Fusion 2

Hello to all;

Right after the first of the year (2021), I was perusing the Airgun sites I usually visit and read about a couple of new additions of Co2 Rifles on the market; the Umarex Fusion 2 .177 cal. 9 shot Magazine fed Rifle and the Wood stock version of the venerable magazine fed Crosman 1077 12 shot.177 caliber, both from PA.. Of course the C-1077 has been around since the early 1990s however with synthetic stocks. I had one of the early units but gave it to one of my Grandson’s in the late 1990s. I always wanted one with a wood stock which was now available. I will cover the Umarex Fusion 2 first then the Crosman 1077 on the next go around. The Crosman 1077, utilized 1- 12 gm.-Co2 cartridge, the Fusion 2;  2 -12gm. Co2 cartridges

The Umarex Fusion 2 is the second generation of this rifle, the first having a standard style synthetic stock and single shot , the Fusion 2 comes with a  thumbhole style synthetic stock with accessory slots in the forearm and a rubber butt plate giving it a sorta “Tactical” look , if one is into to that; I personally am Not !! It comes with 2 - 9 shot magazines and also comes with a 4x32 Umarex scope. It also has an odd looking Triangle shaped muzzle noise damper!! Umarex calls it “SilencAir” works pretty well in my opinion! It utilizes 2 -12 gr. Co2 cartridges by way of an adapter or as mentioned previously an 88 gram Co2 cylinder, I personally have no interest in the 88 gram aspect!! The OAL /40.5 inches, weight 6.0 lbs. Trigger pull measured 2lbs.5 ounces!!

I had read some pretty negative articles on the Fusion 2, mostly surrounding the poor magazine feed characteristics as well as some problems with getting both 12 gr. cartridges pierced. Now in all fairness I also read some articles where none of the above was mentioned!! The velocities reported were in the 650-600 fps range, 8 gr. pellets, which should be about right, matches up with my Crosman M- 167 .177 caliber velocities which also use 2 -12.gm co2 cartridges. I suppose one might ask, after reading the negative reports, why I would even consider ordering one!!! Fair question; well I was mostly just curious and the price was only $129.00 and I wanted to see for myself if what I had read about the negative connotations were in fact true, “that’’ and my innate curiosity about Co2 air guns, having received my first Co2 rifle when I was 12 years old, 69 years ago now; a Crosman model 113 bulk fill .177 caliber!!

I received the Fusion 2 in good order from (PA). I gave the rifle a preliminary inspection, all was in order, the first thing I tried was to cock the bolt and insert a magazine , cocking the bolt was a little difficult , applied some oil to the bolt channel and it smoothed out , next I tried to insert a magazine (I ordered 2 extra mags for a total of 4) , and it was very difficult , I pulled the mag back and looked at it ; the magazine has a slot in the bottom  which  locks over a spring loaded  ball detent in  the breech  to hold it in place , the front or  leading edge of the mag had a small bevel  to assist in going over the spring loaded ball detent in the mag channel to get too the locking detent channel in the mag ,which was simply not enough to insert the mag without great effort!  Hmmm mag problems already!! So I took each mag and with a small round needle file established a round 45degree angle on each mag where it engages the breech ball detent, although mag insertion was still tight I had no problem inserting the mags now!!  The safety was a lever on the right side of the action which rotated up and down exposing a red dot for fire and a white dot for safe and worked well.

Before charging with Co2 , I decided to check the loading function of the magazines , fairly simple process drop a pellet in the open slot (actually #9 slot) and continue to rotate counter clockwise to finish loading all 9 . Simple huh, when I got to the slot # 7 the pellet fell completely thru on to the floor!!!! What?? So I tried another magazine, same only this time it was slot # 2!!! I was using Crosman 7.9 gr. PMHP pellets! So I tried the same procedure with 3 other pellets ie; Vogel Match, RWS Match and JSB DOME, at least one of the pellets at some point would simply fall thru a random slot in the magazines! It was clear at this point that some of the holes/slots for the pellets in the magazines were too large in some of the slots!! Which if one were able to get the mag loaded and inserted, meant that when that particular slot indexed up to be loaded and the rifle was in a elevated position that the pellet would “fall out of the mag backwards” and into the bolt channel as the bolt was being cocked and when the bolt was moved forward cause a catastrophic jam!!! This is why others who wrote about this rifle suggested the rifle must be held in a level or slightly downward angle during the bolt operation process!!!

It is clear to me that it is not the design of the Fusion 2 magazine that has caused so many of the problems, but rather a lack of quality control on the specs regarding the pellet holes in the magazines. Some are simply oversize!! In reality the pellets should require a slight push to seat the pellet this would keep them in place while loading and during the indexing of the magazine in the rifle. As it is if one can load the mag and insert without any mishaps, it’s just a matter of time before one of the pellets fall out backwards during the bolt operation  if the rifle is elevated during the bolt cocking operation resulting in severe jam between the magazine/ pellet/ and bolt probe as the bolt probe moves forward.

Hence the recommendation of the other folks who have had these problems, that the rifle be held in a slightly downward position or level during the magazine insertion and bolt operation!  OK what’s the fix?? There is not one; short of the factory upgrading the magazines!!! I do not consider this to be Pyramid Air’s problem; they are an Importer not a “Test facility” for a new product.

