"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!

[Racing]

How do we solve that shade tree? I reasoned as such that them slugs are swaged to beging with so.. expanding them ever so slightly more shouldn´t be a big deal. So i recut/shaped a 4,5mm drill bit and the hole drilled in turn... i honed out to a true 4,60mm max diameter and then turned a drift of sorts shaped vs the end of them H&N´s setting max depth with an anal approach and let it rip.
Yes ma´m.
We were on the money. In the end i ended up expanding them slugs to 4,56mm which sure did the trick, and we´ll get to that... Just keep reading.



Uhu. Just like the PR and other more simple to the build rifles the Chief sports an "intermediate" plug that works as an outlet port for the pressure gauge and a de-pinger at the same time.
The actual valve is held in place in a rather smart manner in as much that the valve is sorts of free floating and kept in place with 3pcs of M4 allens where their HEADS are used as shear points! Smart, but.. 2000psi? Gimme a break already!
The tube is out of carbon steel on 2.5mm thickness and slightly larger in diameter vs the PR series rifles and thus hold a whopping approx 150cc+. Now. Them three allen cap screws there.. i live where so called 12:9 class bolts are basically for free and that there would be the ONLY reason for keeping max pressure to 2000psi.. so replaced those and let it rip, handing it the full 250 bar.
No.
That´s NOT a misprint and YES i´m all to aware what i´m doing. As you can gather the rear plug for the hammer spring had already been drilled and tapped for an M8 bolt and thus adjustable.. and now the spring became spring-S and WAY more hammer spring was arrived on.

Using 8,4´s... through the wall of sound in a heartbeat.
Well. That much for keeping it sane! So.. eff it. LET`S GO!



The tube design keeps this hammer stop and if you re-look at the picture just a tad up you´ll notice that the hammer has a pronounced "nose" to it. See what i gathered was that the stock poppet used an extremely long spindle and that sure doesn´t help for consistency as hammer spring goes up and that thing gets smacked the living daylights out of.
Ergo i shortened the spindle and to end up with the approx correct "free bore" for the thing that "nose" on the hammer was arrived on AND the hammer stop got thinned a tad too.
So.





At this point i had the H&N 20s running rather stiff. So time to go ratting. Now.. stay tuned cause.. things evolved a tad from here. Really. I was semi pleased with the accuracy arrived on but albeit this not an "air hog" of course at this level.. i need to fill up more often than what´s funny.
As some of you are aware.. no stranger to that either so this is where it all went to hell in a handbasket at the drop of a hat.



A known FACT is that i´m no fan of bolt action PCP´s. Seeing the advent of side levers, and thereby their leverage possible, i see NO reason to keep this 1:1 using a bolt. But.. giving thought to converting this to a side lever for now i arrived on tossing that stock bolt handle in the bin and make one fitting the hands of a grown man.
Seeing the hammer springs involved this was a HUGE leap forward to me. In turn, previous i was at the level where the bolt handle would jump around upon firing.. and the added weight of this setup in essence made that come to a stop.
Uhu.
Brass balls if ever



Yeah! We were getting somewhere! At this point i had them 20´s exit around the 1050 mark, but there for some reason the thing stonewalled. Be adviced though, although far from the British melting point, we´re STILL talking a 135£ PCP STILL on the stock valve and STILL on the stock barrel.
GET SOME! (in short)



But yeah. You´re by now most likely seeing where this is going right? Yep.



..and now we were into approx 330cc´s worth of air. At 250 bar. Seamless high pressure tubing used, end pieces out of SIS-2172 that first up are threaded in place then seamed with the TIG at 140A and finally has had 4 holes drilled through at each end which were rosette welded up too. In short one MASSIVELY safe setup, Suspenders n belt n the full 9 yards..
What the Dr ordered in this case i´d say and surely an alternative to the British situated PCP guy with know-how on a budget too.



Yes. No doubt a bit of inletting needed. Suffice it to say that the diameter tube arrived on was picked to fit within the stock lines MOSTLY.



Yep! Now we´re getting somewhere! Things started to really pan out at this stage.. and i was a happy camper.

[Racing]

Even the Foster fitting was replaced, with one of them "one fits it all" setups. Ie; built in valving and what not, and at this rate the tube at such a distance vs the can that i could fill her up as she were, which i sure couldn´t on the stock setup with a moderator installed.
Moderator in turn out of steel, one of my "toss n turn" protos. Hence the steel used for shell material.
But yeah.

First trials were as trouble free as anyone could ever ask. The thing just.. worked. Now. Recall it stonewalled? Well, i found out why. Brain fart on my behalf, i had forgot about the "lid" for the return spring on the valve but.. as this was going.. outta here!
Yep. Omitted it completely and get this..

I used an FX "brick" for chrono right.. first shot with hammer springs tensioned as they were i was greeted by this BIG super sonic bang! I had a hard time believing it seeing i was using the "heavy" 20 grain H&N 177 pillls but.. there it was.
So out the LabRadar came as the FX brick stops around the 1150 mark and i was OBVIOUSLY beyond that. LabRadar said.. 1288fps.
1288fps for 20 grains equals .. get this.
100 Joules. Or 73fpe! SAY WUT?!?
Hm.The LabRadar doesn´t lie however so.. That event to rest i backed off on hammer spring to keep it sub and ended up dialing it in at 1050fps approx. That´s still a respectable 66J/49fpe..
Out of a 177cal gun with a hang tag of 135£

Weeeeeell..

