when you filled it. If you have your presure/velocity curve down pat, it is something to concider during a match.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, Don, I had to chuckle when I read that but only because "down pat" hardly fits anything I am doing at this stage of the game nor is dealing with a filling adapter gauge calibrated in 20 BAR increments...

As to the gun temperature, its staying cool to the touch, maybe only a very slight rise in temperature while filling it but barely detectable...

After the match on Feb 7th which I shot using one of Paul's guns on Paul's rest with Paul's pellets and air, I came home with a fire lit and have been thrashing about like a madman and working Fed-Ex and UPS bringing me gear as I've been putting together an outfit of my own to take to the March 7th match and I think I've succeeded to reach a satisfactory goal with my efforts. March 7th will be the test of just how successful my efforts have been...

Being retired has its benefits mainly time to dedicate to such an undertaking, and living in New England is helping this winter with the terrible weather we've been having coupled with having a decent workshop and a range in the cellar so I've been able to put together a set up and choose what I think are the right pellets.

Having been involved with rimfire shooting for many years, I've a pretty good idea of what it will take and being an inveterate tinkerer with a pretty good collection of rimfire target guns to borrow scopes, mounts, and rings as needed, I'm pleased to say I've put together a gun, scope, have pellets selected, and a rest that all works together as I think it should...

Its the airgun part of all this that is new to me and I'm learning a lot as I go and that's a key part of all the fun in this for me...

One thing is for sure, I really appreceate all the help and advise and can't thank you enough for your input...

Happy Shooting...

Mitch & Shadow...
 
Time for a tank update...

Its been about 6 weeks since I recieved the 88 cu ft 4500psi carbon fiber wrapped tank from AirHog and I'm very pleased with it.

In the process of testing pellets in the two Air Arms S400 guns that I am working with, I'm shooting between 4 and 8 AGBR type targets a day and topping off the guns between each target. I typically fill the guns to about 155-175 BAR and figure a couple of BAR is lost to the air cooling in the gun from the heat generated through the transfer process.

My plan is to keep the .177 caliber S400MPR-FT gun operating between 150 dropping to about 120 BAR in the process of shooting 28-30 shots for a target. (typically 3 sighter/fouling shots followed by 25 scoring shots).

I find that the .22 S400SL-FAC gun takes a bit more air and find that starting at 160-165 BAR takes me down to about 100 BAR at the end of the target.

Following this format for my test shooting I'm getting about 50 fills or targets from each tank before needing to refill it. Fortunately I have a Dive Shop/HPA tank Service Facility about 5 miles from my home that does tank fills to 4500 psi for $5.00 a fill so keeping the tank filled is no problem and I'm working on my third fill since receiving the tank. This works out to about 1/3 of a cent per shot for air based on the $5.00 refill charge.

My only complaint at this point is the calibration of the gauge that comes on the tank as set up by AirHog. This gauge is a small gauge, about 1.5" dia. and only calibrated in 20 BAR increments. As the gauges on the guns themselves are less than an inch in diameter and appear to be very inaccurate, and as I want to know fairly accurately what pressure I'm filling the gun to in order to stay at the same velocity curve and POI on the target, I ended up purchasing a second fill adapter from Steve at Pomona Airguns (PAG) that has a glycerin filled 1% calibrated gauge with a scale calibrated in both BAR and PSI. This gauge is a vast improvement and I like the filling adapter's "push to bleed" relief valve and heavy duty gun hose of the PAG filling adapter as compared to the simplistic filling adapter that came with the tank. Were I to order another of these PAG filling adapters, I've since learned I can order it with a larger diameter gauge and next time around, I'd get it with the three inch diameter glycerin filled 1% guage as compared to the 1.5" that it comes with.

The bottom line is that I'm very pleased to be getting about 50 gun fills per tank of air and the fact that the tank weighs about 17 lbs to carry around compared to the old steel SCUBA tank I was originally going to use which is a lot heavier, the carbon fiber tank is proving to be well worth the expense to me...

Happy Shooting Y'all...
 
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I am happy with my CF tank and I REALLY like the stand I made for it. Having the thing securely sitting upright is a huge plus. I should put some cradles on the top of the stand so I don't have to hold the rifle while charging it.
 
Here is a little trick to extend the useful pressure of your 4500 tank use the smaller tank for the bulk fill portion and then top off with the 4500. You will get more milage for your $5 bucks that way as you can run the smaller tank way down.
 
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