A blast from the past: Balderdash, March 1994

by B.B. Pelletier

Before we begin, I'm heading to Ohio today to be at the Pyramyd Air moving sale tomorrow. Please stop by if you can, and please introduce yourselves, so I know who I have met.

The early issues of The Airgun Letter had a "Balderdash" column, where I would quote a widely held/believed myth and present evidence to either prove or refute it--a sort of early Mythbusters. Here's the first one I wrote in March 1994.

MYTH #1:
The .22 pellet is inherently less accurate than the other calibers.
I love this one. "Why is it less accurate?" you ask.

"Well," they say, "it just is. That's how things go, sometimes; you know how it is. Bigger calibers are less accurate."

Balderdash, balderdash, balderdash, balderdash! Don't you believe it for one second! As a former U.S. Army mortar platoon leader, I can assure you that my 4.2-inch (106mm) mortars out-shot the 81mm mortars every time. And don't tell me that it was due to the larger weapon being rifled; because on the M68 gun cannon, which is the main gun on an M60-series tank and a rifle far more accurate than any you or I will ever own, the most accurate ammunition, APDS (armor-piercing discarding sabot), is fin-stabilized to STOP the spinning induced by the rifling!

Any artilleryman can tell you that the most accurate ballistic field artillery piece the U.S. ever had is the 8-inch (210mm) gun. In fact, it's far more likely to hit its mark than the 155mm or the 105mm--both smaller bores. And, for real accuracy, there's the incredible 15-inch naval rifle fired from our so-called obsolete battleships, that seem to get recommissioned every time there's a crisis.

I once had a .458 Winchester Magnum that fired 558-grain Lyman cast bullets in front of a pinch of 2400 powder. It was like shooting a big .22. Ten of those leaden footballs would spiral through a ragged 2-inch hole (outside diameter) at 100 yards any time I cared to try. I bet you could have done even better.

The reason people don't use .22 cal. target air rifles is because we don't have .22 cal. target air rifles. They aren't made, so they aren't going to be used--period. There's simply too much inertia to overcome. If you're still in doubt, then answer this for me: Why is it that a Beeman .177 and .20 R1 will out-group a .22 version--but so will the .25? Those are Beeman's figures from their 1994 catalog (remember--this Balderdash was written in 1994). Is the .22 pellet, perhaps, a handier perch for demons to sit upon as they steer the pellets astray? Should smallbore cartridge match weapons also be made in .18 caliber? Or possibly .12 caliber? Or maybe 0.0 caliber? Would 0.0 caliber guns be infinitely accurate? Science demands an answer.

"Well, with all the technology available to the airgun manufacturers in the world today, don't you think someone would make a .22 if they were as good?" Right! With logic like that, American car manufacturers would have made quality cars all along, wouldn't they? And our educators would have insisted on a quality education for American kids, and....

Nope--it's inertia all right. Someday, some genius is going to "discover" that the .22 pellet is accurate; then we'll have known it all along. Meanwhile, my iron-sighted Anschutz model 1954 .22 underlever (see page 144, Airgun Digest, Second Edition) that was salvaged from the Egyptian Army continues to poke .10-inch center-to-center holes (and under) at 10 meters--off a wadded-up down comforter rest!

The airguns of my youth

by B.B. Pelletier

Before we start, I wanted to tell you about a huge price reduction on the Gamo Viper Express Air Shotgun & Rifle. Pyramyd Air has dropped the price by $60. Get yours while supplies last. If you've got carpenter bees, this might do the trick!

Guest blogger
This is Alan's first guest blog for us. He's been a lover of air power from an early age. He'll take us down memory lane today, and I'm sure this will bring up fresh childhood memories for many of you. Enjoy!

If you'd like to write a guest post for this blog, please email me.

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.

by Alan

Although my family lived in a major US city, both sets of my grandparents had farms in Central Illinois. And, growing up I spent most of my summers and school vacations there.

Firearms were still a way of life in that part of the country and had been for as long as anyone could remember. On my 10th birthday, my grandad presented me with what many boys our age dreamed of...my own Daisy BB gun.

I remember my excitement opening the box and finding the Model 1776 Golden Eagle. The Eagles' peep site was designed to look like a rifle scope and the cool gold paint finish appealed to me. Without question, they made my gun better than my cousins'.  Our country was focused on the upcoming Bicentennial, making this model even more special to me.

Ownership or possession of the gun was transferred to me gradually after much safety training and a great deal of time shooting under adult supervision.

Looking back, one of my fondest thoughts surround the time I spent learning to shoot and handle the rifle with my grandfather, uncles and father. Even after I'd earned the right to shoot solo, many evenings were spent with the four of us sitting out front engaged in friendly shooting competitions. Cans were the target of the day, and I was the designated stacker. Since it was my gun, I was also encouraged with extra shots, and shooting advice.  Well, at least until I began to dominate the competitions. Pretty soon my Grandpa was stacking cans for extra shots and my uncle was disappearing when his turn came.

That Daisy kept me busy thousands of hours. Totally reliable, it just kept shooting. Chores were paid for in BBs. Out on the farm, my cousins and I learned the ground rules of group shooting and hunting of pests that would prep us for a future of game hunting and shooting clays.

As I began to outgrow the Daisy Golden Eagle, I had a great-uncle who invited us over for a fish-fry and to show me something very special he'd purchased. Uncle Ed liked firearms very much, and his interests included target shooting, small game hunting and shotgunning sports. He had Browning 28 gauges (to be sporting), custom 12 gauge over and unders (to win) and a number of pistols and revolvers that duly impressed me.

On that night, he made me wait until after dinner before unveiling his latest purchase. After all, if he didn't, who would fry the fresh catfish and carp that he prided himself on? It was a big summer gathering, so we were eating out on the patio. After what seemed to be the longest dinner of my young life, Uncle Ed went into the house and returned several minutes later carrying some type of rifle. Wood-stocked and deeply blued, I was unfamiliar with it's profile. Proudly handing it to me, he proclaimed that this was the Rolls-Royce of air rifles--the Sheridan Blue Streak.

This was rural Illinois, where Daisys and Crosmans were known items, but a high-quality pump-up pneumatic was something quite special.

The rest of the evening, we sat together at the bench in his backyard range (oh, those were the days!) and he went over its operation. Soon, we were shooting it together. We continued until it was too dark to go on. 

The Blue Streak remained Uncle Ed's rifle for quite some time. Then, one day, after one of our many shooting sessions, he handed the Sheridan to me with the simple words," I think this should be yours now." I was elated but struggled to hide my emotions lest they undermine my new found maturity. I thanked him sincerely as one man to another, while inside my 14-year-old head I was jumping in the air screaming WooooHoooo!


The Sheridan Blue Streak was the crown jewel of airguns. Getting one from Uncle Ed as a gift when I was 14 was one of the highlights of my youth!

By this point in my life, my parents had moved out to the country and on to some acreage adjacent to my grandpa's farm. I had lots of opportunities for shooting the Blue Streak. The .20 cal. pellets were more expensive and harder to come by than other airgun ammo, but as far as I was concerned it was worth it. After all, they looked more like "real" bullets than other pellets. And some claimed them to be optimal over a greater range of applications. So, they did posses a certain sophistication factor.

Back then most people didn't have access to a chronograph, so power was often defined in penetration. The hard-hitting Daisy No. 25 pump was said to put a BB through a tin can, but the Sheridan did that and more with ease. 

In looking back over my shooting life, it was my Daisy BB gun and my family that taught me to love shooting. And it was my Great Uncle Ed and the Sheridan Blue Streak that taught me how to shoot.

Like many kids of that generation, I progressed to firearms and let airguns become a thing of my past. Then, one day, as a 40-year-old man, I met an airgun that would bring them back to the foreground! But that's a different story.

You know you're an airgunner if...

by B.B. Pelletier

Guest blogger
In the same vein as Jeff Foxworthy's "you might be a redneck if...," my wife, Edith, would like to share her observations of how to identify a dyed-in-the-wool airgunner.

If you'd like to write a guest post for this blog, please email me.

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.

by Edith (Mrs. B.B.)

When we were publishing the Airgun Letter, I noticed that airgunners are often drawn to the same things. While going to airgun shows, my husband would find lots of common ground with airgunners on things unrelated to airgunning. It was uncanny how many guys liked the same things.

At the show in Roanoke, Virginia, a number of us joined show coordinator Fred Liady and his wife, Dee, for dinner at a great Italian restaurant. Although there were several of us at the table, the most memorable were Josh and Boris from Pyramyd Air (if you've spoken to either one of them, you're nodding in agreement). The conversation somehow switched to tractors. My husband loves the old ones, and Josh mentioned that he had vintage tractors and was rebuilding them. That was the first time I realized that airgunners had a lot of common interests outside this niche hobby.

You know you're an airgunner if...watching a stirling engine is hypnotic
From the earliest days of our marriage, I noticed that Tom was fascinated by engines. If it was well-made or functioned in a unique or unexpected way, he was as captivated as a two-year-old flushing a roll of toilet paper.

The first time I witnessed his fascination with a stirling engine was when he saw a tiny one churning away atop a cup of steaming coffee. It was as if Australopithecus had just witnessed the first spark of fire made by his own hands. He was giddy...laughing and smiling at such wonderment. Ever since that time, I've been forced to look at every stirling engine he's found at flea markets or seen in a catalog. Yes, they're unique, but we have no use for one. And, no, we don't own one. I've already got a houseful of airguns, so the thought of stocking up on hundreds of stirling engines has very little appeal.

