air arms mpr (multi purpose rifle)

[davebelton]

:) just got one of these and thought i would try and put down some words,
I have Had a few s series rifles and the first and most important thing i like is the bigger diameter barrel which does seem to be much stiffer and solid the new style barrel clamp looks good and is also beefed up making the slight knocks that used to shift the s400's zero a thing of the past, the other thing which is a great improvement is the match trigger after a couple of small adjustments via the instruction booklet the wide blade is angled slightly to fit my finger perfectly and after reducing the pull weight the first stage pulls gently to a perfect second stage let off at precisely the right time every shot very very good ! never adjusted a trigger before what a difference it makes.
now the bad bit the stock is a good 2 inches too short for an adult although air arms are going to supply some spacers mine did not have them and frankly at this money i think they could have done better !:(
anyway thats the only bad bit apart from the price i can think of.
now some more good bits !!:)
the action is the same as all the s rifles so i sold the stock off and fitted the mpr breech and barrell onto my btas regged classic cylinder this has the advantage of ben's super light and smooth hammer action mods also done,so what i have now is a btas regged and tuned s400 classic fitted with the new thick match grade mpr barrell and breech !! then it was dropped straight into my s400 walnut thumb hole ( i got a ginb stock on order ):)

first impressions were good with 15 pellets forming a ragged almost one hole group straight out of the box with a fill pressure of 180 bar to keep it in the sweet spot the gun has still only had 50 or so pellets thru it.
I have now also fitted a btas regulator to it as the same unit fits straight in so now the regulator has been fitted tonight i am going to give it a serious testing at the weekend and am hoping that it will be as good as my first s400 regged gun which was a real nail driver the most accurate gun i have ever owned which i sold to air sniper (and regretted it ever since he wont part with it) so watch this space and i will update !
__________________

[davebelton]

if any one wants to know how to fit regulator please let me know and i will add to post next time
anyway to the testing !
i set up the gun with light stream scope and zeroed at 35 yards, i used the supplied muzzle brake first and this produced a group of about the size of a ten pence piece, this was rested on a bean bag using jsb 4.52 pellets
The gun is fairly loud with this on so as i want to use in the garden as well i tried both a UK Neil moderator and a weirach moderator both are very good but i think the weirach is quieter although the UK Neil grouped tighter poss because his one is a stripper/moderator combined. i found it strange that the groups appeared to be larger with the muzzle brake fitted as i thought these were supposed to tighten groups ? i put it down to the fact that the rifle had only had 50 or so pellets thru it and had not leaded up yet,
The rifle performed faultlessly on the range the trigger is the best i have used with a little adjustment the first stage is smooth and has a superb and predictable second stage let off, when the wind dropped i shot a string of 20 pellets at 35 yards via a chrono the variation was 4 fps ! and the hole formed no bigger than a 5 pence piece ! so just myself to sort out now !, overall i think the rifle is better than an s400 but only because of the larger diameter barrel,I think air arms should fit the better larger (14mm) barrel to the s400 as an option are you listening bill ?, by the way the parts are all interchangeable so if you wanted to change to wider barrel you would need to order an mpr barrel which should come with the breech and a barrel clamp if you decide to do this be aware that there are 4 screws on top of the breech but also 2 underneath !! they are very tight so require a sharp blow with a punch to crack the anodising on the breech which acts like a shake proof washer be warned failure to do this will result in tears and drilling out rounded Allen keys !

[Dougie_fn12]

nice review there Dave, will you have this up LV soon? ;) sounds like a nice piece of kit :D

[ross H]

muzzle brakes are usually used to stop muzzle flip if a gun is front end light:)

[davebelton]

ross yes and therefore supposidly form tighter groups
yes dougie had it up there saturday may well be the rifle i use unless the daystate comes back sorted

[Steptoe]

Nice write up - got to say I had one for three days and no matter what I tried - it would not fit my 20 stone bulk! Its a nice bit of kit - but at the price I think it is just a tad too much to be taken seriously. Its never going to contend with other rifles in the 'near the same' price bracket.

It's an ideal 'small' persons ft rifle - and please no offence meant by that last comment.

