From Clunk to Thunk: A Beginner Customizes a Chinese QB36-2

Introduction by B.B. Pelletier

Guest blogger
Here's another guest blogger. BG_Farmer customizes a QB36-2 for us. He admits to not being an experienced airgun tinkerer, so this will provide some encouragement to those who've been waiting for a beginner's project.

If you would like to write a post for this blog, please email me at blogger@pyramydair.com.

Bloggers must be proficient in the simple html that Blogger software uses, know how to take clear photos and size them for the internet (if their post requires them) and they must use proper English. We will edit each submission, but we won't work on any submission that contains gross misspellings and/or grammatical errors.

From Clunk to Thunk: A Beginner Customizes a Chinese QB36-2

by BG_Farmer

After just a couple months of airgunning, I dedicated my Hammerli 490 to 10m targets and 20m plinking with open sights, as it's too much fun to mess up with a scope. However, I wanted to keep up my skills with scopes for firearms, as that was one of my initial justifications for getting an airgun.

I decided to get another air rifle to dedicate to long-range targets and silhouette shooting with a scope. Since we have a breakbarrel and a sidelever (my wife’s QB88), it seemed that an underlever would be best, especially considering the scope requirement.

At my level of the sport and cheapness, however, a TX200 or HW97 seemed silly. That kind of money would go to a 10m gun or PCP, so I ended up with a QB36-2 (generic industry base for Tech Force 99) for a low price, with the hope I could improve and fix it if necessary and learn something in the process. I wasn't disappointed.




Canted action, massive stock - my work was cut out for me
Out of the box, the gun was pretty much as BB described it in his Tech Force 99 blog, except that the entire action was mounted at an angle due to an improperly drilled rear action screw (behind the trigger group), resulting in a cant.


Now out of the stock, you see the rifle action and trigger module.

It was easy to fix the cant with a drill and tap, but the huge stock and excessive length of pull just didn’t fit me, so I whittled down the tight-grained, beech-like wood (acacia?) substantially with 50-grit sandpaper and some saw and chisel work. I removed all but what was necessary of the cheekrest.

I recontoured the forearm since the original design looked racy but resulted in thin, fragile wood at the front. The pistol grip was reduced from chunky to merely substantial. I block-sanded up to 220 grit (at least as thoroughly as the factory) before using a water-based walnut stain and 3 coats of oil-based semi-gloss polyurethane with a scrub-pad finish (to cut the sheen a bit). The finishes were chosen mainly because I've used them before and had the materials on hand. My goals were function and fit beyond all else, although I may try my hand at making it fancier or even adding checkering later.

Accuracy testing...and more problems
After the stock work, I was pretty happy with the rifle, as it fit me and was shooting accurately and powerfully. Accuracy at 20 yards was approaching .50" with little effort using Crosman Copperhead Competition Wadcutters. You can see why I liked it despite its problems. As far as power, it penetrated both sides of a steel, water-filled can at 20 yards with the same pellets. With open sights, I consistently hit targets at 50 yards and a coffee can at 75 yards.

I added a scope, according to my original plan. I originally selected a 4x32, but it broke within 50 shots. A 3-9x32AO went on next. It held up but wouldn't stay in place after several hundred break-in shots. The scope stop bent like a potato chip. The rifle also started to shoot erratically, which I blamed on the scope-shift at that time, although now I don't think that was the main problem.

One day, the rifle wouldn't cock, so I shook it vigorously and whacked it gently against a post, whereupon a coil of spring fell out. The rifle actually cocked better and shot smoother afterwards, despite the occasional piece of spring jamming the action. However, I knew I needed to fix it before it could be used seriously.

Spring time!
Having spent a good deal of time redoing the stock, I decided to see if I could also improve the firing cycle rather than simply replace the broken spring, so I ordered an aftermarket spring (Jim Maccari's e3650) and synthetic seal (Maccari's Apex) along with some of Jim's heavy tar.


The spring had broken in 2 places.


The dry, torn leather seal added to the gun's problems.

The spring was broken in several places, with the longest piece being roughly 8" long. The leather seal was torn (probably at time of manufacture by the rough cocking shoe cutout) and dry, despite having lubricated it as much as I dared. It’s amazing that the gun shot at all. I think the torn seal allowed enough energy to come up from the spring to put out pretty good (but inconsistent) power via dieseling.

The piston is fabricated out of rolled steel and had some pretty rough welds on it. Remarkably, the finish inside the cylinder was smooth (except for the cocking shoe cutout). I'm no tuner, but it seemed pretty obvious what had to be done in terms of polishing and lubricating. After degreasing with acetone (I’m not recommending it; it’s just what I used), all contact surfaces and rough welds were smoothed down to 220-grit smoothness. Sounds coarse, but it did the job. It was certainly much smoother than the factory finish on the interior metal, even after several hundred shots of break-in.

My goal was not to equal the original factory specification of 900 fps or the 1100 fps claims some make for this rifle. I just wanted to make it smoother and more consistent, with just enough velocity (gauged by use) to shoot well to 50 yards with the proper pellets.

I spaced the preset spring in the piston until there was a little preload on it when pushing in the end cap. It's still a hand operation. WARNING: Use a spring compressor. I knew my spring was broken, so there was very little tension on it, but I should have been more careful and used a compressor anyway. The stock spring on a QB36-2 is monstrously long, so it has a huge amount of preload (compression when uncocked).


The old, broken spring and the new one (inserted into the piston).

The difference in stack height (compressed length) between the old and new springs was approximately 1.8", but I spaced the new spring about 1.25" inside the piston, using washers to take up the space. When I ran out of washers, I used pennies sandwiched between washers.

Due to the position of the piston latch, there was very little (if any) room for spacing at the base of the guide. I was afraid that making the piston heavier would degrade the firing cycle. In the end, I think the extra weight in the piston may have actually improved the firing cycle, working in concert with the somewhat softer spring to stabilize the piston’s velocity.

Sealing the deal
The synthetic seal got a custom (shade-tree engineered) mounting, made with a plastic conical washer to fit inside the seal. The new seal also required spacing (fender washers) on top of the piston, since it was thinner than the factory one. The design depends on the seal thickness, as the seal and piston are pushed back by the sliding cylinder. I added a drop of silicone oil on the edge of the seal before inserting it in the cylinder.

On the forums, I've seen many nice lathe-turned seal conversions, and was afraid mine would explode on the first firing, but it's held for about 300 shots with no sign of degradation. Maybe the blue thread locker I used on the (original) screw secured the seal. If it breaks, I’ll make something better. Meanwhile, it works.

Tarred & molyed
After polishing parts and assembling the piston and seal, the cylinder and main tube got very spare amounts of Beeman M2M Moly Paste rubbed in, while the spring got a very light coat of Maccari's heavy tar on the outside and on the plastic spring guide, as well as a little bit of M2M moly on the ends.

The trigger was light enough for me, so I didn't do anything fancy other than make sure it had no burrs. I also added a little M2M moly. If I were to do it over again, I'd do even less to the trigger and dispense with the moly, since the trigger is now almost lighter than I like it. Variations are almost a certainty, however, with these guns.

How it all turned out
Putting the rifle back together, I didn't have high expectations, given my level of knowledge (none) and mechanical ability (little), but it did cock and fire. Actually, it cocks very smoothly and lighter than before, with the cocking effort roughly in the high 20s, whereas it was in the mid-30s when new. The firing cycle is now amazingly smooth, just a little harder/rougher than my Hammerli 490 (which is not a harsh shooter at all). Of course, the power is higher, too.

There was no dieseling, even on the first shot, and no vibration to speak of, although I could have been just a little more generous with the heavy tar. The power is probably slightly reduced from stock, but nowhere near as much as I would have thought. It still puts a Copperhead wadcutter through both sides of a water-filled, steel can with a nice plume of water for effect, and 75-yard shots at coffee cans with RWS Superdomes are possible.

The weight of the gun and its muzzle-heaviness have now become an asset. With the new spring and seal, the rifle doesn't move when fired, so it's excellent for offhand (which is good, because that's the way I shoot). I believe the original spring with its significant preload might have been too much for the stroke, not to mention obviously brittle or otherwise deficient. I was amazed at the obvious differences in quality between the stock spring and seal and the Maccari replacements. I shouldn’t have to say it, but I will anyway...the Maccari parts were of much higher quality than the Shanghai originals.

Soon, I'll remount the scope. I expect it to stay on better, although I still need to deal with a bit of barrel droop. Accuracy is consistent now with RWS Superdomes and Crosman pointed pellets, so I'm hopeful that the rifle is going to work out for my application. Ironically, while continuing to shoot the 490 and debugging this one with open sights, I’ve found that I’m getting good enough with open sights again (even at decent ranges), that I would consider getting rid of scopes. Almost daily practice with airguns is better training than what I formerly thought was frequent shooting.

HW35 - another golden oldie

by B.B. Pelletier


This thumbhole HW 35 is a rare version of the popular rifle.

The Weihrauch HW35 holds the record as the spring air rifle with the longest continuous production. Started in 1951 and never out of production through the present time, the 35 has seen hundreds of other classics come and go. When it was launched, the 35 was the first air rifle to have the famous Rekord trigger, which must have looked pretty spectacular back then. It's still the gold standard for sporting triggers, but a half century ago there was nothing even remotely like it.


Rekord trigger shown here in the cocked state has ruled the airgun world for over a half-century.

The HW35 has always been described as a big airgun. In its heyday, it reached velocities in the mid-700s in .177 caliber, which was as fast as a spring gun could shoot. The leather piston seal it originally had was no drawback to speed, but when the velocity races began near the end of the 1970s and Weihrauch switched to synthetic seals, the 35's major shortcoming became glaringly obvious. It had a huge piston that was, unfortunately, short-stroked. More on that in a bit.

Breech lock
When the 35 came to market, airgun designers were not sure that the breeches of breakbarrel rifles remained sufficiently closed during firing, so a number of models had positive breech locks. The HW35's lock extends from the left side of the base block, where the left thumb can hook it during cocking. It really doesn't take much longer to cock this rifle, so the lock remained on the rifle. Breech locks are not common today, now that breech locking detents are more trusted, but the lock on the 35 is a pleasant reminder of the age of the design.


To open the breech, pull the latch forward first.

Sights
When the 35 was launched, scopes were uncommon for sporting airguns, so a fine open sighting system was installed. The front is a globe with interchangeable inserts, and the rear is a click-adjustable open notch. At the extreme rear of the rifle, an 11mm dovetail and two vertical holes were not for scope mounts but for Weihrauch's diopter target sight. There were no formal airgun target matches in those days, but they were coming, and rifles like the HW35 were perceived to be suitable for target use, as well.


Globe front sight comes with many replacement inserts.

Articulated cocking link
In those days, all spring rifles vibrated, so anything that could lessen the buzz was considered. The HW35 had an articulated cocking link that allowed the cocking slot in the firearm to be very short, and the belief was that a solid forearm helped dampen the vibration. Whether it did or not is open for debate, but it provided a good place for a front sling swivel.


The Diana 45 (top) has a one-piece cocking link, while the HW35 below has a two-piece articulated link. The steel bridge holds the link close to the spring cylinder.


The Diana 45 (top) forearm needs a long slot for the link to clear while cocking. The HW35 (bottom) has a much shorter slot.

It couldn't keep up
The 35 is a large air rifle, which led a lot of people to think it should also be a powerful one. When first launched, it was among the most powerful spring guns, but when the velocity races began in the late 1970s, the 35 just couldn't keep up. It became obvious that although it had the largest piston on the market, the stroke was too short, robbing the gun of a lot of potential. Some 35s could make 800 f.p.s. with proper tuning, but that was as far as they went.

When the R1/HW80 was developed in 1982, it used the same diameter piston but had a much longer piston stroke. The result was the fastest spring rifle in the world for a little while. That dramatically demonstrated how much a piston's stroke affects power.

Different models
Because of the length of the production run, the HW35 has been made in dozens of different styles. The thumbhole stock shown here is uncommon, as are all of the walnut-stocked rifles. The EL 54 is a special HW35 variant that has an ether-injection device on the side of the compression tube. It uses controlled detonations to shoot heavy pellets or round balls up to 1,000 f.p.s. It is the most valuable of all the HW35s.

Not gone, but forgotten
As mentioned earlier, the HW35 is still in production today. Beeman stopped importing it many years ago. Since they're the exclusive U.S. importer of Weihrauch, the model is no longer available to us. No doubt, Beeman believed that Americans want only the most powerful air rifles, which is correct. If they tried to reintroduce the 35 here in the U.S., the high price and mediocre velocity would spell disaster. Fortunately, there are still plenty of nice used 35s available, and they aren't commanding a lot of money. Just make sure you buy one for the right reasons, because nobody can turn it into a powerhouse.

