Logun's Sweet 16 on CO2 - Part 1The other S-16s!

by B.B. Pelletier


Logun's S-16s has been adapted to CO2 by Pyramyd Air.

Let's look at an air rifle backwards! What that means is that the Logun S-16s has been around for a few years, and we've not yet looked at it. But, now, Pyramyd Air offers an entire rifle set up for CO2 operation. That's the rifle we will look at first. And, before I am asked for the umpteenth time about the possibility of a CO2 adapter for AirForce air rifle...yes, it's in the works!

Why CO2?
Why would anyone pay $900 for a powerful PCP and then run it on CO2? BECAUSE THEY CAN! CO2 changes the nature of your powerplant, giving you a rifle that shoots slower for plinking, indoor shooting or just more shots without refilling. When I tell you how many more, you'll be amazed. I was!

You lose nothing
Taking a PCP and converting it to run on CO2 doesn't change the basic rifle in any way. If the barrel was accurate before, it still is. If the gun had a good trigger, that doesn't change. All that changes is that the power drops. Depending on which gun you convert, the drop can be small or large. The thing to remember is this conversion doesn't take anything away - it adds more functionality to your investment. Imagine that you could drive your car on diesel fuel, kerosene, jet fuel and gasoline. The military pays a bundle for truck engines that do just that. Well, Pyramyd has found an affordable way for you to so the same thing with a PCP. Enough generalities; let's get specific.

The S-16s
The heart of this rifle is a Logun S-16s. Logun meant for it to operate on air, and they meant for it to be a fine PCP rifle, so all those characteristics will translate to CO2. It's a 16-shot repeater with a special magazine holding two 8-shot circular clips. It's got a lot of steel in the frame, so the weight is very substantial at 8.25 lbs. The conversion kit takes the weight up over 9 lbs. with a 20-oz. CO2 tank installed.


16-shot magazine holds two circular 8-shot clips.

Trigger!
The trigger is very heavy. After I adjusted it as light as it would go, it still required 10 lbs. to release. It's crisp and creep-free, but if you're anticipating a light trigger-pull, this rifle doesn't have one.

Pressure gauge
There is a pressure gauge built into the back of the rifle's receiver, so it works with the CO2 adapter, too. Although it isn't marked for all pressure levels, it's close enough that you'll know when the tank needs to be changed.


Although not marked for all pressure levels, the Logun gauge does a good job with CO2.

Quiet
The S-16s uses a shrouded barrel for quieter operation. I've tested it only with CO2 thus far, and the discharge noise is about equal to that of a powerful spring pistol. It's certainly much quieter with the shroud in place than with the barrel exposed.

Many shots
In fact, I didn't believe how many shots were possible when I first did the math. With a 20-oz. tank installed you will get over 1,000 shots per fill! In fact, the number is so high that nobody will probably ever test a tank until it's empty - it takes too long! Now you see the advantage of operating the gun on CO2. Of course, the power is less; but, if all you're doing is plinking, what do you care?

Inexpensive to convert
If you already own an S-16s, all you need is a CO2 adapter and a CO2 tank. Pyramyd Air sells 12-oz. and 20-oz. tanks, and they can even ship it to you already filled! What a wonderful way to enjoy your PCP even more.

In the future, I'll show you the accuracy and velocity on CO2, plus we'll also test the rifle with air. It should prove interesting!

The new Webley Patriot! - Part 2

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

I tried chronographing the rifle before going to the range, but it was dieseling and getting too broad a velocity spread for accuracy. There were no explosions, but there were variations of 60 f.p.s. in the shot strings, so I figured it needed to be shot in to settle down. That proved to be a good assumption.

At the range
Conditions were perfect for shooting an air rifle. There was no wind and good light to see the target. Because the Patriot is a breakbarrel, it needs a lot of technique to shoot well. I did rest my off hand on a sandbag to steady the rifle, but when rested directly on the bag the groups opened to three times the size.

The Patriot has always been especially sensitive to hold, probably because of the heavy recoil and relatively long time the pellet spends in the barrel when compared to a .177 shooting 1,000 f.p.s. So, how you hold the gun is critical. You have to float it with as light a touch as you can and allow it to recoil as much as it wants to for the best accuracy. It always takes me time to get into the right frame of mind before my groups will tighten to what they should be. And, it was that way with this test rifle, too. However, once I was dialed-in, the rifle shot like - well, a rifle!

The two-stage trigger was reasonably crisp, if a trifle heavy, at 4.5 lbs. The single adjustment screw affects the length of the first-stage pull. I found the trigger usable and not too heavy for good accuracy.

The recoil is about as heavy as a smallbore airgun ever gets. Hold the stock tightly, and you'll get a headache from repeated punches in the cheek. Something else I forgot about was also a concern. The Patriot will shake itself to death if you don't keep checking all the screws. The scope mount screw loosened several times, as did the stock screws and the rear sight mounting screw. Loose screws are bad for accuracy, so remember to keep checking them, until you apply some blue Locktite to all the threads.

Setting up the scope
I gave the rear scope mount an extra full turn as I normally do for all breakbarrel spring rifles (except RWS Diana guns - they get two turns). That elevates it above the front ring and corrects the normal tendency for the barrel to droop. After sighting-in, I discovered that it isn't required for the new Patriot. In fact, I didn't need to use adjustable rings at all. The barrel was looking straight ahead! To save time, I sighted-in the scope so I was aiming at the target below the target that the pellets were hitting. It worked fine for most pellets, except that Diana Magnums were still climbing too high.

The best pellet
Without a doubt, the 31-grain Beeman Kodiaks are the best pellets for this rifle. Always have been and probably always will be. Beeman Ram Jets were also good, grouping about 0.8", and Beeman Perfect Rounds proved adequate - giving 1" groups at 25 yards. You could hunt with them to that distance if you like, but Kodiaks were so much more accurate that I don't know why anyone would. The lightweight 21-grain Diana Magnums were a disappointment, shooting 1.3" to 1.5" at 25 yards.


Once the shooting technique was right and the screws were tightened, the new Patriot began to perform. This group, measuring 0.657 " at 25 yards, was typical for five Beeman Kodiaks. Because these are .25-caliber pellets, the group appears larger than it really is. The beauty of this caliber is that the pellets cover a lot of area!

Through the chronograph
After the accuracy test, I retested the rifle for velocity and found it had settled down. Beeman Kodiaks averaged 620 f.p.s., with a spread of 13 f.p.s., which translates to 26.47 foot-pounds. Round balls go an average of 711 f.p.s. and vary by 15 f.p.s. They generate 26.5 foot-pounds. Ram Jets average 723 f.p.s., with a spread of just 9 f.p.s. and a power of 28.07 foot-pounds.

Is this really a Webley Patriot?
Yes! Without a doubt, it is. There are some subtle physical differences, and probably a few I missed, but the performance is pure Patriot. Welcome back, Webley!

The new Webley Patriot! - Part 1

by B.B. Pelletier


The new Webley Patriot looks just like the old one. But does it perform?

Many airgunners have been waiting for this report. When Webley closed their doors in 2005, the world's supply of powerful .25-caliber Patriot breakbarrels dwindled steadily until there were no more to be found. The Beeman Kodiak suffered a similar fate, being derived from the same basic rifle. Then, the news came that Webley had been saved, though manufacture of its spring rifles was moved to Turkey.

In March of 2006, I spoke with Webley Managing Director Tony Hall, who assured me no rifle with the Webley name would ever leave the new plant until it was ready. So, like everyone else, I waited. Well, the wait is over. Pyramyd Air received the first shipment of Patriots in January, and they were kind enough to ship me a rifle to test for you.

Appearance
At first glance, the new Patriot appears identical to Patriots from the UK. However, upon closer inspection and after spending time with the gun, the following was noted. The markings that were stamped into the metal on the gun are now laser-etched. The scope stop grooves appear to be smaller in radius, though they fit the B-Square scope mount made especially for the Patriot. There are probably dozens of other small differences, because it is impossible for one machine to exactly duplicate the output of another - CNC included. But, I don't think you will be able to spot them without a vintage UK Patriot for side-by-side comparison.


These grooves are the scope stop on the Patriot. Your scope mount must have ridges to interface with them. The B-Square one-piece mount has two ridges in the correct positions.

The stock looks like beech with the same reddish-brown stain as before. Perhaps the wood finish isn't as shiny as before, but at least one observer remarked that they probably use the same stock supplier they used before, so there shouldn't be any differences. The metal finish seems more matte than the UK rifle, though the blue/black is just as dark as ever. The actual barrel is still 17.5", but a threaded plug in the muzzle makes it appear to be 18". That plug closes the hole for a silencer, but we have already discussed how a silencer on a spring gun isn't that effective.


Muzzle cap unthreads to open a place to accept a silencer. This is for UK use, only

The stock's pull is 14", a good compromise for all sizes of adults, and the stock has the same fullness that has been characteristic of Patriots from the beginning. The overall weight is 9.3 lbs., which is the same as always, give or take the density of the wood in a specific stock. The length of just over 46" is a gain of half an inch, or the specifications have been slightly off all along.

Operation
The part that will be familiar to all who have ever owned a Patriot is when you break the barrel to cock the rifle. You have to slap the muzzle to pop the barrel lock detent off its seat, same as always. The rifle I have cocks with 46 lbs. of effort, slightly less than the nominal 50 lbs. stated in the specs, but individual rifles have always had a couple pounds of variation. It still takes two hands to cock if you shoot more than just a few shots.

The safety is the same automatic button that pops out the back of the receiver, and the trigger feels the same as ever. The safety is a trigger-block type and can be set at any time, rifle cocked or not. You can uncock the gun if you need to by releasing the safety and pulling the trigger with the barrel broken open. Just be sure to restrain the barrel when you pull the trigger, because the same force you fought when you cocked the rifle will now try to rip the barrel out of your hands!