Why all this talk of performance when limited to 12fpe? It isn´t ABOUT the actual numbers but way more so what can be HAD through a little know how and thereby stating that the parts inherent will take the bloody abuse and live to tell about it. Seeing the performance level of this "el-cheapo" it will certainly survive and look VERY good doing so at 12fpe TOO.
THAT`S what this post is about.





Cause.. here´s the last tidbit of "read ´em n wheep".... Running this at 1050fps STILL on the stock barrel just with "massaged" 20 grain pills to make it perform...



...that there cluster is 9 shots taken @ 30 meters.
Talk about the little engine that could!

Now. Of course this is by NO means a "135£ gun" anymore, seeing the work invested. Granted. But again, this post is to cater to the DIY´r..and i truly believe it does.
Yes.
The stock trigger got honed even more and albeit i´ve given serious consideration to replacing the innards of it with a "weighed" spring balanced unit off of a Kral or Artemis M-16 or the likes the truth is that.. as a single stage (and i truly hate single stage triggers) it now works.
Ie; it´s perfectly predictable.

Rest here.. more just cheap materials, a few quid worth i´d say, and that´s about it. Uhu. It hands this level of performance on 4,5mm transfers running a 250 bar fill and does so all day long.



As some of you know i own a PCP or two by now but.. might be the novelty speaking i guess, but i´m a believer since. I will NEVER look down on the 177cal again as long as i live. Sure. Them 20 grain hollow points don´t hand the downright mayhem on the rats the 25´s do running a tad even more power but they will SURE suffice making rats fall over all the way out to 100 meters with ease.
Entry hole being them minescule little 4,5mm might be, the exits are anything but. I´ll tell you that much and i´ve run it as such for a little while now. Impressed?
Yeah.
Yeah, you can blunty call me impressed.

That little pointless "toy for grown up" at 135 pounds.
Insane.
Just insane.

..and the point here is that for the most part a build along the same lines just handing 12fpe would be just as viable me thinks. Fact is i tried accuracy with them 20s running 400fps too.. and they just work.
Sure. I doubt them breaking up and expanding much at those speeds, but.. still besides the point isn´t it? Point being the downright stellar accuracy that´s to be had FROM A 135 POUND piece of PCP! In short, SLUG YOUR BARRELS BOYS N GIRLS! Yes, there´s reasons to.. LOL

So yeah.
Just yeah.
For a ride this has been.

[rapidresponse1]

well done that man

[Benelli B76]

What fun you are having, I am jealous. Looks Chinese origin with some QB 78 parts in the original construction.

Baz

[Neil54]

Interesting read.

Must try out the slugs I bought.

[nishijin]

What the....

[Shed tuner]

I love it man, great work.

[On-the-target]

The trigger is straight off a QB78 and yes, they are rubbish triggers.

[ZAKDINGEL]

Love it

[Racing]

Thx guys.
In all honesty i think the post goes to show that first up it IS doable.
Second up, it´s never over ´til the fat lady sings. Ie; it might be a mere 135£, maybe so, but that´s NOT the same as that it won´t shoot.

Indeed the Chief is based on the old QB guns. Still. A working PCP out the door at 135£ is a feat as far as i´m concerned and when you realize the chinese has outdone themselves as far as product quality control at that..

I´ve done my fair share of fooling around with true budget PCP´s as far as i´m concerned and truth be told as far as build Q of use to the DIY nothing touches this.

That i down the road went ape on it is a different matter all together. On that note i find the performance results amazing, never had i thought...

Btw. Got to try the 16 grain offerings by H&N in the BSA and.. no dice.
Didn´t even shoot close to what the 20´s do as is.

[Benelli B76]

As you have no limit over there apparently, just buy a Benjamin Marauder off the shelf to save all that work.

Baz

[Strimmer]

Love reading your threads 👍

[Racing]

As you have no limit over there apparently, just buy a Benjamin Marauder off the shelf to save all that work.

Baz

Nah.
To weak.
To be blunt the PCP on the market today that is the easiest to soup up is the Reximex Daystar as far as i´m concerned. Nothing even comes close, them boys did something right.



Yep. A 25 cal and using 44 grain slugs it hands an easy 140J/103fpe on mere 5,5mm ports on a 250 fill.
No. That´s not a misprint.
On 5.5mm ports. In other words WAY WAY WAY from "maxed out" as far as that. But to keep it subsonic using the available slugs as of current.. that´s kind of where ya hit the wall.
My hat´s off to Reximex though as far as the Daystar. Very simple and extremely rugged build, and that at reasonable money as far as i´m concerned. Sure. Reximex has had their "drama" as far as the first ones going through the gates, but that seems all worked out by now.

Fact is, next one to me will be the Meta Premium in 25cal. Want to see how much of an Impact contender it really is. 90cc plenum and 700mm worth of barrel stock.