SIG Sauer SP 2022 BB pistol - Part 1

by B.B. Pelletier

Pyramyd Air will have a booth in the exibit hall at the NRA Annual Meetings in Louisville, Kentucky, May 16-18 at the Kentucky Exposition Center. Admission is free to NRA members. Be sure to stop by the booth and say, "Hi," if you're at the show.

Also, the Little Rock Airgun Expo will be held this Friday and Saturday at the Saline County Fairgrounds in Benton Arkansas. Visit their website for all the information.

The first thing you'll notice about the SIG Sauer SP 2022 BB pistol is that the sample I'm testing does not have the white letters shown in the photo on Pyramyd Air's website. It is made by KWC, a well-known airsoft manufacturer that's now making conventional airguns, as well.


The SIG Sauer pistol and its magazine that also houses the CO2 cartridge. The aluminum magazine weighs more than the rest of the pistol!

This pistol is mostly polymer - something many shooters will want to know. With firearms being made from similar material these days, it isn't that much of a stretch for air pistols to be made of the same material. Of course, the critical operating parts are metal, so the longevity is there just the same. And, the SIG Sauer SP2022 is in good company with other air pistols in its price range.

General
The controls are partly operational and partly for show. The magazine release on the left side of the grip does work and the mag drops free, just as it should. The safety is also on the left side of the grip and can be applied by the firing hand. That makes this pistol one designed for right-handed shooters, though I tried it in my left hand and found that both the mag release and the safety can be operated by that hand as well.

The hammer does move and is under spring tension, but it doesn't move when the trigger is pulled. It can't be cocked by hand because there's no sear to hold it in position. The slide release is a separate part of the gun but it has no function. The slide is also separate but non-functional. When the gun is fired an internal striker does the shooting; the hammer doesn't move and the slide remains stationary.

The box includes a small packet of BBs that appear to be of extremely high quality and uniformity. The surface finish is beyond any BB I've ever seen, and the diameter ranges between 0.1729" and 0.173". That's one ten-thousandth of an inch of variation, which is ten times better than a BB. They look more like ball bearings than actual BBs, but I'll wait until I shoot the gun to tell you if it makes any difference.

Accessory rail
The forward underside of the frame has a short Picatinny rail, so you can mount aftermarket lasers and tactical flashlights with no problem. Pick something short, like Leapers deluxe tactical laser perhaps. Just pick something that doesn't have to conform to a specific shape of the triggerguard - something that's not model-specific.


The pistol comes with a small packet of BBs that look nothing like Crosman or Daisy BBs. These are remarkably uniform in both their size and the smoothness of their surface finish. Perhaps they're ball bearings.

The instruction manual is very much like an airsoft gun manual - lots of pictures with few words. It fits on one side of a single 8.5"x11" sheet of paper. Both outside covers contain standard warnings, and everything is written in proper English.

The sights appear to be adjustable for windage by sliding them in their dovetails...until you look closer. They're molded in one piece and the dovetails, while appearing very realistic, are not. The front has a single large white dot set into a conventional square post. The rear is a wide square notch.

The pistol is double-action only, with a light, smooth trigger-pull. It breaks at 6 lbs., 10 ozs with no noticeable creep. You should be able to fire the 23 BBs from the magazine very fast.

Loading
The BBs load in a single stack in the front of the aluminum magazine. A 12-gram CO2 cartridge is housed in the rear, where it's entirely out of sight. KWC has recessed the cap that covers the CO2 cartridge so, from the side, the pistol's profile is clean. That's a feature air pistol shooters are very sensitive to, so this was a good move. To open the cap and change CO2 cartridges, you the large 1/4" Allen wrench that comes with the gun. The cap is molded plastic, but the large size of the Allen wrench socket means very little strain is put on it when tightening to pierce the cartridge.


Looking at the bottom of the magazine after installing a fresh CO2 cartridge. The CO2 cap is plastic, and the Allen socket is so large that the wrench hardly puts any strain on it at all. CO2 cartridges were pierced very easily.

Remember to put Crosman Pellgunoil on the tip of each new CO2 cartridge you pierce. An alternative way to do it is to turn the gun so the magazine hole points straight up, then just drop the Pellgunoil straight down inside. That's what I did, and the gun sealed quickly after piercing.

The advertised velocity is 330 f.p.s., so I will also be counting the number of good shots I get with a cartridge. I'm guessing at least 70 or so, which would be three magazines of BBs. The BBs are loaded one at a time through the same hole they're shot from, while your other hand holds down the spring-loaded follower. It takes quite a while to load them all, and the irony is that you're probably going to dump them in less than 20 seconds. The BB count of 23 is right on the money, so no confusion about how many this gun holds.

Well, that's it for now. No good/bad assessments yet, but a hunch tells me KWC wouldn't make a gun that wasn't good. At least, that's been my experience with their airsoft guns.

Converting an anti-gunner AND teaching a person to shoot 10-meter pistol

by B.B. Pelletier

Pyramyd Air will have a booth at the NRA show in Louisville, Kentucky, from May 15-17. They'll be selling guns! This is an opportunity for you to see the guns before you buy them and save on shipping at the same time.

Now, on to today's post.

I was going to start a report on the SIG Sauer BB pistol today, but that will wait until Monday. BG_Farmer posted a comment about how difficult handguns are for him, so today I want to tell you a story about how I took an anti-gun person and converted him into a 10-meter pistol shooter.

I was serving in Germany in 1976 when my first wife's parents came for a visit. I was scheduled to go to tank gunnery for a month, so I missed most of their visit, but they really didn't come to see me. We lived in an apartment on the American Kaserne (Ferris Barracks) in Erlangen.

Our front door was sheathed in steel, so I hung a pellet trap on it and used it as a backstop. In all the time I shot at that door, I never missed the pellet trap. If I had, the steel door would have stopped the pellet perfectly. The only gun I shot was a Diana model 10 target pistol. Because there was very limited space in the apartment, the longest distance I could get was 19 feet, so I used 10-meter rifle targets instead of pistol targets. They have a bull that measures 1.211" across. The scale wasn't perfect, but it was close enough for me.


Diana model 10 was a top-of-the-line target pistol in 1976.


Ten-meter air rifle target has a smaller bull than the pistol target. It's more suitable for close-range target practice.

When they arrived, the first thing my in-laws noticed was the pellet trap hanging on the front door. Both of them were anti-gun, but they liked me and knew I was a shooter. Plus, they were very aware that my branch in the army was armor (tanks) which is a very violent combat arm, so they understood that shooting was what I did for a living. Yet...that pellet trap hanging on the inside of the front door really got to them.

Finally, my father-in-law asked me about it. "Why do you shoot inside your house?"

"I do it for relaxation."

"Isn't it dangerous?"

"Well, I don't shoot if anyone else is home."

"Yes, but what happens if you miss that little trap?"

"Well, I don't miss, but if I ever do, the door is made of steel, so there's no danger of penetration."

"But wouldn't the pellet bounce around the house and break things?"

"No. It would fall to the floor beneath where it hit. It's only going about 475 feet per second. It doesn't fragment at that speed and it can't bounce back from a flat steel plate like the door. But why worry? The trap is five inches square and I can't miss it from 19 feet."

"I sure could!"

"No, you couldn't. In fact, I'll bet you couldn't miss a quarter from that distance."

[Now, pay attention, folks, because this really happened exactly as I am telling it and it's how I can get YOU to be a 10-meter pistol shooter, too.]

My father-in-law, who said he never shot a gun in his life, looked at me and said, "You think I couldn't miss a quarter from way back there?" pointing to the back of the hallway. "You're crazy!" Then he turned to his wife and said, "He's crazy!"

So, I bet him he could learn to shoot a Diana model 10 target pistol so well that he couldn't miss an American quarter (about one inch in diameter) from 19 feet. He thought I was insane, but he agreed to try, so when everyone else went shopping, my father-in-law and I stayed home to shoot.

I showed him how to cock the gun, which he thought was hard (it was) and then we started. I asked him to stand five feet from the trap. Naturally we both wore safety glasses. When he extended his arm the way I will show you in the next 10-meter pistol installment, the muzzle was about two-and-a-half feet from the target.

"Well, I agree that I can't possibly miss from this distance. I thought you meant from back there" (indicating the end of the hallway).

"We'll get there. But let's start here. I want you to sight the gun by putting that huge black bullseye on top of the front blade, with the top of the front blade even with the top of the rear notch. Make sure there is equal white space on either side of the front blade."

So we began. His shots were all below the bull and grouped in a hole the size of a dime. After about 20 shots, I asked him how he felt about it.

"Well, it's easier than I thought it would be. This trigger is so light that I barely touch it and it goes off. But I'm hitting way below the bullseye."

"That will change as we move back. Are you ready to try?"

He was, so I moved him back to about 8 feet from the target. This looked like more of a challenge to him, but his shot group was no larger. It did climb on the target just a little, but it was still below the bull.

After another 20 shots, he felt good enough to move way back to 12 feet. Now the shot group was touching the bottom of the black, and it was still dime-sized. After he got comfortable at that distance, we moved back to 15 feet. This looked like a long distance to him and he said so. He could see that the slightest twitch of his hand would throw the shot off the pellet trap. I told him not to twitch. By now he was comfortable enough with the pistol that there were no surprises left. He knew the sights worked, and that what I had told him about sighting also worked. In fact, I had described the same procedure used by top Olympic pistols shooters, so I knew it would work for him. All he had to do was try. He was also used to how the trigger worked, so the chance of a flinch or a "sniped" shot (a shot in which the shooter pulls the trigger instead of squeezing it until it breaks by surprise) had passed.

So he started shooting from 15 feet. His group opened to the size of a nickel (just over three-quarters of an inch), and it also climbed well up into the black. He was concerned about this distance until, after about 25 shots, he saw that he could not miss.

"I never would have believed it, but I guess you were right. I really can't miss the target."

"Now let's back up all the way."

It was only four more feet, but they were the most daunting of all, because he knew what he had done in such a short time. And now he was about to take the acid test. I had to back up into my bedroom, because there was room in the hall for only one person. That first shot took a long time to come, but finally he fired. Then he lowered the pistol and walked forward until he could see the round hole in the bullseye. It wasn't in the center, but it wasn't that far out, either.

After seeing the first shot, he never doubted himself again. He fired about 15 shots and then we both walked up to the target. I'd like to tell you that all the shots were inside the bullseye, but a couple were in the white, close by. Still, the point had been proven. In about one hour this man who had never shot a gun before was shooting at targets from 19 feet and hitting within 1.5 inches. None of his shots ever came close to the edge of the target trap, so he finally understood what I meant when I told him how difficult it was to miss.

I had to leave for tank gunnery the next day, but the folks stayed with my family for two weeks. When I returned a month later, my wife filled me in on the details. Her father had shot up about 3,500 of my RWS Meisterkugeln pellets, practicing with the pistol every day. When he left he was thinking of buying a target pistol of his own. That never happened, of course, because back in the States he fell back into more familiar routines. But he did buy a BB gun to keep the birds out of his apricot trees. As I understood it, he taught his wife to shoot, as well and they both guarded the 'cot trees in their Campbell, California, backyard from that time on.

This report was part of the 10-meter pistol report, though I haven't numbered it as such. If you want to learn how to be a better pistol shot, this is how I would teach you. But you don't need me. You can do this yourself.

Introduction to 10-meter pistol - Part 1An instant tutorial!

by B.B. Pelletier

First things first. Reader K. Rihanek mentioned that the rear sight notch on his Gamo Compact was adjustable, so I read the manual and learned that it is. I have owned a Compact and tested several and never before noticed this feature. You can open that notch to almost double the width via a cleverly hidden adjustment screw on the sight. I'm showing you where it is in case you own a Compact.


Gamo Compact rear sight notch adjustment screw (on the left side of the sight) is headless and hollow. I missed seeing it for 10 years.

This removes the biggest objection I have to the gun. It's very easy to see a 6 o'clock hold now.

The 6 o'clock hold
Speaking of 6 o'clock holds, Matt61 was describing how he did his, which prompted me to start this series on 10-meter pistol shooting now. Matt was using a center hold, which doesn't work at all for 10-meter. So, I'll now show a true 6 o'clock hold.


6 o'clock hold

Now I know that thin sliver of light under the bull is going to unnerve many of you. I can see the comments now - "How thin should it be?" The answer is as thin as you can make it. This is a topic of great discussion among ten-meter shooters the world over.

Some say they don't leave any light at all, but the majority leave a thin sliver so they can define the bottom of the bull above the front sight.

Please remember what a 10-meter target looks like and where the scoring rings are.


This is an official 10-meter target. Six o'clock means the extreme lower point of the 7-ring, which would be 6 o'clock if the black bullseye were a clock face.

