sniper 2

[DeepFreeze]

I'm not sure what my setup is. The best setup I had was some spring I found laying around as the main spring and no valve spring. I know it sounds crazy, and we never could figure out how it worked, but it did. That was the most consistent and efficient it ever was and the operating pressure was about 180-200 psi. I am now running it around 250 psi because of the fact it actually has all of the springs in needs. I think I am still just running some springs I had laying around. I wish I could be more help. I am sure if you ask Matt C. at the store, Grendel, or Thumper they would be able to help you out more, because they have been building more Snipers lately than I have.

[Grendel]

IMHO - You can not go by the spring colors (end of story) not all providers stick to consistant colors to spring weight relationships. Madman is pretty consistant but the tolerance variation accepted by providers is very erratic so a red spring out of one bag will differ significantly from one out of another bag by the same provider. I personally collect any and all compression springs because I can always find a use for them. Just ask Junkie

This is how I like to set up my guns (assuming you are going for low pressure).

1) get a good low pressure gage

2) get a good USED (this is important) regulator I like Stabilizers, ANS GenX-II, AKA Sidewinder or CP(non-CO2). I like used or well excercised 1000 cycles or more so I'm sure the spring pack has settled in for more consistancey shot to shot. New regs tend to flake out on consistancey at bad times.

3) Multiple different spring rate compression springs for both the main and valve springs. Tuning is trial and error and patience.

4) The lower pressure you want to go the heavier the hammer needs to be. Free Flow Tungsten hammers are great for real low pressures but hard to find. Shocktech also makes a stainless headed brass hammer that is heavey too. Though you can find old brass stock hammers and many different weight "stock" steel hammers to work with too. I pick up loose hammers all the time to have different weights available for different setups.

5) Find a port or add a port to attach you low pressure gage to the output of you regulator.

6) Find the center of your regulators adjustment and adjust your regulator to that point (no air required)

7) pull you main and valve springs and test your collection of springs and place a light weight spring with your valve and a medium weight spring for your main spring (reassemble) and adjust IVG to mid way.

8) adjust your trigger pull/sear break to a comfortable position.

9) make sure everything is assembled ready to put air on the gun.

10) Cock your Sniper (this takes pressure off the valve so it will seat) then air up gun and set regulator to desired pressure ( you will have to dry fire the gun a few times to get good consistant readings. When you air up the gun even cocked you might be leaking air down the barrel/out of valve this is a sign your pressure is too low or valve is damage/dirty or the hammer is not cocked so dry fire a couple of times if it seals you are fine if not you either have to raise you regulator pressure or put in a stiffer (heavier) valve spring.

11) If every thing is at the desired pressure and it is not leaking, dry fire the gun and see if the valve is leaking after being fired and the hammer is forward. If it leaking at this point back out the IVG until it consistantly does not leak with the hammer forward. If you have to back out the IVG most or all the way back go with a lighter main spring.

12) Now that you have the gun aired up and not leaking at you acceptable pressure you get to now chrono the gun. Hopefully your gun will chrono somewhere near a reasonable velocity but if it does not no worry just some more trial and error to get it there. If the velocity is low screw in the IVG until it:

a) obtains the desired velocity with out leaking ( you are essentially
done).
b) the IVG bottoms out or nearly bottoms out. this means you need
a heavier spring and start IVG adjustment again after it is replaced.
If the valves starts leaking with the hammer forward you will also
need to use a heavier valve spring now too (I said it is trial and
error, sometimes more error then trial )

If the velocity is high screw out the IVG until it:

a) obtains the desired velocity with out leaking ( you are essentially
done).
b) the IVG is most or all the way out, this means you need a lighter
main spring and/or you need a heavier valve spring ( but start with
the main spring for quickest results).

This is not as hard as it might sound just take your time have plenty of air on hand and do not get frustrated. You are balancing two springs, air pressure, hammer weight and main spring adjustment to get your gun to work consistantly at your desired pressure. Rearly can you use someone elses setup and get they same results they get since there is such great varience in springs, valves and volume behind the valve, which all play a part in how your gun functions. You do not have to replace your stock valve in a 2K+ Sniper it has sufficient flow rates and consistancy to achieve low but not ultra low pressures. The other mentioned valves do work better but the gain is subjective mostly and the cost is more. That being said my main sniper uses and Rat valve and my backup uses a CCM valve.

I do not recommend you try to set your gun for sub 250 psi. You loose both a lot of efficiency and and shot to shot consistancy. I have actually raised my personal snipers to between 300-350 psi for better consitancy and greater air efficiency under 300 psi you are trading efficiency for marginally quieter gun and below 250 psi few people I've know have great luck. I actually had my gun down to approx. 180 psi and it functioned fine but was a gas hog and the shot to shot consistancy was off.

Sorry so long winded but the questions was asked and though not directly related to the original topic I do feel this can help the original poster in his pursuit. Good luck and if you have any questions by all means just ask.

[mankilla]

my mom is going to buy it for me for christmas i think so i dont know how much she wants to spend probebly like 3 hundred

[thumper]

the Grendel man knows his stuff.. Of course deep aint no slouch neither...
for the tunage, it is a balance of springs, hammer (and cocking rod) weight, pressure and just to piss of the old guys the front end volume.

Now it you dont understand this ballance, or have the Zen to guess to a close estimate, get someone to help part one together for you. If mom has $300 for Xmass budget, I would put it towards the best reg (used stabilizer in great shape $75ish), the best barrel kit possible (Kaner $180 new, 12" Sly new (make sure kit has .684 back)), and spend whats left over on an ebay RF body w/ decent grip frame - no plastic and no double trigger. These usually come from ebay for < $100, really buggered up in some way, but the valving, volume and springs are usually OK to start with.