I mounted a Leapers 3-9x50mm scope in a B-Square AA adjustable mount, because it has the right crossbars to interface with the scope stop slots on the receiver. The scope is very bright and has a thin reticle with enough mil-dots to make it stand out against the background of vegetation. It's the kind of reticle that allows very precise aiming.


Leapers 3-9x50mm scope was bright and has a thin reticle for precision aiming. This model is obsolete and has been replaced by a new TS mount with the same features.

So, from appearance alone, this is a Webley Patriot through and through. But, the range test tomorrow will reveal if it still functions the same.

REALLY tuning a PCP!

by B.B. Pelletier

I just have to write this post, so forgive me if it's not to your taste. Yesterday, I got a question from The.Man regarding air usage in a Talon SS, which is a precharged pneumatic. He wondered if he installed a 24" barrel on an SS that normally has a 12" barrel, if he could get a greater number of shots at the same energy level as the standard 12" barrel is able to produce. I told him yes, he could, but then my brain went into gear, and I had to carry the thought through to completion.


Talon SS from AirForce is one of the most adjustable PCP rifles around.

To my thinking, The.Man has asked one of those fundamental life-changing questions that has the potential to open up airgunning for him. It's fundamental because it shows that he understands how pneumatic guns work. To me, pneumatic guns work very much like black powder arms. In a pneumatic, a longer barrel means more acceleration time, which equals more velocity. In a black powder gun, the longer barrel promotes more complete burning of the powder, which equates to more push behind the bullet and greater velocity. The two power sources are very much alike in this respect.

To continue the comparison, I have found most black powder arms have a preference for a certain bullet. Once you find it, don't shoot anything else. Also, find the right powder load and stick with it. A pneumatic pellet gun is the same. Find a power setting (if the gun is adjustable) that works best and the one pellet that's right, and you don't need anything else. Allow me to share the work done by another airgunner.

This airgunner took his Talon SS and added a 24" .22 caliber barrel. He knew that was the best combination for what he wanted, which was a lot of shots at a decent power level. Then, he selected a power setting on the adjustment mechanism. It wasn't wide open like you might think. He wanted a good number of shots with a good amount of power and a decent velocity spread so he'd have accuracy at 50 yards. He settled on power setting No. 8 in the power adjustment window. The pellet he chose was the Beeman Kodiak.

If you read the forums, you will see Talon SS owners trading power wheel settings back and forth, talking about setting 10.13, for example, which means the gross power indicator is resting on the number 10 and the power wheel is resting on the number 13. What they fail to realize is that EACH TALON SS WORKS DIFFERENTLY! You might get a velocity of 830 f.p.s. with a .22 caliber Crosman Premier on the setting 10.13 on your gun, while I might get 790 from the same setting on mine! I might have to dial up to 12.9 to get the same velocity you get on 10.13. Yet for both of us, 830 f.p.s. might be the maximum velocity our guns get with the .22 Premier pellet.


The AirForce adjustment mechanism is a wheel and an oval window cut in the left side of the frame. The round screw head (it's an Allen screw) in the window indicates the power setting. The reading is taken from the center of the screw. The power wheel on the left also has numbers that align with an index mark. These are the finer adjustments. Each revolution of the wheel moves the power screw one whole number right or left.

Install the 24" barrel and the adjustability becomes much more sensitive over a far broader range. The gun shoots both slower and faster with the 24" barrel installed.

Well, this shooter found a spot on his adjustment mechanism where everything was what he wanted, then he did one more thing - which is what this posting is all about. He loosened the two Allen setscrews on the SS top hat (the end of the valve stem that acts as the firing interface for the striker and also the valve stroke limiter) and adjusted the top hat to the point that the gun gave exactly the velocity he wanted. But if he adjusted the top hat to as little at two-thousandths of an inch less clearance, the velocity would drop. To do what he did requires a chronograph, a feeler gauge and patience. But a thoughtful shooter can really maximize his PCP's potential if he knows what he's doing.


The stainless steel "tophat" was the earlier Talon's method of adjustment. Today the adjustment wheel makes it unnecessary to ever move this tophat setting, which has 0.080" clearance from the factory. However, it is possible to adjust this to get a much more efficient setting for a single pellet at a single velocity.

What he achieved is what The.Man asked about - the optimum flow of air without wasting any. The results were incredible! Instead of getting the usual 35-40 powerful shots, he got over 90 shots in a tight velocity spread! In other words, he had his cake and ate it, too!

On Monday, I have a big surprise for you. An old friend has returned, and we're going to spend some time with him. In fact, next week should have several exciting things for you all!

The silencer issue

by B.B. Pelletier

Curtis asked a number of questions about silencers. Although I think the answers have already been given, they are perhaps not worded exactly as he asked the question, so today I want to spend a little time on the subject. Before I do, here is a linked bibliography on the silencer issue.

Airgun silencers: What's the big deal? Article by Tom Gaylord
Airguns and noise Blog Feb 8, 2006
Guilty! Jury finds airgun silencer illegal Blog July 18, 2006
What about a silencer for your airgun? Blog May 2, 2005

CURTIS' QUESTION
This is (very) off-topic, but I wonder if you would be so kind as to address an air gun topic that is "loaded" (pun fully intended). This regards the sensitive issue of air gun "silencers", "moderators", "shrouds", "dampers", or whatever name that people care to call these devices. Specifically, my inquiry involves an assertion by Dr. Beeman ("Silencers on Airguns" -an article that can be found on his website) that shrouds, moderators, etc, besides being (in his opinion) illegal, are also, according to him, ineffective in reducing the report of any "springer" type of air rifle.


I am not concerned here with the legality issue, but rather the assertion that these devices do not work on airguns. His logic is that though the moderators may be effective on CO2 guns and PCP's because of the fact that they involve allowing the slower expansion of a large volume of air rushing from the gun upon discharge, that this is NOT the case with springers since springers merely use a cusion of air as a medium for transfer of the energy of the expanding spring to the pellet, and so, in his opinion, the moderator does nothing to dampen the sound of the spring air rifle.
This seems contrary to both common sense as well as observation to me for the following two reasons;


1) I notice a definite difference between my (very loud) Webley .177 Tomahawk and the sound of a TX200 in the same caliber being discharged (though I do know that the Tommy is more powerful) and;


2) Noise inside of a structure, such as a home, can be "dampened" or moderated by the use of special building techniques involving more insulation and a second layer of wallboard held to the studs by special clips which allow the wallboard to move and cancel the transfer of sound.


It seems to me that dampening the noise from an airgun would similarly involve allowing vibrations to be muffled by an expansion chamber (such as a moderator or shroud), and that the noise of the rifle firing is not solely generated by a large blast of air such as issues from a PCP or CO2 rifle. For that matter, my QB-78 is very quiet and has NO moderator or provision for sound reduction other than a rather long barrel, yet it is very quiet. Further, it seems that these devices would not be so popular in the countries of Europe where they are legal, if they were not effective. I am very interested in reading your opinion on this matter. Thanks for putting up with my (verbose) and lengthy rant on this matter, and thanks also for your attention and consideration.


ANSWER
Dr. Beeman is correct about the "noise" of a spring gun. Most of it is transmitted through the bones of the shooter's face, so the sound is much louder for the shooter than for those standing close by. Thomas Edison was deaf and listened to the phonograph he invented by biting on the wooden case of the instrument, so he was intimately familiar with the sound conductive properties of facial bones.

It is possible to muffle the muzzle report of any airgun with a silencer, however. As quiet as spring guns are, the TX200 is further muffled by the use of a shrouded barrel containing a baffled silencer. It works, but the payoff is very slight. The TX200 is also a very smooth spring gun, and that, alone, reduces the noise. So, yes you can silence a springer, but why would you want to? An exception is a gas spring gun, whose gas-driven piston produces a small crack of sound upon discharge. But a well-adjusted spring gun is already very quiet (EXCEPT TO THE SHOOTER!). Curtis, you need to let someone else shoot both guns and you listen to the report. The TX will be louder than the Tomahawk, but not by as much as you think.

So why is Curtis' QB78 so quiet? Because by the time the pellet exits the muzzle, the gas pressure has dropped relatively low, and it doesn't have enough remaining energy to make a loud sound. This is the same reason all spring guns are quiet. Because they use so little air, there is no energy remaining by the time the pellet leaves the muzzle.

I'll leave you with this thought. In the 1980s, certain printers were extremely noisy. The Lexitron word processor printer was so loud (either 92 or 96 dB, as I recall) that it had to have an acoustic shield over it at all times. It was an impact-type daisy wheel, if that means anything to you. But times changed. Today's office printers are so quiet that they cannot be heard in most offices. They use different technologies, of course, but the fact is that they're quiet. You could lower their noise signature even more by putting an acoustic shield around them, too, but why would you want to?

What are airsoft guns used for? - Part 2

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

Reader DSW requested this report. Part 1 was written way back on December 26, 2006. If someone hadn't called my attention to it, this part would have slipped by. I ended the first part with Hollywood, where airsoft guns have greatly replaced the use of firearms shooting blanks. Blanks fired from a firearm are dangerous by themselves, because they do expel hot gas and burning wads at high speed. Gunfighters in western amusement parks have to be extremely careful, as a blank fired in a firearm can serious wound and even kill at close range.

Blanks can be dangerous
In 1969, the marshal of Frontier Village in San Jose, California, accidentally fired his revolver before the barrel had cleared the holster in a mock gunfight. The blank blast ripped open his heavy wool trousers and tore the skin from his upper thigh, leaving a surface wound the size of a football. Marshal Westin used a genuine Colt .45 Single Action Army revolver for his gunfighting weapon, and the blast from 40 grains of black powder produced a fireball three feet wide and eight feet long from the muzzle of his gun. So, you can see that even a true blank is not safe when it's fired in a firearm.

Blank-firing guns are made in such a way that none of the blank force can project straight ahead, nor can it propel a missile of any kind. But Hollywood used real firearms because they needed the authentic look for the silver screen.

