"El - cheapo" aka Beeman Chief rip-off

[Racing]

Yeah yeah.
I know.
12fpe, but this post is for a different angle on things i´d say. So please.. keep reading.



As PCP has grown out of bounds of course someone´s going to market the cheapest thing around. To me, over here, that is the Kayoba Power Series in 177cal. They come in 177"cal only and as some of you know from my previous ramblings i´ve never really gotten into 177 as i thought of it to weak.
Well.
You guys turned out to be very right, more so than i bet you´d imagine, and i truly stand corrected.

No. The Beeman Chief comes with no 1/2"-20 UNF thread. No it doesn´t come with a Picatinny rail for a bi-pod. No it doesn´t come with a scope, hell it´s even single shot!
What it DOES come with is a 135£ hang tag. That´s what it comes with.
As such i thought to myself that this HAS to be an expensive toy, intended for "grown kids" but was i EVER wrong. Please read on...



Uhu. This post IS loads about what those that ain´t all thumbs can muster on a REALLY slim budget. I´ll tell you that much, and as you can already gather this "El-cheapo" came to impress the living daylights out of me.
NEVER had i thought..
In fact, in the rear view mirror i have an EXTREMELY hard time wrapping my head around how they get this done and out the door at that hang tag they sport. It´s just beyond me.

Anyways.
I opted to pick their super duper hyper scope rings up at 10£ too as well as two tins of JSB Exact 8,4´s. As that is what they offer at this hardware chain that sells them.
Sure.

Tore the thing apart first thing. Didn´t even fire a shot and... color me impressed. Really. But..we´re getting ahead of ourselves here. So. Put it back together, filled her up to the set pressure limit (which is 2000psi) and let her rip.
I about burst into laughter. Chrono showed 7,5J.. i guess due the same rifle being offered in Germany where this is the limit to stay exempt. Not only that, the print on target.. hell a scattergun would have done better.
But.
Knowing all to well that all barrels on imported guns are full of anti rust goo i took the barrel off, a 530mm jobbie, and handed it a good clean. Then took the rear plug for the hammer spring off, drilled and tapped that for an M8 bolt to make it adjustable and... Guess what..



...@ 30 meters. Well. A starting point at least! Not to shabby for a 135£ gun me thinks! But.. why stop there right?



One MAJOR contributing factor to why them prints on target weren´t any better is no doubt the atrocious trigger. THE worst trigger i´ve ever experienced, on ANY gun. Period! This thing HAD to come apart and what we see there is the entire trigger group as it comes off the gun.
..and..



That´s what that massive trigger group contains. A trigger as simple as it gets but have they EVER set it up as bad as it´ll go. Uhu. Adjustable, by three screws all in all, and it being single stage..
I polished the mating surfaces into obliviation and in turn replaced the trigger return spring for a WAY weaker one and then adjusted the living daylights out of that thing. Even the shutter angles of it are nothing short of insane but.. whatever.
At that rate i arrived on a MARGINAL usable trigger setup, and as such now i could at least have the rifle go off in the direction intended.



Point here though none the less is that the innards are ANYTHING but sub par!
If we compare to the Diana Stormrider/PR-900 the latter is put together with sub par materials within IMO. If you intend to work on your PR style rifle expect threads to go bad in a jiffy and so on.
NOT so with this Chief rip-off. I wouldn´t stretch it and say it´s top notch, cause it isn´t, but none the less materials involved which will get the job done, for more than just one tear down. O-rings used.. same deal. Nah.
On a general whole this Chief rip-off is put together with both better design as materials vs "the rest of the budget crop" guns. At least to my findings.
REALLY impressive seeing the hang tag of this thing.

What´s more sharp tools has been used throughout, and this holds true for everywhere on the gun. Fitment of the hardparts vs the stock for instance.. such that you have to use force to take them apart, and this not due sloppy or "second hand" fitment but due VERY close tolerances being kept.
My hat´s off!



Right. So the one place on the gun where they DID cheap out, for whatever reason, is the seal between the tube/tank and the receiver on the gun. Where we typically find a transfer port on the Chief it´s just a piece of hard plastic cut to fit the curvature between the two pieces. The hard plastic of course NOT ideal seeing how a PCP works.
So.
Me being me i set out to handle that and did so by shoving an 8mm end mill into the exhaust port of the valve and in turn ditto for the mating end on the receiver. Then turned a more normal transfer port out of brass, to work with a sealing o-ring each end of course.
In short a design we encounter on basically ALL other simpler PCP´s, and one that WORKS at that.
Nah.
You´re correct.. this was to evolve into something it was CERTAINLY not as i took it out of its cardboard box, but again.. to YOU guys partly besides the point per se.

Anyways. Barrel got a trip on the lathe too handing it a fresh muzzle crown and as i now drilled the various ports out to 4,5mm.. so did the chamber. Get a polish that is.



This then still on stock hammer and spring, using the 8,4´s. Uhu, still 30 meters and indeed.. getting better. Already at this point that there is stellar performance out of a 135£ gun @ 30 meters in my book.

However..



Never even bothered checking weight of the stock hammer but suffice it to say i wouldn´t be surprised if that thing came in around 100 grams! Yes. EXTREMELY heavy. So again.. a trip on the lathe.
Or.. several actually. It went to 56 grams.. to 45 grams.. to end up at 37 grams. But truth be told i believe i eventually will make it end up around the 45gram mark again as a happy middle.
The spring guide is stock.. and seeing where this was going.. no need for that where we´re going!
Yeah.
This one´ll crack your head wide open as far as what a "lowly" 177" is capable of. Guaranteed.

Now. As many of you are aware i use all my PCP´s for pesting (rats mainly) and as such i thought i wanted to try it out with slugs too. The 8,4 pellets in their own rights. So i ordered the heaviest pellets i could grab for the moment, which are the 20 grains H&N offerings.

Loading them up aaaaaand.. we were back to scattergun prints. To be expected?
Well.
No.
So off the barrel came and i shoved both them H&N´s and Piledrivers through there, and none of them even touched the rifling. No wonder results were out of bounds!