You know you're an airgunner if...you can easily identify any vintage tractor at great distance
Tractors were just as fascinating as stirling engines. Whenever we drive anywhere, he'll point out old tractors on the side of the road or abandoned in a field. When he sees one for sale, the first thing I say is, "No, you can't buy it." We live on a lot the size of a postage stamp. What are we gonna do with a Johnny-popper the size of our back porch? My "just say no" attitude hasn't stopped Tom from seeking out old tractors, reading tractor books and talking about them in terms of endearment.

I once tested the tractor-airgun link at a show. Tom was part of a small cluster of airgunners gathered before the show opened. I walked up to one of the guys that I knew and said we'd seen a certain vintage tractor while driving to the show. Immediately, the conversation turned to tractors. I rest my case.

You know you're an airgunner if...you can identify the make and model of most airguns at 50 paces
When we lived in Maryland, we attended a weekly flea market held in the parking lot at a local mall. It was huge, and we bought quite a few collectible airguns over the years.

One time, Tom and I were standing in an aisle and he noticed an airgun at the bottom of a pile of rakes and other assorted garden and household tools, and he said it was a Daisy No. 25. Doesn't sound unusual? The pile of stuff was three aisles over--about 50 yards. It's staggering how he can identify a gun by the muzzle at this distance.

Yet, at the same flea market, we often went our separate ways and hooked up again an hour later. In order to do that (pre-cell phone days), I looked down each aisle to find Tom. When I did, I would call his name every 5-10 seconds, raise my right hand and waive in an exaggerated fashion as I walked toward him. It was comical to those who observed my metronome-like behavior. Tom would slowly turn around while standing in place to identify the source of the sound and to see if he could figure out which one of the people might be me. I had to get within 10-15 feet before he'd recognize me. He has visual agnosia (an inability to recognize familiar/common faces or shapes), but that applies ONLY to me. It does not apply to friends, other family members or airguns. We've now been married 27 years and nothing has changed. I had the same experience at Wal-Mart just last week. He was 20 yards away but didn't know who I was until he followed the sound of my voice and got within 15 feet of me.

Visual agnosia is not common to airgunners, as far as I know, but the ability to identify airguns by the smallest visible part from distances that would make eagles jealous is a known trait.

You know you're an airgunner if...you think it's okay to spend $1,000 on a gun but highway robbery to pay $5.00 for a tin of pellets
Airgunners are not stingy, miserly or cheap. In fact, they often spend large quantities to acquire their prized possessions. But, they try to economize in areas that make no sense to me. Here are some examples.

When we were publishing the Airgun Letter, a man who was not a subscriber asked if we could fax him a past article about an Air Arms gun. He'd bought the gun and heard that we'd written a lot of useful info about it. At the time, we sold back issues of the newsletter for $2.25. He could give me a credit card or send a check, and I'd send him the newsletter. He told me he couldn't afford to buy the back issue because he'd also ordered a custom Maccari stock for the gun. In all, he had over $1,000 in this rig. I didn't fax the article, but I would soon find out that it was not considered irrational for an airgunner to spend a huge wad while economizing on the least expensive part of the hobby.

Another airgunner called to chat. He didn't want anything from us, just wanted to talk to a fellow collector. When I asked what he was shooting in his gun, he told me he didn't have pellets yet and was driving up to Rick Willnecker's place in Pennsylvania to buy some. The caller lived in Virginia, so I was surprised that he'd drive several hours to buy pellets. When I mentioned this, he told me that he could save $1.00 a tin by driving up to Rick's. He wasn't buying a case or a large quantity...just a few tins. Whatever he saved on pellets would be spent on gas. Because I've heard this rationale more than once (not just about pellets but also about scopes, rings and other accessories), I have to include it as typical airgunner behavior.

That's it for today. I'm sure other common traits will occur to me. If so, I'll compile them in a future blog. If nothing else, this blog should serve many of you quite well. Print it out, show it to your spouse as evidence that you are part of an elite group with distinctive traits.

Carpenter bees

by B.B. Pelletier

One of the most obnoxious pests of warm weather is the carpenter bee. They are a large insect, somewhat larger than a bumblebee, with a hard, shiny beetle-like body. The ones in Maryland that I used to do battle with had white spots around their eyes, but I've seen others without them. [Males have white or yellow faces. Females do not.]

They are called carpenter bees because they bore round holes in raw wood. Painted wood controls them to a great extent. We had a rail fence between us and one neighbor that was the perfect place for them to build homes. Wikipedia says they don't destroy structures, but I had to replace several rails from their constant boring, so I think whoever wrote that never saw an infestation like ours.

Carpenter bees are also very aggressive! Ours would "guard" our front door, hovering about four feet in the air and three feet from the door. They were constantly on station, so as one would depart, another immediately took its place. Whenever someone came up to the door or opened the door from the inside to leave the house, the bee would fly toward their face, hovering six inches from their nose as long as they were near the door. They then dive-bombed and buzzed the person until they were off the front porch and down the stairs, where a second gang of bees was waiting. Though they usually missed us in these passes, they would smack into us sometimes.

I put up with this state of affairs for exactly 15 seconds, and then went to work. Since I lived in Ellicott City, Maryland, a state with no compassion for gun rights, I had to lay low while conducting my private war on these bees. At first, I tried using a raquetball racket to eliminate them, but after getting a few they seemed to wise up. After that, they were too fast to swat.

If I had lived in a more rural place I would have used a shotgun to blast a cloud of 10-20 bees in the driveway that also supplied the sentinels at the front door. But we lived in town, so I had to try something else.

I bought a Marlin model 60 autoloader in .22 rimfire and tried to eliminate them with .22 birdshot. It worked for maybe 20 bees, but it was both too loud for the neighborhood and the birdshot didn't work the rifle's action. I needed something else.

Out came the Sheridan Blue Streak. On three pumps I sometimes only pushed the bee out of the way and they actually recovered in flight. I saw it happen too many times. But on five pumps I got a nice round hole in every bee I hit. I have seen bees with a round hole all the way through their thorax, walking on the pavement for several minutes--just to give you an appreciation of how tough they are!

It the beginning I tried to hit the bees as they hovered, but once they caught on to what I was doing, they started flying erratically. I know this adaptive behavior sounds too advanced for an insect, but perhaps I was messing with their natural selection. All I know is whenever I got good at hitting bees, they changed what they did.

And the Sheridan was too time-consuming to use. There were maybe one-hundred bees at any one time and I was getting maybe five a day. They were hatching faster than I could shoot. Then I tried my Diana 27. Although it is a .22 caliber gun and only capable of about 475 f.p.s., it seemed perfect for a carpenter bee. I could cock and load it rapidly and shoot perhaps ten bees before they started attacking me.

I have been told that carpenter bees have no stingers, but the gang around my house was so aggressive that they could unnerve you without any. And others have told me they do have stingers--they just don't need to use them very often. Actually, the males that guarded our front door were the ones without the stinger and the females in the driveway had stingers, but don't sting unless provoked. What they were doing in our driveway was mating, and because we walked through their area, they attacked us for being there. The front-door thing was probably just a bunch of juvenile-delinquent male bees staking out territory.

The Diana was the best medicine I found, but the bees out-bred me in the summer. In the spring and fall, I could keep up with them, but come summer, we lost the access to the front door for a couple months. I found I could hit them by instinct rather than with sights, and that really speeded up the process.

The funny thing was, after I thinned the bees out in the fall, I got an aggressive wasp about three inches long that sat in the middle of my front steps for hours on end. Back I went to the Blue Streak, because this wasp was just sitting on the steps. We couldn't walk past it without getting attacked, but If we didn't approach it, it left us alone. However, there are only so many times I will walk out the basement door before I get mad.

After sighting the Blue Streak in for 20 feet, I picked off this huge wasp with one shot! The part that I found was larger than a hornet, and almost the front half the wasp was missing! Two days later, though, another wasp took its place.

Years later I learned that this was a cicada killer (a type of wasp). My front steps were apparently the perfect place for a ground burrow that wasp made to lay its eggs. It then found a cicada in a tall tree (we had thousands of cicadas!) stung it, flipped it over and glided to its nest with the body, which it buried in the ground with an egg.

After the carpenter bees, these wasps were easy to eradicate. All I was doing was clearing the path to my front door. I'm sure hundreds of wasps were still doing their thing all around us.

Anyway, that is how I used airguns to eliminate some not-so-common pests around the house! Maybe someday I will tell you about killer icicles!

Airguns - I'll never test 'em all!

by B.B. Pelletier

I'm writing this report at 3:30 a.m., because today and tomorrow I have a television show to tape. There is no more time left to test guns and to report on them, plus do all the other things I have to do! Hopefully this schedule will stabilize within a few months, but right now I am in the eyewall of the storm, and things are pretty busy.

I just answered a question from a new reader that sounds exactly like a hundred other questions I get every month. Have I tested such-and-such an air rifle? My answer was no, I haven't tested that one (yet), but then it hit me--I PROBABLY NEVER WILL! Looking at my blog schedule and the guns I have waiting in the wings to test plus the other tests and experiments we are running, there's no way I can ever test them all.

Rather than being the bad thing that this may sound like, it's actually not bad at all, and I want to share the reason why. First, let's take a quick look at how a new airgun can "happen."

