AARMR Hurricane Model 15. First Impressions. Picture Heavy

[s_sharma]

GNV Sir,
Are you satisfied with its performance?
Regards.

[Big Daddy]

GNV,
Can't expect a more detailed review.
Please do keep it coming. Accuracy and fpe aside, could you also measure the trigger pull at it's best adjustment?

BD

[Walibaa]

He is tight now.

[Big Daddy]

He is tight now.

Of course at his pace.

BD

[GNV]

This is disgusting. I was typing my review since my last post and as I am reaching the end of it something went wrong and the page closed. I have to do it all again.

[main13]

@GNV Garu

Sir if you're typing long text posts, you could keep saving them as drafts.. Helps avoid 'accidents'...

[GNV]

I wish I used the save draft option. Well again,

The stock is the sloppiest thing on an air rifle I have ever seen. IT is not rigid where it need to be. The action to stock fit is terrible. On PH ORION stock to action fit is perfect.
There is a gap of about 1.5 mm between the stock and the receiver tube on both sides. When the stock fixing screws in the fore end are tightened the stock walls bend inwards at that area.

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The receiver tube fits properly from the rear end to the front of the dovetail rail only. The rest is pretty sloppy and ridiculous.

[keerthesh]

GNV sir,
I am about to book one. Do you recommend this gun??

[A-Crossbow]

Seems like you are not satisfied with the rifle

[GNV]

Please wait till I finish the report. I am just reporting what I found from my point of view. I am not an expert. Wait till I finish and decide yourself. I am working on my report for the past two and a half hours. I am a slow fore finger typer and it takes me more time than others. I intend to finish this initial report with some chrono results today.
Regards
GNV

[imsuwati]

The breach is the bonus in this gun but the pistol grip is too small n the gap between the trigger s too near... Tried shooting with g. Smith pellets at around 15 yards with good accurracy didnt like the butt too slim.....

[GNV]

Well I hope my photos and comments give a fair description of the Hurricane AR.

Now I tell my feelings about the gun. They are strictly personal opinion and I am no expert in air gun designing or manufacturing procedures.
Here I am describing myself a little. I am a simple shooter who likes shooting guns and like to hit the target more often than miss. I am not a target shooter and don't like shooting at paper targets at fixed ranges. I was an airgunner since I was nine. Now I am 55 yrs old. I was a die hard air gunner since the beginning days until I gave up air gun shooting in mid 90s. In the beginning it was learning and plinking for joy. Later it was hunting and long range plinking. My last adult air gun was a Diana 45 in 0.22" caliber. I started with a Diana 25. Between 1982 and 1989 I romanced with quiet a few Daisy and Crosman single pump and multi pump pneumatic ARs and APs and one Sharp INNOVA AR discounting various stupid Indian made ARs. That was all my experience with air guns. I always do my own maintenance of my air guns. During my air gun hunting days I never took a shot beyond 20 yards with Pneumatic ARs and may be 35 yards with Diana 45. It was more of stealthy approach or hiding in concealment. During plinking sessions range is not a problem and it doesn't matter if you miss your target.

I am giving my present physical condition because it affects my handling of this gun. My height is 5'8" and I weigh 74 Kgs. Two year ago my weight was 94 Kgs. Spending long hours in front of a computer without taking breaks every hour and walking around for a few minutes gave me Spondylitis. One morning I woke up with a stiff back and a very stiff neck and pain in my both shoulders. Family orthopedic surgeon told me that I am suffering from mild spondylitis and scuff shoulders. Medication and doing neck stretching exercises,and shoulder rotating etc cured me. He also told me that I MUST loose all my excess weight to avoid future complications because joint pains are hereditary in my family.
So by limiting my daily input calories to 1400 cal and walking briskly daily for 90 minutes I managed to loose 20 kgs in a span of 12 months. By then I learned how to adjust workouts against intake calories to maintain a constant weight. For the past 12 months I am maintaining my weight at 74 Kgs. And I continued my daily walking and now I walk everyday at any convenient time for minimum six kms at a pace of 1 km per 10 minutes. And I walk with lead balls weighing 300 gms wrapped around each ankle. This walking is keeping me in a generally good fit condition and keeps me feeling good all day.

Back to the Hurricane.

