@Mr. Gain,
I bet your Contour XL looks rather dashing with that carbon-fibre Daystate fitted to it? I've always thought that particular model would look the part with various bits 'n' pieces added to it.
I just bought myself a silencer and adaptor for my Concept. Paid £9.99 for the adaptor and £32.50 for a Parker Hale MM1. The Parker Hale is fantastic at suppressing the Concept's muzzle crack. When live firing with the Parker Hale fitted, I just get a dull 'pfft'. After a few shots you forget theres any sort of sound coming out of it. Although quite heavy, I believe it was the heaviest by a big margin out of 10 other silencers on test in an issue of Airgun Shooter, it compliments the Concept Super Six's weight. When in standing or kneeling position with the rifle shouldered, it feels very nicely balanced and also with a Nikko Stirling 4-12x50 AO MountMaster fitted.
At just shy of 7 inches long and approximetaly 23mm in width, its not at all bulky and feels to be just at the right length and looks wise, it suits the rifle very well. Build wise, I can just say its built like a brick & I really wouldn't like a bonk over the head with it. The end cap feels stiff to undo but I'm not going to attempt to get inside it as I don't really feel the need to anyway, being fitted to a PCP I don't believe it would need to be stripped to be cleaned as one would have to with a rimfire, but if you have to, it comes supplied with an alignment tool to make life easier when putting it back together again. Overall I'm 100% chuffed with the Parker Hale - I'd recommend it to anyone.
With the MM1 silencer and adaptor fitted, the whole rifle now measures just under 43 inches long.
As regards filling, when topped up to 200 bar, the Contour takes around 10 shots to reach its velocity "plateau", so for optimal accuracy it's preferable to fill to around 175 bar, which will give around 20-25 good shots, depending on the pellet type used. Is this the case with the Concept too?
I managed to find an hour or so to do some live shooting testing today. If I remember correctly the rifle wasn't full at 200 bar. I fired around 10 dry shots yesterday to test the Parker Hale & to show friends, they were very impressed I might add, topped the rifle back up and safely fired 2 live shots later on to test how quiet it'd be during live firing, even more impressive. So came today. With the MM1 now fitted, I had to re-zero my scope, this only took 3 live shots - was only a few clicks out.
First of I must admit, I enjoyed myself a bit too much today and I lost count of how many shots I fired, after all it was the first real time I've used the rifle for any length of time...But good fun neverless. On a guess I probably fired around 40-45 shots before they started to drop off. All shots were taken at just 10 yards, supposedly it was meant to be more about bar testing and shot counts rather than accuracy at various ranges but as I say I enjoyed myself a bit too much, so all of that went out of the window, my bad...But great fun. Anyway...I'm believing it was under the 200 bar fill up.
I really ought to take some notes next time.
Concerning the drop off shots, at 10 yards the drop off point went from centre of zero (of which was spot on) to just below and to the first mil dot. Even on the mil dot the shots were spot on. A very good barrel on this rifle.
I may have fired a few too many shots at this point and the cylinder was much as it makes no difference, simply put...As empty as you could get it. Doing this learnt me a valuable lesson, that lesson came when I had to fill up the rifle from empty using a FX 3 stage stirrup pump to 200 bar...It was a bit of a work out & I don't really want to do that again. But lesson learnt anyway. Once I get the shot counts and best bar fill ups sorted, I'm going to just top the rifle up every 30 shots or so, much easier.
So after getting the Concept filled up to exactly 200 bar, I fired a single shot at a target at the mere 10 yard range I set up and it hit spot on the centre of zero of my crosshairs just as the others did pre the 200 bar fill up.
Hopefully tomorrow, I'll have time to do a shot count and fill bar test & of course, take some notes. I'm expecting around 60+ shots as Brocock state one should get in a .22 Concept. So a bit of experimentation to do.
Mr. Gain, isn't the Contour XL stated to give around 40+ shots in .22? And which pellets have you tried and prefer to use?
When I'm almost done with my tin of Air Arms Diabolo Field 5.51mm's I think I'll try some JSBs.
'It's possible. The point is getting away with it. And speaking as a professional, that's a very important consideration.'