Company A decides to offer a new model. They look around and determine there's no plant space remaining to build a new gun, nor do they want to hire the 2.1 new personnel a new model requires, so they decide to do something creative. They take one of their existing models--the Fast Pro 66, in this case. Right now the Fast Pro 66 is a traditional .177 breakbarrel that comes in a wood stock. It shoots light pellets at 1,000 f.p.s., the same as 24 other models they "make" and sell. They are having this rifle made in China, so the plant space and personnel requirements are at the very minimum. They can easily handle another gun like the Fast Pro 66 with no additional space or people. So, they tell their Chinese plant to put the barreled action in a synthetic stock instead of the wooden one and they eliminate the open sights. A sexy muzzlebrake is added to replace the front sight. They also stick on an inexpensive 4-power scope that comes in its own two-screw-cap mounts.

Voila! A new model exists! They call this one the Hyper-Pro 77 Tactical. It costs them $3.21 more to produce than the Fast Pro 66, so they bump the retail price by $25 and the MAP price by $12.91. The smaller dealers who buy them five at a time charge retail, but big dealers buy 100 at a time so they're cheaper. The next thing you know, there's a "new" air rifle on the market. I don't even know about this new rifle until somebody asks me about it. Then I look and, sure enough, there the thing is. I read the specs and often I can even decode what the company has done to create the new model, but not always.

However, the Hyper-Pro 77 Tactical doesn't sell very well, so the company only imports 1,200 of them before they decide to drop it from their line. They're now using the synthetic stock on three other rifles that are selling well, so there is no loss for tool-up. When they make the decision to end "production," larger dealers have sold 271 guns and all the other airgun dealers combined have sold another 296. So, there are 633 guns remaining in inventory.

Company A then decided to stock 400 of these guns with the wood stock from the Fast Pro 66--creating a new model, the Lightning Ultra 99. They stick on a 3-9x32 scope , but they reduce the retail to just under that of the Fast Pro 66, because they have a glut of 3-9x32 scopes in inventory. The new model kills the sales of the Fast Pro 66 and the Lightning Ultra 99 never takes off, either.

A year later, Company A sells all remaining Hyper-Pro 77 Tacticals, Fast Pro 66s and Lightning Ultra 99s to a large dealer. That, however, isn't the end of the story.

Airgunners see these guns on the website for three years. They seem to be mainstream models to us. Unless we look closely, we cannot see that these are all the same air rifle, and sometimes even then it's difficult to tell.

One day, a large dealer decides to clean house and sell off some excess inventory (maybe have a moving sale?). The remainder of these three models are piled on tables for customers and dealers to buy.

In the meantime, I am asked whether I have tested the Hyper-Pro 77 Tactical for the blog. No, I haven't. I haven't tested the other two models, either. I've been disassembling Diana 27s and testing the penetration of round lead balls and testing a hundred other new models--some of which actually are new and revolutionary.

Here's the moral of this story and also the reason why it's not a bad thing that I didn't test even one of these three airguns. The performance specifications of each one of these rifles are very close to the specifications of 10 other models of breakbarrels I did test over the past 18 months. And when you consider that there are a finite number of airgun manufacturing plants in the world, it's very likely that several of the rifles I did test are close to these guns, if not the exact same thing! Readers can learn to extrapolate from tests that are reported to models that are not tested, but which will offer similar performance in all probability.

This is not 100 percent the case, however. Long-time readers will remember when I vicariously "tested" a Gamo CF-X on January 6, 2006. I told everyone at that time that I had never laid eyes on the gun and wasn't actually testing one for that report, but that I had tested so many similar airguns that I was able to "test" the CF-X by surrogate. Well, I heard from more than one reader about that! And a month later I tested an actual CF-X and reported on it. There were some surprises, because Gamo was in the middle of refining their spring gun powerplants at the time. The real CF-X I tested turned out nicer than the BSA Superstar I had used as a comparison.

But, folks, I have to tell you, that kind of surprise doesn't happen very often. I always tell you in my reports when an airgun surprises me. I tell you HOW it surprises me, so you will know what to look for. If I don't mention any surprise, there isn't one--at least not from the gun I'm testing.

I'll never get to them all. And now you know why. Those of you who have been reading this blog also know that airguns are similar enough that you don't need to have each one tested to know something about most of them.

2009 NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits

by B.B. Pelletier

Every year the NRA holds its general membership meeting in a different major U.S. city to allow a portion of their 4 million members to attend. A trade-show exhibit is held in conjunction with these meetings to allow manufacturers of guns and related products to showcase their wares to the public. Admission is free to NRA members, and non-members can attend for a small fee. This year's show was held in Phoenix.

While the space in the exhibit hall is only about one-fifth the size of the SHOT Show, the attendance is almost triple. I'm sure the NRA set a new record for attendance this year. The Phoenix Fire Marshall actually stopped people from entering the exhibit hall on Friday, the first day, because he felt the hall was over-crowded. They held things up for 45 minutes, all the while more people were walking in the front door to register. When they saw the situation was going to get worse, they opened the hall once more. And Friday wasn't the busy day! On Saturday, a significantly larger crowd attended.


This is about one-quarter of the display floor. Late afternoon, when the crowd had died down.

One super thing about this show is the airgun range. Anyone can buy a ticket to shoot a wide variety of airguns--both rifles and pistols--on this range. The range opens before the show does, so several hundred earlybirds can have some fun while they await the opening of the exhibit floor.

In the past, the NRA has concentrated on having 10-meter guns on the range, because that's their major focus with airguns. But Pyramyd Air took over sponsorship of the range this year, and there were all sorts of different sporting airguns--including a couple big bores that were demonstrated periodically. All U.S. dealers were invited to attend and several actually did. You could have shot a Marauder or an FX Royale or gulp--the EDGE!


The airgun range was popular all day long. This is a quiet time, believe it or not.


This lucky young lady dragged her father to the airgun range just to shoot the new AirForce Edge.

I spent a lot of time at the airgun range, because that's where I can see the public's reaction to airguns. This year, there was a special experience in store. I saw a blind man shoot a 10-meter target! Yes, the NRA has long had a special program that reaches out to disabled shooters, and there aren't many disabilities they cannot overcome. Vanessa Warner is the NRA manager of Disabled Shooting Services, and she was on the range helping people learn to use the special equipment her group makes available around the country. While I was there, she helped a shooter whose aneurism had caused stroke-like symptoms.


He's blind, yet he shoots. Thanks to NRA manager Vanessa Warner's special equipment and coaching, this sightless shooter is able to hear the target and to hit the bullseye! This scene was shown on the local FOX nightly news. Rifle is an FX Royale. Photo provided by the NRA Blog.


This shooter was in an electric wheelchair and had difficulty with upper body strength. Thanks to a special gun rest, he shot this group with an FX.

And they didn't limit the age of the shooters. One young fellow couldn't have been more than five, yet he shot everything he wanted, which included the Edge, a Gamo Big Cat and a Talon.


His feet don't reach the floor, but there wasn't an airgun he couldn't shoot.

At noon, 2 PM and 4 PM every day of the show, Chris Lieb of Pyramyd Air demonstrated a Dragon Slayer to the public. The range was cold and all eyes were on him as he explained about the .50 caliber rifle. To demonstrate the gun's power, he blew up an apple and a 2x4 downrange. Chris passed around a .50 "pellet" for everyone to examine.


Chris Lieb aims for an apple with the Dragon Slayer. Everyone paid attention!

The exhibit floor was set up similar to the SHOT Show, only the booths were much smaller. I made it to all the airgun exhibitors and to a lot of accessory exhibitors, as well. Hopefully, there will be one or possibly two new lines of optics coming to Pyramyd Air soon, and the features on them are unlike any you've seen thus far.


My home off the range was the Pyramyd Air booth.


Crosman is almost ready to bring out the new Challenger PCP, which will be either a 10-meter rifle or, in different trim, a field target rifle.

I bought several exciting things at the show that Pyramyd Air doesn't stock (but I wish they did!). Maybe I'll show them to you next week--if you like.

The show ended on Sunday after, what I feel, must have been a record turnout. While riding on the Phoenix Light Rail, I listened to the conversations of folks who didn't attend the show and heard some heartwarming comments in support of gun ownership. Of course, this was in Arizona, which is still a free state.

Many of those who attended were carrying weapons, and not all were concealed. The buzz of the show was the action taken by Montana's governor, who defied the federal government on gun ownership on May 7. Basically, all federal laws were declared null and void for guns, silencers and ammunition made in Montana and sold and used there. There is talk that if the feds intervene, Montana may vote to secede from the union. Texas is primed to follow for this reason as well as some others. So the anti-gun movement may now come to realize how the citizens of this country feel about their actions.

A Steroid Streak

by B.B. Pelletier


Our Steroid Silver Steak had a prototype scope mount that held a Beeman SS-2 short scope.

I'm doing this report for Mr. B, but I suppose many of you multi-pump shooters will be interested. In the world of Sheridan Blue Streaks and Silver Streaks there are two modifications that make the gun different. One is the pump-assist gun, and that modification is really applied to a Benjamin 392 instead of a Streak. The two guns are very similar except for the caliber. A Sheridan Streak is always .20 caliber.

The pump-assist gun develops the same power as the stock rifle, but the pump strokes are easier--especially the last few. There haven't been very many of them produced, and they're no longer being sold by Pyramyd Air, so that version is now in the collectible realm.

The other modification for Streaks is the Steroid modification that increases the rifle's power. I bought one of these and tested it for The Airgun letter, so I will draw on that experience to present this report.