On opening the box my first impression as I took it into my hands that it is like my Diana 45, BIG. As I mounted it I found it muzzle heavy. Not as well balanced as my 45. A tap on the barrel near front sight broke the barrel smoothly.
Checked the rifling. It is just like the rifling of my ORION barrel. Cocking was smooth but there was sound of metal scraping against metal. Loaded a pellet and fired into the earth of my garden from my balcony. The gun was dieseling like a coal locomotive. There was spring twang. Even after firing 5 shots it is still smoking like that. My PH ORION stopped dieseling after about 3 pellets shot through it when I purchased it. So proceeded to shoot some stupid Mastershot Hunt Master pellets I have and for which I have no use, till the dieseling stopped. It took some 40 pellets. Didn't plink. Just shot into the earth.

Next thing I checked is to see if my New UTG 3 - 12 X 40 AO Scope's Weaver Rings with UTG Dovetail to weaver adapters would fit on this Gun properly. Only to find that they wouldn't because of the curved top surface of the raised dovetail rail, just like on my ORION. Now I am eagerly waiting for the one piece mount with 1'' rings and a dovetail to weaver mount adapter ( hoping that at least one of them would fit ) from deal extreme.com to arrive. I ordered them long before I have even became aware of this Hurricane Rifle, for my ORION to see if they would work while waiting for a proper UTG barrel droop compensating rail along with low profile weaver rings which I ordered on amazon.com and got them shipped to a cousin in USA who would bring them when he comes to India in the last week of November. The package from dx.com is lying in some processing center in India since 1st OCT and only God knows when it would arrive. So untill I get the mounts from dx.com there would be no proper accuracy tests because my eye sight is all screwed up. I wear bifocals in which all four lenses are of different power. In practice I use them for general use and while driving and use a different spectacle with the bottom lenses for reading and use a cheap reading glasses with a power which enables me to see my laptop screen clearly for computer work. At present I am able to plink at targets of 3-1/2 inch diameter up to about 25 yards with my ORION using open sights with any hope of hitting them.

The rear sight is all metal and sturdy in construction and very well made with no play in moving parts. the parts move smoothly on their rails. Only one would need an allen key to adjust them on field. I wish they provided usual knobs instead. Well one can carry an allen key in the pellet storage box. Both the sights are as explained non removable as a unit.

The trigger out of box is smooth and crisp. I didn't fiddle with its adjustment yet. I didn't fiddle with the sights either yet.

The trigger as it is good and like this one better than the one on my ORION. The first stage end point and the feeling of the second stage are much better in Hurricane than in my ORION. The second stage is crisp and clean.

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Looking at the sears surfaces I feel that a little polishing would further improve the trigger.

The ceramic coating looks great but I don't think it is any durable on my Hurricane. I left my Hurricane on my table for the past two days and handled it without taking any special care so that it would not get scratched while plinking and chrono testing. The ceramic coating is gone at sharp edges and two or three places where the gun came into contact with metal or hard objects. On a traditionally blued gun such scratches can easily repaired with cold bluing solution. But if this ceramic coating could be done to last for years then it would be much much better than the bluing especially for guns used on the field as it requires practically no care.

[kshitij]

Extremely well detailed review GNV. Keep up the good work
A picture of how the rifle groups at various ranges would be nice.

[GNV]

The stock is some thing I really don't understand. I never handled a gun with an assault stock and know nothing about these stocks. But this stock is the stupidest stock I had ever seen on a sporting air rifle. Why this kind of stock was selected by the manufacturers is something I don't understand really. May be people of Punjab like this kind of stock. But an assault stock belongs to an assault rifle and not a sporting rifle. This kind of stock is for semi auto and full auto assault firearms and you can deliver high volume fire with a single hand with it. But I feel it definitely had no place on a sporting gun.
The stock on this Hurricane AR is not only manufactured poorly but the design is also wrong is what I feel. The pistol grip is very thin and not palm filling as on my ORION. The butt too is very thin. The center of gravity of the gun is much too forward. The balance is awkward for me. The trigger is set much too backward. The grooves on the pistol grip make it worse. The center pull is too short and trigger reach is all wrong. For me stock is simply a nightmare.

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Added in 41 minutes 52 seconds:
To find my centre pull distance of a standard stocked sporting Rifle I follow this principle.

