Inspired by the PR-900 build i thought to myself, what about the slightly more expensive Artemis/Diana guns?
Looked around, quite a bit actually, before coming to settle on that a bullpup could be nice for a change. Ergo the Artemis P15.
The P35, 40 and what not are simply not imported up here for whatever reason so.. P15 it is.
Put an ad up that i WTB and as chance has it good friend Sverker came to hollar!
By his own wording it seems this piece of kit ended up here through Holland, with all that brings. Ie; an "unlimited" gun from the onset. Barrel has been replaced by a slightly longer Lothar Walter unit here in country though, coming all in at approx 540mm. Yep, in 22cal.
Diving into the piece i´ve actually come to entertain the idea of swapping calibers for a "non 12 foot pound" one, as that´s doable to me.. Hm.
Anyways.
Thing showed up and in "good" working order. Sverker shipped it together with what he thought would be a 10J spring buuuut... XXXX that gave me a laugh! Firing a clip out of it, bullets didn´t even reach the target 20 meters out!
Impressions though. As many of you are aware the P15 is a REALLY small gun. Feather light to that. Like.. a toy. It´s anything but though.
Replaced the hammer spring with what the piece was delivered with from the onset, and that made for a ... difference. LOL
Tweaked it a bit vs my LabRadar and came to rest at a given power level, and took the piece ratting as such - loaded with hollow point slugs. For whatever reason that night handed one mere rat, but a rather sturdy one. Hit the thing once and it jumped around a tad before settling. Indeed, slugs need a bit of speed before doing their thing.
So. Barrel swapped for a "better" one and a few Darko Dell clips thrown in for good measure. I can very well see the reason ppl/shooters turn to these vs the stock jobbies, i really can.
That is however not the same as that the stockers are worthless - as some claim. On the contrary i´d say but.. for starters keep them clean (stockers that is)!
Speaking of which i indeed cleaned the barrel out with a few patches and took to zeroing the thing with this generic 4-12*44 whatever. Laser beam comes to mind.. Slugs or pellets of 25,4 grains no matter. This thing shoots TIGHT.
Nah. Fact is that the more i shot the thing, used it, the more it grew on me.
One thing though once and for all!! Us vikings boys are often like 6footX. Me too, and at that like 220lbs. So yeah. Not a "big boy" but certainly "grown up" and the P15 is simply to short in my hands to get a decent purchase on the thing. Nope. Not by much, but shouldering the thing IS a strain, and yes... i certainly know how to.
Yeah. The Delcos.. What gets me about them is their simplicity. I like that. Not that "for dummies" but more so that i happen to be an engineer and good engineering is making something really complex simple and/or making something really expensive cheap. Well.This sure fills bill No1 (and TBH they´re not that expensive either).
So in my book the Delcos are worth every dime, especially so seeing what the original pieces run.
I happen to be a sucker for blued steel and walnut. Just me i guess, but albeit the P15 is to a degree.. I still fail to see why Artemis covers that German beech wood up as they do. I just don´t get it, can´t be anymore expensive to apply them layers of grainfiller and.. whatever that top coat is than to dye the thing and hand it oil.
Well. A beauty contest that stock will NOT bring home. I´ll tell you that much. Not that i find it ugly, i just think it´s extremely... mundane. For no reason what so ever.
Not only are the Artemis guns REAL light in weight, this one sports a combined shroud and moderator too and TBH.. it does a rather good job at it in my opinion. Yes, all to aware of our American friend Aaron and his hair curler setup - and what not, which i´ve played around with myself, but for a stock solution i find the gun rather quiet - no matter the power level.
Innards, the shroud is what it is and fed via an adapter on the muzzle end of the barrel while the moderator keeps a whole stack of steel sheet metal cones. For THIS particular gun Sverker handed me all in all three shrouds, the original included. What´s on the gun right now though is a carbon fibre one.
Barrel is a unit that sports a brass chamber end. For better for worse i guess, and as such simpler to play around with to someone like me. Boys had been at it though why it leaked insane amounts, something i came to remedy after a few shots to zero and that first night of pesting. It was to the point where you could dry your hair firing the thing!
This then the "typical" Artemis approach to the poppet within. The ones i´ve played around with all have their seat material move as power is .."moved around", so in short this (again) is a no-can-do to me.
In turn the thing leaked between the actual valve seat and the valve body too.
Valve block is a rather straight forward proposition i guess, that really lacks any and all "tight rope stuff" like anti bounce devices and what not. Saving air is always a criteria why i guess i´ll fab a SSG setup for this gun too and at that i´m looking into a "shrouded" and spring loaded hammer (so called floating hammer) setup as well (those not in the loop, check Youtube for instance).
Thing here is that the P15 is a regulated gun, while a design of "yesterday". It sports a 265cc-ish tank i believe ( correct me if i´m off) and as such.. both regulated and "limited" vs the last era guns and capacity.. I think it´s a good idea keeping air from just being blown out the muzzle to no good.
So a SSG and a "floating" hammer might very well be it.. On the SSG (ie; a "trapped" hammer spring that lets you set spring preload and hammer free flight both) most certainly so. On the floating hammer.. i´ll just see where the SSG takes me for starters. (Mark. A SSG setup to cater to a given power level MUST be setup vs a chronograf to keep the package within limits of the law)
This gun is in turn indeed regulated. Some replace that reg at the drop of a hat for whatever reason. Humas and whatever.. The little i´ve seen vs the LabRadar of mine, no need. These days though ppl go all ape on plenum volume, and therein lies a challenge as far as "tube installed regs" in my book cause as soon as you increase plenum volume (for whatever reason really) it will interfere with tank capacity. In short, remains to be settled how i handle that.
If we regard the industry of current on a whole however we see it moving vs less and less regulator pressure and larger and larger plenum volumes for a given performance level. Be it 12 footpounds or 80 Joules, no matter, whatever. Good or bad? Well. The less the pressure no doubt the calmer the gun to use, let´s put it that way.
Cutout for the clip is REAL tight why keeping that bronze barrel end up to snuff becomes imperative. Lathe time if you ask me. The probe in turn is a rather small diameter jobbie as is and i doubt modifying it will amount to all that much, that said me going to hand this thing hollowpoint slugs as primary fudder.
But.. whatever. For those of you in the market for a higher end barrel for these things, something to keep in mind - as is port alignment for that matter (again - keeping the gun efficient if nothing else).
Barrel is held in by one sole grub screw why i at least find it reasonable to "dimple" that brass barrel end fitting by drilling into it ever so slightly. That way the grub screw gets something to hold on to so to say/register, and will always end up in the same place just you align it.
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