This prototype scope base brought the scope back so you could hold the rifle normally while pumping.

Tim McMurray of Mac-1 Airguns developed the Steroid Streak in answer to customer requests for more power. Of course, more power is always the request, but Tim got a Streak up around 20 foot-pounds, where the standard rifle is down around or just under 14 foot-pounds. The difference is significant--especially to hunters.

Our rifle was a Silver Streak that Tim brought to Maryland when he paid our field target and 10-meter clubs a visit one year. We bought the rifle to test it for our readers. As a side note, we had also recently tested a special one-off Blue Streak made by Greg Fuller that developed up to 25 foot-pounds, but in a moment I will explain why that one was only a science experiment. It was documented in Airgun Revue #1.

The Steroid pumps just like a regular rifle except a little more efficiently. On the 8 pumps that marks the maximum for the stock Blue Steak, the Steroid developed more velocity than the standard gun. It went an average of 683 f.p.s.. with .20 caliber Crosman Premiers, while the standard rifle will usually shoot the same pellet around 645 f.p.s. But the standard rifle stops there, and the Steroid continues to as many as 14 pumps.

I was curious about the performance with more than 8 pumps, so I tested it carefully in that range. I discovered that up to 10 pumps, the rifle still exhausted all the air with the shot, which was good for 730 f.p.s. Starting with pump 12, there was some air remaining in the rifle after the shot. This increased with each additional pump until, at 14 pumps, enough air remained in the gun to fire a second pellet at 265 f.p.s.

On the Mac-1 website, it says that every pellet produces different results with air left in the gun. This is because of pellet weight. And, no doubt, every gun will differ somewhat as well.

Accuracy?
Nothing was done to the barrel, so the accuracy didn't change, except that the greater velocity lets you reach out farther. Our test gun had a burr at the air transfer port; after it was removed, the rifle was as accurate as any Streak.


At 10 meters, Crosman Premiers made a tight hole.


At 30 yards, the group opened to about one inch.

Advantages?
Tim McMurray told me the Steroid tune has two distinct advantages, and three if you want to take advantage of them. First, the rifle is capable of greater power. That's the No. 1 reason for getting the modification. But the gun also becomes more efficient to pump after being "Steroid-ed." The valve modifications make the gun shoot with greater authority, even when the max of 8 pumps isn't exceeded. Finally, the modification includes strengthening the pump linkage so it can take the added stress of higher pumping efforts. And they offer additional optional things to beef up the mechanism even more. So, you get a rifle that's more reliable, to boot.

Disadvantages?
Overlooking the greater number of pumps for a moment, the final strokes do take more effort than any stroke with a factory rifle. Pump No. 7 took 42 lbs. of effort, and pump No. 14 took 51 lbs. Let me put that into perspective by telling you about Greg Fuller's experimental gun and valve. Greg's rifle can accept up to 18 pump strokes to generate up to 25 foot-pounds, but the final strokes take 100 lbs. of effort to complete. That's why I said earlier that Greg's gun is just a science experiment.

Comparable guns
When I tested the Steroid, the Sharp Ace was a pneumatic with comparable power that sold at the same time. An Ace got about 22 foot-pounds on 10 pumps. As the number of pumps increased, so did the trigger effort. That isn't true for the Steroid. For less money, a Steroid lets you keep the good trigger and get the same power. The trigger on our test gun broke cleanly at 34-40 oz.

Is it worth the money?
A Steroid tune costs $75 on your gun or adds $45 to the cost of the new gun. Whether or not you think it's worth it depends on how much you value power in that gun. But this much is certain--there's no easier way to get more power from a Sheridan Streak than by having a Steroid tune.

The 1911A1 Colt National Match - Part 7

by B.B.Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6


I acquired this old Colt National Match .45, which I set up for factory loads for my wife. She likes the grip and heavier trigger, and she wants to use it for defense. Unfortunately, it hasn't proven to be reliable yet.

Shadow Express Dude has been after me to make good on my promise to report on the Colt National Match pistol I acquired recently, so today I thought I would fulfill that obligation. I also linked to the earlier reports on the PT1911 to maintain some continuity with this report.

Ever since discovering that I liked the 1911-type pistols very much, I have admired the National Match guns made from Colt parts. The first guns were assembled (gunsmithed, really), by Army armorers before World War II. They were for Army marksmanship programs, including the National Matches.

In time, the Army contracted for special parts to be supplied to the armorers, and these were known as National Match parts. After that, a gun could either be a made-up special project gun that contained National Match parts or it could be an actual Army-made National Match pistol.

Colt also produced a National Match model frrom 1933 to 1941. This is a rare model that today commands quite a high price.

The gun I'm reviewing for you was made in 1957. Colt called the model a National Match Gold Cup but didn't add Gold Cup to the slide until 1970. I had an opportunity to shoot a Gold Cup-marked pistol a few years ago, and it impressed me. That Gold Cup was as smooth and probably just as accurate as my Wilson Combat CQB, so I figured the earlier Colt National Match would be even nicer, because I thought they paid more attention to the fitting of the action in earlier times.

Well, guess again! The Colt National Match I have is not as nice as a standard 1911 pistol made today and nowhere near as nice as the Wilson. Finding that out was an eye-opener to me. I will describe the gun to you and let you decide.

The finish on the metal is as flawless as gun finishes ever get. Because Colt used very light stampings for all logos and words on the slide, you can spot a refinish instantly. An original finish is stunning when you see it in person. Although the color is not as dark as that found on a Colt Python, it is so even that in some light it's impossible to distinguish whether it is dark blue or silver.

The gun has an adjustable rear sight and a ramp front that is inappropriate for a target pistol. The front sight should be an undercut Patridge to eliminate any reflections, and that's what all the references say it has, but the gun I have has a sporting ramp with tacky orange paint!


This is certainly NOT a target front sight!


This undercut Patridge front sight is what should be on a target pistol.


Whoever decided on this rear sight for the Colt was not a bullseye shooter.

The action is rough in comparison to my Wilson and even compared to my budget Taurus PT 1911. It is as if gunsmiths in 1957 didn't know how to properly fit a 1911. When you rack the slide, you can feel the roughness, while the Wilson is glass-smooth and even the Taurus is noticeably better than that Colt. I was really surprised--especially after reading the glowing reports of "carefully hand-fitted parts." Don't believe it! Those handmade examples from Army armorers might fit that description, but the Colt-made National Match--the gun made before Gold Cup was stamped on the slide--is not a smooth piece.

This is a target gun; so, before I started shooting hardball ammo in it, I swapped out the 12-lb. recoil spring for an 18.5-lb. spring, which is the standard rating for a hardball gun. Maybe with midrange target ammo and that 12-lb. spring the pistol exhibits a different nature; but lacking target ammo. I had to upgrade the spring to prevent the slide from getting hammered.

The trigger-pull is a heavy 6 lbs.! I absolutely hate it! It's heavier than a service gun trigger! But Edith likes it. She has always felt that the Wilson has a too-light trigger for her, and she welcomes the stiff resistance this one gives. I have offered to lighten it for her, but she is satisfied with it the way it is.

As you can see from the photos, I swapped out the original checkered grips for a set of smooth walnut grips that are fuller and come with finger grooves. Edith prefers them because they make the gun ride correctly in her hand. The other grips made the gun ride too low.

We hope a new extractor will fix the reliability so the gun can be trusted. Would you have thought that a gun called a National Match would perform like this? I sure didn't.

The Beeman C1 - Part 1 The rifle that created the artillery hold!

by B.B. Pelletier


Despite the size of this photo, the C1 is a small rifle. The western look was unique in its day. The scope is a 2-7x32 BSA.

I have places in my heart reserved for certain air rifles. The FWB 124 has a spot, as does the Beeman R1. And there's another place that's reserved for the Beeman C1. It's no longer made. In fact, the company that once made it--Webley--has also disappeared from the world stage. But the C1s that are in the world are wonderful air rifles that deserve a look from us.

My first C1 was a compromise gun--something I know many of you readers can relate to. I really wanted an R1, but at the time we didn't have the money to stretch that far, so I bought the C1 as the best compromise. The difference was $189 and $249, as close as I can recall. That little bit made the decision for me.

At least this was a Beeman rifle, even if it wasn't one made by Weihrauch. Little did I know then how much that C1 carbine was going to influence my future as an airgun writer.

The rifle is a tad over 38 inches long, and the barrel accounts for 14 inches of that. The rifle weighs 6.3 lbs. 

My C1 was a .177, while the one I'm reviewing for you now is a .22. I can remember being very impressed when I saw the gun for the first time. Beeman really knew how to present an air rifle in their reinforced cardboard boxes. The rated velocity was 830 f.p.s. for a broken-in gun in .177. Beeman also listed a .22 caliber version, but I never heard much about it back when it was still being made, so this test will be very revealing.

My C1 had a manual safety on the right side of the rifle, located at the rear of the spring tube. The .22 rifle I'm testing for you has no safety, so it has to be an earlier rifle. The rifle was made from 1981 to 1996 according to the Blue Book of Airguns. And here's a curious note--although the Blue Book says importation began after serial number 800,000, the serial number on my rifle is 771,894. And my new rifle is clearly marked with Beeman's San Rafael address.

When it was new, my first C1 was quite stiff and hard to cock. The trigger was also very stiff. To say I was disappointed by the shooting performance was an understatement! After hearing all the good things about precision adult air rifles and having already owned an FWB 124, this C1 was a boat anchor in comparison. But it was all I had, so I stuck with it.