Adjusting the sights
The sights are adjusted so the pellet ends up in the center of the 10-ring, and this is done while shooting offhand. No 10-meter competitor would dream of shooting his gun from a vice to sight in, because he knows the gun will shoot to a different point when handheld. Which begs the question, "How can you possibly sight-in a 10-meter pistol when you can't even hit the center of the bullseye most of the time?" Think of it this way: Shooting 10-meter pistol is a lot like riding a unicycle. It requires a skill that most people don't have. You just start trying and eventually you get better. Finally, you remain upright on the cycle all the time.

In 10-meter shooting, you start out with a sight setting that gets you the highest number of points. As you progress, you start noticing that although you're shooting all over the 7-ring, your pellets are landing in the lower right quadrant of the ring more often than anywhere else. You make a sight adjustment to move the pellet slightly up and to the left. To your surprise, your 10-shot average score climbs from 74 to 81. The sight correction actually helped!

The importance of follow-through
This goes on until the day you notice that if you hold your sights on the target a moment after the shot breaks you can see where the sights were when the gun fired. To your surprise, you're now able to "call your shots," which means when you say a shot is high and to the left, that's where it goes. All of a sudden, you start trying to follow through intentionally, and your average increases by three more points.

The front sight is everything
Then, a day comes when you notice the front sight has more to do with where the shot goes than anything else. Now, you start concentrating on the front sight to the point that the rear notch and the bull become blurry. The fact that you are 60 years old and wear reading glasses suddenly doesn't matter anymore. You've discovered the SECRET! Your average score increases by another point. You're now shooting an 85 for ten shots.

The next big thing to happen is that the trigger begins to break without your conscious effort. You're lined up on the shot and the gun suddenly fires before you thought you were ready. It increases your score by seven points. You now shoot a 92 average, which means a score of 552/600 in a men's match or a 368/400 in a women's match. At this point, you're an NRA Expert shooter and any advance from here will require a change in your thinking. Target shooting is a head game, the same as any championship competition. That's why the books about expert marksmanship all sound like a lesson in Zen. You need to concentrate on the target to the exclusion of everything else. Please watch the movie The Greatest Game Ever Played or the movie For Love of the Game to understand what I'm talking about.

Wax on - wax off
For many of you, this report reads like new-age gibberish - except for the part about the 6 o'clock hold. In fact, this report actually is a condensed course in how to become a 10-meter champion. But you're not ready for that, yet, so I'm giving you an assignment to watch what I consider to be the finest instructional video of all time on becoming a champion. Please watch The Karate Kid. When I say, "Wax on - wax off" from now on, I expect you to understand what I'm talking about.

Matt61, you asked me about my friend who became obsessed with 10-meter shooting. He read everything I wrote, and watched all the films I recommended, and, within 18-months, he was out-shooting me. My top average score with the NRA was a 535. That equates to an 89.16-point 10-shot average. My best individual score in a match was a 545. When I shot it, I was on the cusp of breaking through the 90-point barrier and moving from Sharpshooter to Expert in 10-meter competition. Then we moved and I lost my chance to shoot every day, so today, five years later, I'm lucky to shoot a 475. But I have been there and I know what it takes to get you there.

Rules of 10-meter pistol matches
A 10-meter pistol match is shot at 10 meters from the muzzle of the pistol. Because each shooter has a different arm length, it is physically impossible for them all to be exactly at 10 meters, so the firing line is set up so that no shooter's muzzle will be closer than 10 meters. There will be differences of several inches among all the muzzles on line. Shooters don't worry about that. They simply confirm their zero before the match and go with it. A few inches doesn't make a difference with these guns.

Shimming a Diana breech seal

Introduction by B.B. Pelletier

Guest blogger
Here's another guest blogger. Vince Brandolini shows us how he shims a Diana breech seal to gain more energy. Vince has instructed several readers on this blog how to do this and they report similar velocity gains.

If you have an airgun story to tell, maybe you can tell it here. I'm looking for some budding bloggers who would like to help me write this blog. If you would like to write a post for this blog, please email me at blogger@pyramydair.com.

Bloggers must be proficient in the simple html that Blogger software uses, know how to take clear photos and size them for the internet (if their post requires them) and they must use proper English. We will edit each submission, but we won't work on any submission that contains gross misspellings and/or grammatical errors.

Okay, Vince - take it away!

Shimming the Diana breech seal

By Vince Brandolini

I had gotten my first Diana rifle about 15 months ago - a wood-stocked RWS 34. I found it to be a bit of a disappointment in several respects and ended up selling it after a few months. One reason was the velocity; it generated under 14 ft-lbs at the muzzle. That's no big deal, but the rifle certainly took more effort to cock than, say, my Gamo Shadow or Crosman Quest, either of which would handily out-power it.

Giving the 34 one more chance
Still, I did sort of miss the rifle. After hearing a lot of good things about the Panther variant of the '34 (including BB's review), I decided to take a crack at one. The example I got was a factory-refurbished model, and, frankly, all the reviews were right on the money. It was a much nicer gun to shoot overall, although the velocity was still low.

It didn't worry me too much until I compiled a list of the mechanical specs of all my springers - including the potential energy stored in the powerplant when the gun is cocked. I then bounced that number against actual muzzle energy and found that all my guns came out at over 30% efficient - except for the Panther which came in at less than 28%. That didn't sound right to me.

Huge increases in efficiency & velocity!
My suspicions were confirmed when I obtained a .22 caliber Panther a short time later, and it was lobbing Crosman Wadcutters under 600 fps (under 25% efficient). After some investigation, I found that shimming the breech seal resulted in a velocity over 700 fps. That made me wonder about my .177 Panther. So, I shimmed THAT breech seal and the velocity (10-shot average, 7.9 Crosman Premiers) went from 868 to 938 fps - a 17% increase in power and a new efficiency of 32.5%. Incidentally, the efficiency of the .22 is now close to 37%.

Dianas aren't the only guns that could use a shimmed breech seal
When I found a similar problem with my very recently acquired Ruger Air Hawk (which is a BAM-built semi-clone of the '34), I began to wonder if this might be a common issue.

How it looks on the inside
Below is what the typical Diana-type breech and seal look like (the pictures are from the near-identical Ruger Air Hawk).


The breech reveals a simple o-ring pressed into a groove around the barrel opening. If you remove the o-ring, you may or may not find a factory shim under the ring. Both my Panthers had shims, while the Air Hawk did not.


When you remove the o-ring, you may find a factory shim under the ring. Both my Panthers had shims, while the Air Hawk did not.


This is a side shot of the Air Hawk breech. There's little protrusion from the breech face. That can lead to velocity loss!

Making & installing the shim is just about a no-brainer
This isn't an expensive or time-consuming process and no mechanical knowledge is required, yet I found it was one of the quickest ways to immediately get a velocity increase. Let's get to it!

The seal groove on the Ruger Air Hawk has a .540" outside diameter and a .340" inside diameter (measurements are approximate).

The tools...


I was able to make usable shims with 3/8" and 1/2" hole punches. I had a cheap one with interchangeable heads.

The shim can be made out of a variety of materials. Diana uses steel, while Crosman (with a similar setup) uses a thick paper. I settled on plastic from a coffee can lid, which yields a pliable shim about .015" thick, and aluminum from a soda can, which is about .005" thick.

Making the shim is a simple 2-step process...


First, I used the larger punch to make the outside diameter.


Second, I used the smaller punch to make the inside diameter.

The same procedure is used regardless of the material. If you use aluminum, the punching process will probably distort the ring, so make sure you hammer it flat before installing it.


The tricky part is that second punch. If the tool isn't centered properly you get an uneven shim that looks something like this. If it isn't too lopsided, the shim can probably still be used (as is the case with this one), but it's best to have the second punch centered as much as possible.

What if you need to replace an o-ring?
If you discovered that your gun's o-ring is torn, gouged, ripped or in some way damaged because that's how it came in the gun or because you did something when removing from your gun, you can buy a replacement. I checked into Umarex's replacement breech seals, and found that they charge $4-5 for one. If you need only one, that might be the way you want to go. On the other hand, I was able to buy a bag of 100 McMaster-Carr o-rings for just $3.


Clockwise from upper left: yellow plastic shim made from a coffee can lid, aluminum shim made from a soda can, McMaster-Carr o-ring, Umarex breech seal.

Installing the shim

Once the shim is punched out, it fits easily into the breech groove...


...and the seal protrudes far more prominently.

A few minutes of work increases velocity

In this case, I used a single coffee-can shim (.015") to increase velocity from 852 to 871.

Yes, it's still slower than my Panther, but the Air Hawk isn't a perfect clone. The powerplant has a shorter stroke (by about 15mm) and a slightly softer spring. Out of the three guns I shimmed, this one improved the least. But, the improvement is unmistakable (it was observed over a series of several shots), and it brought the powerplant efficiency up to a reasonable 32%.

Later, I found a fiber washer from McMaster that seems to work well as a breech seal shim. It's part #90089A330 and sells for $10 for a bag of 100. It's about .016" thick, so it won't do if you're trying to shim a very small amount.

This naturally leads to the the question - how do you know if your rifle needs it, and how much should you shim? There's no set rule. My Diana 350 didn't need any shims, and frankly I don't know of any way of telling beyond trial and error. There's a "wax paper test" for a leaking breech seal: load the gun and put a strip of wax paper between the breech and the compression tube as you close the action. Fire the gun. If the seal leaks, it's supposed to tear the paper. Perhaps this works in some cases, but it didn't work for me.

That's about it. I suspect that my first 34 (the one I sold) suffered from this problem. Plus, Hank wrote that his .22 Panther gun picked up 100 fps.

Gamo Compact vs IZH 46 - Part 5

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Today, we'll look at the accuracy of the Gamo Compact pistol, and I will try my new pumping technique to see if it produces any faster shots.

General comments about shooting the gun
Now that I'm shooting at targets, I can make accurate comments about shooting the Compact. First, the grips are too large for my hands. I would need a serious session with a round rasp and sandpaper to fit them, however that's a good thing because it's easier to take wood away than to add it.

The sights gave me difficulties while shooting for record. The rear notch is so narrow that only under perfect conditions was I able to see light on both sides of the front post. Were this pistol my own, I would open the notch by 50 percent.

The trigger-pull is still on the heavy side. This is magnified by the large grips, so if they were altered the trigger might become easier to pull.

A word about the shooting
I shot from 10 meters, but I rested my arm instead of holding it offhand. I did this to show the accuracy of the gun unhampered by my own abilities. I haven't shot competitively or trained in five years, so I didn't think it's fair to hinder the gun that way.

The target
A 10-meter target is an official target on target paper. The 7-ring is the outer ring of the black bull and it measures 2.362" across, or 60 mm. The inner ring is not the 10-ring. It's used for fractional points accessed during shootoffs. In the U.S. we might call the inner ring the X ring, but it's more than that. The second smallest ring is the ten-ring. Neither it nor the 9-ring are numbered on this target.


This is an official 10-meter target.

Sighting in
I sighted-in with Gamo Match pellets, but they ripped the paper too much for good scoring. Once I was on target, I switched to H&N Finale Match lightweight pellets.

H&N Finale Match
These were the most accurate pellets in this pistol. They also cut the paper reasonable well, though they did tend to tear a bit too much. Still, in a match you never shoot more than a single pellet at a target, so it doesn't really matter.


This is a score of 50 for five shots - a perfect score. Shot with H&N Finale Match.

RWS Hobby
RWS Hobby pellets are not too bad in the Compact. They group almost as well as H&Ns, though I wouldn't compete with them.


This is a score of 49 for five shots. Shot with RWS Hobby pellets.

Now, let's see what the pistol does when I use the new pumping technique. RWS Hobbies averaged 398 f.p.s., ranging from 387 to 408. As the gun was fired, the average was creeping upward, so after a long shooting session it might be even slightly higher. Before, when I just pumped the gun in the conventional way, it averaged 370 f.p.s. after 50 warm-up shots. So, the gain is 28 f.p.s.

With H&N Finale Match, the average was 389 f.p.s., with a spread from 383 to 396. Before, with the conventional style of pumping, the average was 366, so the gain was 23 f.p.s.

Clearly, the Gamo Compact can shoot well. It's the kind of gun that a shooter needs to customize to his own tastes. Once that's done, it can be a very competitive target pistol. The heavier trigger and narrow rear sight notch should be addressed before you attempt any competition, so be prepared for that.

Also, this new pumping routine really seems to bring out the best in single-strokes. If you own one, give it a try.

Mendoza RM-2800 .22 cal. repeater - Part 2

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

Following the advice of some readers who noticed a similarity between the Mendoza RM-2800 and the RM-2000 I tested for you back in May and June of last year, I tested this rifle with most of the same pellets. We can expect the barrels to be the same on both rifles, but the advertised velocity of 950 f.p.s. leads me to believe the 2800 will be faster than the RM-2000. So, I 'll report velocities of pellets for both guns.

