Quote:
Originally Posted by vash
I'll be driving past Mac1 this upcoming holiday. I am hoping to stop by to drop off my Sheridan. mine is stupid accurate as it is. with his peep sight, I hope to go full "Quigley down under". he told me he only likes to work on the older ones.
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Tim used to have inventory on hand, so we could just order a custom Steroid build directly from him. Then the quality of the Crossman made "Sheridans" got so bad that he quit stocking them. The issue was the .20 caliber barrel, which he told me was being produced on worn out tooling. The "Benjamin" barrels, in .177 and .22, were still fine, so I ordered a "Benjamin" in .22 caliber. By that time they were the same rifle anyway. Today, he doesn't stock either. You have to send (or drop off) a rifle for modification.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rusty Heap
shooting a sub-sonic .22 rim fire ammo is quieter than any of Higgins pumps. His rifles and pistols are LOUD for an "air" gun.
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Yes, at full power, they are quite loud. Standard Sheridan and Benjamin rifles always maxed out at eight pumps. The issue is with the valving, wherein the "exhaust" valve could not evacuate any more air than that from the pressure chamber. Tim's "Steroid" guns will fully exhaust up to 14 pumps, depending on pellet, with heavier pellets making the rifle fully exhaust more air. And yes, on 14 pumps with heavy pellets, they really crack. But the rifle is doubling the energy of the "stock" rifle.
The beauty of these rifles, however, is their variable power. Every one of my four "Steroid" rifles has a "light" load, with a lighter pellet, that utilizes three to five pumps. I play with the charge until it shoots to the same point of impact as the "heavy" load. These are not very loud at all, but still louder than a spring piston rifle.
The thing is, though, even at full power, these do not sound like a gunshot. More like a nail gun or something. As such, they don't garner nearly the attention of even a subsonic .22. It's just a distinctly different sound.