Midrange wadcutters
However, when actor Brandon Lee was killed, someone had loaded a midrange wadcutter cartridge in the revolver that killed him. A midrange wadcutter cartridge has a bullet loaded flush with the top of the case. To someone who doesn't know better, it could appear to be a blank, though the bullet inside is as deadly as any bullet fired from a handgun. Hollywood can't take chances, so when realistic airsoft guns became available, they jumped on them.


This .38 Special midrange wadcutter has a 148-grain lead bullet seated flush with the top of the case. I use bullets like this for home defense, because they are more reliable killers when fired at slower velocities. The cut a very round and large wound channel.


This is what the midrange wadcutter bullet looks like in .38 Special caliber.

Other theatrical events
Hollywood lobbied the federal government to let them own and use airsoft guns without the orange marking at the muzzle. When exclusions to the law about visible markings on airsoft guns were written, they were expanded to include "other theatrical events," such as high-school plays, dinner theater, etc. Many others besides Hollywood are using airsoft guns for their incredible realism and safety.

Airsoft is now an industry of its own!
Consumers being what they are, it wasn't long before airsoft buyers began wanting to modify their guns, so the parts were created and airsoft gunsmiths sprang up. More robust parts were made when gamers complained about reliability problems. Today, the entire airsoft industry overshadows the airgun industry by virtue of the fact that gamers spend hundreds of millions on gear, tactical clothing, vehicles, radios and an endless list of mil-spec hardware. Not yet 30 years old, the airsoft industry has passed conventional airguns that have been around almost 500 years.

Airsoft's future
The future of airsoft in the U.S. is threatened by legislation. It was killed once before in the 1980s, which is where the orange-tipped muzzles came from. Some companies are making guns with clear bodies that cannot be mistaken for firearms, but that's just a delaying action. What airsoft needs is guidance and direction. Currently, there is none. It's a grassroots free-for-all with war games being the No. 1 attraction and problem. The NRA will never touch airsoft as long as it is used to promote people shooting people, and I agree with their sentiment.

What airsoft needs, if it is to survive in the U.S., is an action sport that doesn't involve shooting at other people. If that were to happen and if the NRA were to then throw their weight behind the sport, airsoft guns might have a chance. Popularity, alone, is not enough to keep the guns coming in!

Modify a Crosman 2240

by B.B. Pelletier

This request came in a couple of months ago, and I'd like to address it today. The Crosman 2240 is the latest in a long line of similar CO2 pistols Crosman has made since the mid-1950s. The model 150 was the first. These guns are modular, while the bulk-fill CO2 models (111/112/115/116) that preceded them were not. A modular gun lets owners make changes easily.

For greater power, lengthen the barrel
CO2 responds well to a long barrel, so just adding a longer barrel will dramatically increase the power of any CO2 gun - the 2240 included! In the past, shooters have used Crosman rifle barrels to bump up the power of their handguns. The old model 180 barrel was popular for this, as were some of the pneumatic barrels. If you closely examine a 2260 rifle, you will note that it uses the same short plastic breech as the 2240, so the barrel can be swapped. Of course, you'll end up with an ungainly pistol, but it will be more powerful! You can cut the barrel shorter if you like, but don't forget to dress and crown the cut.

You can also adapt almost any airgun barrel to the gun if you are able to machine the profile and make the cuts required. Other airgun barrels are not easy to come by. Crosman barrels are usually very accurate, so they're a good place to start.

Smooth the flow of gas
The gas that exits the valve has two 90-degree turns to make before getting behind the pellet. A little work with a Dremel tool can radius the transition area to let the gas flow easier, which translates to quicker. Quicker gas means more power that will be seen most readily in a longer barrel.

More gas!
To really step up performance, look into a new valve with an enlarged gas passage. A good home lathe can modify an existing valve, or you may find one available from one of many custom shops on the internet. Fire up your Google, and you'll see what I mean. I did and found plans for several modified valves on the first search. Remember...caveat emptor!

Steel breech
If you plan on making any sighting upgrades, the short plastic breech of the 2240 needs to be replaced with a long steel breech. Crosman sells one for $30 that is ideal. The long 11mm dovetail rail will hold most rifle scopes on 2-piece mounts.

Shoulder stock
Many owners want to turn their 2240 into a small carbine, and a shoulder stock makes this easy. Crosman lists these on their website, but I've heard they might not be around much longer. If you mount a rifle scope, a shoulder stock is pretty handy.

Custom grips
I've received numerous questions about a source for wood grips for Crosman pistols. Last year, they teamed up with Ralph Brown, the grip maker, and now they offer several exotic wood grips for the 2240.

Don't forget the 2260 rifle!
What a shame it would be to pour a bundle of money into a 2240, only to wind up with 2260 performance for twice the price! Customizing a pistol to make it your own special gun is a laudable goal, but reinventing the wheel and paying heavily for it is not something to strive for.

How to maintain a PCP airgun

by B.B. Pelletier

This report was requested several months ago, but I needed time to consider it before writing. Maintenance is such a subjective thing. One person just wants to keep his airgun running like new, while another wants to see every screw and seal in the gun. I think that goes beyond maintenance, so I will confine this report to people who just want to care for their gun to keep them shooting as long as possible.

1. Keep your airgun under pressure!
Letting a PCP go empty is always risky, because the ambient air can then get through the valve and into the gun. Ambient (room) air is full of dust, small dirt particles and droplets of harmful things, such as water and solvents (if you clean firearms nearby). Keeping a gun or separate reservoir pressurized keeps the door shut against these harmful things and here is some proof.

I have a DayState Harrier that has been holding air continuously since 1999. But I let the air out of a Career 707 that had held for six years, and it developed a leak. I have several other PCPs that have held air for nearly as long as my Harrier, but many guns that have had the air released have had to be rebuilt before they held again. The seals were not bad in most cases. They were just dirty!

2. Use high-grade silicone lubricants!
These lubricants cost more money than easily available hardware-store lubes,. They're more difficult to find, but a PCP needs them to operate. They are NOT for lubrication, but for sealing! Regular petroleum-based lubes are used for true lubrication, but put your oil cans away. The amount of oil and grease a PCP needs is very small. In the eight years I've owned my Harrier, it's never been lubricated. Period! It still doesn't need anything.

AirForce guns need silicone lube on the large o-ring that seals the tank to the adapter. I do that about once a year, regardless of the number of times I fill the gun. The double o-rings on the fill probe of a quick-disconnect need more frequent lubrication, and frequent cleaning. Because these o-rings are exposed to the air, they pick up dirt, which the lube on their surfaces holds. I either store my probes in a plastic bag, or I clean and lube them before every use.


Exposed o-rings on this fill probe should either be covered when not in use or cleaned before each use. They need a thin coat of silicone grease on them before being inserted into the fill port.

3. Get a chronograph!
PCPs change velocity over time, and it takes a chronograph to properly adjust them again. For example, Falcon rifles will start out at one speed when new, then climb by 30-40 f.p.s. after about 500 shots. It's just the way they settle in. With a chronograph, you can watch for this and adjust your gun when it happens.

4. Do you need to lube pellets?
If you shoot pure lead pellets below 900 f.p.s., you probably don't need to lubricate them; it would depend on how smooth your barrel is. If you shoot Crosman Premiers at 900 or faster, then you should lube them in some oil before shooting. Otherwise, you will have to clean the barrel periodically. A PCP is a dry gun, where a springer blows a small amount of oil from the compression chamber into the barrel with every shot. Lead has its own lubricity, but above about 900 f.p.s. it needs help.

5. How often should you clean the barrel?
Clean the barrel as seldom as possible. Only clean when there is an accuracy problem, and then scrub the bore with JB Non-Embedding Bore Cleaning Compound. My Harrier has never been cleaned, and it still shoots well.


Five JSBs at 35 yards from my Harrier show that 10 years of not cleaning the barrel is no problem. Group measures 0.170" c-t-c.

Are there more tips? Of course! Here's one. Don't take your rifle apart! These are not just PCP tips, they apply to cars, wristwatches and to life in general.

Chronographs and light

by B.B. Pelletier

Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere have a trying time using our chronographs in the winter. When you get home from work, the daylight is gone, so some kind of artificial lighting is needed for the skyscreens of most chronographs. This can be a problem unless you know a few things.

Fluorescents HATE chronographs...
...but they LOVE skyscreens! Fluorescent lights will trigger your skyscreens without any intervention from you. Even if you have incandescent lighting directly over your skyscreens, a nearby fluorescent light will set off the screens, giving you a false reading on the chronograph screen. Skyscreens work on intervals of light and dark, and a fluorescent light pulses at just the right cadence to set them off.

Shop lighting not much better
The powerful vapor-type lights used in industrial shops and warehouses these days are almost as bad as fluorescent lights at setting off skyscreens, however I have found it possible to override them with good local incandescent lighting, such as the Chrony Skyscreen Lights that are the No. 1 option for anyone who owns a Chrony. You can also make your own light bar with regular incandescent lights, if you like. Space them to shine down on each skyscreen. They should be low wattage - between 15 and 40 watts. You can even use these lights in a room by themselves, so turn off those other bad lights!

Outdoor lighting
Okay, the weekend arrives and you can finally use that Chrony Alpha outside - or can you? For some reason, your skyscreens are still triggering and giving false readings, despite being outdoors in daylight. What gives? Two things - bright sky with rapidly moving clouds, or it's breezy and nearby trees are casting moving shadows on the screens. Either one of these conditions will set off any chronograph's skyscreens.

When you go outdoors, you want either an overcast sky or a blue sky with the sun not shining directly on the screens. If there are clouds, they shouldn't be moving about, causing sudden shadows. Stay away from trees, because of the moving shadow problem. If you use a tripod for your chronograph, remember that you can always angle the skyscreens toward a better part of the sky. Read Tom Gaylord's article about chronographs for other tips.