One thing I forgot to do until late in the RM-2000 test was clean the bore, so that was the first order of business for this rifle. The procedure is 20 strokes through the bore in each direction with a new brass brush loaded with J-B Non-Embedding Bore Cleaning Compound, and then cleaning patches until they come out clean. The bore was not too dirty on this rifle, so it cleaned up fast. Now, on to velocity testing.

Eley Wasps
I chose these because the RM-2000 was most accurate with them. I never chronographed them, though. In this rifle, they varied from a low of 411 f.p.s. to a high of 702. While a variation like that would normally be attributed to dieseling, I don't think it is in this case. Even at 702, the velocity is too low for this rifle. I think it leaks air at the breech seal. Testing with other pellets helped confirm that.

Crosman Premiers
Crosman Premiers were next. They ranged from a low of 291 f.p.s. to a high of 608. They do feed through the magazine, and the slowest ones were those fed from the mag.

RWS Super-H-Points
I tried RWS Super-H-Points next. They went, 393, 398 and 400, respectively. I did not finish a string with them.

RWS Hobby
RWS Hobby pellets were the last ones I tried. They went 381, 405 and 397 f.p.s. That concluded the test of this rifle. Please note that the few higher velocities I recorded came with the first two pellet tested.

So much for my grand plans!
These velocities are unacceptable. They don't represent what this gun is capable of, so something is clearly wrong. There aren't many easy fixes for a breakbarrel when this happens. In fact, the best one that comes to mind is Vince's shimming of the breech seal that will be reported later this week. That may be even more important in this case because of Mendoza's sliding pellet carrier, which needs a seal on EACH SIDE of the moving carrier. That's two chances to leak air, which is what's happening...I think.

If this were an easy fix - something anyone could do - I would do it and report the results. Because of the requirement to disassemble the repeating mechanism to fix the interior breech seal, I'm going to pass. I can probably do the work without much problem, but most airgunners don't have my experience or my tools.

If you look back at the test of the RM-2000, you'll see the pellet velocity was much tighter than with this rifle. I think the seals on the pellet feed mechanism are not doing their job.

So, the test of this RM-2800 is over. I have an Air Venturi Avenger 1100 on order. That's a Mendoza breakbarrel without the repeating mechanism. I'll test that for you when I receive it.

I'm sorry things turned out this way. I'm going to return this rifle to Pyramyd Air.

Great airgun deals I missed (and some I didn't)

by B.B. Pelletier

A few weeks ago, I let slip the fact that I have missed out on some wonderful airgun deals and several of you asked to hear about them. I asked .22 Multi-shot to remind me in two weeks and he did. So, today I'll reveal how close I have come to the brass ring - with a couple good deals I did make thrown in for balance and to preserve my self-respect.

The Columbia Flea Market
I lived for many years in Ellicott City, Maryland, next to the planned community of Columbia. Columbia isn't a center for the shooting sports, any more than Rosie O'Donnell is a candidate for the next president of the NRA. But, Maryland wasn't always the center of anti-gun sentiment. Baltimore was the city where Samuel Colt had the first prototypes of his revolvers made and the State of Maryland has a very rich history on gun lore. Amid the gaggle of social planners living there now, there exists a wealth of valuable airguns. And, every Sunday there was a chance that one of them could surface at the Columbia Flea Market, held in the parking lot of the Columbia Mall. On Super Sundays, the place expanded 10 times its usual size, and the odds of finding something increased exponentially. So, walking in that hallowed hunting ground, here is what I missed.

Columbian and Bailey BB gun
No connection to the town of Columbia, the Columbian BB gun is a fine cast-iron BB gun from 1906. I saw one at the flea market for $60! Yes, friends, I passed by a thousand-dollar BB gun that was priced at a mere $60! Why? I don't know any more than you know why YOU do stupid things. Oh, the shot tube was missing, so it wasn't a thousand-dollar gun after all, was it? That was the excuse why I left a $600 parts gun on the table one Sunday. Perhaps, it was because I had just paid $75 for a Daisy Model 40 military gun (without bayonet) at another table and thought I should restrain myself. By that logic, if I ever see gold selling for ten dollars a pound, I'll only buy a half-pound, so someone else can get a good deal, too. What a dope! I swear this is a true story.


1906 Columbian cast-iron BB gun. I may not have one of these, but at least I hung onto that $60 for about another week.

TWO Daisy Sentinels!
My stupidity knows no bounds! On this day, another Super Sunday, I passed on not one but TWO Daisy Sentinel BB guns. One was priced at $110 and the other was $100. I could have bought them both for $200. Instead, I demonstrated restraint and walked away $200 wiser and $2,000 poorer.


I passed on not one but TWO Daisy Sentinels. And, I'm allowed to vote!

Slap me 'til I cry, I haven't got a brain in my head!
On no fewer than 10 different Super Sundays (more than a year's worth), I walked away from a Markham King model D single-shot BB gun for $75. It was missing the shot tube and I just couldn't reconcile paying that much for an incomplete BB gun. I examined it repeated times, but never could bring myself to spend the cash. Today, that parts gun would fetch $400 at an airgun show, no problem.


I handled the thing so often that it probably still has my fingerprints on it! But I showed uncanny restraint.

Have you lost all respect for me yet? I bet you thought I was going to tell tales of how I just missed buying an HW 77 for $250, or some trivia like that. No, folks, I have looked upon the sands of Golconda and said, "Those look like zircons."

Now, for some good stuff.

A 1924 Crosman third model
I haven't always been stupid. Once I got back into airguns, I quickly became aware of the various Holy Grails. One of them is a Crosman 1923 front-pumper, but an even rarer gun is an original 1924 underlever. Rarer than that is the third model I found and bought for $150. Later that same year I resold it for considerably more. Didn't find it at the Columbia Flea Market, either. I found it at an airgun dealership!


Third model Crosman pump rifle is worth a bundle!

An 1872 Haviland & Gunn BB pistol
This WAS at the Columbia Flea Market and I passed it by (no surprise there). Later that day, my WIFE went back to the flea market with me, spotted this pistol in a display case and bought it for $5. These pistols now sell for $1,100-5,000, depending on condition. Oh, the dealer said he thought it was a carnival squirt gun.


My WIFE found this one for $5. Multiply by 200!

A Daisy 1894 Texas Ranger commemorative
Local pawn shop three years ago. I saw a Sheridan Silver Streak for $75 and had to get it. Then, the dealer mentioned a Daisy 1894 commemorative still in the box. I knew NOTHING about Daisy 1894s, and he wanted $100 for this BB gun, but I talked him into $150 for the Daisy and the Sheridan. This time I was just dumb lucky. The Texas Ranger 1894 is the top Daisy collectible from the latter half of the 20th century (I later found out). I re-sold it for $550 and sold the Sheridan for what I paid for it, so I did okay that day.


My Daisy 1894 Texas Ranger commemorative BB gun was made in 1973-74, yet it's worth more than a like-new original 1940 Red Ryder!

What have I learned
I have the instincts of Wrong-Way Corrigan when it comes to good airgun deals. However, every once in a while, even the blind squirrel finds an acorn.

All joking aside, I now study the Blue Book of Airguns, plus I watch certain trends. When Daisy made up the final 700 model 179 BB pistols from parts returned to them in the 1990s, I bought one. The day after they sold out, the price doubled and will continue to climb. However, I was also in on part of the Winchester commemorative rifle scam back in the 1970s, so I can recognize a bad deal when I see it.


Daisy 179. Seven hundred of them were assembled from returned parts in 2006. Those came in this box and are the most valuable 179s of all. Without this box, it's just another $50 Daisy.

A couple free search tips
I also cruise the auction sites looking for stupid mistakes. I have purchased several Daisey BB guns off Ebay, even though their policy prohibits the sale of "guns." But if someone is stupid enough to misspell the Daisy name, I'll find it! I just passed on a "candle gun" on Gun Broker. There was never such a gun, but someone got a zimmerstutzen and made up a fanciful story about shooting out candles with it. So, he called it a candle gun. I could have bought it without opposition, because candle guns don't exist (hence no one is looking for them).

So, that's my sad/happy tale. There are other remarkable deals, of course. Like the time I bought an airgun and resold it for a profit in five minutes - at a gun show! But that's for another time.

Mendoza RM-2800 .22 cal. repeater - Part 1

by B.B. Pelletier


Mendoza RM-2800 is the most powerful of their line.

Several of you have asked for this report on the RM-2800. This is Mendoza's largest, most powerful air rifle. It's a repeater, but also a breakbarrel, so it has to be cocked before every shot. Many will think of it as a single-shot, but it's a true repeater because it has a magazine. Think of it as a bolt-action repeater, and you'll be right on track.

General description
The RM-2800 comes with a dark-gray painted wood stock. It's a thumbhole style, as well, so the styling is pretty far out. Although it's a long air rifle, it isn't as big as many on the market. The stock is pleasantly thin through the forearm, and, for some reason, it's very light. The rifle I'm testing weighs only 7 lbs., 4 oz., which is considerably lighter than the specified weight of almost 8 lbs. That puts it in the same weight class as the Beeman R9. So, this really is a lightweight, compact, powerful air rifle.

The bluing is better than that found on any Weihrauch springer and fully the equal of the British-made Webleys and BSAs. The sights, which I'll cover in greater detail, are superior to every other open-sighted spring rifle today, by virtue of the fact that they contain Mendoza's fabulous micro-adjustable rear sight.

If I sound like I'm in love with the gun, that isn't the case at all. I dislike painted stocks, can't stand thumbholes, plus I see no need for the repeating mechanism on a breakbarrel springer. But, the RM 2800 has so many superior features for such a great low price that I have to point them all out. And, I'm not done yet.

Trigger
The more I see and experience Mendoza's two-bladed trigger, the more I like it. The blade on the right sticks out farther than the blade on the left. It constitutes the first-stage pull. When it comes back even with the other blade, you know stage two has been reached and the rifle is ready to fire. Right now, this trigger breaks crisply between 3 lbs., 2 ozs., and 3 lbs., 8 ozs., with absolutely no creep. It may break-in to a different weight, so I'll check it again.


Two trigger blades give great feedback for the trigger-pull.

Recoil is substantial, but there's very little vibration. Thankfully, Mendoza provides a proper scope stop. When the time comes, scoping it shouldn't be a problem.

Every Mendoza pellet rifle comes with a hang tag attached to the trigger. It has a shot group fired by the rifle and this one shows a larger group than I've normally seen with these rifles. The trigger-pull was measured at 1.11 lbs., but I think they meant kilos. The velocity was measured at 911 f.p.s. That's not bad for a .22, but we'll see what our chronograph says with several different types of pellets. I'll also check for a pellet that feeds well through the magazine.

Repeating mechanism
All Mendoza repeaters use a linear magazine that has a coiled steel follower spring. Linear magazines mean the pellets must be a certain shape and length. Pointed pellets won't feed because they get their noses stuck in the bases of the pellets in front of them, and the length of the chamber in the pellet carrier determines their overall length.


When the barrel breaks open, the pellet carrier pops up to align with the pellet magazine. When the barrel closes, the carrier aligns with the breech. Airflow blows the pellet from the carrier into the breech.

On the other hand, nothing forces you to use the magazine. The rifle also functions fine as a regular breakbarrel. Simply leave the magazine empty and load directly into the breech

Sights
The sights are a square post with bead in front and a square notch in the rear. They both have fiberoptic inserts, but the front isn't bright and can be seen as a square post in most light. I consider that a plus, because a square post is more precise. The rear sight is Mendoza's super sporting sight that has crisp click detents for adjustment in both directions. There are reference scales on both windage and elevation, so you always know which way you're adjusting.


Mendoza's rear sight is the best sporting rear sight on the market.


Front sight is a square post with a fiberoptic bead. Muzzlebrake is the handhold for cocking.

I've heard a few complaints recently about breakbarrel detents that are hard to open. We all know the Webley Patriot is a toughie, but I'm talking about RWS Dianas and other breakbarrels. Well, that's a problem this Mendoza doesn't have! Despite having a chisel-point locking detent, the barrel breaks open quite easily. Maybe it uses the pellet-feed mechanism as an assist?

I'm looking forward to testing this big Mendoza. If it can even shoot medium-weight pellets in the low 800s with some accuracy, it will be well worth the money.

The Hakim - part 3

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2

Before I get started, let me tell you about two exciting new ammo products. Pyramyd Air now carries Hornady .45 and .50 caliber lead round balls for all you big bore shooters. The .45 will fit the Sam Yang Big Bore 909 and the .50 will work in the Shingsung Dragon Slayer. Because these are round balls and therefore weigh less than pellets of the same caliber, your guns should get significantly higher velocities.

Now, on to the Hakim. We heard from two readers about the symbols I called "flames" surrounding the death's-head crest on the Hakim. The first alerted us to the fact that the inscriptions might actually be Egyptian calligraphy. The second reader seems to have confirmed this, as he gave us the translation - "Al haras Al watani," which he tells us is Arabic for The National Guard. My thanks to both readers, because this is something that is not widely known among American airgun collectors.

