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  • Worldwide shipping
  • We strive to dispatch orders placed before 14.00 (GMT+1) the same day
Payment Methods Huma Air

History of the airgun regulator.

As far as we know the first commercially regulated PCP airgun was produced by Steve and Joe Wilkins of  Ripley Airgun’s in the UK.
They made the AR4 airgun in the late 80’s and they placed a vented regulator directly on top of the plenum so the regulator could ventilate to the atmosfere by using the treads of the pressure tube. In their later models they also used this very clever systeem. (see pics below)
This type of regulator and the way of venting the regulator’s spring chamber to the atmosfere by the treads of the pressure tube, is currently used by allmost all rifle and regulator manufacurers.

There are some different aftermarket producers active and all of these regulators are based on the same principle of “creating a balance in forces” they all use their own designs and different materials for the pistons, valve’s and setscrews (see pics below) to achieve their goals.
Over the years Huma-Air has proven their unbeatable design and is the number one choice in aftermarket regulators. Not only do we design and produce brand specific regulators for several major rifle producers like Daystate, Brocock, Thomas Airrifles, etc, but we also have a huge range of aftermarket models available.

So what does this regulator do: 

A regulator is a small high pressure device that regulates the air pressure in your PCP rifle.
The regulator reduces the primary high pressure to a lower, constant, pre-set pressure needed to get the pellet speed you desire.
This means you will have the same constant pelletspeed and also POI shot after shot after shot

Below you see a picture of a Spa P12 bullpup “before” (blue line) and “after” (red line) the fitting of a regulator.

In this case we set the regulator to about 130 bar pressure, this results in a pellet speed of 270 m/s with 16 gn JSB. Of course the regulator can be set higher or lower when you prefer a higher pellet speed.

Why would you need a regulator?

A bit about PCP basics:
A PCP air rifle has a high pressure air reservoir. When firing the rifle, a “hammer” slams on a valve which will open a little and a certain quantity of air escapes. This airflow speeds up the pellet.

In an unregulated air gun you normally start with a pressure of about 200 bar. But after every shot this pressure will decrease. You can imagine when the hammer slams the valve and there is 200 bar of primary pressure on the valve, it will only open a tiny bit and gives the pellet a certain speed. After a few shots the primary pressure is reduced and there is far less pressure pushing against the valve; but the hammer still slams with the same force, so the valve will open more, giving your pellet a higher speed.  Therefore you can see your point of impact (POI) “climbing” after a few shots. Then after certain more shots, pressure drops even further and your POI will go down again.

A regulator is a kind of internal pressure regulator that divides your pressure tube in two sections. The first large section contains the “primary” high filling pressure. The second section is just a tiny pressure chamber (plenum) that contains a certain quantity of air with a pre-set pressure that is needed for the pellet speed you desire. This we call the secundary or regulated pressure. The regulator will keep this pressure constant every shot, until the primary pressure is equal or lower to the set pressure of the regulator. This will result in a very constant pellet speed, and also a steady POI of your pellet.

More benefits of using a regulator in your PCP.

Your rifle is set up to work in a relatively large pressure range.
After fitting a regulator you can optimize your rifle for the lower, constant, working pressure.
This means that you probably do not need as much hammer spring tension as before. This can also reduce air consumption.
Sometimes the hammer weight can be reduced too, this will give less movement inside the rifle. This will optimize the shooting behavior of your rifle.
On  several internet forums you can find tons of info on “tuning” your specific rifle in combination with a pressure regulator.