Phantom 500 mod

[just missed]

Currently working on a Phantom 500, in the process of cleaning up the inside. Have a Phantom 1000 spring and piston but I'm thinking there must be a better spring option out there....any ideas?

[AirGunEric]

Any of the "performance" springs out there have proven to be, essentially, a waste of time- 3-4% power increase maximum over the stock spring. If you shim everything correctly, you will get the same power with wasting $40.00 on an aftermarket spring.

[SeanMP]

I can agree with Eric. I have tried everything from springs to nitro pistons in quest/phantoms and they all are within 3% of the factory spring.

The gains to be had in a phantom are in the details of smoothness and consistency.

use the same $$ and swap the trigger for the GTXii from Eric...Best part you can buy for these rifles

[Fastair]

Changer the trigger and it makes a huge difference then I put in a nitro piston and would never go back to the spring.

[just missed]

New trigger ordered and a muzzle break, think I'll hold off on the piston. This Phantom has yet to fire a single pellet, straight from the box to pieces. Would like to see how it performs on a spring first.

[maurice]

This is for ERIC.Reading thread on phantom 500; original aigun i purchased at C TIRE; non pal.Anyways i think you knuw who i am; just purchased hw 97 and hw 80k vortec kits from you.Both are installed and i love them.Verry impressed with the quality thanks for your service.PS the mods you guis are talking i did (no gas ram) everithing else i did.

[AirGunEric]

The bonus here is nobody is here to hype dubious product- if something doesn't work or is a waste of time/money- no one is motivated to ramble on about its wonderfulness or promote it.. I have to admit there are a couple products I do sell that are not, in my view, terribly useful- but I grew tired of person after person asking why I didn't carry "product x" when I carried an entire line of other products from the same source. This is not to say such products are useless or "junk"- but they may not, realistically do anything functionally or cosmetically useful (think "stainless steel sear" for example- sure it won't rust anytime soon, but it isn't going to improve shootability as it is simply a copy of a stock sear- all it is, really, is "bling" no one can see when the gun is fully assembled.

[maecolis]

I'm with Eric on this as well...

For the most part, the airguns we buy have been designed and tweaked for years before we ever get our hands on them. Aside from cosmetic changes, the underlying hardware really hasn't changed. My old gamo 220 from almost 15 years ago is functionally identical to the modern Crosman springers. Of course, they are made for mass production - gtx triggers are excellent additions, but for the most part, there isn't much more you can do to a rifle than to bling it up.

The idea of putting a ludicrously expensive part into a mass production rifle is like putting gold hubcaps on a ford pinto. Sure, it looks cool, but doesn't really do anything.... Although, putting an f1 engine in a pinto may get you some strange looks...

[maurice]

YOU guys are right, production guns are tweaked but to manufacturers advantage.Think of it this way; spent good money on an hw97k and hw80k love them booth, did they perform as advertized no, hence aftermarket kits. Some are good some are bad.They have a bottom line to contend with, thats OK.

[AirGunEric]

Just so there's no confusion- I'm not suggesting there isn't room for improvement on many guns (rsterne has done some very interesting things with PCP guns that are "non stock")- the point, however, is to figure out what is a useful improvement and what is a waste of time. As Sean pointed out, the single best improvement to the Phantom-Quest-B18 platform rifles is the trigger- and it does make for a radically better shooting experience.

But, if someone desperately wants to squeeze every last foot per second out of their Phantom 500, but doesn't really want to spend any time doing it 'properly' (i.e. the hard way through some trial-and-error with shims), perhaps a $30-40 aftermarket spring that is just installed in the tube is an acceptable use of the time/resources, although I think most people would tend to disagree with that line of thinking.