Using the skyscreen diffusers
All chronographs come with light diffusers that can improve lighting during difficult times. Most of the time you don't need to attach the diffusers, but under some conditions they're the only things that work. I assume you've read the article linked above and have seen what diffusers look like. They are for use on extremely bright days when the sun is almost directly over the skyscreens. Direct sunlight overpowers the sensors, making it impossible for them to "see" the faint shadow cast by a pellet speeding by. Think of diffusers as sunglasses for the chronograph. My trick of tilting the tripod also works in this situation, and I find it easier. If all you have is a flat table for the Chrony, use the diffusers.

Diffusers also help on a breezy day when sun and shadows are moving fast, though sometimes nothing works very well on those days.

Chronographs are wonderful measurement tools that can add a lot of enjoyment to anyone's airgunning experience, but they do require some understanding. Learn to use your chronograph so you can be confident that the numbers it gives are correct.

The blowgun Where it all began

by B.B. Pelletier

Blowguns are the most primitive air weapons of all - and they ARE weapons, unlike nearly all other airguns. A blowgun is a long tube that shoots a dart powered by the force of air from the shooter's lungs. It falls into the spring-piston category because the lungs do not compress the air until the moment of firing. About 400 years ago, an airgun using a leather bellows to do the same thing was invented. It was a copy of the blowgun, put into mechanical form.

The blowgun reaches far back into prehistory, so the date or even era of its creation isn't known, but it is certainly older than 2,000 years. The reason it is prehistoric isn't necessarily because of its age, but because it was used by primitive cultures that had no written language.

Surprising performance!
As an airgunner, I had read about the effectiveness of blowguns for many years before seeing it firsthand. When I saw what one could do, I was amazed. The first time I tried one, I was hitting a 6" target from 40 feet! I know some airguns that can't do as well. Suddenly I had to have one of my own.

The longer the better
Like any pneumatic gun, the longer the blowgun, the faster it propels the dart. Even with the tiny amount of air from human lungs, this remains true. I bought a modern 6-footer, which is in the magnum class, but it certainly isn't handy! If I were using it to hunt, it would get caught on every branch and weed in the field. As a testbed in a clean environment, it's perfect. There are 4-foot and even 3-foot models, and you can make your own from simple aluminum tubing bought at the hardware store, so length can be whatever you want it to be.

Blowgun collectors
As airgun collectors become more interested in their hobby, they eventually start acquiring blowguns. Robert Beeman has a large collection of airguns, and he has lots of blowguns, as well. In the first Airgun Digest, he not only showed some of the history of the guns, he even included detailed instructions for making both the guns and the darts! W.H.B. Smith did the same thing in his book, Gas, Air and Spring Guns of the World. In fact, blowguns are such fascinating objects that many Asian countries are now cranking out primitive models in huge numbers for the tourist trade. It's similar to the current fascination with medieval armor and swords.

Your airguns will be jealous of the accuracy!
Accuracy is surprising. Six inches at 40 feet was just my first attempt. With some practice, I can hit a 3" target at the same 40 feet most of the time. A skilled shooter can probably hit a 1" target reliably at the same range. There are clubs that shoot targets at 10 meters. Native blowgun hunters can extend that range up to 80 and even 100 yards, but they use their weapons all the time and become very familiar with their performance.

The commercial blowgun I bought came with a dozen darts fastened to the tube on a dart holder. Over the years, I've managed to lose about half of them, but they're available from any dealer. I see them all the time at local gun shows. The dart is made of a 4" section of music wire, sharpened on one end and fixed to a colorful plastic skirt on the other end. The skirt fits the inside of the tube to seal the air behind and provides high drag in flight to stabilize the dart. The dart works on the same principle as the diabolo pellet.

Firing behavior
The blowgun is almost silent in operation. Beyond 20 feet, it's so quiet that it cannot be heard in most circumstances. The dart flies faster than the eye can track (200-350 f.p.s.), so a stealthy blowgunner can wreak some real damage. Darts will penetrate a 1/4" plywood board with ease and a 1" pine plank if the shooter has the lungs for it. But penetration isn't how the darts work in the field. They are coated with a fast-acting toxin that paralyzes the game, allowing dispatch by other means. This is academic for American hunters, though, because blowguns are not an appropriate hunting weapon when better tools, such as pellet guns, are available.

There's a huge variety of blowguns available on the internet today. There are big-bore guns, guns that will shoot 440 yards (almost as far as a diabolo pellet!) and all sorts of dart types, plus paintballs. Blowgun sites talk about hunting with blowguns, but I don't advocate it. Having seen birds suffering with darts in their bodies, I can't think of a more inappropriate thing to do.

Massachusetts, California and Rhode Island restrict their ownership. As far as I know the other 47 states have no laws against them. New York City prohibits their ownership, and there may be counties and other cities with restrictions. In Canada, they're prohibited except for use on a legal shooting range. The UK outlaws all modern blowguns entirely. Only antiques may be owned. That said, a blowgun is the easiest weapon to manufacture and to conceal.

The science of the blowgun continues to captivate all who fall under its influence. It's well worth the low cost to have one if you can, just to learn more about your sport.

Gamo P-23 pistol

by B.B. Pelletier

I've been asked to report on this pistol by many readers, so today I'm happy to respond. I first shot a Gamo P-23 right after it hit the market in mid-1998.


Slim and trim - the epitome of a pocket pistol. No wonder there is so much interest in the Gamo P-23.

Dual ammo
The P-23 is one of those curious air pistols that shoots either lead pellets or steel BBs. Naturally, it's .177 caliber. When shooting BBs, the pistol is a 12-shot repeater that fires just as fast as you can pull the trigger. You can also load lead pellets singly for far greater accuracy. The rifling is designed to not have a problem with BBs, but to still grab the larger lead pellets and spin them. Only one type of ammunition can be in the gun at a time, because the linear BB magazine will try to load the barrel if there is anything in it.

Styling and fit
One reason the P-23 has lasted this long is that it looked right from the beginning. It's styled to look like a SIG Sauer P230 pocket pistol, which is a very classic modern design. You can also see hints of the PPK in the gun, but not so many that it isn't its own distinctive design. Pick it up, and it's almost like holding a P08 Luger! It fits your hand and everybody else's, too. As small as the pistol is, the grip is surprisingly large, so you guys with the first baseman's mitts on the end of your arms should find this one of the nicer pocket pistols to hold.

Another nice feature about the looks is that Gamo made the CO2 cartridge loading cap almost flush with the bottom of the grip. After all the bad remarks I've read concerning the PPK/S grip, which hangs down significantly, I know this is a desirable feature.

Loading
To load the gun with either kind of ammo, the metal upper slide is unlocked and tipped forward. Pellets can then be loaded one at a time into the rear of the barrel, or BBs can be loaded into a spring-loaded magazine located on top of the synthetic frame. The loading port is funnel-shaped to ease the process. With the orange plastic magazine follower pulled down and locked out of the way, loading goes quickly.


With the forward half of the upper slide rotated forward, the BB port is exposed. Lock the orange follower out of the way and load 12 BBs.

Make a note that only the forward part of the upper slide is metal. The back part that doesn't have to move is synthetic.

Trigger
The trigger is double-action only, and it has a very light, even pull. There is a small, visible hammer inside the rear of the slide. Even if you catch it and pull back, there's no full-cock notch for the trigger to catch. But you will find the double-action pull very nice. It's certainly no hinderance to shooting because this pistol is meant for fast action - not targets.

Power and gas conservation
The P-23 gets about 400 f.p.s., give or take, with steel BBs and around 275 with light lead pellets. You can expect Gamo's rated 60 shots per CO2 cartridge, but you'll probably shoot them so fast that you'll have to stop to take count before you're convinced. After all, that's just five magazines of BBs.

Accuracy
I was surprised by the P-23's accuracy with lead pellets. Usually, these pocket pistols are more noisemaker than serious airgun, but at 23 feet I managed a half-inch group with five RWS Hobbys. BBs are not as accurate, of course, but they will still stay inside 4" at 10 yards, which is good for BBs from any pistol.

My only big complaint is the rear sight. It moves sideways for windage and is held in place by a small setscrew. Tighten this screw too much, and it pushes the sight completely up and out of the receiver dovetail. The plastic sight dovetail in the receiver is simply too soft and flexible. Take care when tightening this screw.

So, I'm saying the P-23 is a good little air pistol. When it was new in '98, I paid $62 for one. Over the years, they've gone down about $4, so there is even more incentive to get one than ever.

News from the front!

by B.B. Pelletier

Hello everyone. I have been on the road and will try to catch up on all the back questions; but if not, ask again. I did ask several of you to ask your questions again this week, so now is the time for that.

While on the road, I use a laptop to keep up with the blog. I'm not used to the keyboard, which is why I keep capitalizing whole sentences. I am not shouting at anyone; the caps lock key is too close to the shift and tab keys, and I hit it all the time by mistake.

When I'm on the road, I tend to give shorter answers because of the keyboard thing, plus the fact that my connections are so varied. Believe it or not, on this trip I was in a 700-room hotel in Orlando where there was no wireless internet, except in the lobby! In my room, their "high-speed internet" was a phone cable! And, it was like a fast dial-up service. That makes it difficult to do real work on the internet. I will solve this with a wireless card in the future, but this time I was unprepared for a resort hotel in a major vacation and conference city to be so backward. They located this cable on the night stand, so I had to use that as my computer desk. After answering 25-30 messages each evening, my back was totally out of whack.

Blog security measures
Some of you may not have read my announcement about the new security measures we are using, so here's the deal. Commercial automatic spams on this blog have increased dramatically. Automated spam postings normally bypass blogs that require entry of characters in a box. We could require that all comments be sent to me before being posted, but that's full moderation that I want to avoid. Typing in the characters seemed less annoying than full moderation. Another option would be to allow comments only from people who have a Blogger identity. That would force everyone to register. I want to avoid that as long as we can for a variety of reasons. I have to type in the characters, too, so I'm doing it for every answer I give. It still seems to be the best way.

