FDPCP explosion
 

First and foremost lets get this out of the way. The gun was filled to 1400PSI. The gauge is from Joe B and has been checked against the many other gauges I have and found to be nearly spot on.

As some of you may have seen on other forums this gun exploded and the air tube nearly took off my wife's head. One of you in particular may even have found some sort of sick and twisted joy in this.

This gun was won at the GTA fun shoot. It was to have been personally tuned by Mike Melick, of Flying Dragon Air guns. Mike has always been a very straight shooter to me, and I have no reason to bash him on any level. My main goal is to ensure that this does NOT happen to any others. As details become available I will post them here.

Thanks
Grumpy

Pictures
 

http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/a...syiec6jc9.jpeg

http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/a...s8ggpguax.jpeg

http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/a...ssp6f3umc.jpeg

Couple more pics. Sorry the sun was no cooperating but i think you will see the threads decent enough. Will take more later

http://airgunsforum.com/picture.php?...pictureid=2171

http://airgunsforum.com/picture.php?...pictureid=2170

http://airgunsforum.com/picture.php?...pictureid=2169

http://airgunsforum.com/picture.php?...pictureid=2168

holy Hannah ! I am glad to hear she was not seriously injured

seeing the head in sand posts(mostly on GTA) ....A Darwin Award might be given out soon

I sure hope this was a one in a million China tolerance stack up failure

the warning is out there .....

"This rifle has been modified from CO2 to use compressed air. Requires a source of compressed air to charge the rifle." It is not manufactured as a PCP, but as a CO2 rifle.

If you want some more information about these talk to Splash over at Air Gun One. He bought several of them after buying one he liked a lot. He doesn't seem to think to highly of them. We have had a few conversations about what it would take to make them better, and the general agreement between us is a new receiver and maybe even a new air tube.

FYI: 1400 PSI is not far off of what might be found in a CO2 tank if you leave it out in the sun on a hot summer day in Arizona.

Did you post about this on GTA? I can't find anything about it.

Also lots of new stuff relocated and buried in the non-productive posts gate. There is some good stuff there. Changes in PA return policy, bad pellets from JSB, etc... I suppose that's better than being deleted.

Heck the non-productive posts gate is the one thing I read over there regularly.

that is crazy. Thank god everyone is OK

Depending on how far off horizontal the rifle was when it let go, that tube could be *ANYWHERE*. Mark and I have looked, and our conclusion is that it made it past the woods line. That will make finding it very unlikely( *MOST* unfortunate as this bit should allow a quite reasonable analysis of how it failed). I hope it turns up, I really do.
cheers,
Douglas

yep that one big area to look at.....quite hopeless to find before snow flies


Warning is out there they can heed it or risk serious injury for what $150 ????

I spoke to Mike M. who said when he was testing these guns the tube he got to fly only went about 100 ft before burying itself in the ground. Pretty sure we covered that area fairly well but I guess there's a small possibility we missed it. If we make it back over maybe we can try to canvas that area again..

yes but what was the launch angle on this one?? I sure wouldn't wanna ask Nancy how she was holding it when it went off

100 feet, just a point of reference, that is about the distance from the picnic table to the left hand corner of the pole barn. I could throw it that far. I could not however throw it through a gun case. I think Mike did not test the same sort of failure if max range was 100 feet.
cheers,
Douglas

on way out of case it took front sight of end of barrel as well ...seems like that would not go very far


I bet we never find it

He explained to me that he mounted the gun in a vice, filled it to 4500PSI and then proceeded to whack it with a hammer till she let loose.

I have no idea what angle mine was on when it let loose, but I bet it could not have been more then 10 deg up or down.

wow that sound like a dangerous way to test to failure.......

I am glad he lived to tell the tale, given the conditions you describe, and it further reinforces my belief that he caused a failure different from what we experienced. In any case, we shall continue the search.
cheers,
Douglas

Anyone ever get the truth on what happened? I read on another forum that it was a shipping issue, BS IMO. If that was the case it would have happened on fill up, or while shooting. Sounds more like it's more a case of selling blems and hoping there's not a problem. I know for a fact the seller uses heat shrink in his so called "Pro Tuned Springers".
I hope this reply is OK, I know at another Forum I would get banned and trashed, for what I said.

Have not heard anything from Mike yet. He said the parts were out at a metallurgical lab for testing.

I don't think the truth will ever come out, especially from the GTA.:rolleyes: The issue has to due with defective merchandise that MM, bought to make a fast buck.:eek: One of the reasons he has no commit on the issue. I apologize if that's out of line, but I call them as is.;)

It seams GTA wants to investigate further, however it will be up to the owner of jacked up rifles, if they want to PAY for the fix,BS. These rifles were defective from the start and MM made the new comp tube and installed it. Anyone that bought one of these rifles should be able to get a REFUND. MM and GTA lied to everyone from the start, that's the bottom line. As usual they want to protect their vendors over there.

It has been said that these are rifles that did not meet specs, and were stored, for being defective. MM got them and added a new comp tube, for HPA purpose. He put them together and sold them to the public. He is responsible for what he sells, period. I've said for many years he's a jack leg looking for a quick $$$. Looks like it has caught up with him.
Anyone who has a rifle from me is very pleased. Matter of fact Manny, considers his hunter sport one of his favorites, now that he gave up PCP's.

I guess there's a GTA mod here, since the thread got revived there. That's a good thing to happen, since it brings to light how things are done on some forums. Also brings back up the fact that everybody should quit using these defective AG's.

they are not worth the risk
 

I didn't like the design with C02 .....MM is not a company so forget the recall just scrap em and write off the $150 bucks. Heck what is $150 a pellet order?? Even the smallest injury if one fails will run into BIG BUCKS
MM never made much on any of his stuff so forget about him being able to afford to eat the costs of any of this

We don't censor you over here. But I will say I may not completely agree with your views. Doubt we will ever find out the reason it exploded, but do hope it does not happen to anyone else.

My wife still gets choked up thinking about how close that tube came to taking her head off. We are talking about it being so close it brushed her hair :eek:

Still get a kick out of those who pointed fingers at me saying it was my fault. Hardly is all I'll say. The gun was filled within its recomended spec. It failed plain and simple. Why ? Hell if I know, but there will NEVER be another china pcp in my house...

I am SO happy to hear Nancy did not get injured !

Gun has two points,be careful to use it.

I am glad nobody got hurt, could have been very BAD. I hope everyone quits using these rifles, so hopefully nobody will. I personally got screwed on several of these POS's. MM wouldn't even replace a bad barrel band.

I don't have one of those mod jobs, but I do have a B50 177 and I think its pretty well made. It will out shoot my Marauder 177. The Marauder does gets more use being a repeater and now regulated. Both are deadly at 25 yards. At 50 yards the B50 start to show its better accuracy and at 68 yards its a toss up because the B50 is unregulated. Someday I'll drop a regulator in the B50 and see if it continues to be better out to 60-90 yards.

68 yards is the distance to my side fence, and its about 100 yards from the corner of my shop to the left back corner and 120 to the right. 94 yards is the longest range I've made a kill with the 177 Marauder.The regulator on the Marauder does a good job of maintaining shot speed so it helps at longer range shots, although the curve in the B50 is very smooth.

I do have to admit the o-rings in the B50 are like most Chinese import o-rings. Ok, but short life span.

An update...the male threads on the air tube were out of spec. The major diameter( measured over the top of the threads) was well undersize. No way to measure pitch dia, but it was obvious that too much material was removed; the tops of the threads was much wider than it should be.
cheers,
Douglas

Thanks for the update Doug. Sort of figured it was something like that.