In the hopes of learning more about this rifle, I'm showing closeups of the writing on the end cap.


Writing on the left side of the end cap.


Writing on the top of the end cap.


Writing on the right side of the end cap.

Testing the health of a Hakim
Because of its loading tap, the Hakim's general condition can be ascertained without shooting the gun. Simply cock the gun, which raises the loading tap, hold on to the cocking lever and fire the gun. The cocking lever will be propelled up toward the stored position, but will stop about halfway there if the gun is sealing at the loading tap. This tells you several things. First, that the loading tap is relatively air-tight. If you release the cocking lever, it'll eventually close in a few seconds. How long it takes to close is an indication of just how tight the tap is sealing.

The second thing you learn is that the piston seal is working because it's compressing air in front of it. It will also leak some air, causing the cocking lever to return to the stored position. How do you know if the loading tap is sealing or the piston seal is sealing? Simple. When the loading lever gets close to the bottom of the stock, close the tap. The lever will snap home when you do. If the piston seal is leaking, closing the loading lever won't change the rate of closure as much. Also, the piston seal doesn't leak air as fast as the tap when it's working. I've seen guns that would hold in place for 30 seconds or until the tap was closed.

Oiling a Hakim
There's a special trick to oiling a Hakim, and it has to do with the loading tap. Open the tap manually (without cocking the rifle) and fill it full of oil, which takes a lot of oil. You can use regular petroleum oil because the compression ratio is not that high. Close the tap and stand the rifle on its butt for a minute or so. Then, cock the rifle with the muzzle pointing straight up. The oil will run down into the compression chamber when the tap is closed and the rifle stands on its butt. When the gun is cocked, the oil will be spread to the walls of the compression chamber. Try it!


The loading tap outside the rifle. Those smooth, tapered walls get coated with oil, which helps to seal the tap area during firing.

When the rifle is well-oiled, the outer walls of the loading tap will get coated with oil, helping it seal itself. Of course, these outer walls are still inside the receiver of the rifle, so no oil gets out of the gun.

Revitalizing a piston seal
The old black Hakim piston seal gets pretty hard from disuse. You can put some life into it by repeatedly cocking the gun and doing the compression check described above. After several cycles, the lip of the piston seal will warm up and become flexible again. This also distributes oil to the walls of the compression chamber, which gives you a double whammy.

Good for all
As I mentioned last time, the Hakim seems to be a close copy of the BSA Airsporter, so these tips should work for that rifle as well. Also, the rare Falke 80 and 90 rifles share an identical powerplant, and these tips will work for them.

This is the last report on the Hakim, unless you have lots of questions I can answer. There's a lot that isn't known about these rifles, though I have learned more while writing these three segments than I knew previously. I have spoken with Dieter Anschutz several times about this rifle. He remembers the contract but very few of the details.

RWS Diana 45 - a bridge to the past

by B.B. Pelletier

Back in 1978, the airgun world was at the beginning of a velocity revolution. The FWB 124 had come to market earlier in the decade and was capable of almost 800 f.p.s. right out of the box. With careful tuning, it became the first spring-piston air rifle to break the 800 f.p.s. "barrier." Hot on its heels, the BSF 55 was soon tweaked to 860 f.p.s., and even the old lumbering HW 35 was capable of just 800 with careful tuning of certain rifles. That left Diana, a major player, as the only quality German house without a player in the big game.

Diana (this was before RWS became a major distributor of the line) had their model 35, a large breakbarrel they advertised as shooting 725 f.p.s. In truth, the rifle barely made 675, which was only 25 f.p.s.. faster than the much lighter and slimmer Diana 27. Tuning did nothing for the 35. It was permanently hamstrung by a too-short piston stroke. When FWB, BSF and HW went off to the races in the early 1970s, Diana was left standing at the gate. The model 45 was supposed to fix that.


Diana 45 was a large, handsome breakbarrel spring-piston air rifle. This one is from 1983 and has all the earliest features.

The 45 first came to market in 1978. Those were still the days when Dianas were being made by Milbro in Scotland, so instead of calling them Dianas, all the German-made guns had to be called Original when shipped outside of Germany. The first Diana 45 to come to America came as the Original 45 and sold by Air Rifle Headquarters. The basic rifle got 790 f.p.s. in .177 and could be tuned to deliver 845-860. It was an immediate rival of the BSF 55, though it cost about twice what the smaller rifle did.

The 45 was a departure from Diana styling in a number of important ways. First, and in my mind, most importantly, they unitized the trigger. Prior to this, Diana triggers were a swarm of loose parts that worked only because they were held in close confines by the spring tube. Outside the gun, they were separate parts. The 45 trigger was the first modular trigger their sporting air rifles had.


This trigger was Diana's first unitized trigger system. It was very adjustable for its day.

Another design element was the introduction of a long-stroke piston. That's where the 45's power came from. The rifle was also very large and had a more Western-style stock. By today's standards, it looks normal, but compared to the other air rifles available in 1978, it looked like a Weatherby among a bunch of military Enfields.

Diana retained their famous ball-bearing barrel-locking detent. That feature was so popular that Feinwerkbau had copied it on their 124. It made the gun open much easier than a similar rifle with a traditional chisel detent.


A comparison of styles. The Diana 45 cocking slot (left) had to be long to clear the one-piece cocking link when the barrel was broken for cocking. The HW 35 slot was much shorter because the rifle used a two-piece hinged cocking link that hugged the bottom of the action. The short slot was supposed to dampen vibration and be easier to install a sling swivel.

They stumbled with the piston and breech seals. By making them leather instead of synthetic, they gave away 150 f.p.s. Within five years, Diana (now called Diana everywhere and distributed by RWS) would bring out the models 34, 36 and 38. Each more powerful than the 45 and all, except for the walnut-stocked 38, far less expensive. It's difficult to sell an 850 f.p.s. rifle for $300 when you're also selling a 1,000 f.p.s. model for $100, which was the case with the Diana 45 and 34 in the mid-1980s. They added features like front sight inserts and walnut stocks. Until the 45 got its own synthetic breech and piston seals in 1988, it was an uphill battle.

That said, the big 45 still has a large following of enthusiastic owners. Of the Diana breakbarrels, only the 34 is loved by more shooters, and it was produced in far greater numbers. There were many different models of the 45, including a factory commemorative model with a walnut stock and an inset brass medallion.

The 45 remained in the Diana line until 2004. It's still shown on the German website, but it's no longer in the catalog. Models like the 350 Magnum have eclipsed the power of the final version by so much that it simply could not keep up.

Gamo Compact vs IZH 46 - Part 4

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Before I begin with today's report, there's some things I need to cover. The first has to do with leaving comments. Some of you think you have to leave a comment on the report to which your comment pertains. You don't have to do that. Leave your comment on the current blog, if you like. This will help you find my answer rather than having to remember which post had your question.

Second, and this is related, some of the older posts now have over 200 comments. When the comments go over 200, Blogger (the software we are using) displays only the first 200 comments unless you direct it to do otherwise. So, people will leave a comment, then they will look for it and it doesn't appear in their window. When a post has over 200 comments, select "Newest" comments (a blue selection tab at the top right of the comments window) after you click on "Leave a Comment." Then, you'll see your comment.

Let's look at the power of an 11-year-old IZH 46. I told you in Part 2 that this model produces velocity in the 410 to 430 f.p.s. range. That's with a lightweight wadcutter lead pellet - no trick or synthetic pellets. My particular pistol always produced about 430 f.p.s. with RWS Hobbys, so today we'll find out what 11 years and 8,000 shots has done to this single-stroke mechanism. You'll recall that I told you these mechanisms have to be warmed up before they perform at their specified velocity, and we saw that with the Gamo Compact in Part 3.

RWS Hobbys
RWS Hobby pellets averaged 444 f.p.s.! That's with a spread from 433 to 457. I'm as surprised as anyone about that, but I think I've discovered a way to pump new life into old single-strokes. When I started this test series, the gun began with a shot at 303 f.p.s. and within 10 shots it was up to about 390. After 20 more shots, it seemed to stall out around 400 f.p.s. Then, I tried something new. Instead of one fast pump stroke that I normally give the gun, I pumped two semi-strokes real fast and then closed on the third stroke. The first two semi-strokes were only about 25 percent of the pump stoke distance. I did all three pump strokes in rapid succession.

What I think this does is limber up the pump head so the third stroke really gathers all the air it can. Whatever the cause, the numbers don't lie. My pistol now shoots faster than ever before. Next time I test the Gamo Compact, I'll retest the velocity using this new procedure.

Crosman Supermatch
Crosman Supermatch averaged 415 f.p.s., again, using the new pumping procedure. The spread is 409 to 421. With the old style of one fast stroke, the average falls to 390.

Gamo Match
Gamo Match pellets averaged 438 using the new pump method. The spread was 433 to 448. With the old, fast single stroke, the average was 406 f.p.s.

H&N Match
H&N Match averaged 447 f.p.s. The spread was from 441 to 452, and I discovered something additional about this new method. It isn't how fast you pump, but rather how far the two false pumps go. If they go as far as three-quarters of the full stroke, the power increased by 10-15 f.p.s. So, naturally I had to retest Hobbys.

RWS Hobby retest
This time, the average was 471 f.p.s., with a spread from 466 to 476. That means my 11-year-old IZH 46 is now shooting very close to where a 46M is supposed to shoot. My gun was always a fast one, but this goes well beyond that.

I feel like I own an 11-year-old thoroughbred horse that should be out to stud and instead he's posting the fastest times of his career. I think I've stumbled on to something that's very fundamental and very wonderful. I want you all to try this new method and see what it does for your guns. Don't forget to lubricate them before you do it.

How to oil an IZH 46
Someone asked how to properly oil an IZH 46, so I took a picture. The pump handle is fully extended, bringing the pump head out to the bottom of the pump slot, so it is barely visible. It's no different than any other pneumatic that has the pump built in, but here's the picture anyway. I use three drops per session, and I lube my old gun very frequently. If I were shooting it every day, I'd lube it once a week. You cannot over-lubricate your gun by doing this, so no worries.


Put the oil on the pump head and work it in with the pump mechanism. Use at least three drops.

Quackenbush Outlaw .457 Long Action - Part 2

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

Today, I'll share the power and accuracy I've achieved thus far with my .457 Outlaw Long Action. Before that, though, we'll look at what the rifle was doing with the original 25" barrel. I had to shoot several bullets to find the right one for that barrel, too. I went through five different styles, lengths and weights before settling on a 330-grain bullet recommended by Randy Mitchell. Here's a phenomenon I noted. The second shot always went several inches above and to the left of the first shot. I've seen that phenomenon before with big bores - in fact, it seems common to me. With all the bullets I tested, I noted the first and second shots on the targets.

Sight-in was done at 50 yards, even though this rifle is accurate much farther. Eric Henderson, who hunts with a Quackenbush .308, regularly gets prairie dogs beyond 150 yards. Larger game is taken out to 100 yards pretty commonly. Most of the bullets I shot grouped inside 2 to 3 inches at 50 yards, but as I mentioned, first and second shots were several inches apart. Not to worry - there's a field expedient for that, after we find the right bullet.


Typical dispersal of an unsuitable bullet at 50 yards. Note that the three first shots all grouped lower than the second shots.

Fill level
You might think 3,000 psi is the standard fill for all big bores, but there are no standards. In the past, I've tested certain Quackenbush rifles, only to have my reported velocities trumped mightily by someone else filling to a higher level. I use an 88 cubic-foot carbon fiber tank that holds a 4,500 psi charge, so it's no trouble to fill over 3,000. However, during the testing I did with the 25-inch barrel I was getting my tank filled at a local shop that was underfilling it by about 900 psi! That makes a HUGE difference in how high you can fill and also in how many shots you'll get from a tank. They charge $6 for a fill and I was only getting 20 shots before the tank pressure fell to 3,000.


Here are three first and second shots on a 3200 psi fill with a 440-grain lead bullet. The first shots are the tight group at the bottom. Too much dispersion on the second shot, though, for this bullet to be considered.

Since I was working the ideal fill pressure from the bottom up (that is, first 3,000 psi, then 3,200, then 3,400) and also testing many different bullets, I didn't get very far. I did confirm that my particular rifle likes a fill to at least 3,400 psi. By the time I discovered that, I could no longer fill that high. So, back to the shop for more air and try it again. I hadn't yet discovered what this shop was doing with the fill.


A different 400-grain bullet did this from the 25" barrel on 3200 psi. This is going toward the usable range, but we're not there yet.