Posting backlog
Below are listed the blog topics I am working on. In some cases, "working" means I'm awaiting the gun, which could take months. In other cases, the topic has only been asked for by one reader, which tends to make it slip down on the list.

Benjamin HB22 pistol
Tau 7 pistol
Big Bore 909 rifle
How to maintain a PCP airgun
BAM B50 test (the B51 is also possible)
Several reports on barrel harmonics and tuning them
Daisy 008 pistol
Gamo P23 pistol
Blowguns
Modifying a 2240 for more power
Round balls vs 28-grain Eun Jin diabolos for penetration
Scope repeatability (8-32 Leapers)
Customizing airguns (stocks, grips, finishes)
Comparison of the CP99 Compact to the PPK/S
Gel pack rifle/pistol rest
Evanix AR6 pistol

There are also several other blogs in the works, but they are either based on new models that haven't arrived (and no one has asked for them yet), or they're surprises.

What BB Pelletier CAN'T do!
I get comments and questions all the time that go like this. "I understand the technical points of shooting quite well. I recently purchased a (fill in the blank) airgun that doesn't suit my needs. I need a rifle that shoots at least 1,200 f.p.s. and can hold a group of five shots to no larger than 1/2" at 50 yards. Why is this expensive air rifle (it cost him $190) unable to do that? ANSWER: What you bought IS NOT an expensive air rifle. A Walther LG300 Dominator, costing $1,899, is expensive. A rifle for under $200 is in the budget class. A budget Ruger 10/22 doesn't shoot that well, either, but a custom Volquartsen selling for $1,500 will! The fact that $200 seems like a lot of money to you doesn't make it so. It seems like a lot to me, too, but it really isn't. Don't expect a Chevy Impala to perform like a Dodge Viper, because it won't.

Now, here is what this blog CAN do. I can show you, through my reports and testing, that you can get more power and nearly all the accuracy of an LG300 Dominator from an AirForce Condor, which costs under $600. The trigger will be heavier and the stock won't be as adjustable, but the Condor offers a lot of value for less than one-third the price. What I CAN'T do is make the Condor come to you in a wood stock or with a quiet report, any more than I can grow a new arm.

Do hollowpoint pellets work?

by B.B. Pelletier

This question comes from Bryan. "Do hollowpoint pellets really work?" Since Tom Gaylord already did that exact article in Shotgun News last year, I borrowed some of his ideas and added a few new ones to demonstrate the effect.

There are a couple of considerations before we begin. I think we all understand that the term "work" asks if hollowpoints expand in game. Gaylord used Neutrogena facial soap bars that are transparent as his test medium. I decided to use duct seal, like what is found in the Quiet Pellet Trap. Because duct seal isn't transparent, I had to remove the pellets to photograph them. Tom was able to photograph them through the soap bar. His test also showed relative depth of penetration and the wound channel, but his pellets looked blurry. My pellets look sharper but I lost the wound channel and the relative penetration depth. You takes yer choice!

Test design
I shot from 12" into a new Quiet Pellet Trap that has no pellets in the ballistic medium. The pellet is going much faster than a hunter's pellet would strike a target, but duct seal is softer than flesh and bone. I feel this is a good representation of what a similar pellet would do at 20-25 yards in an animal. Even if it isn't, it is a standard medium that all pellets were subjected to. The pellets were then carefully removed and more carefully cleaned for photography.

.22 JSB Predator
The Predator is a relatively new pellet from JSB. It's more accurate than a lot of other hollowpoints, but not up to the level of good domed pellets. I shot it from the B40 used in the evaluation report, and it left the muzzle at 667 f.p.s.


JSB Predator shed the nylon tip and expanded well. Front half of pellet peeled back over rear half.

.22 Beeman Silver Bear
Beeman Silver Bears are oldies that are lightweight in .177 and on the heavy side of medium in .25. In .22, they're lightweight. Also shot from the B40. Velocity was 744 f.p.s.


Beeman Silver Bear squashed together. Skirt appears blown out and top of pellet peeled back over it.

.177 Crow Magnum
The Beeman Crow Magnum is one of the legendary hollowpoints, with an established record of success. On the down side, accuracy drops off after 25 yards in many guns. For this pellet I used the .177 B40 I reviewed. Velocity was 916 f.p.s.


The Beeman Crow Magnum came apart. Front separated as lead ring and rear squashed together into solid chunk.

The control
We also need to ask whether other types of pellets mushroom - even as well as hollowpoints. For a control, I fired a .177 Chinese domed pellet from the B40. This was a very cheap pellet that I would never shoot in the field. It felt too small for the bore of the B40 during loading. Velocity was 879 f.p.s.


Chinese domed pellet was garbage to begin with. But it mushroomed like a hollowpoint!

Conclusions
Some hollowpoint pellets do work. However, so do some domed pellets, and they work just about as well. This "test" was just a minor excursion into the question Bryan asked. It generates more questions than it answers. For example, with a given pellet, at what velocity does it start deforming? How accurate are these pellets at a given range? And so on. All I tried to do was answer the question, but you can see there is a whole universe of knowledge before us.

Testing a B3-1

by B.B. Pelletier

Well, after two days of reading about what it takes to tune up a cheap Chinese air rifle, I thought I'd report on another one - the B3-1. One of our readers asked for it, so here goes.

I bought a B3 from around 1987. In those days, they sold for $49.00 through an ad in American Rifleman. I bought the gun because I had always found Chi-Com military firearms to be serviceable and adequate. Boy, was I in for an awakening! Chi-com firearms are made for the military. Airguns are made for export!

Trees don't lie
That old B3 underlever was as rough and cobby as a product can get and still work. It was loaded with all sorts of odd lubricants that smelled strange every time it fired. Back in those days, I didn't own a chronograph, so my way of testing airgun power was to see how deep it buried a pellet in a tree. I had a Blue Streak of known power, if Sheridan was to be believed, and it was .20 caliber. A smaller .177 pellet shot from a B3 at 125 f.p.s. faster should have penetrated approximately the same. It didn't, of course. It didn't even penetrate the tree at all. From the vibration, it felt like a magnum...but trees don't lie!

Deja vu all over again
I got rid of that old B3 at a garage sale within a year and thought Chinese airguns were out of my life. So, how do I explain buying another one, a B3-1, just three years ago at a gun show? I guess it was the price - only $29. Yes, in over two decades the price had actually gone down! There is also nostalgia. The dealer had these rifles in boxes stacked ten high and four deep on his table - just like the old days. Like some of you who asked me for this report, I couldn't walk away.

Something old, something new
Well, China has cleaned up its act in the past 20 years. This latest rifle is all the way up to NRA awful in the cosmetic department. We must be sending better wooden pallets to China, because the stock shows definite improvement over 1987. It's still peppered with wood putty where the nail holes were, but it fits the action much closer now; and the finish is brown instead of orange. The bluing on the steel is even and nice! Most of the parts that were plastic and cracked on my B3 are now steel, and the few that are still plastic are made much better. The synthetic breech seal at the front of the sliding compression chamber is still made of Chinese ticky-tacky, and who knows how long it will last.

Cocking
When you cock a B3-1, it sounds like an old sailing ship creaking at anchor. The mainspring must be completely dry, and I can hear each coil as it slips in the tube under increasing compression. But, the rifle cocks easily. The designers didn't do anything foolish such as install an automatic safety or anti-beartrap mechanism, so the B3-1 remains one of the finest surgical instruments available to the general public. A little relaxation of care on the shooter's part, and it will remove a digit as readily as a Civil War surgeon, and without the benefit of anesthesia! Seriously, when loading THIS AIR RIFLE, you tuck the butt in your armpit and keep one hand firmly on the underlever while the other one goes in harm's way to feed the pellet. Some shooters who didn't heed that warning are now called "Stumpy."

Barrel
The barrel seems to have some rifling! And, it seems to not be oversized, as they were in the past. The pellets fit in the breech as tight as they should, which is all you can ask from any rifle. That's an improvement.

Velocity
RWS Hobby pellets (7 grains) average 579 f.p.s., a gain from the past, though I can't say how much. I don't have that same tree anymore, so I'm guessing we're up about 100 f.p.s. However, the variation is just 10 f.p.s., which is phenomenal. I was anxious to see how it shot. The rifle has no provision for a scope stop, so I shot with open sights. I'll grant you that a scope would have done at least 50 percent better.

Accuracy
I shot the rifle at 20 yards on a perfect day. Shooting off a rest, I managed groups of 1" to 1.5". That's not too bad. Not in the same class as a Benjamin 392, but not that much worse, either. So, the barrel is rifled and reasonably well at that.

Overall impression
Buy one, if that's what you want. Just remember that no two Chinese airguns are alike. I may have gotten a great one and you could get a dog. But I think today's dogs are farther along than they were 20 years ago. Someone over there is paying attention.

Tuning a cheap Chinese airgun - Part 2

by Tom Gaylord

Part 1

Yesterday, we saw what kind of performance to expect from an inexpensive Chinese airgun. The velocity was just over half the advertised speed, and accuracy was out the window. Let's see what can be done to correct these problems. You'll have to decide whether or not it's worth the effort.

One of my most vocal readers was a man by the name of Ray Apelles. He and his father, Hans, had modified several Chinese spring rifles with varying degrees of luck, but he strongly recommended that I test and tune one for The Airgun Letter. He said he would even provide the tuneup guidelines. As it turned out, Ray actually wrote most of the report.

What's inside?
Upon disassembling the gun, I was pleased to find that the piston seal was leather. Leather is much more adaptable and forgiving for the home tuner, as long as you aren't going for magnum power. The TS45 could never achieve that power level with its narrow piston bore and short stroke, so a leather seal was most welcome.

