Mods and Strippers?
Sounds like an Easter bank holiday in Brighton to me. (Anyone under 35 will probably need to see Quadrophenia to know what I’m on about)
Actually though it’s not. They are names of gizmardry (it’s a new word I’ve invented, a cross between gizmo and wizardry) that hang on the end of the barrel and do different things. Odd name I know but you’ll see that they do bear some relevance to what they do and still not as oddly named as a hamster. I still don’t know why a lump of wood is named after a small furry thing.
Back to the point in hand there’s a plethora of things to stick on a rifle. And what with me getting ready for the UKAHFT circuit this year, I’m interested in finding out whether or not items work and bring any benefits to the table, importantly what they do and how they do it, and lastly is it something I could effectively use in my hunting.
That is how I came upon a curio named a stripper or to be precise a “fat stripper” as the guy referred to it.
It was one of those rainy nights which we seem to get a fair bit of this time of year. You know how it’s bitterly cold all week, a bit brisk first thing but the days are clear and so bright you spend your trip to work wearing sunglasses. Then the second you leave work on Friday, by the time you halfway home its darkening up and by the time you get home its raining, and it will keep that up until you go back to work on Monday. When the sun comes out and it’s time for the sunglasses.
So it was on another rainy Saturday after a washed out Friday night, I found myself on one of the Airgun forums, reading the latest posts, and anything that keeps me away from the for sale section. Within seconds of hitting those I’m off see if I have enough space to squeeze a springer in?
That’s how I happened upon the fat stripper. I had no idea what it was, is, or what it does. The beauty about the online forums is that there are plenty of people who do know and all you have to do is ask. I did, and I got answers. This is the science bit as it alas described to me
Turbulent air is stripped away, so the pellet skirt isn’t destablised and long range grouping is improved by up to 50%. Also with the pellet skirt not doing the Tango on the way down the range and causing extra drag, in many instances the pellet has a flatter trajectory at given ranges.
So as I understand it, a pellet gets pushed down a barrel by the air behind it, the pressure pushing it out. When it leaves the barrel that air rushes around it making it “wobble”.
Still with me?
The theory is that by stripping that air away, the pellet doesn’t get a wobble on, and has a straight flight. As every pellet leaves the barrel equally unaffected by the rush of air you’ll get better groupings.
When a pellet leaves a barrel it’s like uncorking a bottle hence the crack. It was described to me like a balloon. If you pop it with a pin it makes a loud bang, if you untie the end and let some air out, you can pop it making little noise. A silencer or moderator usually has a set of baffles and chambers, which captures the air and releases it slowly
The chambers etc, give the pressure behind the pellet a bigger space to expand into. So its like letting air out of the balloon. When the pellet finally leaves, the pressure being uncorked is much lower making the sound softer .
A stripper has a hole down the middle for the pellet to travel through, but instead of chambers there is a HUG cone. Imagine an Ice cream cone with no in cream in it and the bottom bitten off.. The cone directs the air away from the pellet and the a load of holes in the case lets the air escape.
Its simple, sounded like a good bit of kit and could be extremely useful in the HFT events. I wanted to test one and I needed to get some practice in as I’d been rained off for weeks. In fact the guys who explained what they were, U.K.Neil on the Airgun BBS could make me one in 48hrs.
I ordered one up, booked a days holiday, printed off some targets and went off to play...
the cone in the center
the holes that expel the air.
When I got there it started raining. So I was stuck in the barns.
I found a nice sized bucket to put my targets in and keep them from getting wet. And set myself up at various rested positions around the barn. That way I can see how it performs at various distances.
  
I know it’s not a clinical test, more a field trial. I don’t normally shoot on a range so any results on there could be a million miles away from results I’d get in the field.
Feeble excuses aside, I don’t have access to a range so I have to use what I’ve got. I’d also like to get a look at the way the air came out of the barrel, see if it did expel any air but I’m short of a smoke filled chamber and slow motion recording gear. I don’t feel clever enough to rig something up either. Soo I’ll stick with the non techy paper mode.
SO as to make it fair I did the same test with my normal Weihrauch silencer on and without anything on the barrel. I could compare the results then.
First up was the Airstripper. It really really looks good. Its slimline shiny and has big holes in it. It deserves to sit on a gun just because it looks sooooo good. It also makes the gun shorter. Now I don’t know if that makes any difference to anything at all, but it’s a little bit shorter. So on the coolness of looks stakes its wins hands down.