After about 2,000 rounds had passed through the rifle, I began noticing that the cocking had smoothed out. At first I thought it was my imagination, but then I started noticing that the firing behavior was smoother, as well. After 3,000 rounds the trigger started getting very light and, if not exactly crisp, at least predictable.

About that time I disassembled the rifle to see what I could do to improve it. What I was thinking, I'll never know, because I hadn't a clue how to tune a spring gun. The Beeman R1 book was still five years in the future. Black tar hadn't been discovered by airgunners yet. It existed, but it was not known to the airgun community, so we used Beeman's Mainspring Dampening Compound instead. It did pretty much the same thing, though it wasn't as viscous, and you had to use a lot more of it.

Fortunately, I also didn't own a chronograph yet, either, so I had no idea how fast my rifle was shooting. I trusted the Beeman catalog implicitly.

Use a mainspring compressor!
While either disassembling or assembling my C1 a curious thing happened and I got the first photo to go into the R1 book. The heavy solid steel end cap got away from me, sailed across the room and broke a desk drawer divider in two! Had my arm been there instead, I'm thinking it might have been broken--bruised for certain. I instantly understood the need for a mainspring compressor!


The C1 end cap hit this desk divider to the right of the crack (see the dent in the wood) and busted it in two.

The other curious thing about my C1 was that it taught me how to shoot a spring-piston air rifle. The wisdom of that day said to hold a spring rifle firmly. I was doing that and those beautiful groups my rifle was supposed to be capable of were eluding me. On my 10-meter basement range I could group five good pellets into about one-third inch when everything went well.

The birth of the artillery hold
One day, I decided to see just how inaccurate the rifle would be if I didn't restrain it at all. So, I laid the forearm across my open palm and caressed the wrist only enough to pull the trigger. The butt simply touched my shoulder without bearing on it. And the next group I shot measured 0.13"! That day was the birth of the artillery hold, though it wasn't until The Airgun Letter that I gave it a name, because I wanted to be able to discuss it in my articles without having to describe the procedure every time. People had been holding firearms that way for decades, but this was a change for airgunners.

I was so shocked by this revelation that I wrote my first airgun article about this phenomenon and sent it to Robert Beeman to put in his next catalog. When I didn't hear back from him I was disappointed, but I kept on refining that hold, because my rifle shot so well.


The rear sight on this new C1 is a Williams adjustable. It's not original to the rifle but is an upgrade.

My C1 is sold
Several years later, Edith and I were doing much better and she gave me not one but two air rifles for Christmas--a new R1 and a used HW 77 carbine. Those rifles took over my attention and within a few more years the C1 was gone. At the time I said things like, "Who needs three perfect airguns?" and "I can always buy another one if I really want it."

The C1 slipped quietly out of production soon after Robert Beeman sold the company in 1994 and was replaced for a short time by the Beeman Bearcub--the last model to carry any genes from the gun that had been the C1. The western stock went away as well, and the Bearcub was 100 f.p.s. faster than the C1 had been.

Why I missed the C1
For several years after selling the C1, I was fine, but then I started missing it. I missed the ease of use and the compact size, but most of all I missed the splendid accuracy that issued forth from that little breakbarrel. I also missed being able to hold it up to show people what a nice airgun was supposed to look like.

And a strange thing happened. As much as I had told myself I could always buy another one, they weren't showing up at the airgun shows. I see about as many C1s for sale as I see Sheridan Supergrades, and that's not many. So, when I saw the current one on Dave Franz's table at Little Rock this year, I was excited. It took a big trade to bring the rifle into my gun room, but it was worth it. Now I have a vintage airgun to test that I have absolutely no experience with--a .22 caliber C1. I'm sure we'll all have a fine time learning about this one.

Daisy 953 TargetPro - part 3

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2

Today I test the Daisy Powerline 953 TargetPro for accuracy and right off the bat I have to disqualify the sights that come with the gun. They are fiberoptic, which cannot be precise under any circumstances, and this set seems extremely difficult to use. For hitting Coke cans they are fine and for clipping clothes pins they'll work okay, but for precision shooting you can forget them. All I had to do was fire four shots to know I couldn't use them.

Allow me to explain. For precision shooting you have to see the front sight in relation to both the rear notch and the target. A fiberoptic front bead looks as large as a beachball when trying to aim a rifle. Yes, you can get on target quickly and if hitting within one inch at 10 yards is all you want this is the way to do it. But when you don't want to be off by more than a few hundredths of an inch forget fiberoptics, 'cause they aren't that precise.

So I jumped ahead and mounted a 4-power scope. I will return and test the rifle with target sights in the future, but today I wasn't ready to do that. The scope I used is a short one that left the loading port open for loading, which quickly became a chore with several types of pellets. More on that as we review the pellets.

The course
The 953 is a plinking rifle that some people use as an informal target rifle. So I shot off a rest at 10 meters. I decided to shoot 20-shot groups just because they worked so well with the U.S. Avenger 1100. Remember, this is not a test of target shooting. All we are looking at is group size from pellet to pellet. I kept the same aim point and just adjusted the scope knobs for each pellet.

RWS Club 10
The first pellet I tried was the RWS Club 10. It's a utility pellet that 953 owners might select for plinking, so the results should prove interesting. The Club 10 was the hardest pellet to load of all four pellets tested. It tended to flip backwards on the loading ramp and didn't always line up with the breech.


RWS Club 10 pellets were just average in the 953 at 10 meters. Twenty shots from a rest.

Beeman H&N Match
The next pellet I tried was the Beeman H&N Match. I expected to be blown away, but I wasn't. The results were clearly better than the Club 10s, but nothing spectacular. These pellets also had some difficulty loading and tended to flip backwards in the loading port.


This group is better than it looks because the long rip on the right side is not a pellet hole. The pellet that did that passed through the target at 7 O-Clock, at the edge of the scoring rings.

Gamo Match
I expected Gamo Match pellets to group larger than H&N Match, but they didn't. Apparently this 953 likes them! They also had the same loading problems as the first two.


This group of Gamo Match pellets looks good because it happens to be in the black, but that's just a coincidence. It is almost as good as the H&N Match, however.

Getting tired?
By this point in the test I had fired 60 shots and was getting tired as many of you predicted. I therefore saved the pellet many feel to be the best in this rifle for last. No one can say I gave them special consideration.

RWS R-10 Match pellets
RWS R-10 Match pellets loaded without any problems. They are very smooth on the outside and didn't seem to catch anything like the other pellets did. Please ignore the fact that they landed smack in the center of the black. That was just a coincidence, as all the pellets were fired after the scope was adjusted from a central aim point.


I guess everyone is right about RWS R-10 Match pellets being the best in the 953. There may be only one or two pellets in the small hole, making the larger one the result of either 18 or 19 shots. That's pretty amazing performance for a general-purpose air rifle that sells for less than $75!

Diana 27 - Part 10

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9

Well, I cleaned, lubed and assembled the Diana 27 on Monday. Today, we'll see how well it works.

Cocking and firing behavior
You may recall from the early reports that this rifle was firing rough after the breech seal disintegrated following oiling. But after the seal was replaced, it smoothed out again. However, now that I've put black tar on the mainspring and spring guide, there's been a noticeable "quieting" of the powerplant. This is no different than any other spring gun, and it's always such a welcome surprise.

The rifle now cocks quietly, with no noise coming from the mainspring. Firing is absolutely dead calm, like closing a bank vault door. You have to experience this to know what I'm talking about.

You may recall that I adjusted the trigger to a good two-stage release. Now, with the firing behavior being so calm, the 27 is a sheer delight to shoot. The only thing that's missing is a trigger overtravel screw adjustment.

Power expectations
I expected to lose a few f.p.s. with this tune. Not many, but some decrease almost always happens with this kind of tune. However, different spring rifles react differently. As the power of the rifles being tuned increases, the amount of velocity loss with black tar decreases. A Diana 27 is a low-powered rifle, so we can expect to lose 20-30 f.p.s.

All screws tight
You will also remember the lesson of tight stock screws reported in Part 7, where I boosted the velocity about 30 f.p.s., just by tightening the screws. Naturally, the screws were checked before this test.

Eley Wasps
When this rifle was first tested after oiling the factory breech seal, Eley Wasps averaged 225 f.p.s. After considerable fiddling with various breech seals and stock screws, the average velocity increased to 602 f.p.s.

Following this lubrication, the rifle averaged 598 f.p.s. for the first 10 shots. The spread went from 575 to 625, which is a bit broad. I will say more about that in a moment.

RWS Basic pellets
Seven-grain RWS Basic pellets averaged 212 f.p.s. in the very first test. After all the tweaking, they were up to an average of 655 f.p.s. with a leather breech seal.

The average following this lubrication is 648 f.p.s. The spread is from 630 to 663 f.p.s. If you know much about spring guns, you'll know that the spread is too great. The rifle seems to be breaking in and will require many more shots before the velocity becomes consistent.

Crosman Premier 7.9-grain pellets
Crosman Premier 7.9-grain pellets averaged 321 f.p.s. in the first test and 609 f.p.s. after the leather breech seal was installed and the screws were tightened.

The average after this lube is 586 f.p.s., with the spread from 579 to 596. This is an early indication that the rifle is starting to break in, because it is both noticeably slower than the pre-lube velocity and more consistent than the first two pellets.

RWS Superdomes
RWS Superdomes were the most consistent pellet in the first test, averaging 393 f.p.s. After all the tweaking was done, their average jumped up to 586 with the leather breech seal.

