Air Strippers in Action
An air stripper is used to strip the unwanted turbulent air from the back of an air rifle pellet in in order to improve accuracy. Some air strippers incorporate a moderator as well to reduce the muzzle noise.
Some strippers use an asymmetric design so that the exhaust acts as a muzzle flip compensator.
Other strippers have a symmetrical ‘pepper pot’ design which exhausts the unwanted air in all directions.
I can’t visualise what has happened in the image above as there is no smoke trail following the pellet? Early days yet though 
This image was a mistake but still interesting.
With a full 12ft.lb air rifle I can’t get enough smoke density in the air to photograph it so I’ve reduced the power down to approximately 4ft.lbs for the trials.
My thanks to UK Neil from the airgunBBS for the loan of the air strippers for the tests.
Can anyone tell me where i can find an air stripper/moderator for to fit my airarms s510 or any info on the best sites to try,Would like to give this combo a try and see if there is a true affect on the gun cheers
Try contacting U.K Neil on the AirgunBBS forum he is a very keen member there and his work is highly recommended
Have you considered Schlieren photography?
The smoke in the photographs seems low velocity ’spent’ after event residue air. Either the action happens nearer the vents in the stripper or the strippers are kings new clothes? Perhaps they need higher velocity airflow?
The 1st shot is probably most indicative as to what should be happening, what shutter speed / flash duration were you using?
Andy.
Schlieren photography is very high on my todo list
One of the issues with this is getting the smoke dense enough to be visible so photographing pressure density with a Schlieren technique would be the best way of doing this. My photographs are taken in a dark room and rely on the fast flash durations from th 580Ex guns dialled down to 1/128 full power (typically 1/25,000 sec), shutter speeds are whatever is convenient, sometimes over a second.
Trying to find a reasonably price 10-12″ spherical mirror with an fl of around 48-60″ is very difficult