I also found all the metal parts to be durable and properly hard. They did suffer from too many burrs and rough edges, but several hours of careful stoning took care of that. Ray had me sleeve the transfer port to reduce its diameter. That improved the airflow pattern and kept the piston from slamming into the end of the compression chamber


A brass tube has been swaged into the walls of the air transfer port. It reduces the inside diameter from 0.141" to 0.125".

New piston seal
Ray had me make a new leather seal for the rifle. Since I had written an article about how to make leather piston seals of any size, I just followed my own instructions and made a tight one. I lubricated the compression chamber with moly grease (Beeman M-2-M), soaked the leather piston seal in petroleum oil and put the gun together. Velocity with H&N Finale Match pellets went from 460f.p.s. to 580 f.p.s. from doing just these minimal things, plus removing all the burrs in the action. Accuracy remained poor, of course.

New mainspring
Next, I installed a Maccari mainspring and lubricated it with Beeman Mainspring Dampening Compound. Today, I'd use Maccari's Velocity Tar (it wasn't available in 1996). Velocity increased with the same H&N pellet to 666 f.p.s. The firing behavior was now very calm and free from vibration.

X-ray vision
Ray works in the radiology department of a hospital, so he took some X-rays of the trigger parts both cocked and uncocked. They show a different picture than most shooters conceive their trigger looks like, so I included them here.


This is what the trigger looks like when the gun is not cocked.


Here's the trigger when cocked.

I did lube the trigger parts with moly. That resulted in a crisp, positive 26-oz. pull. No stoning was done because Ray warned not to do it. As you can see in the X-rays, the trigger doesn't function like you might think.

New barrel
Finally, I shipped the action to Dennis Quackenbush, who installed a Lothar Walther barrel for me. He was kind enough to polish and blue the barrel and action before returning it, so it looked more like a European gun afterwards (except for the stock). Accuracy went from 2" at 10 meters down to under 1/4". And, this barrel was cut off, so it wasn't even choked. Who knows how much better it might have been?

What did I gain from all this work? I took a $30-40 Chinese sidelever, spent about $150 plus 12-15 hours of time and got the performance of a CZ 630 that I could buy for $80 at that time. Was it worth it? No - if the goal was to get a good rifle cheap. Yes, if the goal was to play around inside a rifle I wouldn't be afraid to damage. After it was all over, I still had the same opinion of cheap Chinese air rifles, but now I had added some hands-on experience.

Tuning a cheap Chinese airgun - Part 1

by Tom Gaylord


This "deluxe version of the TS45 sidelever was supposed to be an 800 f.p.s. gun. I tested it thoroughly to discover if it was a diamond in the rough.

B.B. Pelletier turned the blog over to me today to address tuning an inexpensive Chinese spring-piston air rifle, because I did just that for The Airgun Letter, my monthly newsletter that ran from 1994 to 2002. I had a lot of inquiries asking me to test Chinese rifles, but I had owned several and found them to be unsatisfactory, so I was reluctant to put them into my newsletter. My readers pestered me until I finally gave in and ordered one - a TS45 sidelever. I had owned an older B3, but I knew that one was too primitive to work on safely, so I took the advice offered by Howard Montgomery of Reno Airguns and went with the 45.

What my readers said
My readers said that Chinese airguns were wood and steel and represented a good value for less than $40 - pretty much what people still say about the cheap ones today. The importer advertised that the rifle was capable of 800 f.p.s. in .177, which mine was, so the first thing I did was put it on a chronograph. Beeman H&N Match pellets (7.6 grains) delivered an average of 467 f.p.s. with a 43 f.p.s. spread over 10 shots! I figured I would hear all sorts of excuses as to why my gun was so slow, but I never heard a single one! The Chinese gun lovers were a forgiving lot! Well, they would have to be, wouldn't they?

Accuracy
My rifle (if it was rifled - I never knew for sure) shot H&N Finale Match pellets into 2" groups at 10 meters. That was the best it did. Other pellets grouped 3" to 6" at that distance. The bore was so large that pellets fell out of the breech after being seated flush. I had to hold the rifle level until the sliding breech was closed to keep the pellet in the barrel. I don't know what your criteria is, but my expectations for a pellet rifle run higher than that.

Never stopped dieseling
That rifle smoked like a teenager at the mall! Every shot produced a cloud of smoke that smelled like bacon frying. Before chronographing, I shot 600 shots to break it in, but nothing changed, and it still smoked with every shot.

Huge transfer port!
The air transfer port was far too large for the power of the rifle, with the probable result that the piston was slamming against the end of the sliding compression chamber on every shot. The pellet offered no air resistance because of the oversized bore, so it's a wonder this rifle was able to shoot at all!

Fit and finish
Ever see a grade school craft project done by some disinterested kids? That's how this rifle looked. The "stock" appeared to have been gnawed by a rabid beaver, and the metal parts were left as they fell from the punch press and screw machine, where they don't sharpen their bits very often. Nothing to be proud of.

Sights
The sights were pretty conventional, but the rear sight was placed inches from the shooter's eye. That works with an aperture sight, but this was a notch and I couldn't see it that close, which is probably the reason for a lot of the inaccuracy. It also told me that whoever was making this gun was not a shooter and had never tried to shoot with his product.

Trigger-pull
A formal dinner at the Munsters' was my description of the trigger. It was both stiff and creepy. Not as heavy as I'd expected, but it made it impossible to do my best.

Overall impressions
My suggestion was to use the gun in lieu of a fence post, but I had a few readers who thought differently, so we soldiered on. I had purchased a Lothar Walther air rifle barrel for $20 (this was 1996, and the barrels were left over from when Benjamin stopped making the Sterling spring rifles), so after this introduction we were poised for part two - where the rifle got tuned. I know this is what you've been asking for, so stay tuned!

Daisy 179

by B.B. Pelletier

Just a note. Tomorrow and the next day, I will turn this blog over to Tom Gaylord, who is helping me with a report on tuning an inexpensive Chinese airgun. I will be out of town until next Monday, but everything here should keep rolling along. If you see a question you can answer, I'd appreciate your help, because it's more difficult to do all the answers when I'm on the road.

When I reported about the Marksman 1010 pistol last November, several readers commented on other air pistols they owned in their youth. One of these was a man who remembered his Daisy model 179 pistol less than fondly. The 179 is a copy of the Colt Single-Action Army revolver. It holds 12 steel BBs under spring tension and feeds them one at a time when the hammer is cocked.


Daisy's 179 was one of the first Spittin' Image guns made.

Sight problem
His biggest complaint was that the front sight is so tall that the gun shot very low, even at 10 feet! I had never really done any shooting with a 179, so that was news to me; but I've owned and shot a lot of Colt Single-Action Army revolvers. In the early years of their production, they had the same too-tall front sight problem, and Colt always assumed the owners would file down the front sight to regulate the pistol.

This discussion of the sights drove me to examine my own late-model 179. Lo and behold, my gun has a different problem. When the hammer is cocked, as it must be to shoot the gun, it obscures the sights altogether! The problem is that the hammer doesn't stay all the way back after the gun is cocked. It rotates up and into the sight line before coming to rest. This is not a big problem, because I don't plan on shooting targets with this gun, but I never would have paid any attention had the reader not directed me to the sights.

Catapult gun
Another thing our reader mentioned was the low power of the gun. It seems he always coveted a Marksman 1010 until he read my report. He thought he had owned the world's weakest air pistol and was glad to learn that he had company. The 179 is actually a catapult gun. It uses the power of the mainspring alone to propel the BB. That means it has to be slow, which it most certainly is. The velocity on my like-new example runs from 150 to 159 f.p.s. Believe it or not, though, that is the highest velocity I have ever recorded from a catapult BB gun. But, there aren't too many to choose from!

History
The 179 was first offered in 1960 as one of Daisy's earliest Spittin' Image airguns. It came out at a time when American boys were interested in one of two things: space and cowboys. We were leaving the frontier era of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone and entering the world of Wyatt Earp, Paladin and Gunsmoke. The airguns we played with had to keep pace.

This most curious of all Daisy pistols continued in production to 1981, when sales must have dictated an end. But, it wouldn't die! In 1992, production resumed, only this one has a crossbolt trigger-blocking safety. This second run was much shorter, ending in 1996, so the model with the safety should be the one that's hardest to find. However, collectors seem to place a rather nice premium on the first model without the safety.

In 2004, Daisy found a box of parts in their warehouse that had been returned from an overseas customer who had been assembling the 179 in-country. They made up 700 of these final second-model guns and packaged them in a special vintage-looking box with a certificate of authenticity signed by Orin Ribar, curator of the Daisy Airgun Museum. They were sold by the museum, and the final few went in early 2006. In the future, these guns will probably be the most desirable 179s of all - except for the 22 handmade salesmen's samples Daisy had made up in solid brass. Those are not valid production models, yet they captivate all Daisy collectors because there are so few. Expect to pay over $1,000 if you are ever fortunate enough to find one for sale.


Vintage box, together with signed certificate of authenticity, is the only proof of Daisy's special edition 179, sold in 2005.

Expect to pay about $100 for a nice first-model 179 and perhaps $80 for a second model. A gun with a box will add $25. The special edition currently runs $115-125, but expect that to climb.

Scope repeatability

by B.B. Pelletier

I hope to dispel some of the myths about scopes today. If you saw the movie Quigley Down Under, you saw a mythological gun that could hit its mark at fantastic distances, even when held offhand. In the first demonstration, Matthew Quigley just attached the tang sight after a 3-month ocean voyage and adjusted it after estimating the range to an oak water bucket at least a quarter-mile away. He then proceeded to hit the bucket three times from the offhand position. Pure Hollywood - fun to watch but never happens in real life. And so it is with scopes.