After this lube, the average is 563 f.p.s., with a spread from 552 to 576 f.p.s. Seeing the results from this pellet made me want to test the Eley Wasps once more.

Eley Wasps
This time the Eley Wasps averaged 577 f.p.s., which is a drop of 19 f.p.s. from the first test in this series. The new spread was from 545 to 601 f.p.s., so the gun is still clearly in the throws of a break-in. I would estimate that it will settle out around 565 f.p.s. when all is finished.

I'm very pleased with what this lubrication has done to this rifle. It's now a very pleasant shooter that can be shot all day without fatigue.

The accuracy hasn't changed, of course. The rifle still has the same barrel and, therefore, the same accuracy as it did from the beginning, though by adjusting the trigger-pull I did make it somewhat easier to shoot accurately.

Was it worth it to lube this rifle? Quite frankly, no. I could have continued to shoot it as it was and enjoyed the gun for many years. However, I did learn about the condition of the interior parts, so that was one benefit from the exercise. And now I know that all the parts are clean and properly lubricated, so that's a second benefit.

Another benefit arising from this lengthy report was learning the importance of the breech seal to the overall performance of the rifle. I can now change the breech seal in my .22 cal. Diana 27 and should see an increase in performance. We shall see, because that's coming next.

My first shooting experience

Before I turn today over to Josh, I have two announcements. First, I'm traveling to Phoenix today, to attend the NRA Annual Meetings. You can read the particulars on their website. Will you veterans please take over answering comments for me? I'll be home next Tuesday. Of course, Edith will monitor the comments.

The second thing is a reminder that the Pyramyd Air moving sale will be held at their location at 26800 Fargo Ave, Unit L, Bedford Heights, OH, on Saturday, May 30. Click for full details about local hotels, a map and more. I'll be there to meet anyone who can come, and remember, this isn't just a yearly garage sale. This is a once-in-a-lifetime moving sale! They gotta get rid of the extra stuff so their move goes smoothly.

Now, let's hear from Josh.

by Joshua Ungier

My first hands-on experience with a firearm was shortly after I turned six. A MIG-15 pilot, Vitalii, a tall young man with a great smile, shared a house with my family for a few months until he moved into the barracks permanently. He lived on the first floor, and we had the second floor. My family adopted the young lieutenant.
 
Mother had a little food stand at the market where she sold vegetables gleaned from the fields after the pickers went through. My dad was a photographer. His photos appeared in the local newspapers and magazines. He photographed high schools, military parades and other festivities.  Occasionally, he candidly photographed people. When he found time, he photographed beautiful vistas surrounding my town. I still have those photos. 
 
As I recall, the time was the middle of summer. School was out and there was nothing left to do but read. My friends were all away with their parents on summer vacations, and they weren't coming back any time soon. My dad used to take me on his IZH 49 motorbike. He took me on short trips for his photo shoots. For longer rides, he mounted a sidecar. I loved that.


IZH 49 motorcycle.
 
One day, the lieutenant saw me sitting on the steps and called me over.  "How would you like to go target shooting with me?"  he asked.

"Yes!" I remember yelling. "Yes!" 
 
He had a Mauser rifle. Eto devianosto vosem. "It's a '98," he said. His father captured the "souvenir" after dealing with its owner. I remember the rifle vaguely. It was a bit shorter than I was. I wasn't tall at that age, so it must have been a K model--probably a 98K.  


Mauser K98 rifle. Its 8mm cartridge is slightly more powerful than the American .30-06. The recoil is heavy for an adult man. Punishing for a 6-year-old kid!
 
At the military range, he spread a green blanket on the ground, took out a bunch of ammo from his side pouch, loaded the rifle and BAAAM! Bolt back and forth and BAAAAM! BAAAAAM! I was in heaven!! Then, he said, "Lie down. I will teach you to shoot from the prone position." And with that he handed me the rifle. I lay down, chambered the round as he instructed and BAAAAM! I felt like my whole body was hit with a 100 ton sledge.

"How about one more time?" he asked. 

"Uh-huh!" I said, despite the pain...BAAAM! I'd enough.
 
We got home in the evening in time for dinner. There was actually meat on the table. Very rare occasion. 

Apparently, Vitalii "borrowed" some meat from the field kitchen and smuggled it out to us. We were very grateful to have something to eat.
 
In the morning, my mother woke me up for breakfast. She was visibly upset.
  
"Yuri!" she said, "the whole right side of your body is black and blue.  What did you do to yourself?"
 
I lied and said I fell off the bike into a ditch. If I'd told her the truth, I didn't think I would live long enough to write this story.
 
"Did you find this in the ditch also?" she asked, holding up a spent 8mm casing. I did not answer.

My father looked at me, shook his head and smirked. He must have talked to Vitalii.

I'm coming to the story of how Pyramyd Air was started, but I wanted to tell you a little about my shooting background first. I'm a life member of the National Rifle Association and I urge all you U.S. readers to join that organization. They were founded in 1872 to teach basic rifle marksmanship skills to American boys and men, but for more than half a century they have been defending our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Given the current political situation, they have become our best defense against total gun confiscation.

If firearms go, airguns will soon follow. You can see that happening all over the world, so you know it's planned for America, as well.

If these stories of mine are of no interest to you, please tell us and I will get right to the creation of Pyramyd Air.

Hammerli Pneuma - Part 1

by B.B. Pelletier

First an announcement: Friday, Saturday and Sunday (May 15-17), the NRA will conduct its Annual Meetings in Phoenix, AZ. There's a show hall, which is open to the public. It's like a mini-SHOT Show. Admission is $10, but you can show your NRA membership card to get in free (or join at the door and get in free). There's an indoor shooting range, where you can shoot a large assortment of airguns, including the new AirForce Airguns Edge. At noon, 2pm and 4pm daily, there will be a demonstration shooting of big bore airguns.


Hammerli's Pneuma is an exciting new PCP rifle at a great price!

The prices of precharged pneumatic rifles have been dropping over the past several years, and one of the newest guns on the market is the Hammerli Pneuma. The Pneuma is a single-shot PCP that comes in either .177 or .22. Most buyers will choose the .22 caliber for the power, but I opted to test the .177 model for you.

Hammerli advertises the velocity at 1,200 f.p.s. in .177, so I will test the rifle with heavy pellets. The goal will be to keep the exit velocity under 1,000 f.p.s. for best accuracy. Twenty-two caliber owners will not face this issue, as the top speed in that caliber is listed as 1,050 f.p.s. These velocities are for the very lightest pellets, of course, so I expect to be able to control the rifle with heavier pellets.

This is a sidelever bolt-action rifle that loads the pellet directly into the breech. The stock is a synthetic thumbhole that's fully ambidextrous. It has both a Monte Carlo comb and a very low raised cheekpiece on both sides. A soft black rubber buttpad adjusts both up and down for better fit.

The stock is a matte dark charcoal and the metal is a hunter black--slightly shinier than matte but not a deep shine.

The overall length of the rifle is 38.5 inches, and it weighs 7.25 lbs. While that sounds light, the weight is centered on the flat just forward of the triggerguard, and the rifle feels very solid. It should balance well for benchrest shooting.

The sights are a fiberoptic front and rear post and bead with notch. The rear sight adjusts in both directions and the front adjusts for elevation by tipping up and down in the rear. These are some of the best sights I've seen on a rifle that most owners will probably scope anyhow.

Speaking of scopes, the Pneuma has a unique scope base that accepts both 11 mm and Weaver rings on the same base. It's a novel idea that will suit everybody.


This scope base will accept both 11mm rings and Weaver rings. You can see both dovetails clearly.

The muzzle of the 19-inch barrel is threaded to take a 1/2x20 silencer. Unfortunately, my firearm silencer is threaded with 28 TPI, so I was unable to try it. The barrel is held to the reservoir by two wide plastic hangers. Since the reservoir is removable, the influence on the barrel is probably reduced. In other words, it probably doesn't move the barrel much as the pressure drops.

A manometer (air pressure gauge) is built into the end of the removable air reservoir. It reads in bar, only, and the rifle is set up to accept a max fill of 200 bar, which is 2,900 psi. You can fill without removing the reservoir by pushing a blank plug out of the fill port and inserting the quick-disconnect probe. The other end of the probe is threaded 1/8" BSPP, which is a very common thread pattern for PCP fill equipment. It connected to my Hill pump, and I was able to fill the rifle right away.


Pressure gauge or manometer reads in bar only and records a 200-bar fill.

A bleed device also comes with the gun, so the owner can bleed out the air at any time. To depressurize the gun, the reservoir has to come out of the rifle because the bleed device acts on the end that screws into the rifle's action. You would want to do this if you were sending the rifle somewhere by public carrier like UPS.

There are also two extra sets of o-rings for the fill probe, though they won't be needed soon if you keep the rings on the fill probe lubricated with silicone grease.

The trigger is two-stage and adjustable for the length of the first stage and for pull weight. I will report on it in greater detail during the accuracy test.

I've already listed features that would have cost no less than $650 just two years ago. So, the Pneuma is a price-breaker. It promises good power in the 20-22 foot-pound range in .177 and up to 30 foot-pounds in .22. Accuracy will be the deciding factor; and if this is an accurate rifle, it'll be one to consider.

Romanian spring rifle - Part 1

by B.B. Pelletier

Before we start, there's a new video article posted. It's the footage I shot at the 2009 Little Rock Airgun Expo.

