Crosman Nitro Piston 177 Report

[Gene_SC]

Norm I would like to clear up something.. Are you refering to the Trail series or the NPSS series Crosman gas rams? Assuming you only hunt with your air guns you may have a point with the difference in energy loss between a .177 and .22. But with that said, not eveyone hunts with air guns.. I hunt but only with .177 cals. The hunting I do is strickly paper hunting.. I am not worried about high fps for that.

[LongIslandArcher]

I bought a lemon .22 cal. NPSS back in November and I worked hours on it to "fix" Crosman's mistakes.  First mistake: the rifle came without the delrin breach spacers, so when it was cocked and the barrel left to droop, the barrel would sway side-to-side.  Shots were inconsistent because the barrel would either shift left or right (of center).   I fixed that by getting 5/16" brass washers from Lowe's.  They fit perfectly and there is absolutely no sideways movement whatsoever.  Second mistake: the piston seal was gouged from being run across all the burrs in the receiver tube punch-outs.  I took it apart, deburred it and replaced it with a good piston seal from Crosman.  Third mistake (and this one is recent): the nitro piston was losing power.  After talking to my contact over at Crosman (an executive, not a customer service rep), I sent the defective nitro piston back and he sent me a new one  Technically, I voided my warranty by taking apart my rifle, but he honored it and sent me these parts for free.  My rifle was grouping 1.5" at 65 yards before nitro piston failure, and I told him I was afraid they might just replace my rifle instead of swapping out just the piston.  The new piston feels like it has more power than the original when it was new, but I'll have to put it through the chrony and see.  I'll also have to do the 2x4 test and see how deep the pellets go in.  With my RWS 350 Magnum, I was able to split a 2x4 with 5 pellets shot into the same hole.  Crosman's customer service is good, but to get them to do what you want, you have to talk to an executive there and they will work with you.  My executive contact was quite impressed when I mentioned I was getting such good groups at 65 yards, so he understood that I made their product better and was probably in Crosman's best interest to make the customers happy.  I am very happy with my worked-over NPSS and I have to give kudos to Crosman for accommodating me like this.  I will definitely buy another Crosman when the time comes and they have something that piques my interest.

[LongIslandArcher]

Oh, one other thing I did was take a Dremel conical grinding bit and turned it by hand in the pellet loading port so that it's flared just enough to get pellets to seat completely flush (or slightly recessed) in the port.  I also stuck a double wadded, slightly oiled (Hoppes #9)  Q-tip inside the breach end of the barrel so the filings wouldn't fall into the barrel.  After port flaring was done, I pushed the Q-tip back out the breach end with a cleaning rod from the muzzle end.  You don't have to flare it out too much so be careful you don't overdo it and DO NOT use the actual Dremel itself to do this.

[vanish]

Thanks for the warm welcome and the quick responses to my questions.  I appreciate the advice on pellets, will have to order a sampler pack.  Guess I'll have to call Crosman for the issue of the barrel turning.  What are the pros and cons for .177 vs .22 caliber Guns?  I do mainly target shooting, but would like to do some hunting eventually.  

[Gene_SC]

Dan, I kill paper.. And if the NPSS is what you have decided on then the .177 would be your best bet for paper. Pellets are cheaper. I have two and the one I have been working on has done very well with hitting the bulls. Mine was shooting in the 970 fps range with 7.9 gn gamo's but I have been using the 8.63 gn from H&N and that has slowed it down in the low 900 fps range. 10.5 Crosman CPH around 850 fps. Still not broken in yet but it will not be long now..

[Rickster]

I am getting good results with Barracuda Match and CPHD Box pellets.
But I have to remember to make sure they are fully seated with the round end of my pelseat.
They fit very tightly and push in hard on the first push, And then they snap in with an even harder push.

I would like to hear from anyone who gets the same Results I am getting.

Rick

[Mug08]

I'll agree with Rick here. When I first got my Remington NPSS (.177) I was having a problem with group size. Tried a lot of different brands,weights etc. On Rick's recommendation (thanks by the way,Rick) I picked up some H&N's of different weights and shapes. They fit a LOT tighter in the breech -so much so I had to use a Beeman "Pell Seat" to get them flush. Smaller groups right away. Put about 300 of those through, now the gun's not nearly as picky as it was. (The infamous break-in period) I picked up some Air Arms Falcons -they drop right in with no force at all - and I can get 5 shots to touch regularly. There's a couple of types it doesn't like - but thats to be expected.

  I have to admit I almost ran out of patience with mine - but now it's a real pleasure to shoot. I prefer it to the other spring guns I shoot

         Mark