Optics tend to shift
The metallic tang sight Quigley used is actually able to maintain a zero far better than an optical sight such as a riflescope. Optics tend to shift as the temperature changes, and points of impact do the same. For an optical sight to work properly, it either has to be re-zeroed or the zero must be confirmed all the time. Snipers know this and have ways of compensating for temperature shift, but the average shooter knows nothing of this phenomenon. He is surprised and feels cheated when his zero moves by a half-inch at 50 yards.

I'm not talking about a sudden jump of one inch or more in the point of impact. That's not caused by this situation. I'm talking about the gun that was zeroed on a 70-degree day and now shoots a half inch low on a 35-degree day. That shift is due to the change in temperature. But that wasn't the question - was it?

Repeatability
No - the question was how repeatable a scope's adjustments are. I just thought some of you might like to know about the fallibility of optical sights, so you wouldn't fall into Hollywood's deception that a bullet always goes to the intersection of the crosshairs! Repeatability refers to the adjustment knobs. When you make adjustments, will they come back to the same spot if the knobs are turned back to the same settings? That's repeatability!

Click values
No doubt, you're aware that scope knobs are supposed to move the impact of the round by a certain distance at 100 yards. The most common distance is a quarter-inch, so we call these adjustments quarter-minute clicks. Since a minute of angle is so close to one inch at 100 yards, it is customary to think in terms of inches: one click equals 1/4" at 100 yards. Nice thought, but not entirely accurate. Some quarter-minute scopes actually move the round a fifth of an inch, while others move it a different amount. The click values are approximations rather than precise values. However, EACH click should move the round by the SAME AMOUNT in a quality scope.

Also, some scopes need to have a shot fired after adjustment before they move to the new point of impact and settle down. Some go there immediately, but a lot do not. I am not sure what this is caused by, but you should know about it. Please do not ask me which scopes do this and which do not - I don't know! I only discover it when testing a certain scope.

Now, we've come to the heart of the question. If you move a scope's adjustments and them bring them back to where you started, will the rounds be striking in the same place? I know you want a black-and-white answer...and there is one...but you have to make certain allowances. The first being this: Can YOU put every round through the same hole with the rifle you are testing? You shouldn't test scope repeatability at close range. Test it at least at 30 yards or more, so you can really see the separation of the shots. If you're shooting a rifle that can't group better than 2" at that range, how will you ever know what the scope is doing?

Yes - a good scope is repeatable!
With a quality scope, it's possible to adjust the knobs and bring the shot group back to the original setting - PROVIDING THAT:

1. The temperature doesn't change dramatically AND
2. The adjustments are in the middle of the scope's adjustment range AND
3. The first shot after adjustment can be discounted, if necessary.

The way to demonstrate this is to shoot at a target at least 30 yards away. Start with the scope sighted to strike somewhere away from the aim point. Shoot a five-shot group, then click 20 clicks of elevation and shoot a second group. Then 20 clicks to the right (or left) and another group. Then 20 clicks down and another group. Finally 20 clicks to the left (or right) to come back to the original group. If the last five shots fall on top of the first five, you have demonstrated repeatability.

To see what this looks like, read Test Two in Tom Gaylord's article They asked for it!

Why do I miss?

by B.B. Pelletier

This comes up all the time in the comments section. I answer each one and satisfy that one person who asked the question. Now, I want to address everyone. Why do you miss?

This question was asked yesterday by The.Man.

This is a little off-topic....maybe. Anyhow, are you saying it is not uncommon to miss the target (1" circle @ 25 yards let's say) with higher powered rifles with recoil such as the CF-X? I have to say I've been missing a good bit, even tho I try to replicate my successful shot, sometimes it just misses, not by alot but I end up with 1.5" spreads in 5 or 10 shots with 3 or 5 of those being less than .2" depending on the number of shots in the group. Of course, I have not been able to sort pellets by weight and this is my first springer so...I guess what I'm asking is how accurate should I expect to be, I have read the post you made about that but I'm still a little unclear. Just when I think I'm doing good i shoot an inch left and it drives me crazy. I have also missed both squirrels I have been able to shoot at so far 1 at 35 yards and one at 40 yards, so im not to upset about those.

Top reason for missing
You shoot a spring piston air rifle, but hold it like you would a firearm. You shouldn't even hold a firearm the way you do, but the velocity of the bullet allows you to get away with it...but a spring-piston air rifle does not! Here, again, is the best way to hold a spring-piston air rifle. Lay the rifle on the flat of your open palm. Don't touch the side of the stock with your fingers. With some guns, it also matters where along the forearm your hand is. I've found that the balance point, which is close to the triggerguard, works for many rifles. With your other hand, grasp the pistol grip as lightly as possible and still control the rifle. Let the butt rest lightly against your shoulder. Same with your cheek. Your goal is to let the rifle kick and move as much as it can when it shoots. Your REAL goal is to keep the vibration nodes the same from shot to shot so the muzzle will be in the same place from shot to shot.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you'll know that the pellet doesn't start to move until the piston has come to a stop. Recoil and vibration are underway just as the pellet starts moving. There's no way to hold a rifle to prevent it from moving, so the next best thing is to hold it so that it always moves in the same way, shot after shot.

Here's the final step. Sight through the scope, then close your eyes and relax. Open your eyes and look at the crosshairs. They've moved off target. Had you shot, your pellet would have moved in the same direction. Adjust your hold so that when you open your eyes, the crosshairs are still on the target. When the shot goes off, do not move for another full second. This is follow-through, and it's crucial to accuracy. After you've done this a few times, you'll realize that you must relax before making the final sight alignment. Then, your shots will go to the same place, time after time.

This tedious technique drives shooters to PCPs and CO2 rifles!

Second-biggest reason reason for missing
You have adjusted your scope to nearly the extreme for either windage or elevation. The worst is when you are either all the way to the right or all the way up. The erector tube return spring is relaxed and the tube that contains the crosshairs now bounces around with every shot. Solution: get an adjustable scope mount and return the scope adjustment knobs to the center of their range.

Another big one
You're shooting the wrong pellet! Just because I tout the JSB Exact heavy doesn't mean it's the most accurate pellet in all airguns. Try shooting pellets at distance. If you don't have distance because all your shooting is done in the basement, don't worry about which pellet gives the best groups at 50 yards.

You owe it to yourself to try as many pellets as you can in your rifle, but don't waste a lot of time until you have taken care of the first and second problems.

Still another one
Clean your barrel! Use JB Non-Embedding Bore Cleaning Compound to get the barrel ready to shoot. Even brand-new airguns need to be cleaned this way. Reread the November 17, 2005, posting Is your airgun barrel REALLY clean?.

My final recommendation
Sort your pellets by weight! This will decrease the number of fliers you have, because pellets of equal weight are likely to have the same balance and ballistic characteristics. It doesn't always work that way, but, more often than not, weight-sorted pellets shoot tighter groups. Read the March 10, 2005, posting Sorting pellets for accuracy.

How do these suggestions compare to one another? The first one can reduce your group size by half. It's so dramatic that most people think it's magic the first time it works for them. The scope problem can be just as dramatic or even better. I listed it second only because it doesn't happen to everybody, while the first problem does. Using the correct pellet is equally dramatic - especially if you're currently using a particularly bad pellet. Reread my CF-X test to see what I'm talking about. Pellet weighing and barrel cleaning are fractional improvements, with barrel cleaning out-performing pellet weighing.

So, The.Man, those are my thoughts on your problem. Please try some of them and tell us what you learn.

Why do some airguns recoil? - Part 2 Pneumatics and gas guns

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

I've grouped pneumatics and CO2 guns together, because they both operate with compressed gas. Therefore, the recoil behavior is the same for both.

They DO recoil!
Make no mistake, all pneumatic and CO2 guns recoil. But, they recoil so little that it's easier to say they have no recoil to speak of. Compared to a recoiling spring gun, that's true. When a pellet takes off under the pressure of gas behind it, the rifle moves in the opposite direction. The weight of the moving pellet determines the force of the shove imparted to the rifle or pistol. That's why the recoil is so light. An 8-grain pellet cannot affect a 40,000-grain air rifle very much. When you get into an air pistol you do start to notice the push.

As the projectile weight increases, so does the recoil
How many times have I read an article in a gun magazine describing a vintage big bore air rifle, where the author says there is no recoil and no sound? It's obvious to me those writers have spent more time behind the Smith-Corona than the Smith & Wesson! Big bore airguns do kick and some of them hick hard enough to hurt! I remember shooting an 8.5-lb. 118 caliber dart gun called the Mag Air 1180, which shot 550-grain mild steel darts. It was for hunting big game, such as mountain lions and elk, and it kicked about as hard as a .30/06, which is to say...a lot!


Mag Air 1180 is a humongous big bore airgun.

But the biggest kicker I ever saw was a CO2 gun called CO2Much. That was a 14.5-lb. monster that shot a 7-oz. lead slug. It generated over 1,000 foot-pounds, and the recoil was at least as bad as a lightweight .375 H&H Magnum, if not a .458 Winchester. It moved the seated shooter's shoulder backwards a foot or more, even with the gun mounted on a bipod.

Is recoil a problem for gas guns?
Recoil isn't a problem for sporters and hunting guns. And, if the power is low, it's very difficult to feel the recoil anyway. In 10-meter target guns, recoil is a problem, and the top makers, e.g. Steyr and Feinwerkbau, have done something about it. Just as some "recoilless" spring guns use a counterweight to offset the momentum of the piston, the top target guns use a very small weight to offset the push that comes when the gun fires. This weight is also powered by air and moves backward to counter the pellet going forward. It works so well that when you fire a gun that has it, the only way you can tell that the gun fired is by the noise. You feel no impulse.

This system is balanced very close and is one of the maintenance items on guns so equipped. Tiny particles of lead will get blown into the channel where the weight moves and eventually gum it up, so these guns have to be cleaned more often than regular PCPs that don't have the mechanism. For shooters who aren't world-ranked, it may be more trouble than it's worth; but it comes standard on guns such as the FWB P700, so you get it whether you want it or not.