Also, there's a new page for Pyramyd Air's upcoming moving sale. Click on the lower left corner for a link to a map and the lower right corner for a link to local motels.

We have Vince to thank for today's blog, because he tuned the gun I'm about to show you. Before I get to that, however, some history on the gun and how I came to have it. This is a cheaply made breakbarrel spring rifle from the post-war era. It has the name IMC Pioneer on it, which led me to think it was Chinese at first, but it's actually Romanian. This one bears the date 1979.


Romanian spring rifle is youth-sized and easy to cock.

In all ways, this is a small air rifle. It's 37.25 inches long with a pull of about 13.25 inches. The barrel is 15.25 inches, though the last four-tenths is just a muzzlebrake. The gun weighs 4.25 lbs., and the cocking effort is just 9 lbs.--making it the lightest cocking effort I've ever measured. Without a doubt, this is a youth air rifle.

Yet, it has a rifled barrel. And sling swivels. And a manual safety. And sights adjustable for elevation. These are all things I wouldn't expect to find on a kid's gun.


The safety is manual and rotates to apply.

The breech detent is a ball bearing, and the breech seal is a standard o-ring. At least, that's what it is today. Who knows what left the factory?


Rear sight is simple but easy to adjust. Windage can also be adjusted by drifting the sight in its base.

I acquired two guns from a gun store that had no idea what they were. Since then, I've seen 8-10 more at Military Gun Supply in Ft. Worth. All of those had their front sight posts clipped off, so it doesn't appear to be an accident. One of the two I acquired also had the front post clipped off.


Front sigtht is a simple post. On most of the examples I've seen, the post has been cut off.

I thought about fixing one of these up here on the blog until I realized the job was probably beyond me. So, I asked Vince if he would take a look at them. He consented, and what I will now evaluate is the gun he sent back to me.

Both rifles were shooting high, and Vince concluded the breech lockup was causing the problem. He worked on this one to correct the problem, and I'll find out where the rifle shoots when I test it for accuracy in the next report.

Obviously, this isn't a powerful air rifle. Before Vince looked at it, it buzzed a bit when fired. He told me the piston seal is a soft rubbery material instead of the leather I assumed would be there. He had already worked on a Pioneer for Wayne, so he knew something about them, but naturally mine gave him new problems to tackle. So, let's see what he was able to do with it.

Gamo Match
The rifle averaged 418 f.p.s. with Gamo Match pellets. The range was from 401 to 430. I suspect the lube job hasn't fully broken in yet, and this is much faster than I expected.

RWS Basic
With RWS Basics the average was 425 f.p.s. and the spread was from 416 to 432. That's a tighter spread and still quite a bit faster than I would have thought.

Crosman Silver Eagle hollowpoints
With 4.8-grain Crosman Silver Eagle hollowpoints, which are no longer made, the rifle averaged 520 f.p.s. The range was from 486 to 545.

These rifles are showing up everywhere in the firearm channels. I see them offered for $30 in Shotgun News, and that's the same price I see in the gun stores. I paid $20 each for my two because they just wanted to get rid of them.

By contrast, the Chinese Pioneers are worth about $15-25. They're also crude breakbarrels, but larger and more powerful than this one.

Next time, I'll shoot for accuracy. There's no easy way to mount a scope, so this one will be open sights all the way! Thanks to Vince, we have an unusual air rifle to evaluate.

Diana 27 - Part 9

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8

Before I begin today's report, here's some news for those awaiting a Benjamin Marauder from Pyramyd Air. Pyramyd Air has sold out its initial allotment of guns. If you placed your order by May 7, you're supposed to receive one of the initial allotment of rifles. All orders placed after that date should expect shipment by around June 21.

Crosman is overwhelmed with orders for the new rifle, plus they're getting their production line up to speed. Therefore, it will be several more months before they will be able to fill all the backorders. The best we can advise is to order your rifle soon to get a place in line for the next batch of guns. 

In this segment, I'll clean, lubricate and assemble the .177 cal. Diana model 27 I took apart in Part 8. I have a deep dark secret. As much as I talk about Diana 27s, I actually have a slight fear of them when it comes to assembly. Even though I have long since learned all of their secrets, I don't like the way they go together, and I find the challenge of assembling one unpleasant. Give me an R1 any day!

But I promised this and the rifle was in pieces, so I had to do it. This tune, which is nothing more than cleaning and proper lubrication, differs from what I did to my .22 caliber Diana 27 many years ago. I did that rifle before black tar was discovered, so I used a light lithium-based grease the Army used to supply for M1 Garands. I have a can that I've owned for 40 years, and it has served me well for light grease jobs like the model 27. But this grease, being light, constantly migrates forward into the piston seal, keeping it well-lubed all the time. So, my .22 Diana 27 (actually a Hy-Score 807) is one springer that never needs a drop of oil. It has its own reservoir of lube that will probably last a couple more decades.

I wanted to lube this .177 model 27 in a more contemporary way, to contrast with the other gun. I will show you what I did as we go. Of course, I've chronographed the rifle very thoroughly with several different breech seals, so I'll compare the velocity and firing behavior after this job is complete.

First, we'll clean
You may recall from Part 8 that this rifle was very dirty. I discovered it during the disassembly. The first thing I had to do was clean everything so the new lube wouldn't contain any abrasive dirt. The compression tube is always the big thing to clean because you have to reach deep inside to remove everything. My approach has always been to wrap a strip of paper towel around a dowel or, in the case of this rifle, a cleaning rod. Use a rubber band to secure it. Then, saturate the tip with rubbing alcohol and wipe out all the dirt and old grease. This way is quick and clean because you can replace the paper towel as many times as it takes. The alcohol evaporates almost immediately, leaving the metal clean and dry.

When you finish, the inside of the spring tube will shine like a mirror--especially if the rifle is a Diana 27. After finishing that task, use the same paper towels and alcohol to wipe all the other parts. The piston and mainspring are the two hardest parts to clean after the compression tube, but they're really no trouble at all.

I also cleaned the bore with a brass brush and J-B Non-Embedding Bore Cleaning Compound. Before this cleaning, the bore didn't look very shiny. Afterward, it did.

When everything is completed, it's time to lubricate the parts and assemble the rifle. The piston goes first.


The piston and seal are coated with Beeman M-2-M moly grease. Note that the piston rod is also coated.

Like many spring gun pistons, the Diana 27 piston only contacts the spring tube at each end. The center is smaller, so only the enlarged ends need to be lubed. I use Beeman M-2-M moly grease for this.The piston seal is leather, as we discussed in Part 8, but I still coated it with moly grease. I know this will be transfered to the compression chamber wall, which is what I want.

I had a hard time finding the moly paste on the Pyramyd Air website, because they didn't list it under the lubes (the word paste probably threw them). They put it in the correct category this past weekend. When you can't find something on the Pyramyd Air website, type the product name into their search window. That often takes you right to it--if they carry what you're looking for.


The piston slides into the spring tube. Remember to pull the trigger to get it out of the way.

Once the piston's in the gun, you can connect the barrel to the mainspring tube. This rifle has asymmetric thrust washers between the baseblock and the mainspring tube forks. On the right side, there's one shaped washer that conforms to a complex shape on the baseblock, but on the left side the washers are mostly flat. One of the left washers has some spring built into it to keep tension against the forks.


When the barrel is removed from the fork, you can see the thrust washers on either side. On the Diana 27, they're asymmetrical. There are two on the left side (shown here) and a special formed one on the right. The state of their surface before cleaning appeared to be vintage factory. In other words, the gun had never been apart. The washer shown here keeps spring tension against the mainspring forks.


The right side of the baseblock has this special formed surface and a special washer is formed just like this to fit against the surface.

Before fitting the baseblock inside the mainspring tube forks, connect the cocking link. Once the baseblock is in, you cannot maneuver the cocking link to the entrance hole.

I coated all washer surfaces with moly grease. Fitting the baseblock back into the mainspring forks with washers on both sides of the baseblock is somewhat tricky, because those washers will be under some tension when inside the forks. You have to "shoehorn" them in, which means once the edges on both sides of the base block are started, the washers are easier to manage.


The enlarged end of the cocking link goes through the hole in the spring tube. Once inside, it hooks up to the piston...


...like this! As long as the piston is all the way forward and the cocking slot is aligned with the slot in the spring tube, you don't have to do anything special to install the cocking link. Once it's connected, the baseblock can be installed in the forks.

With the barrel in the forks, it's easy to install the pivot bolt and its locking screw. Put moly paste on the shaft of the bolt before inserting it.


The baseblock is in the forks. Now, insert the pivot bolt.


The pivot bolt goes in easily, and the locking screw fits into one of the many scallops cut into the bolt head.

At this point, the mainspring is installed. Although my factory mainspring was canted a bit, I used it because I didn't have a replacement on hand. I lubed the spring and spring guide with black tar for vibration dampening.


The mainspring and guide are now installed.

Here comes the hard part
Now, the gun is ready to be closed. The trigger is what holds everything together and in a Diana 27 the trigger is composed of many separate parts. I used to think the three ball bearings were the hard part, but an old mechanic's trick solves that problem. Simply put lots of grease into each hole in the black cylinder, where the ball bearings ride and stick them in the holes. They won't move during assembly.

However, the ball bearings are nothing compared to the trigger spring. It fits into a long slot on top of the black cylinder, but it acts upon the larger silver cylinder, as well. It moves the black and silver cylinders apart when the gun is fired. Cocking forces the two cylinders together, putting tension on the spring. This powerful trigger spring is actually held in place by the space BETWEEN the silver cylinder and the smaller black cylinder that rides inside it. The piston rod keeps the black cylinder aligned. It's a complex arrangement.


