What features to look for?
How much to expect to spend?
Better brands and models?
Add-ons, must haves or options?
I see a lot inf comments about various PCP compressors but have not been able to discern enough to build a cost vs value picture.
I understand the benefits of air dryers, auto drains etc, what are the top pump brands and models?
What is a realistic cost expectation? I am a firm believer in you get what you pay for but I like to understand the tradeoffs.
What does each manufacturer or pump model give up or gain for a lower or higher cost?
I see some Yong Heng refurbs on an auction site for 175+shipping.
Is that a realistic number, a great deal or a cheap short lived investment?
Am considering starting out in PCP but not interested in manual pumping.
Thanks for any suggestions.
I bought one of the gx pumps from Amazon and beyond happy with it so far and is sub 300 dollar price range
It really depends on how much you shoot and what you shoot. I shoot 12 foot pound and 10 meter guns so don't use lots of air. I still hand pump but also have some tanks. If you are a casual shooter consider a 4500psi tank. A tank fill around here is $10-15. That's a lot of fills vs the cost of a compressor. If you shoot a lot and your guns use lots of air and have low shot counts per fill then maybe a compressor is the right choice. Are you going to fill your gun directly from the compressor or are you going to fill an external tank and then charge the gun from that? Cheaper compressors can work for direct filling and expensive compressor are more capable when it comes to filling tanks.
Options are also dependent on what you are doing. If your run time is short then you are going to be standing there watching it so there is no need for auto purge or auto shut off. If your run time is long then you may want more automatic features.
My personal feeling, My Personal opinion is to buy a really cheap unit, say under $500. or a really good unit, over $3500. I would stay away from the mid priced stuff. Again, just my opinion. I hope this helps.
Rick B.
One of the Yong Heng water cooled compressors ($250-350 typical) with a gold coalescent filter ($95-125 typical) can be a great combination for direct filling guns and for filling smaller tanks (with some rest breaks). That setup with the pump, filter, and some assorted fittings (one-way valves in particular) would probably run you around $350-450 total.
My old YH is still going, just had a number of oil changes over the years. It probably could use a reseal job now since it fills slower than it used to, but still is pretty good and fast (just slows down more from the 3600-4400 PSI range compared to when it was newer).
I mostly use an Altaros compressor booster with the same gold coalescent filter to fill up tanks with a shop compressor now and use the tanks for filling and tethering my PCP's with,.