On the second trip to the range, I was able to go to 3,400 psi right away, and there were only two bullets left to test. The last one (the 330-grainer) proved to be the best, Groups were under an inch at 50 yards. This bullet had the closest spread between the first and second shot groups. First-shot velocity was 791 f.p.s., and second shots were going 725. Shot one was producing 459 foot-pounds, and shot two made 385. That's great for game weighing under 300 lbs. However, just as I was getting close to sighting-in this rifle, other things intruded on my time and the rifle had to be set aside for a while.


The 330-grain bullet on 3400 psi from the 25" barrel showed some real promise.

During the time I wasn't shooting, Dennis said he had my 33" barrel ready, so he shipped it and I installed it. Then, Eric Henderson invited me on an exotic sheep hunt in central Texas. There were only a few days to get ready, and the weather wasn't cooperating, so I had to wait for a good day to sight in. Of course, all bets were off, now that the barrel was changed. I went back to the same paintball store I had been using and got another tank of air and when the one good day came, I went back to the range. Naturally I tried the same bullets as before, the bullets that worked well in the 25" barrel, only this time they were all over the place - as in missing by feet! I said three feet in the first report, but after examining the targets it was more like 14". I also tried a 330-grain bullet Dennis recommended, but it printed no better. There was no way I was going hunting with a rifle I couldn't trust to hit closer than 14" off my aimpoint at 50 yards!

I missed the hunt, but I also went to a different paintball store for the next fill, and the results were dramatically different! I'm now up to 28 shots on this fill and I'm still filling to 3,500 psi, which seems to be the optimum with my rifle. I tried all five of the bullets I'd been given, but nothing wanted to group as well in the longer barrel, so I slugged the bore. That means ramming a lead bullet or ball (balls are much easier) down the bore and measuring the diameter after it comes out. My bore measured 0.4585", which drove me to ask Dennis why he calls the rifle a .457. He says he should have called it a .458, which is far more common in black powder bullet sizes, but no matter to me. I already cast my own 412-grain .458 lead bullet for a .45/70 Trapdoor Springfield, so I took that back to the range. To my delight, it groups very well! Perhaps, it isn't the most accurate bullet for this rifle, but I would have no reservations about hunting with this one.


The first five bullets I tested on the left. The small one on the right of that group is the 330-grain that worked well in the 25" barrel. The group of two at the right is the 412-grain bullet that works best (so far) in the 33" barrel and another 350-grain copperplated lead bullet I have yet to try


This is a four-shot group of the 412-grain bullets. Four shots are not conclusive, but we seem to be headed in the right direction. I shifted the aimpoint of the duplex reticle between shots one and two to get this group. This group measures approximately 1.25" between centers.

Velocity on shot one is 783 f.p.s., and shot two goes 734 f.p.s. That's 561 foot-pounds on shot one and 493 on shot two. After shot two, the gun's pressure dropped from 3,400 to about 2,200 psi. This is ample power for the hunting I'll do. I plan to hunt deer, pigs, boar, exotic goats and sheep and anything else in that general weight range. Someone asked if I'd hunt a bear with this rifle, and the answer is "no." It's true a rifle like this could decimate a small 90-lb. honey bear, but I wouldn't trust it on anything larger - even a small black bear. Read Lewis & Clark's adventures shooting grizzlies with their .54 caliber rifles, and you'll see why I say that.

Dennis Quackenbush is working toward an air rifle with the muzzle energy of a .50/70 black powder round. That's a .50-caliber 425-grain bullet leaving the muzzle at around 1,200 f.p.s. (from a 32" Springfield barrel). That's 1,359 foot-pounds, and such rifles were very successful buffalo rifles in the 1870s, sometimes taking bison at ranges up to 500 yards. It's a lofty goal for an airgun maker, but I wouldn't bet against him.

The Hakim air rifle - Part 2

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

In Part 1, we looked at the outside of the Hakim. Today, I'll go inside, plus give you performance numbers and tell you how to repair a bad piston seal. But first, I must thank Bob from Oz who sent me a link to an article from a 2007 issue of Airgun World magazine. It was about the German Falke 90 air rifle. When I printed it out and looked at the details, I couldn't believe my eyes. Here was the spitting image of the Hakim in a sporter style. That article was based in part on the Blue Book of Airguns, so the information has been under my eyes for many years! But there's even more.

The author, Tim Saunders, remarks how closely the Falke 90 copied the BSA Airsporter - a rifle I've never seen but will search for now. Because Saunders, who couldn't take apart the Falke 90 he examined, was able to describe the rather strange piston to a T, I gather he is correct in assuming the Falke 90 copies the inside of the BSA Airsporter, and, what's more, the Anschutz Hakim. That article filled in a lot of blanks for me, because it extended the history of the Hakim from 1954 back to 1948, when the first Airsporter was made. If you would like to read the article, here are the pages:

Page 1
Page 2

Performance
Like I mentioned in Part 1, I've owned a lot of Hakims over the years. So, I've had a chance to examine guns in all states of tune - from weak to hot-rodded. In fact, the rifle shown in part one is the fastest Hakim I've ever tested. It shot RWS Superpoints at 650 f.p.s. - way faster than ever intended by the manufacturer. It was also the only Hakim I've ever owned that fired harshly. Another person tuned that rifle and was clearly going for speed above all else.

A good Hakim will push a Superpoint out the muzzle at 500-550 f.p.s. An average one will go 475, and the dogs will shoot at 450 and below. The hottest one I ever tuned myself went 615 f.p.s. and was still as smooth as any other Hakim - which is to say incredibly smooth.

Accuracy
A Hakim is not far behind a good 10-meter rifle for accuracy at 10 meters. It's a one-hole gun for sure, and groups of 0.10" are common.

Maintenance
Although it has a synthetic parachute piston seal, the Hakim needs lots of oil. Yes, this 1954 rifle has a synthetic seal. Most of the ones I've examined are still working well, but a couple had nails and pellets impacted in the seal. That tore the seal rim, so the seal had to be replaced. I'm going to show you how that's done today, and a modern RWS Diana parachute seal can be sized down to fit and function fine. You can read about that in the report on Spring piston seals.


This shows a Hakim piston (left) and a disassembled piston assembly.


Here's the detail that shows how the piston goes together. The dark fiber washer at the bottom of the conical piston head backs the piston seal, not shown here. An RWS Diana piston seal is a good replacement for the original Hakim, though the outside diameter will have to be reduced to fit.


Blue Diana piston seal is a good replacement for the original Hakim seal.

Disassembly
If there's an easier air rifle to disassemble, I sure don't know about it. That said, I offer this caveat: Do NOT disassemble an airgun unless you are an airgunsmith. Mainsprings are under pressure and can cause serious injury or death. There are many parts to be detatched, but everything is straightforward with no surprises. Uncock the rifle and remove the action from the stock. That means removing the normal triggerguard screw plus a screw that runs sideways through the rifle. Some stock hardware will also have to come off, and the upper handguard separated from the stock.

With the action out of the stock, unscrew the slotted bushing in front of the trigger and the large screw deep in the hole that's left when the bushing is removed. Drift the one pin out of the end cap, and the trigger group will separate from the end cap that holds the sear. Be careful not to lose the thin hairspring that rests between the trigger and sear.

A strap that holds the cocking link to the spring tube is removed with two screws. Once this strap is removed, just slide the linkage forward to disconnect it from the piston and the linkage with trigger assembly will separate from the spring tube.

The end cap can now be safely unscrewed from the spring tube without the use of a mainspring compressor, because there's very little pre-tensioning of the mainspring. Only the hot-rodded rifle mentioned earlier had any reserve tension when the end cap came out, and even that was only a half-inch. A stock Hakim spring will be completely relaxed when the end cap comes off. With the end cap off, the mainspring comes out, followed by the piston. It takes 10 to 15 minutes to disassemble a Hakim this far, once you've done it a few times.


The cocking linkage and trigger assembly separates from the spring tube. Now the end cap can be unscrewed.


The endcap simply unscrews from the spring tube. Then, the mainspring and piston come out. The thing hanging down under the endcap is the sear.

Lubricate and reassemble
The guns straight from Egypt were filthy with dried grease and sand. They took a lot of cleaning and care. But you probably won't encounter one of them today. Simply remove all the grease, then apply moly to the side of the piston seal and burnish some more moly inside the compression chamber. You're going to oil this gun frequently anyway, so the moly may not even be necessary. I lube the mainspring with white lithium grease to not slow the spring in any way. Hakims don't vibrate, as a rule - the exception being the hot-rodded rifle mentioned earlier. Reassemble the rifle and start enjoying it!

In the next report, I'll give you some Hakim tips.

Gamo Compact vs IZH 46 - Part 3

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2

Apparently, I really screwed up yesterday's report. First, I didn't tell you that the distance I shot was 21 yards. Second, I didn't give group sizes. That was intentional, because after three years of using the NRA official 50-foot smallbore target in my tests, I thought everyone knew what size it is. But they don't. The two groups I showed measured 0.4" and 0.606" c-t-c. The black bull measures 1.573" across.

I use that target because there are 11 bulls on a target sheet and I go through them fast. So it's a matter of economy. The target paper is large enough to record a pellet strike at longer range during sight-in, which I'm constantly doing. The bull is a little larger than a 10-meter air rifle bull, so I can see it clearly at 50 yards through a 9x scope or better.

Today, I'll continue the test of the Gamo Compact 10-meter target pistol. This will be the velocity test. I learned some interesting things about velocity in this session. Also, a warning from the Pyramyd Air techs: don't use Raptors or any other non-lead metallic pellets in this pistol. If you have synthetic (plastic) target pellets, they'll be okay, but PBAs get stuck in the bore, and I'm assuming other potmetal pellets will, too. Apparently, that's how I came to get this pistol, which wasn't brand-new.

RWS Hobbys
I started with RWS Hobby pellets because they're the lightest lead pellet commonly available. They're also wadcutters, which I recommend exclusively in a target pistol like the Compact. The only point of this gun is to punch round holes in paper targets, so all other pellet shapes are less desirable. You can use them, of course. They won't hurt the gun. But only the wadcutter will do what the gun was designed to do--make crisp holes in paper.

The first string of Hobbys averaged 358 f.p.s., with a spread from 357 to 362. That's a little slower than the 400 f.p.s. Gamo advertises for the gun, but hold off on those critiques. All guns vary a little, so you must allow for that. And something VERY interesting happened during this test. As I shot other heavier wadcutters, they were going as fast or faster than the Hobbys. So fast, in fact, that I retested the Hobbys at the end of the session. That's about 50 shots later. Lo and behold, they now averaged 370 f.p.s., with a spread from 363 to 376. So, in 50 shots the average velocity moved up 12 f.p.s.

Do you remember what I told you about exercising that pump piston seal with the IZH 46? Well, it seems to work with the Compact, as well. No reason it shouldn't, as the design and technology is identical for both guns. I just never experienced it with a Compact before. And, there's something else. I learned that if you close the pump lever rapidly the gun will shoot faster than if you close it slowly. How you close the pump lever affects the velocity of the gun by 5-10 f.p.s. That's worth knowing if you shoot a single-stroke.

Gamo Match
The first string I shot with 7.5-grain Gamo Match averaged 356 f.p.s., with a spread from 346 to 363. When I came back and reran the string, the average climbed to 364, with a spread from 363 to 365. Not only did the pellets go faster, the velocity was also much more consistent when the powerplant was warmed up.

Crosman Supermatch
You can't buy Crosman Supermatch anymore but you can buy Crosman Premier Super Match, which are the same pellets. They just changed the name and packaging a few years ago. These 7.9-grain wadcutters averaged 353 f.p.s., with an extremely tight spread from 351 to 355. Second time around, the average climbed to 357 with a spread from 357 to 358. That's right! A 1 f.p.s. spread. I've encountered that tight a spread before with good single-strokes, so it isn't as much of a surprise as it is a confirmation that the Compact is made well.

H&N Finale Match
The H&N Finale Match pellets alerted me to the fact that the pistol was speeding up as I shot. They weigh 7.6 grains, which is 0.6 grains heavier than the RWS Hobbys, yet they averaged 366 f.p.s., with a spread from 363 to 369. I knew if they were going that fast, the Hobbys would have sped up, too, so I went back and retested them. I didn't retest the H&Ns because they came at the point of the testing where the gun seemed to be going as fast as it could.


Most 10-meter pistols have a groove running across the center of the blade. This is where the trigger weight arm will rest when the trigger pull is tested before the match.

All this shooting has given the trigger a chance to lighten up with the lubrication I did in Part 1. Depending on where the pull gauge is put, the trigger pull ranges from 32 ozs. to 46 ozs. At the bottom of the trigger blade, it's the lightest, so when I shoot the gun, I position my finger there. There's a groove across the center of the trigger blade, which is where the official will locate the pull weights (they don't use gauges in a match) to test for compliance with the 500-gram minimum-pull regulation. You don't have to locate your trigger finger there when you shoot the match.

RWS Diana Schutze - Part 3

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2

Today, I'll finish the report on the RWS Diana Schutze, which is marked on the gun as the model 240. We'll look at accuracy in this report.