" To roughly judge your own ideal centre pull measurement, Place the butt of the rifle in the crook of your elbow and extend your trigger finger up the side of the trigger guard. The top joint of your trigger finger should be alongside the trigger if the centre pull is correct. The arm should be bent at around 90 degrees to determine the centre pull length."

Also the centre of gravity of this rifle is much forward, increasing the apparent weight of the gun when mounted. It in turn increasing the actual weight being supported by my leading arm. This is really becoming a problem for me.

I took the gun to my farm and did some plinking. The target is an empty GSmith pellet tin and the range is about 18 yards. I used JSB EXACT JUMBO pellets first and also shot Precipells. I used the gun with out making any adjustments to the rear sight. Once I found the correct POA to hit the target with JSBs, I shot 10 JSBs and 10 precipells. All 20 pellets hit the target squarely. That is all the accuracy tests I did for now. The gun seems to an accurate one even though I feel it is shooting a bit high. I shall see when I do some real accuracy tests once I get my scope mounts.

This gun seems to be much powerful than the ORION. I shot at an one lt COKE bottle filled with water at about 30 yards and was able to hit it and the JSB went through the bottle.

I left my farm much earlier than I usually do and able to find fps of five different pellets using my shooting chrony. The results are pretty interesting.

Added in 1 hour 21 minutes 58 seconds:
I was able to shoot five shot strings of five different pellets before light faded. The results are as below.

DYNA SHOT Round Head: 11.3 grains.

Lowest fps : 641.6 - 10.33 ft-lbs.
Highest fps : 676.5 - 11.48 ft-lbs.
Average fps : 660.3 - 10.94 ft-lbs.

ES : 34.93
SD : 13.63.


Master Shot HUNTER Pointed : 12.25 grains.

Lowest fps : 636.7 - 11.02 ft-lbs.
Highest fps : 667 - 12.1 ft-lbs.
Average fps: 654.2 - 11.64 ft-lbs.
ES : 30.29
SD : 13.67.

JSB JUMBO EXPRESS: 14.35 grains.

Lowest fps : 592 - 11.17 ft-lbs.
Highest fps: 600 - 11.47 ft-lbs.
Avg fps : 596 - 11.32 ft-lbs.
ES : 8.01
SD : 3.6

PRECIPELL Round Heads: 15 grains.

Lowest fps : 550.5 - 10.09 ft-lbs.
Highest fps: 565.6 - 10.65 ft-lbs.
Avg Fps : 555.1 - 10.26 ft-lbs.
ES : 15.05
SD : 6.

JSB EXACT JUMBO Round Head : 15.89 grains.

Lowest fps : 544.8 - 10.47 ft-lbs.
Highest fps: 574.6 - 11.65 ft-lbs.
Averag fps : 565.9 - 11.3 ft-lbs.
ES: 29.75
SD: 12.16.


The gun is raw and less than 100 pellets shot through it.

The results of my broken in Nitro Piston ORION with JSB 15.89 grain pellets with 10 shot string:

Lowest fps: 514.1 - 9.33 ft-lbs.
Highest fps: 521.5 - 9.6 ft-lbs.
Average fps: 516.5 - 9.41 ft-lbs.
ES: 7.4
SD: 3.


It is apparent that HURRICANE is more powerful than PH NP ORION.

The gun needs proper tuning. After tuning and breaking in the HURRICANE would easily touch the 15 ft-lbs mark.
I also think that the HURRICANE would be atleast as accurate as any PH Nitro Piston powered Air Rifle.

I don't know what to say about my shooting experience. The guns weight makes it steadier while taking aim. But the forward C.G is not for me. After firing about 25 pellets at a stretch nerves ( not muscles ) in my left shoulder and neck started to ache. My scuff shoulder is acting up. I never had any problem with my ORION and often fire 50 pellets at a stretch without any problems.
This gun is not suitable for me to shoot offhand for long periods with the present stock. Any long range plinking for long periods with this stock would be from a bench rest only I guess.

I intend to strip the gun in a couple of days and have a look at the internals and see if the gun could be improved and properly lubricate it. I'll post my report after doing that as usual with photos of the process.

When I get my scope mounts I'll do a proper accuracy test from a bench rest to find the best pellet and find the trajectory of that pellet.

Thats all for now.
Good Night.

GNV.

[Basu]

Excellent review !!
Being a springer , this AR has real punch....hope as on today this is the most powerful springer produced in India.

Basu