The rest can be pieced together - first to get things working, and second to tweek to cherry pie perfection.

Im with grendel on pressure : 350psi to 400psi, 12" barrel, and either stock 2K valve chamber or 99 value chamber w/ drilled guide rod .191"x1.5". The madd man blue springs usually work good in the front, and the rear springs is the one you have to tweek to optimize to preference. Maddman greens for summer/srping and blues in the winter have been working for me.

As for the pump arm - I play the wgp stock delrin 2K style. they wiggle more than the CCM 2 rod style, but they are lighter, make less noise when pumping, and the grip is a bit more sure when things get painted up. (hands/gloves). I like the styling of the new vendetta pump arms. And vendetta is selling WGP clones for around $40.

-------------------------------- that gets you playing-----------

Then you tweek..

DROPS/ON OFFS: FOR CO2 Players..
On most of my stuff, Ive been pulling off macroline and drops and replacing w/ steel braid and duckbill bottom lines. - fewer seals to fail and more reliable. I then put on/offs on 16oz co2 tanks so I can degass w/o trashing the tank orings. This has proven over and over to be more reliable than aftermarket rails and microdrops w/ on-offs - especially for co2 players.

BOLTS:
it has to fit your back block - 99 bolts fit 99 back blocks, 2k bolts fit 2k back blocks, evo bolts fit evo pblocks - so be careful before you buy..
Im a firm believer in the venturi effect, especially in the 350-400psi range. My favs are #1) the Belsales Supercharger aluminum venturi, #2) wgp black magic venturi, and im still evaluating a shocktech superfly 3hole.

HAMMERS:
If you think you need more weight, CCM makes a heavy pull rod.. $11 and easy to get.. CCM internal kits are sweet, but haven been inside Belsales internals - both valve, and hammer stuff - I'de put Belsales stuff as better with CCM as a close second.

An old trashed hammer can be polished as can the track that it travels. This marriage need to be smooth as a babies butt because friction = inconsistant impact on valve = inconsistant velocity = inconsistant point of ball impact.
This is one reason why a lot of the old guys are looking for the old evolution bodies to build on.

GRIP FRAMES:
This really gets into preference.
Coz loves his dye single trigger swings. Gman loves his benchmark 45 w/ ans guts - I love the old wgp aluminum swings w/ pmi grips. Try all before you start looking - but plan on a pretty tough hunt. McarterBrown may help in the quest. 45's single sliders are pretty easy to come by as lots of the speedball guys went to double triggers.

nuff said.

[Grendel]

There is a lot of good info floating around, maybe we should collect in one post for future reference. (I'll see about doing that)

Most of your guns set up is personal preferance as stated origingally by Deepfreeze. 2k+ bodies are most likely the easiest to setup but I love the look of the old flat sided bodies and hate VF but that is IMHO. You have to decide whether you are wanting to run CO2 or HPA or both. Some regulators will run well on CO2 and some will not but all will work with HPA in my experience. I feel in a Sniper or any pump the gain in consistancy when using HPA over CO2 is small, given you set up you gun right, to offset the cost of an HPA rig. If you already have a good HPA rig then it is worth setting up your gun that way, but I would not invest in HPA just for a sniper. I have one gun set up for HPA (Main Gun) and one dedicated to CO2 for those times HPA is hard to come by.

Bolts - I like and use the Free Flow venturi bolt it is similar to Besales well made and works great and I have a soft spot for the JAM Bolt but it does have an issue with double feeding with crappy paint.

Trigger Frames - I use ANS Quickfire frames and guts when I can. Cozie's Dye single trigger is sweat but hard to find at a good price (I'm Cheap ), Old Stock WGP potmetal triggerframes can be setup real nice but potmetal is well potmetal not very strong so they are easy to strip out or break.

Valves - Stock 2k+ is good, Rat good, CCM good, Besales good, AKA tornado great (expensive), Madman Rocket, jury still out but real neat.

Hammer - any old hammer that I can polish up and has some good weight.

Barrel - I use SP Freak setup with WWA Back it works fine for me so no reason to pay to "upgrade" to a different system. I've tried the Kaner and it works well and I really like the CCM carbon fiber barrel kit (even though Thumper did not like it) it is ugly though. It is important to get a good quality barrel kit that has different sizes to match bore to paint. Paint anymore varies so greatly and I think the barrel to paint match is the most important part contributing to accuracy.

[iron medic]

Ya'll are wearing my freaking printer out, geez. I love the info, thanks. And by the way the team Im on maybe coming down that way for the MPP games, if so I want to buy the pump gods dinner one night.

[DeepFreeze]

I think you may have noticed we aren't kidding when we say the choices are very personal. Take us three old guys (Grendel, Thumper, and myself). We all would be willing to say there isn't a thing we would change about our individual Sniper II's and each feel that the are the cream of the crop. Then look at the choices we have made when it comes to parts. Other than a couple of screws there aren't too many parts that are the same.
My personal recommendation would be to get a stock Sniper II with a body that you like. Play with it a while and decide what it is you think could be improved and then upgrade from there. If you let us know what it is you don't like; aka (spongy trigger, loud, etc.) then we can steer you in a direction to fix what you see as a deficiency. The best thing about a Sniper II is that it is probably one of the most customizable and personizable guns on the market.

[killamanjaro]

RYAN wtf, buy a nice used one, u could have bought dugans uber up'd sniper II for that much, u can find a really nice, and up'd sniper II for that much

[Grendel]

Originally Posted by killamanjaro

RYAN wtf, buy a nice used one, u could have bought dugans uber up'd sniper II for that much, u can find a really nice, and up'd sniper II for that much

It's more fun to build your own plus someone elses setup no matter how good it is for them might not be right for you.

[crooked butt doctor]

one of my guys is selling a freeflow cocker right now... if you opt to just buy and convert...