I had a head-start on this final report because I already shot a few groups at 21 yards while testing another air rifle. I just wanted to get a sense of how much work I'd have to do to get the Schutze on target. As it turned out, there was nothing to do.

In part 2, we saw that the velocity is right on the specification. With a rifle that shoots below 600 f.p.s., that means light- to medium-weight pellets will probably be best. I chose RWS Superdomes, RWS Hobbys and JSB Exact domes for this test.

Shooting style
I used a modified artillery hold with the firearm laying across the backs of my fingers while my hand was resting on a sandbag. The trigger is still heavy with some creep in the second stage. The creep is entirely predictable, so I pull through it and then the rifle is set to fire. The firing behavior is somewhat abrupt and harsh, though no vibration lingers after the shot.

The first target was shot with RWS Superpoints. They all landed in the black, which was a pleasant surprise. They also showed signs of wanting to group, which was encouraging. Next came the RWS Hobbys. They shot to almost the center of the bull and were even tighter than the Superpoints. The JSB Exacts were last and four out of five were in the black but not as tight as the first two pellets had been. It was time to get serious.


RWS Hobbys went to the right place with no sight adjustments. That's always a good way to start things.

I've mentioned this before but it bears repeating. I seldom shoot as well at the start of a session as I will after some warmup groups. Knowing this, I always try to concentrate when I think I've found the right pellet and hold for a particular gun. It was time to go back to RWS Hobby pellets and get serious.

The rifle holds very neutral without the sensitivity normally associated with a breakbarrel. Perhaps the low power has something to do with it, but I think the Schutze is a natural shooter. The next group of Hobbys was encouraging but not as good as the first group. Then, I realized I had to concentrate on the front sight blade. As much as I shoot, you'd think that would come naturally to me, but it doesn't.

For the next group, I did concentrate on the front sight blade and let the rear notch and bullseye go fuzzy. That's all it took. The group was exactly what I was looking for.


This is what I was looking for. The Schutze can really shoot. This was done by a 60-year-old man who wasn't wearing his bifocals while using the gun's open sights!

Have you spotted what's different about this test, yet? I'm using open sights. The concentration I mentioned is on the front sight blade. I didn't install a scope, and the target shows none was needed.

Summary
The Schutze is pretty much what it should be: a light, accurate youth air rifle. It has neutral handling characteristics, so special techniques aren't as critical to accuracy, though they do have to be employed. The trigger could be lighter by half and the cocking effort could also be a few pounds lighter and the gun would be even nicer, but those things don't detract much from a very nice air rifle. I'm glad because I now have one more model I can recommend to parents and to those looking for a smaller, lighter spring rifle for themselves.

If this were my personal gun, I'd tune it to remove the harsh firing cycle and do something about the trigger. I wouldn't mount a scope, because it isn't needed.

Quackenbush Outlaw .457 Long Action - Part 1

by B.B. Pelletier

Sometimes, I'm asked to write a report about something I like so well that the writing seems to take care of itself. This report is one of those. Pestbgone asked first, but several others chimed in for a report on my Quackenbush .457 Outlaw Long Action big bore air rifle after reading the big bore article I posted last week. There's a photo of a man holding a beautiful .457 Long Action there, so I hope you get a chance to see it. That rifle is nearly identical to mine.

If you're in the market for a big bore air rifle, you know what your options are. There are several Korean rifles - the Career 9mm single-shot, the Career Ultra 9mm repeater, the Sam Yang .45 caliber 909S and the .50 caliber Career Dragon Slayer. The two larger rifles (909S and Dragon Slayer) get up to about 200 foot-pounds of muzzle energy.

Then, there are the boutique rifles made by Gary Barnes. They're powerful, very costly and have styling that people either love or hate. Barnes' rifles are very accurate at long range, partly because he uses a high-drag projectile that stabilizes the bullet. I remember when Gary's big bore smoothbores couldn't hit a 3-foot target at 50 yards, but he has some rifles now that people use regularly on targets at 200 yards and beyond.

There are a couple other big-bore makers who crank out some guns, and more come every year. Some are modifying existing smallbores such as the AirForce Condor and the QB78, but others build their guns from scratch.

Quackenbush is the man
No big bore maker is as popular as Dennis Quackenbush, however. Dennis turns out hundreds of guns every year, and yet cannot seem to catch up with the demand. He's been making big bores longer than any other maker today. He started by making up parts for 10 Paul air shotguns in the early 1990s. He sold them as kits that a skilled worker could turn into a close copy of the original .410 air shotguns made in the 1920s.

His next airgun was the .375 Brigand. It ran on CO2 and got 12 shots that propelled a .375 round ball up to 625 f.p.s.. I owned one and was impressed by the power. That was also the rifle that established what I will call the Quackenbush style: a bolt-action single-shot with a separate cocking handle. I was writing The Airgun Letter at the time, and Dennis and I experimented with the Brigand on air. The results were predictable. On 1,200 psi air, the velocity jumped to almost 800 f.p.s. and the total shots dropped to four. Why 1,200 psi? Because I was using air with a valve designed for CO2. I actually did pump the pressure higher than 1,200 and the velocity dropped, though Dennis reports using a pressure of 1,400-1,600 psi on his website.

Dennis was encouraged and designed a new Brigand valve to handle 3,000 psi air, alone. That rifle went about 875 and got more than 4 shots per fill, as I recall. But he made only a handful of rifles.

Fast-forward to the Outlaw series of today. Dennis made the .50-caliber Bandit that got about 250+ foot-pounds with a round ball. But people started trying to get more power, so Dennis stretched the action (hence, Long Action) to accommodate a longer, stronger hammer spring. Any time you fire a conical bullet instead of a round ball of the same caliber, the energy will increase dramatically because the conical bullet is heavier. The problem, of course, is stabilizing longer bullets.

.457 Outlaw Long Action
Dennis advertises that his .457 Outlaw Long Action fires a 430-grain lead bullet at 509 foot-pounds at 732 f.p.s., but he didn't stop there. Although the standard barrel length of the LA is 25", Dennis made up a few 33" barrels for the rifle, which upped the power even more.

Actually, Dennis got over 600 foot-pounds with the first Long Action rifle he made, but it only had enough air for one good shot. He wanted a reliable backup shot in the rifle, so he tweaked the valve to get it. That's what brought him back to 500 foot-pounds, though he'll still build a single-shot rifle if requested. I'l tell you exactly what kind of power and accuracy I get with my rifle, so please be patient while I lay the groundwork.

Before we get there, though, this is the point where Big Bore Bob Dean comes into the picture. Bob learned how to individually tweak Dennis' rifles for more power. He offers a package of improvements that bump the power of a .457 LA up to 750 foot-pounds. During the process of learning how to do that, Big Bore Bob became so interested in big bores that he built a few rifles himself, including that 20mm monster that Stephan Boles is shooting without sights in my big bore video.

Back to Quackenbush. Dennis now builds rifles in lots of 50 at a time. He used to build 100 at a time, but his order book was closed so long that people became discouraged, so this year he went to just 50 per lot. Last year, I decided the time had come when I needed to not just test more of Dennis' guns but buy one of my own. He offers the Outlaw in both .308 caliber and .457 Long Action. I chose the .457 because I wanted to hunt deer-sized game with it.

It's really a .458
I chided Dennis recently that his .457 isn't really a .457 at all. It's a .458. The caliber .457 is rare in firearms and seldom encountered, but when Dennis first picked a name for the rifle, that was what stuck in his mind. In fact, his rifle is the same caliber as a .45/70, which is nominally .458. There are hundreds of .458 bullets available, but only a few in .457.

Does it really matter?
This is where you can get a jump on all other airgunners. Many of them don't shoot firearms and they poo-poo blackpowder shooting. But one thing I have learned from shooting blackpowder rifles is the importance of bullet fit.

On my first outing with my new .457 LA, the rifle was equipped with a 25" barrel, though I'd asked for a 33" barrel. I bought a blem rifle and, at the time it was assembled, Dennis didn't have any 33" barrels blued, so he stuck a 25" barrel on the gun. The first time out, I shot a variety of sample bullets given to me by Randy Mitchell and Eric Henderson. They all did okay, which means groups of 3" at 50 yards, but the one 330-grain recommended by Randy Mitchell could group inside just over an inch. I never chronographed that rifle with that bullet, and when a 33" barrel became available, I exchanged it with Dennis.

Second time out with the rifle was also the first time with the 33" barrel. I bought some 330-grain .457 bullets to try in the new barrel, but to my surprise, they didn't group within 3 feet! Shades of Gary Barnes and 1998! Then, I slugged the bore (rammed a lead slug through the bore so I could measure the bore diameter). Low and behold, it is 0.4585" That exactly what I would have expected from a .45/70! As it happens, I own a vintage Trapdoor Springfield in .45/70, so I happen to cast bullets for that rifle.

In the next report, I'll tell you how those bullets do!

The Hakim air rifle - part 1

by B.B. Pelletier

There's a new article and video about a big bore match and another article about the Gamo Varmint Hunter Plus, Paul Capello has another great video. It's about the RWS 34 Panther.

While reading the classified ads in the Baltimore Sun one day in the 1980s, I stumbled across a listing for a strange military-looking pellet rifle with Arabic writing on the action. The ad said it was large, heavy and very accurate. Terms that wake me up when they describe an airgun. The guy wanted $150, so I called and arranged to see it. It turned out to be an air rifle I had never seen before...and one I just had to have. That was my introduction to the Hakim .22 caliber underlever rifle.

After World War II, armies around the world were scrambling to modernize, while cutting their budgets at the same time. Countries that had used obsolete technology during the war were seeking to replace their outdated equipment with the most modern designs that had been proven in the war.

The M1 Garand was the golden boy of that war, and every country was seeking their own version of it. Egypt had adopted an 8mm semiautomatic variation of a Swedish rifle, the Ljungman, that they called the Hakim. In fact, it has been called the "poor man's Garand" (though today they sell for almost as much as the U.S. rifle). Training ammo was expensive, so the Egyptians did something remarkable. They turned to Anschutz in Germany and had them turn one of their sporting air rifles into a trainer for the Egyptian army. The Hakim pellet rifle was thus born in 1954. A total of about 2,800 rifles were produced, all in .22 caliber, despite W.H.B. Smith's reference in Small Arms of the World saying they were .177s. If a .177 version exists, I haven't run across it yet. The Egyptians also contracted with Beretta for a 10-shot semiauto .22 rimfire rifle trainer for the same purpose.


The Egyptian Hakim battle rifle has been called the "poor man's Garand." Based on a Swedish design, it wasn't well-suited to desert conditions, but it's marvelously accurate and fun to shoot.


The Egyptian Hakim pellet rifle is a large, rugged military trainer that attempted to mimic the service rifle. This is one of the very few examples I've seen in very good condition. It has painted markings that I think are unit markings.

Physical description
The Hakim is a large air rifle, weighing over 10 lbs. and stretching 45" overall. It's an underlever spring-piston rifle that loads through a tap. The tap opens automatically when the rifle is cocked and is closed by the shooter after a pellet is dropped in nose-first. Above the tap, a grinning flaming skull adds Middle Eastern ambiance. The rifle has a hooded front blade and a fully adjustable rear sight with reference mark on the horizontal adjustment. A sling can be attached, but it has to remain slack to give clearance for the underlever.


Looking straight down on the loading tap, we see the grinning, flaming skull. Nice!


The underlever is hidden in the bottom of the forearm. This is at full extension (cocked). Just in front of the rear sight you can see the loading tap lever has flipped up, and the tap is now open.

There's a strange trapezoidal metal projection on top of the stock that has twin wire loops - one on each side. The top is cut out for sighting purposes. This protrusion has been the subject of much debate over the years, but the smart money says it's just a way of mimicking the cocking knob on the Hakim firearm. Some owners have removed this protrusion which hasn't yet hurt the value of their guns, but one day it will.


No one knows for sure what that strange protrusion is, but most people think it's there to resemble the cocking knob of an 8mm Hakim.

Value
I've owned about 15 Hakims to date. I've worked on perhaps 20 more and seen another 50 at airgun shows. When airgun shows began in the U.S. in 1991, an average Hakim was bringing $75. I bought several for $50 in those days. Today, the same rifles bring $200-250, and the price creeps up just a bit every year. They are quite undervalued at present - probably because 98 percent of all that survive are now here in the U.S.

Navy Arms imported them for years in the 1980s and '90s, and I got four of the last rifles they sold, at $65 each. Those guns ranged from about good to poor, but all had to be disassembled and cleaned before they worked right. Sometimes a gun couldn't be fixed and became a parts gun to restore others. The number of guns is lower now than when Anschutz made them, and the average condition is about NRA good, which is nowhere near the good most of us mean when describing anything. A really nice one might get up as high as NRA very good, but I've only seen one or two that nice.