Powerful smallbores recoil noticeably
When you fire really powerful PCP rifles, such as the AR6 Hunting Master and the Condor, you'll notice a kick. It's about the same as the recoil seen in a heavy .22 rimfire rifle, but the impulse lasts longer. Since nobody shoots field target with these rifles, the push isn't a problem. They have more than enough accuracy for hunting, but follow-through after the shot is fired is the right way to deal with recoil, no matter where it comes from.

So, all airguns recoil. Until someone invents a rail gun that shoots pellets, I suppose it will stay that way.

Leapers 8-32x scope

by B.B. Pelletier

Today I'm looking at one of the best values in a powerful variable scope - Leapers 8-32x56 full-sized scope with mil-dot reticle and red/green illumination. This scope costs $230 for the model with the illuminated reticle and $196 without, which, to some, seems like a lot of money. To a serious shooter, it's a pittance to pay for all the features this scope offers. Leupold scopes with less magnification, fewer features and less light transmission cost more than twice as much.

When I shot field target competitively (1998-2002), a scope like the Leapers 8-32x would have cost over $400. How much over is difficult to say. I paid about $450 for a Tasco Custom Shop 8-40x (on closeout sale) that doesn't compare to the Leapers for brightness. I have to use it at 20-30x, because it becomes too dark at higher magnification. In contrast, the Leapers is bright all the way to 32x.

1/8-minute clicks
A target scope needs to have small adjustments, because target shooters want to make small corrections to get their pellets into the X ring. One-eighth minute clicks means that the strike of the pellet will move approximately 1/8" per click at 100 yards. If you shoot closer than 100 yards, the amount of movement will be proportionately less. For example, 1/16" at 50 yards and 1/80" at 10 yards. Wow! That isn't very much, is it? With some scopes, having adjustments this fine means the scope will have limited adjustability; but Leapers has built in more than 50 minutes of total adjustment. In a scope this powerful, that's a lot!

Do you need illuminated reticles?
Illuminated reticles are good for those low-light hunting situations when you can see the game but not the reticle. They give you at least an extra 15 minutes of the most important hunting time, and more if there's snow on the ground or a bright moon. If you aren't a hunter, I can't think of another good reason to have them. The Leapers scopes have multiple levels of illumination in either red or green, so you can use only what you need. I have used both the illuminated and non-illuminated model, and I find both to work well, though in truth I've never needed the illumination.

Mil-dot reticle
A mil-dot reticle is a fad for sportsmen, because not one hunter in a hundred knows how to apply the WORM formula to calculate range, nor are there common size cues like tanks and armored personnel carriers in the hunting grounds to apply it. But scope manufacturers have been touting range estimation for many years in one form or another, and this is the latest craze. Mil-dots do sell, so you'll see more of them as time passes. One nice thing about the mil-dot reticle in this scope is that the reticle lines are thin enough for good long-range target work, and the dots do help you find the lines when the background tries to obscure them.

What is this scope good for?
This is a great scope for field target shooters on a budget. It's also wonderful for long-range and benchrest shooters of both air rifles and firearms. At nearly two full pounds (29 oz.), it's not the scope for a casual .22 rimfire, a 30/30 lever-action brush gun or a plinking rifle. It's really too much scope for almost all spring rifles, though a TX200 or BAM B40 could use it. Remember, too, you don't have to leave it cranked up to 32x all the time. It's also an 8x scope that's more user-friendly when the target is hard to locate in the eyepiece.

On 32x, this is one of the least fussy scopes on the market. Some, like the Burris 8-32x, go black if your eye strays a fraction of an inch from where it's supposed to be. The Leapers behaves more like a 12x scope when it is turned up all the way. Also, the parallax adjustment goes all the way down to 10 yards, even on the highest power. You'll be watching ants walk on grass blades at that range and magnification!

Is this a good scope? Yes! It's a great scope, as long as you realize how large and heavy it is. This scope will save you hundreds of dollars without giving up any quality.

Read the manual!

by B.B. Pelletier

This post is for me. I answer questions posted to this blog every day, 365 days a year, except when I'm out of the country. Some of those questions are simple, fundamental things that are explained in the owner's manual that comes with a gun. In fact, a lot of the time, I end up reading the manual and quoting it back to the person who asked the question (and he should have a copy of the manual tucked in the same box the gun came in). Since I don't own every airgun ever made, I use the excellent online owner's manual library right here on Pyramyd Air.

What to expect in an owner's manual
A good owner's manual tells you important things, such as how to load the repeater's magazine. Some folks look at an airgun and assume it works like a firearm they're familiar with. With airguns, that's usually wrong. I remember once handing an Colt M1911A1 to a guy who, "Knew all about the 1911," only to have the dummy dump a brand new CO2 cartridge when he attempted to pry the "magazine" out of the gun. What he did was press the button that, on the firearm, would release the mag. On the CO2 pistol, it pops out the left grip panel. By prying down on the "magazine" floorplate, he really worked the cam lever that relaxes tension on the cartridge! Big laugh for him, and half a buck out of my pocket.

Then, there was the guy who "Knew all about the M16," so I let him shoot my Armalite (Classic Army) M15A4 airsoft gun...unsupervised. I got it back with the charging handle pulled out and the spring broken. There was absolutely no operational reason for him to pull that handle, but he "Knew all about the M16" so he just did it anyway! That one cost more to fix.

I've seen firsthand the guy who doesn't read a manual and jumps into the gun just far enough to screw it up. However, when someone posts a comment to this blog, I have to take his word that he knows what he's doing. Sometimes, if I ask enough pointed questions, the guy will reveal that he hasn't got a clue how his gun operates, and then we can get to fixing the problem. I always wonder where the owner's manual is while this is going on.

All manuals are not the same
Owners' manuals range from very comprehensive and detailed to the bare minimum. The German, Austrian and American manuals are the best. They show the most detail and are usually written in tutorial terms that assume little gun experience on the reader's part. The Spanish and Russian manuals are good, but can be a little thin. The Russians are better, but they often don't pay to have their words properly translated, although EAA has gone far in correcting this. The Chinese and UK manuals are the worst, and it differs from maker to maker and even gun to gun. It's not unusual to get a Xeroxed pamphlet from a UK maker when buying a $2,000 airgun! The Chinese don't bother to translate their manuals well, resulting in hard-to-follow English. Other Asian countries are somewhat better than the Chinese, though in some cases they ship guns without manuals!

What manuals don't contain
There's been a shift away from providing detailed information over the past 25 years. It's not common for a manual written today to contain disassembly instructions or a schematic or even a parts list for the airgun. Oddly, the more expensive guns are the ones that do still have this info, and the UK manuals that I just criticized are also the ones that tell you step-by-step how to disassemble their guns! My Whiscombe came with a Xeroxed pamphlet that has such instructions. However, the Brits still write at a very high level, so you are expected to know the language well if you want to follow their instructions.

Most manuals tell you how to cock, load and charge the airgun but not how to tear it down or make repairs. That's fair. After all, your car owner's manual doesn't tell you how to rebuild the engine, either!

Bottom of the home page
If you lose track of this posting, you can always access the manuals library from the home page of Pyramyd Air's website. Scroll to the bottom and click on "Manuals" under the "Customer Support" heading.

Why do some airguns recoil? - Part 1 Spring-piston guns

by B.B. Pelletier

Actually, ALL airguns recoil. Even the match guns that use compressed air recoil. Otherwise, why would Steyr and Feinwerkbau add hundreds of dollars of technology to their guns to cancel it?

Today, we're going to talk about why airguns recoil. I'm not an engineer, so my explanation will not be very detailed, but I hope to shed some light on the way recoil works in all three powerplants. And let's start with the most obvious one.

It doesn't matter what type of spring is in your gun
This discussion includes all spring types, coiled steel, gas and elastic band. Though the springs may differ, the powerplants all work the same. Refer to the drawing that illustrates the explanation.


Regardless of the type of spring, all spring-piston powerplants work alike.

Cocking makes the piston either stretch or compress the spring
Compression is most common, but a few guns have used a stretched mainspring. The piston is held in place by a latch, called the sear. When the trigger releases the sear, it releases the piston, which is then free to move. The spring, which is under tension from compression or stretching, is now free to return to its relaxed state. It moves the piston as it goes. This action produces some recoil.

The weight of the piston's movement acts on the rest of the gun, however the gun is so much heavier that it moves very little. Let's use air rifles for this discussion to bound the specifications a little. Pistons weigh between 7 and 16 oz., while the guns they are in weigh between 80 and 160 oz. The amount of recoil transmitted to the gun is small in proportion to its weight. If the piston moves forward, then the gun moves backward. This first recoil is very light and may not be noticeable to the shooter.

When the piston stops, it can produce significant recoil
At the end of its travel, the piston comes to a sudden stop. The force of that weight, driven by a strong spring, has built up momentum to the point that a sudden stop sends a jolt of energy to the rifle. Instead of moving in the opposite direction, this time the rifle moves in the same direction the piston was traveling. If that was forward, as it most often is, the rifle jumps forward. The amount of the jump (forward recoil) depends on the weight of the piston, the weight of the rifle, the strength of the mainspring and the time it took the piston to slow down at the end of its travel. The longer the deceleration, the less energy transmitted to the rifle.

The second recoil is the most noticeable. Because it is forward more often than not, it jolts the rifle forward. Webley Patriots have a lot of it, as did FWB 124 rifles. A rifle with a long piston stroke tends to have the most forward recoil, unless something has been done to dissipate it. This is also the jolt that is so hard on scopes.

But aren't some spring guns recoilless?
Yes. And no. Some guns, such as the Whiscombe and certain Diana target guns, cancel the recoil. There are others that recoil but isolate the shooter so he doesn't feel it, such as the RWS Diana 54. For every action, there is a reaction...and recoil is its name.

Next time, I'll address both CO2 and pneumatic guns. They operate on compressed gas and react the same to firing. And, both recoil!