[davebelton]

hi blackjack
exactly my thoughts
thats why i sold stock to young lad at club fitted straight onto his carbine s400 and i dropped action into my s400 walnut thumbhole agreed price is high but i can obtain them cheaper
atb dave

[davebelton]

went down lv again Saturday to put some lead thru mpr hybrid think it should be called mpr hft (cheers roger)
any way tried new fx pellets 4.52 jsb 4.52 and aa field 4.52 and definitely groups tighter with the air arms pellets Tim Finley says the 4.51 pellets group even tighter i bought some on the way home so will report back next time one thing we did notice is that although all 3 types of pellets listed supposedly come from same manufacturer the aa field are definitely softer material ! maybe this helps to seal better giving better groups, anyway set up at 35 yards with new mtc viper 10x44 scope then shot some range cards the rifle seemed to have improved even more than last time and we shortly moved to plinking range the rifle is awesome thats the only way to describe it, it is so accurate and smooth to shoot i think i may have finally found the rifle i have been looking for ! even took a 15MM reducer knock down from a supported standing position at 50 yards !! and did it a few times passed the rifle around to a few other shooters and the general opinion was what an exceptional rifle it is just the stock to play with now then practice practice practice................

[FRENCHI]

Hi Dave

So is it possible for me to buy a reg for my AA TDR & fit it myself......if so is it reccomended or arn't they that simple to set up..& how much are they to buy please

Mick:)

[davebelton]

as long as tdr uses classic or carbine s type cylinders it is possible to fit reg the actual fitting is not difficult but valve body also needs to be altered give btas a ring ben will expain he dont work mondays tho

[FRENCHI]

as long as tdr uses classic or carbine s type cylinders it is possible to fit reg the actual fitting is not difficult but valve body also needs to be altered give btas a ring ben will expain he dont work mondays tho
Thanks Dave:)

[davebelton]

OK the rifle has now had about 300 pellets thru it so went up to lee valley to do some more pellet testing i added the new mosquito 7.9 the air arms 4.51's and also the daystate 4.53 selects just waiting for the daystate 4.51 and 4.52 to arrive to complete the "best" pellet testing, all of the pellets tested are the "preferred" ones used by most of the shooting guys, i have to say that the rifle is not at all pellet fussy a credit to the new barrel although if i had to choose the best at the moment it would be the 4.52 air arms Field contrary to what nick jenkinson found in his magazine review he thought the 4.51 AA reduced the group size i will keep trying as the barrel is still not really run in yet but even the worst groups produce a 10p size hole at 35 yards at it was fairly blustery yesterday ! i must also commend the UK Neil stripper/moderator unit once again i have had this for about a year and a half now and although it was £75 it is superb a lot of the shooters on the zero range were complaining of wind movement but i found i was mainly not affected not sure why but when fired without moderator on i found that the pellets became affected by the wind more so hats off to UK Neil again
signing off for now

[adam_p]

what would be better to buy mprft or air arms pro target

[davebelton]

not sure really the mpr has had some good reviews excellent barrel etc and mine is very accurate but as you can see it is "played with" but even standard as long as you change or extend stock to fit ( it is 2 inch short for most adults ) it is a great gun i cannot comment on pro target as i have never shot one

[davebelton]

some photos more to come

[davebelton]

and the rest what do you think then ? i got a ft ginb stock coming so this one will be for sale in about 6 weeks:D

[davebelton]

see also
http://www.airgunbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=195439
seems to be a growing trend towards the sorted s400's/gml 400 again !:cool:

[davebelton]

just a thought as the doctor and sparky are both looking to obtain an mpr maybe we could have some gml mpr's around soon ! personally cant wait to see what the difference will be as i think this is the ultimate hft rifle had the trigger assy apart and followed the beerhunters guide to setting up s400 triggers which is very usuful by the way i polished up surfaces and cleaned the build up of grit lightly oiled with 3in1 and made a big difference although i have ordered some washes to replace the o rings these have not arrived yet,
went up lv again last sat and did some more testing still had 4 fps diffrence over 30 shot string and the groups are astounding just so tight bench rested 35 yards all again within 5 pence size hole no flyers at all just deadly accurate moved targets out to 45 yards and shoot 20 pellets all arrived in a sub 10 pence group the great thing about the groups produced is the roundness of them each group is almost perfectly circular !.
still find best pellet is aa field 4.52 and am convinced it is due to soft skirt, shooting alongside the now sorted mk3 ft-r i still got to say the mpr was still tighter not by much but still tighter ! started passing the gun round a bit now and general opinion is wow what a tool !