Best pellet
Unlike firearms, an air rifle in good condition usually has an excellent bore, because airgun barrels don't wear out. As ugly as a rifle may look on the outside, it can still be a tackdriver at close range. The best pellet I every found for a Hakim is the RWS Superpoint, and don't even THINK of shooting any Crosman pellets in them! They're too small and too hard to seal the bore effectively, and the gun will react harshly to their use.

Gamo Compact vs IZH 46 - Part 2

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

Today, we'll look at the IZH 46. Before I do that, Derrick told us that Gamo U.S.A. sells grips to convert a Compact to left-hand operation. Indeed they do. Look on their website under ACCESSORIES.

The IZH 46, or Izzy, as some call it, is another single-stroke pneumatic target pistol. I don't know how long it's been in production, but I first saw them in the mid-1990s, when several dealers sold them in the U.S. at $600. That was a poor launch strategy because top-grade, name-brand, 10-meter pistols were selling for less than a thousand dollars at the same time, and the Russian gun had never been seen in this country.

When those dealers dropped out, the price fell rapidly through $300, coming to a stop at around $225. Then, it began to sell, and the word started spreading about its quality. I saw and shot my first one at the Little Rock Airgun Expo around 1996 and bought one in March of '97. I still own that pistol, and it still works well. Those who say the seals are weak are mistreating their guns. This gun requires Crosman Pellgunoil often to remain operational. There's also a trick to storage that I'll show you that keeps the most fragile seal fresh.

Two different models
There's an IZH 46 and a later version known as the 46M. EAA told everyone the M stands for magnum, which sounds reasonable because it develops greater power. A standard 46 should develop a muzzle velocity of 410-430 f.p.s. when shooting 7.5-grain wadcutters. The 46M develops 460-500 f.p.s. with the same pellet. The M has a longer pump tube that produces more swept volume (longer piston stroke), so more air is compressed. I've tested both guns extensively, because the 10-meter pistol club I used to belong to had several of each model.


The IZH 46 is no longer imported into the U.S.


The IZH 46M has a longer pump tube than the IZH 46.

The standard 46 is still made, but no longer imported into the U.S. That makes sense, because almost everyone would want the M for its greater velocity.

Maintenance first
A ton of rumors have been written about how the seals in the 46 are somehow weak. Nothing could be further from the truth, but when kitchen-table hobby airgunsmiths open one up, they find a level of complexity they weren't anticipating. You don't change the seal to get a 46 shooting. You simply pump it - the right way!

Getting them working again
I have taken non-working guns and, through simple lubrication with Crosman Pellgunoil, gotten them shooting at or above the rated velocity in about 30 minutes. After watching me pump and shoot their guns repeatedly until they worked, the members of my club stopped having problems with their pistols. All you have to do is lubricate and exercise the seals until they're flexible once more. I have to do the same thing with my own pistol every time I start shooting it again, because it sits around for 12 months at a time without being shot.

What kind of oil did I use? Crosman Pellgunoil! Will the synthetic oil your brother-in-law's company uses to lubricate swimming pool heater pumps work as a substitute? Who the heck knows. But, Pellgunoil works every time.

Storing the gun
Never store the pistol with the breech closed. Always leave tension off the breech seal, which is the most sensitive seal on the gun. My own gun is 11 years old, has fired thousands of shots and still works well, because I never stored it with the breech closed.


Only close the breech like this when you wish to fire the pistol. Never store it with the breech closed or you'll ruin the breech seal.


This is how the breech should look when the gun is stored.

Pump mechanism makes easy work
The pump lever operates with an articulated linkage whose fulcrum changes location as the force increases. The fulcrum also rides on two clever roller bearings that also serve as spacers. The result is an easy pump effort. The model 46 needs about 12-15 lbs. of force to close the lever; the 46M needs 20-22 lbs.

General specifications
This is a large target pistol, and one of the heaviest of its class at 40.5 oz. That's what my 46 weighs. A 46M is slightly heavier. The balance is slightly toward the front, which most target shooters prefer. The geometry of a properly adjusted grip keeps this from becoming overwhelming. The length is 16.5" overall. That seems large to those not used to 10-meter pistols, but it's in the same range as many others such as the FWB 103 single-stroke.

Trigger
Here's where the IZH 46 clearly surpasses the Gamo Compact. The 46 trigger is adjustable for location fore and aft (adjusts to the length of your trigger finger), adjusts for the length of the first-stage takeup, for the weight of the second-stage pull and for overtravel. In fact, the only adjustments you won't find on this trigger are a side-to-side rotation of the trigger blade and the ability to load much of the total trigger-pull into the first stage The Izzy first stage is just a slack pull.

The 46 trigger also has a dry-fire capability that the Compact doesn't have. You can manually raise the breech block until the trigger cocks, then close the breech and the trigger-pull is identical to what it is when the pistol is charged.

Grips
The grips now being imported are right-hand, but left-hand grips have been imported and can be gotten. The supply isn't as regular as it could be, but they're available. The grip adjusts just one way - by the palm shelf moving up and down. This is identical to the grip on the Compact. The 46 grip is smaller than the Compact grip and is made of what looks like birch.

Though it doesn't adjust for cant or fore/aft angle, the grip is ideally angled to lock your wrist when the sights are aligned. The one complaint I have about the 46 grip is that the panels are difficult to get as tight as they need to be. I've solved this with my own pistol, but so many I see have grip panels that move when you grasp the gun.

Build quality
The IZH 46 is well-built. The finish isn't in the same class as a top 10-meter gun, nor are the grips as well-sculpted, but you cannot criticize the construction. In contrast to the Compact, there's no plastic anywhere. The only synthetics are the pump head and seals.

I plan to address the sights when I test each gun, because sights need to be used to be evaluated.

RWS Diana Schutze - Part 2

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

Okay, today we're back with the new RWS Diana Schutze youth model breakbarrel. I've been watching the forums and see that shooters are already discussing this rifle. One person has made up his mind that the trigger is too heavy (it's 6 lbs. right now) and others are comparing the published velocity of the Schutze with velocities they get with their RWS Diana model 24s. As you recall, the Schutze is an updated model 24, now called the model 240.

We'll look at velocity today. I lubricated the piston seal because the test rifle was squeaking when it was cocked. That's the sound of a dry piston seal, so it got three drops of Whiscombe Honey, which until now I have reserved for lubing pellets, only. I used it because I am out of silicone chamber oil, and I wanted to see if this might be a viable substitute. There was a lot of dieseling and velocity fluctuation in the first 100 shots. The gun really stunk up the house with the smoke it produced. Then, it settled down and started performing right.

The seal is greatly improved from before. However, on the basis of the initial dieseling, I'd have to say Whiscombe Honey is not a good chamber lube.

Trigger
The trigger is now almost free from creep. On many shots there's no creep whatsoever, but then there will be some on a shot or two. I think that after 1,000-2,000 shots, it'll be entirely creep-free.

The trigger-pull is getting lighter but not yet consistently lighter. That's another area where several thousand shots will make a difference. In that respect, this trigger is no different than the trigger on a Beeman C1 or most older Gamos.

Velocity - RWS Hobbys
RWS Hobbys averaged 584 f.p.s., with a spread from 579 to 591. That's a velocity spread of 12 f.p.s. and a muzzle energy of 5.3 foot-pounds.

Velocity - RWS Superdomes
RWS Superdomes averaged 516 f.p.s., with a spread from 507 f.p.s. to 521 f.p.s. That's a velocity spread of 14 f.p.s. and a muzzle energy of 4.91 foot-pounds.

Velocity - Crosman Premier 7.9-grain pellets
Crosman Premier 7.9-grain pellets averaged 537 f.p.s. with a spread from 531 to 544. That a total spread of 13 f.p.s. and a muzzle energy of 5.06 foot-pounds. Of all the pellets tested, Premiers fit the bore the tightest and seemed to have the smoothest firing characteristics.

Velocity - Gamo Raptors
Send in the clowns! Gamo Raptors delivered an average of 645 f.p.s. with a spread from 610 to 680. That's a total spread of 70 f.p.s. and a muzzle energy of 4.62 foot-pounds.

Velocity - Crosman Silver Eagle hollowpoints
More trick pellets. Crosman Silver Eagle hollowpoints are the new velocity champs of all pellets made from some kind of metal. In the Schutze, they averaged 760 f.p.s., with a velocity spread from 751 to 770. That's a 19 f.p.s. total spread and a muzzle energy of 6.16 foot-pounds. That's a pretty tight spread for a trick pellet, so perhaps these will show some accuracy.

Conclusions
The Schutze is right on the spec for velocity, and the test rifle exhibits signs of breaking in the way most better-quality spring guns do. I'm surprised no one has remarked yet that this rifle is priced slightly higher than the much more powerful RWS Diana 34 Panther - as though we buy our airguns on the basis of feet-per-second. Oh, wait! Many people still do! If you're among them, the Schutze isn't for you. But, if you're a parent looking for a quality youth air rifle for less money than a Beeman R7 or an HW 30, you might want to consider this one. We have to test accuracy next, so all the votes are not yet counted. Stay tuned!

Gamo Compact vs IZH 46 - Part 1

by B.B. Pelletier

Normally, I don't do comparisons, but this time I will. Here are two fine inexpensive 10-meter target pistols, one of which, the IZH 46, has become difficult to get. I say they are inexpensive, but that's only compared to a world-class 10-meter pistol. The Gamo Compact is the least expensive of the two, yet it gives up no accuracy to the IZH. However, the Russian-made IZH has more features than the Spanish Gamo. Either pistol can compete in a local- and regional-level matches. This series will examine both guns in great detail.


Gamo Compact is an attractive 10-meter target pistol that resembles a semiautomatic instead of the single-shot that it is.

Starting with the Compact
The Gamo Compact is a single-stroke pneumatic pistol, which means the pump lever only has to be cycled one time for a shot. If you try to cycle it a second time you lose the air that was compressed on the first pump. The effort needed to close the pump lever during compression is 20 lbs. That's going to be easy for most adults and possible for most teenagers.


Top strap rotates forward to open compression cylinder (the silver cylinder shown in the bottom half of the gun). Closing the top strap charges the gun with compressed air.

The pistol weighs just over 2 pounds, which probably varies a little with the density of the walnut grips. The grips are medium to large and very hand-filling. If this were my personal gun I would remove a lot of wood for a better fit, because my finger can just reach the trigger. The right-hand grips have an adjustable palm shelf on the right and a thumbrest on the left. They appear to be sized to conform to International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) rules, which means a thickness of not more than 50mm. Left-hand grips do not seem to be available at this time.

Trigger
The trigger on my test gun broke at 48-52 oz. There was a pronounced creep in the second stage on the gun I'm testing. The one trigger adjustment screw simply adjusts the length of the first-stage travel. There's no adjustment to lighten the trigger-pull or for overtravel. The trigger blade can be rotated on its stalk, which gives some front-and-back adjustment.

The one nice thing about the Compact trigger is that it allows access to the mechanism. In the past, I've lubricated Compact triggers, reducing the pull significantly. I thought I'd try with this gun. Under the wooden grip panel on the right side is a milky white translucent cover holding the trigger mechanism intact. This cover can be carefully removed by removing three screws, then the sear can be directly accessed.


Translucent cover keeps trigger parts organized. You can cock the pistol and observe the trigger function through this cover.


The trigger is uncocked. The sear and air release are circled. The next photo shows how they engage.


Sear holds air-release hammer until the trigger moves the sear out of the way. Then, the hammer knocks open the air-release valve. The place where the sear contacts the hammer is lubed with moly to reduce trigger-pull.

After trigger lube
After Beeman M-2-M moly grease was applied to the sear and hammer, the pull weight dropped in stages to 36-39 oz. The creep diminished by about 95 percent but can still be felt. I think the moly may continue to reduce the trigger pressure as I shoot the pistol, because the Compact I owned several years ago was identical to this one and eventually got down to 21 oz. I'll report on the pull, again, after the gun has a few hundred more shots through it.

Balance
The Compact is a light target pistol, with an especially light muzzle. It floats in my hand, but many shooters will like the light weight. That's the direction the expensive pistols are headed these days - Gamo just got there first.

Build quality
Gamo uses a lot of engineering plastic in this pistol. Steel or other metals are used where they're needed, but you'll see a lot of plastic. That said, the Compact has a good record for longevity and reliability. The sear and hammer are hardened, so if you don't try to lighten the pull through filing or stoning, they should outlast you. Keep the air cylinder lubricated with Pellgunoil. A drop applied to the air-intake hole gets sucked into the chamber violently as the sealed piston passes the hole. Overall, I think the pistol is something to be proud of. The dark action is set off by the figured walnut grips. The gun you're looking at is one someone returned to Pyramyd Air for some unspecified reason - so it isn't a cherry-pick.

Next time, I'll introduce the IZH 46.