PCP airguns are arguably the best development the airgunning industry has seen. They are very powerful, accurate, and easy to operate – obtaining their power from compressed air stored in an onboard cylinder.
The cylinder is refilled regularly with compressed air to keep the gun functioning. But can you use nitrogen in a PCP air rifle without hurting its proper functioning?
For the record, nitrogen may be used in a PCP airgun and can work just fine. You need to get the perfect fill adapters to get only the desired fill pressure level because it fills really fast and takes just seconds to hit 6000 psi. If you’re not careful, you may overfill your gun.
Having the nitrogen-filled up in your PCP’s cylinder is no dangerous undertaking and neither is it going to help your airgun much more than you get from compressed air.
Yet, many airgun companies discourage the use of nitrogen in their airguns due to huge liability insurance costs they have to pay for the sales they make to cover their customers’ guns. You void your warranty by using nitrogen.
Stay close and find out more information on this topic so that you always make the right decision.
Can You Use Nitrogen in a PCP Air Rifle?
Even though nitrogen takes the lion’s share of the volume of air, 78 percent, it’s not used exclusively to run precharged airguns. Nitrogen is not a dangerous gas per se – it’s inert and cannot burn or react with most elements like oxygen does.
Still, it’s compressed air that’s used to power precharged guns and not nitrogen. You can use nitrogen in the place of compressed air but that doesn’t make any significant difference in the performance of the gun.
You wouldn’t use nitrogen though, given that most companies have restricted it in their airguns. If you went ahead to use nitrogen, you may have just voided your warranty and if anything happened to the airgun, you would never be covered.
Regardless of that, there are companies like AirForce Airguns that do allow for nitrogen refill. You can also have your Talon SS tank filled with either air or nitrogen.
The problem with nitrogen comes when it comes to filling your cylinder. The differential in the fill pressure is alarming – nitrogen fills up 6000 psi in a matter of seconds. This is extremely high and at this point, anything could happen to your airgun.
It’s important that you control how your airgun receives nitrogen if you must use it. What you would need is a proper fill tool to help you stop it right when the desired pressure level is reached. This ensures that you don’t overfill your gun at any given point.
Another key to avoiding overfilling your tank with nitrogen is by shutting the valve when the recommended pressure is achieved. In some instances, you may have a supply tank that has automated devices that basically turns things off on reaching the full required pressure.
What Do You Fill PCP Air Rifles with?
If it’s your very first PCP airgun acquisition, filling the air tank might be somehow intimidating. The biggest question is what do you fill PCP air rifles with?
There are three different methods you can use to fill your airguns: the first is SCUBA tanks, then a compressor, and the third, a hand pump. You may use all three for complementarities but you can always choose just one and that would be fine.
1. SCUBA Tanks
SCUBA tanks are specialized tanks that require no electricity to fill your airgun’s tank. They fill the airgun fast although they are limited in terms of the volume of compressed air they hold.
If the tank runs out of air, it can only be filled at a SCUBA shop and nowhere else. To avoid being asked for a SCUBA license when you go for refilling, label your tank, ‘For Airgun Use Only’.
Filling your airgun from a SCUBA tank may need a good fill adapter to do the task.
2. Compressor
If you want to be self-sufficient with your PCP airgun refills, you get a compressor with over 3000 PSI capacity. A specialized compressor will fill your tank quickly in just a few minutes.
Compressors require the availability of electricity. Also, they can be a bit loud although the noise is just for a small period of time. You need to maintain them well as they can come with hefty price tags.
3. Hand Pump
There is a manual way you can fill up your airgun and the hand pump is an awesome filling tool especially if you are on a tight budget. We are not talking about a bicycle pump here even though something similar but specific to airgunners.
A hand pump is the most self-sufficient refill tool. However, you can be sure to get ramped up in a workout session trying to fill the gun to the maximum.
It would take several hundred pumps to fill an empty airgun. This is not something many people want to attempt doing. Despite this labor-intensive work, hand pumps are not expensive to buy or maintain.
Can You Leave a PCP Air Rifle Charged?
Oftentimes people are arguing whether or not leaving a PCP charged is a bad idea. Either side may be right in their own ways and here’s what you should do.
Generally, you can leave a PCP airgun charged to full capacity because this pressure keeps the seals engaged and active. In the end, the seals are leak-free and never get damaged because they have nothing to do.
If you leave your PCP airgun empty for a while, the seals will shrink. At zero pressure or very low pressure, the seals may gather dirt, dust, moisture, etc., which is always never going to be a good thing. Leaving the gun pressurized means that these elements have no chance to enter into the gun and damage the seals.
The best practice is to leave your airgun with as much air as it usually has when you are refilling it. That’s probably at about 1500-2000 psi.
So anyone worrying about what will happen if they left a PCP airgun charged should know that it’s a general principle.
How about when you are shipping the PCP airgun? Should you leave it still charged?
The law doesn’t allow for any pressurized vessel to be transported as it poses a risk. It doesn’t matter whether the transportation is on land or in air or water, there are special laws that guide this
.
Be sure to empty your airgun before you send it on transit. If you are moving by your own private means, you may carry a filled SCUBA tank as it’s lawful.
How Many Shots Can You Get Per Fill?
PCP airguns are fun to shoot. They are extremely effective and are easy to operate from for levels of shooters.
Since these airguns draw their power from compressed air stored in a pressurized tank, how many shots can you get per fill? Well, this is highly dependent on a number of things including weather, model of the PCP, caliber size, regulator or no regulator, the volume of the reservoir, among other factors.
On average, you can get about 20-30 shots on a standard PCP reservoir before you can think of refilling it. The number of shots can be even more than this as I said earlier.
For instance, with the .22 Caliber Talon adjusted to the lowest power level of 6 ft./lbs. can get you over 100 shots. Take the setting to the highest power level of 30 ft./lbs. and you will go 30 shots and the gun is down.
When the PCP air rifle is fully pressurized, its velocity is normally low. With a few first shots, the velocity increases and then drops following a belt curve performance.
Once the compressed air is used up, your gun is no longer doing anything. You can’t get consistent shots and you will now keep misfiring.
Can You Use CO2 in a PCP Air Rifle?
Apart from CO2-powered airguns that come with CO2 cartridges, can you use CO2 in a PCP air rifle just fine? First, it’s vital to know that CO2 as a power source is inferior to nitrogen and air.
Generally, CO2 will still work in your air rifle except that if anything happens to your air rifle, you can’t take it for repair to the company. Normally, the companies place a disclaimer that allows for refilling with compressed air only and no other types of gases.
You do any other thing at your own risk of losing the warranty and you will get no help.
Back to CO2. It’s probably going to work well when temperatures are high. When it gets cold, the performance of your airgun plummets – it’s such temperature-sensitive. Also, CO2 can support up to limited foot-pounds of energy which may not be ideal in your hunting situations.
Final Thoughts: Can You Use Nitrogen in a PCP Air Rifle?
You can use nitrogen in your PCP air rifle. However, nitrogen’s fill pressure differential is extremely high needing some fill adapters to control any excessive refills.
While nitrogen is inert, it may not improve the performance of your gun. It’s also hard to find nitrogen on the market.
To be safe, just keep using compressed air as recommended by the manufacturer to prevent the cancelation of your warranty.