[RFC]

Dave,

Excellent series of reviews. Check out my MPR review at:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/79537/message/1180725615/

Best Regards,

RFC

[davebelton]

thanks will do
regards
dave

[davebelton]

took her out for her first hft test today nice result joint 1st marked as 2nd on toss of coin 56/60 on a wet and windy course !

[Darren Petts]

I tried one very briefly recently and the short butt also manifested itself in the short cheekpiece. My face was all but falling off the back of the cheekpiece. This was with the butt extended with the ironmongery back to a more usual length.

[davebelton]

hi darren yes i knw dont know why they put such an adult unfriendly stock on it i put mine into my s400 stock and it's great got a ginb ft stock arriving monday and i think with all the other mods it will be the ultimate hft rifle :D

[davebelton]

ok fitted her to my new ginb stock it feels spot on very comfortable and head position to scope easy to adjust all i did to stock was 2 coats of linseed oil 1st 50/50 with white spirit to help it go deep into grain allowed to dry and recoated let that dry then quick coat of bees wax and thats it i prefer the natural light grained wood although i have seen some nice deep stained stocks see copperman22 pics anyway here are some more for you guys

[davebelton]

last one :D

[BEESA]

Looks stunning Dave m8 :cool:

Don ...

[davebelton]

cheers don looks better in the flesh ! will show you next time your up sticking to the one gun now ;)

[BEESA]

I will look forward to it m8 :cool:

Don ...

[sniper22]

that stock is sublime mate. is love at first sight allowed on here?

[davebelton]

ohhhhh yess i agree it looks the dog's i just like the natural look bit of linseed and some bees wax glad someone else has my tastes as a lot darken the wood cheers dave

[davebelton]

bump to top

[davebelton]

now fitted with new ohh so sexy stainless steel bolt by phil hassle looks just like ripley one :D main boring practical adavantage is the weight of the bolt keeps the bolt handle down and stops that annoying blow back , i know you can fit elastic band but please !! how crap is that also some people are putting extra o ring on bolt shaft this makes it lock down very well but beware it will wear out the pin and slot inside !!! you have been warned anyway that's the boring bit :) i would have bought it anyway as it looks the dog's cost of £35 english pounds superb job hidden fixing system also available in satin for £30

[davebelton]

and see here
http://www.pmcb.co.uk/Main%20Pages/Pages/AA400/aassbolt.htm
and here
http://www.airgunforum.net/agf/index.php?showtopic=32330

[davebelton]

mr hassel now also makes gml style barrell supports 8 clamps etc give him a bell and bling yer 400 !

[Charlts]

mr hassel now also makes gml style barrell supports 8 clamps etc give him a bell and bling yer 400 !

I've seen the prototype before it went to Jeff Westley for its tune and the bling looks great! If it shoots as well as Andrea's Jeff'd 400 carbine it'll be a corker!

Ryan

[ChrisC]

mr hassel now also makes gml style barrell supports 8 clamps etc give him a bell and bling yer 400 !

Any Photo's Dave?

[davebelton]

hi chris see phil's website mate http://www.pmcb.co.uk/Main%20Pages/Pages/AA400/aassbolt.htm

[davebelton]

seems to be doing the business see http://www.airgunbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215692 took first place for the first time ever had a few 2nd and third's before but always missed the top slot my shooting mate is trying a bsa barrel hope to get the same results as usuing an mpr barrel like i have will keep you posted when testing is done next weekend the bsa barrel is even thicker than the mpr one :eek:

[mex2000]

How do you go about ordering a GINB stock ?
That looks fantastic Dave - I have an MPR and wouldn't mind that stock.
How much do they cost ?
Cheers
Steve

[davebelton]

email sent but will put here for others ginbali@ginbali.com his name is andrea

[davebelton]

this could be for sale !!!

[zooankski]

Any Photo's Dave?


The prototype S400 is fantastic. Once i have discussed it with Phil the prices and pics will be going up for individual parts etc. I will post some pics soon.

[davebelton]

will look forward to it mark

[davebelton]

now sold to allanb :)

[davebelton]

hope it's going well still

[davebelton]

6 months since i sold her hope all is still well i do miss her !!