Settling in I released 5 pellets free from the closet position. And this is where I found the first difference. Its loud, it’s REALLY loud. But it sounded brilliant. Truth be told I haven’t shot a silencer free rifle for ooooooooh 20 years, and it’s not exactly earshattering loud. But I’d forgotten what it sounded like. I quite liked it and I don’t know if it would be too loud to hunt with.
However you might have to do a bit of waiting after you take a shot for any other vermin to return.
5 shots later and I moved onto the next place to take 5 more, and then move further out to do 5 more. 15 shots, 3 different distances then do it again with the silencer, and just the barrel.
Putting the silencer on again, makes you realise just how good a job they do. The noise being hushed back down to a whisper, and so quiet the action chink was louder. The pellets were slamming in exactly where I was aiming. Its no surprise as the rifle had been zero’d with the silencer on, whereas with the stripper they were over and up a little, so you could see it had made some difference to the pellet flight. The grouping with the silencer weren’t actually that bad either and on initial inspection it looked like it had grouped better than the stripper
Walloping a load of pellets down at a new target without anything on the end shows how good a job they both do. I got one pellet up in the top right. I knew it hadn’t pulled or snatched the shot and I was a little surprised at where it ended up. Measuring it later it was a good 9.5cm up and 6.8 right of the main group. Mind you what I did see is the air expelling out of the end of the barrel. Not only does it go pop, you can see it waft out like breath on a cold day in the scope. Who needs smoke chambers and slow motion cameras.
Well I’d like them if anyone’s offering. . .
So job done I was now getting to the point where I’d be out of Air soon, The X2 had just set 45 pellets free and a couple of extra ones here and there. It was also still raining and as I’d pretty much achieved what I’d wanted and the rain would stop anything coming out to play. I set off for home to get my tape measure out and see what results we had.
Initially it looked to me like the silencer had got it. It had laid the pellets out in quite a neat pattern being a sort of T shape. The stripper however grouped the whole lot in one section creating effectively one big hole in the target. The un-aided barrel faired the worst even taking the rogue pellet out which after all it may have been a bit squashed and whatever it had grouped poorly, and it looked a bit like I’d done it with a shotgun. So again that says a lot for fitting something on the end of your barrel.
So the results, well getting my tape measure out third place was of course the barrel. What I have done is measure the distance which gives me the total grouping surface area.
 
With the rogue pellet the area was 9.8 x 6.8 = 64.6 cm
Without the rogue one 3.5 x 3.3 = 11.5 cm. That’s a 35mm killzone on a knockdown so it’s not bad at all.
But not as good as our second placer, the silencer. It was close and I mean really close like I said it wasn’t until I got home and measured that I actually found out it had come second. Its group was
2.5 x 2.8 = 7cm
that would happily sit in a 30mm killzone all day long.
So the winner, and I know how its suppose to work, I can’t tell you if that is how it does work, or whether its super shiny blingyness impresses the pellets to do better, but it does something as it came in with a grouping of
1.9 x 1.5 = 2.85cm
technically you’d get them all in a 20mm kill and most of them would lie in 15mm.
My conclusion is it works, it’s noisy and I think practicality wise, its quieter then no end to the barrel but it’s not as good as a silencer on noise terms. Grouping terms its brilliant and it wins there as well as the blingyness stakes hands down. I don’t know how important groupings are to you in the hunting field, to me its noise levels and when a silencer does just about nigh on as well. I choose a silencer for fieldwork.
However for comp and range shooting these things are just brilliant, noise levels aren’t important, bling is in and groupings are one of the most important factors out there. Groupings are important as it means there is consistency. Different pegs, different distances however you can lay down sight up safe in the knowledge that this pellet is going precisely where its aimed every time.
Without a doubt looking at my evidence, I have to say it works. 15 pellets brought from a grouped circle of 98 mm down to 19mm. That’s a lot of dropped points from faceplate hits down to banging out nigh on 15mm kills all day long.
And they do sound brilliant and look great.
Me being me I’m greedy and want the best of both worlds. So I’ve had a chat with the U.K.Neil and he can do something that has affectionately been called a modripper for my Rapid. It’s technically a Silencer (sound moderator) with an airstripper on the end.
SO we’ll see how that compares to the Evo vortex its currently sporting and I will of course keep you posted.
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