I checked a myriad of pellets to see if I could find one with perhaps a slightly large skirt diameter; no luck there, so I will have to adhere to the procedure outlined above as others have before me! One other thing I noticed was that the rear of the barrel had no chamfer; just the sharp cylindrical edge so I pulled the barrel and turned a 60 degree chamfer at the entry, thought this might help ease pellet insertion from magazine.

Now on to the Co2 charging; I noticed that the Co2 adaptor on my rifle was loose when received, had read that others had leaking problems in this area so I took it out applied Teflon tape to threads and reinstalled. The piercing valve or as Umarex calls it pressure relief valve (serves both purposes) it is a wing nut type device covered by a rubber cap. Having read about the problems with piercing both Co2 cartridges, and before installing the Co2 cartridges I ran the piercing wing nut all the way down prior to charging and with a small pin punch put a mark on both wing nut and the body of the screw on cap with a dab of white paint on each to establish absolute bottom, this should make sure both Co2 cartridges are pierced. I think some may have just not bottomed out the piercing pin?? We shall see?

I then backed out the piercing wing nut all the way and with a dab of silicone oil on each cartridge tip installed them in the appropriate sequence, screwed in and tightened the piercing body and then began turning the wing nut down to pierce both cartridges; as one gets close to bottoming out it gets very stiff the last little bit; I kept turning the wing nut until I had the reference marks lined up and could not turn anymore! Backed off ¼ turn I now reinstalled the rubber covering.

Before installing the scope I noticed the front objective lock ring was loose slightly, ok not a problem I could now set parallax at 20 yds. By adjusting the inner spanner ring and then tightening the locking ring!! I then adjusted the focus until I had a clear sharp crosshair image and locked it down. Then set the parallax as outlined above at 20yds. I then mounted the Scope and set the eye relief and secured the scope on the Rifle. The Fusion 2 was now ready for live testing!

I set up a target at 20 yds., and shot bench rested. I used 2 pellets for the initial test, Crosman PMHP 7.9 gr. and Vogel 8.1 gr. Match. Wad cutters. A bit of a back story on the Vogel pellets; I saw an ad for a bulk order of 6000 pellets, the total including shipping was equivalent to 12 cans of 500 at about $5.25 a can, as I remember; I thought what the heck that will give me something to test and plink with at a very reasonable cost so ordered a bucket. I loaded up a mag full of the Vogel wad cutter pellets and shot 9 rounds, which produced a concentric group of .980” c-c group: the Crosman PMHP pellets put 7 shots into 1” c-c; with of course, 2 “inevitable” Crosman fliers”, enlarging the 9 shot group to 2.875”!! This rifle is capable of sub one inch groups at 20 yds. With the right ammo, Perfectly adequate for its intended purpose; plinking etc; (* Note during all downrange testing I made sure rifle was level or pointing downward slightly when cycling the bolt and had no feed problems!!)

The Vogel pellets ran from 690 fps on the first shot to 510 fps on shot 36 or (4 mags.), for an average of 583 fps. 6.1 ft. lbs. Shot number45 (5 mags) was down to 384 fps. The Crosman PMHP pellet velocities were virtually the same .The factory quotes 70 shots per 2- 12.gm co2 cartridges or 8 mags!!!! This is not going to happen! At least not with my example; I degassed what was left of the co2 and checked to be sure that both co2 cartridges were pierced and they were, the btm cartridge was really open; the top had about a 1/6 hole in it not as much as the btm.  But still adequate, for both cartridges to fully charge the system. Using the bottoming out reference mark I made, assisted in this!! I can see where some folks may have got only one cartridge pierced (the btm ) , without having a btm out reference point; which may possibly fail to pierce one of the cartridges; using the btm out technique should pierce both cartridges!! This is also why some folks recommend using a dime between the two cartridges as this will elevate the top cartridge and assist in piercing, IF one is not able to determine actual bottom out position of the piercing stem.

Well in retrospect I am afraid my Fusion 2 has just not met my overall expectations and displayed some of the same problems others have had; and at this point I could not recommend this rifle for purchase, the magazine problem/ hang-ups and the difficulty getting both co2 cartridges pierced, leaks(* another example of  a dimensional tolerance) that should not have got past final quality control inspection if it were not for these aspects I would give this rifle a “THUMBS UP”; accuracy and velocity are certainly acceptable in my view. The Scope after my adjustments, performed well; are there better scopes; to be sure, but it did ok. . Umarex’s quality control just barely missed a good seller!!!!

So what am I going to do with it; well I decided to make it a dedicated 2-12 gm cartridge unit, I had no interest in the 88 gm. ability anyway! I found that the leaks I had, boiled down to the adaptor threads and the threads in the receiver which appear to be oversized, the Teflon tape to the adaptor threads simply would not hold consistently and would slowly leak, so I cleaned the threads on the adaptor, (Replacement I received) and the receiver, applied a coat of JB WELD on both thread surfaces and reassembled let set overnight. (* I am not recommending this for anyone else just worked for me!). After this I installed 2 -12gm. cartridges and checked for leaks there were none, and I have had no further leak problems since!

One final note; “Positive”, regarding Umarex; my piercing pin system on the original adaptor developed a severe leak, I changed out the inner o-ring #.012, but it still leaked, further inspection revealed a finite crack. I contacted Umarex and they immediately sent me a complete co2 adapter replacement at no charge!! Just wanted to point this out; now if they would just upgrade the magazines and monitor their thread dimensions regarding the adaptor, and receiver!!!!!!!!

Garey