TargetTalk

Hello,

Hope you all can help me. My son wants to start shooting and after much lurking and reading, it seems like the 887 would be a good choice.

However, not being familiar with CO2 guns, I would like to know what I should purchase in order to avoid having to make trips (which are inconvenient from where we live) to have the cylinder filled. Tank? Adapter? Additional cylinder? Other?

Many thanks in advance for your help.

HRB

When you order, if you order from Daisy, get a Refill Adapter from them, from what I've seen they are the least expensive. I think about $30-$35

(I also purchase a spare CO2 tank for the gun ... I like spares)

The find a welding/industrial gas supply company, and lease/purchase .... whatever they want to call it, a 20 lb CO2 DIPTUBE tank. This should come filled and run $100-$120.
Whenever you have to fill it, that will be about $20

Also from the same gas supply company, purchase a few additional CO2 tank gaskets ... one comes with the Daisy unit, but I lose about one every year or so .... nice to have a spare or two .... maybe $.50 ea

Go to Walmart and purchase a postal scale .... one of the 0-9lb jobs will do, but make sure it weighs in grams ... a bit finer resolution than oz .... most do this .... anywhere between $50-$75 .... you don't need fancy here, just functional .... a few spare 9V batteries for this too

With that tank and only one gun you should be able to go maybe 3 months .... I have to fill mine every 6 weeks or so and our club has quite a few shooters and 9-12 guns firing 3 times per week ... it will go pretty far with only one shooter

(and yes, I always take spare guns and tanks to matches...... :-)

jhmartin

Thanks very much for the information.

HRB02

When I was shooting a CO2 FWB the drill was a little different. DO NOT let this influence the procedure used for your gun, I only offer this for the differences I noted....

• Buy or lease a CO2 cylinder. There are 2 types, cylinders with and without the "diptube". CO2 exists in 2 states (gas & liquid) within the same cylinder. The cylinders "without" fill from the top (the gaseous) portion of the cylinder. The cylinders "with" the diptube fill from the bottom (the liquid) portion. The cylinder is always used, stored, carried, etc with the valve on top, because the safety device on the valve is expecting to vent excess GAS pressure.

• Use only the appropriate adapter. One end will fit the universal CO2 valve and the other the gun's cylinder. The threads and seals should match and mate perfectly.

• Chilling the gun's cylinder helps to fill the cylinder more completely. Pop it in the freezer for 15 minutes before a refill. In this way the cylinder will be more in tune with the cold liquid CO2 you're going to install.

• If you have your own CO2 storage cylinder, then it is not necessary to fill the gun's cylinder to the maximum capacity every time. Therefore a scale may not be needed at every filling. If you'll simply time a "correct fill", then cut this back by say 25%, you can do it yourself by timing the fill and closing the valve. My FWB liked 10 seconds, so I started closing at 9.

The "funny" thing about CO2 is that the gas always exerts about 800 PSI as long as liquid is present. Unlike compressed air, as long as there is liquid CO2 in the cylinder, the gas pressure in the cylinder is about constant. This is because of the phase change from liquid CO2 to gaseous CO2. Therefore, it doesn't really matter if your cylinder is 25% full or 99% full.... the pressure on the pellet is still ~800 PSI. (People using CA have to be on their toes and fret constantly about their cylinder pressure, but not CO2 users.) All you need is enough liquid CO2 to make it through the match. Therefore you might be VERY happy with a 75% fill. So per-cent-of-fill is simply not an issue with CO2, especially when you have the refill bottle there with you!

The best thing to do is to fill the cylinder, count the shots to empty it, and then you'll know how long it lasts. A scale IS handy for telling how empty your gun's cylinder is, though. All CO2 is sold/ measured/ metered by weight of the liquid, so it's important to know the weight of the cylinder EMPTY and 100% FULL. It's a great reason to buy the wife a good electronic kitchen scale reading in grams and ozs. The weight and fill specs for each gun's cylinder are always stamped on the cylinder. Study those numbers.


Now the other thing to watch for is that the gun's cylinder must always be handled and filled by a sober adult. Even though the CO2 is stored at pressures 3-4 times lower than CA, CO2 is still BIG TIME dangerous. A jet of escaping CO2 can act like Mr. Skywalker's laser and cut your finger right off. So we always check our seals and use the correct size wrenches to snug those connections up. Secondly, the liquid CO2 is very cold and can cause instant frost bite or blindness. That being said though... as long as you open the valve slowly, you'll be OK.... I think. lol

After filling always turn the valve off hard, then loosen the gun cylinder VERY slowly. At some point you'll hear a PSSST! and pressure will be relieved that's caught between the 2 tanks. Then you're safe. The small tank will be very cold and you may not want to handle it for 1 or 2 minutes. Likewise, it's also a good idea to relieve the pressure on the gun after shooting by unscrewing the gun's cylinder. Don't remove it, simply unscrew until you hear the PSSST and stop!

The last part is the big cylinder itself. Can you spell B-O-M-B? If you saw the movie "Jaws" then you might have an inkling of the power captured in that small space. If you knock the brass valve off the top, then that baby is going to take off like a Sidewinder Missile. Little things like people, brick walls, trees, cars, etc are not going to slow it down. You'll want to treat that thing with a little respect. If you'll go to an industrial gas shop, you'll see that ALL the cylinders are chained to the wall. That's not because they wanted to own a lot of chain!! You'd do well to have the man there give you some safety tips.

I was very hesitant at first, but as long as you treat the new "baby" with respect and go slow, you'll have no problems. It's really kind of fun when you get adjusted to it. I really miss my CO2 FWB.

Hope this helps!