These are the trigger parts that come out of the gun with a general disassembly. The actual trigger blade and several other parts remain attached to the mainspring tube.


The dark metal cylinder with the three ball bearings slides inside the silver tube. You can see the slot in the black cylinder where the spring fits. When the black cylinder is inside the silver cylinder, the front of the trigger spring also bears against the front edge of the shorter slot cut into the silver cylinder.


Here you see where the powerful trigger spring fits. When this assembly is inside the mainspring tube, it stays together because there's no place for the parts to go.

Once the trigger parts are inside the mainspring tube and the long slots in the silver tube are aligned with the two holes in the mainspring tube, you can start squeezing them together with the compressor. Remember that you have to pull the trigger to get it out of the way as the parts go together.


As the mainspring compressor increases tension on the black cylinder, the trigger assembly slides together and also slides inside the mainspring tube. Remember to pull the trigger several times to allow these parts to clear it.

An alignment pin will help you line up the pin holes in the mainspring tube with the slots in the silver tube and the two pin holes in the black tube. Jiggle the tubes until they seem aligned, then adjust compressor tension until they're aligned perfectly.

At this point, I should tell you that the rear pin is fatter than the front one. So, don't put them into the wrong holes. The front pin may go in first, but the rear pin has more slop in the fit and usually goes in first. Consider it an assembly pin. After the front pin is in, the rear pin becomes loose and will fall out until you put the end cap back on. The front pin is the only thing holding the action together.

After that, it's just a matter of installing the action into the stock and the job is done. And how did I do, you ask?

Next time.

Daisy Powerline 953 TargetPro - Part 2

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

This is an eye-opening day for me and for all who want to know the 953 TargetPro velocity. We had some readers chime in that their rifles were not in the 500s, so today we'll see what this one can do.

Because this is a plinker as well as an informal target rifle, I selected pellets that were appropriate. Somebody asked for a .22 caliber single-stroke that makes 500 f.p.s. Be advised that there is only one rifle I know of that's ever done that. The Dragon single-stroke was a 12 foot-pound gun, but the lever had to swing 105 degrees to pressurize enough air. Single-strokes are not that powerful, as a rule.

H&N Match
H&N Match pellets are made in light and heavy weights for pistols and rifles, respectively. There were the lights that weigh about 7.6 grains. They averaged 471 f.p.s., with a spread from 462 to 479. That's a large spread for a single-stroke -- almost double what I expected. I will still try this pellet for accuracy, though, because it has an excellent reputation.

RWS Basic
Now, the RWS Diabolo Basic is a utility pellet. Ideal for plinking and probably okay for informal target shooting, too. We'll see how good it is in the accuracy test. Because it weighs only 7 grains, I expected it to be the fastest pellet, but it averaged only 477 f.p.s. in this rifle. The spread was from 470 to 483, so it's tighter than the H&N spread. But, like I said, not much faster.

Gamo Match
Gamo Match pellets are an old standby. Often, surprisingly accurate in some guns, they are always worth trying in a target gun. Look how they did with the Air Venturi US Avenger 1100, not that it's a target rifle. In the 953, they average 477 f.p.s. with a spread from 472 to 480. That makes them the pellet with the tightest velocity spread in this test.

Am I surprised? Yes. I expected to see velocities around 540 f.p.s. with the lighter pellets. Does that mean there's something wrong with the test rifle? Not at all. In fact, this rifle may speed up as it breaks in.

Then, I remembered what I did with the IZH 46 when I tested its velocity. And I tried the same thing with this rifle. Average velocity for RWS Basics climbed to 547 f.p.s.! The spread was larger, though. It ran from 530 to 562.

So--what was that "thing" I did? I pumped the lever almost all the way three times before closing it. That rams a little more air into the gun. After 10 shots doing that, I tried one more shot with a single pump and got 459 f.p.s. I cannot recommend this procedure to anyone. No doubt it is hard on the mechanism. I just did it to see if this gun would react like the IZH 46, and it did.

The trigger is still not two-stage, but a couple of times it seemed to be headed in that direction--like there was a greater or more noticeable pause in the travel toward the end. I'm sure the trigger is breaking in, because it now breaks at 4.5 lbs. very regularly.

Can't wait to try this rifle for accuracy. I'll try it with the standard sights, then with target sight and finally with a short scope. It will probably take a couple more blogs to cover all of it.

Air Venturi Avenger - Part 3

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2

Well, I learned quite a lot in this accuracy test. In fact, I'm not going to tune the Air Venturi US Avenger 1100 because it doesn't require it. I found out that the tendency to detonate goes away after about 200 shots. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The day was calm and still with a slight drizzle. The range to the target was 25 yards. I selected a Leapers 3-9x40 mil-dot with illuminated reticle and mounted it in a 1-piece, 4-screw RWS Lockdown scope mount. Because the Avenger has no scope stop holes to mate with the mount, I pounded the two stop pins flush with the base and butted the rear of the mount against the plastic end cap on the rifle.

It took three shots to zero the rifle at 10 feet, and I was on paper at 25 yards with the first shot after that.

Remember, I'm now shooting 20-shot groups with spring rifles. If I knew this was a hyper-accurate rifle like a TX, I would have shot at 35 yards, but I selected 25 for this one, and it seemed to suit the situation.

I used an artillery hold with the triggerguard bearing firmly against the heel of my palm. The rifle felt very muzzle-heavy, which works for a lot of breakbarrels. Also, I didn't sight-in to hit the aimpoint. With 20 shots in the string, the aimpoint would be eliminated quickly and accuracy would start to suffer. On the other hand, you would want to sight to the point of aim, because you're trying to hit the target every time--not just shoot groups.

RWS Supermags
The 9.3-grain RWS Supermag wadcutter pellet was first. In the beginning, the pellets were landing in close proximity, but every 5 or 6 shots a detonation blew the pellet wide of the group. After the shooting ended, I had no reference for comparison and moved to the next pellet right away.


Most of the 20 Supermags went into about a 1.6-inch group. The widest shots were all from detonations.

Beeman Kodiak Double Gold
Beeman Kodiak Double Gold pellets were next. One of our readers recommended Kodiaks, and I had these Double Golds sitting here awaiting a test, so it just seemed to work out.


Beeman Kodiak Double Gold pellets were fairly consistent. Three detonations flew wide, but most of the other 17 pellets wanted to group tight. The whole group measures 1.373 inches, including the flyers.

Gamo Match
At 7.7 grains, Gamo Match pellets were definitely the lightest pellets in this test. The first shot was a detonation that landed low, but after that there were only two more detonations. The rifle is beginning to break in and settle down, as so many owners have said it would.


What an eye-opener Gamo Match pellets were! The three wide shots to the left are the only detonations. All the other pellets are in that group. This is the best performance of the test. It measures 1.07 inches for 17 shots.

In retrospect, I can see that RWS Supermags are not a good pellet in this rifle. Kodiaks bear further testing, as do most other premium pellets. With the tendency to detonate going away, the Avenger 1100 is breaking it to a nice spring rifle. You have to use good shooting technique to get the best results, but that trigger will help out a lot.

There's no need for me to tune this rifle, as it's breaking in nicely. My advice to prospective buyers is to run a tin of pellets through the gun before expecting the best performance from it. While not quite in the same league as the RWS 34, the Avenger has a better trigger and seems to be very accurate. At the price point, it seems to be a good buy.

I like the 20-shot groups so far. Though this is only the first test, 20 shots show a truer picture of the rifle's performance than five would. I'm going to keep on doing it.

Knowing what to do - Part 1

by B.B. Pelletier

So, I was on the range with a couple buddies day before yesterday and one of the guns I wanted to try was a new (to me) M1 Garand. Garands have always been reliable in my experience, so imagine my surprise and disappointment when this one failed to allow the bolt to come all the way back when I cocked it! And when I finally succeeded to get it all the way back, I was stunned that the rifle would not accept an enbloc clip of ammunition. I couldn't load it!

For a moment, I thought about Matt61 and the guy he sent his Garand to for accurization. And then it hit me. This is a Garand! And I was taught to field strip one blindfolded and how to care for each part that came out! At one time, I could do that while being yelled at by a drunken fat man. Later on I became the fat man.

This should have been no challenge at all!

After that awakening, I did what I knew how to do so well--I field-stripped the rifle in less than a minute right there on the range. After that, I could see more clearly what the problem was. The rifle was entirely dry!

The term "light coat of oil" was ingrained in me during my misspent youth. Dress blues, tennis shoes and a light coat of oil was the joke uniform of the day in my ROTC unit. And this rifle was dry. So I went to my range box and looked. Did I have any oil? Of course not! It wouldn't be much of a story if I had oil.

Then, I did something that quietly amazed my two shooting buddies--both of whom are my age and both have served in the military. I pulled the dipstick from my truck's engine and proceeded to oil the contact surfaces of the moving parts with the little bit of oil that remains on the bottom of the stick. I had to pull the stick out twice to get enough oil for all I needed to do. How did I know to do that? Because when I taught Maintenance Management at the Armor School, that was one of a thousand little gems we passed along to our students.

It's a trick right out of McGuyver's notebook, but one that works and one that was presented to students as they slumbered in classrooms with their eyes open on lazy summer afternoons, waiting for the final bell to dismiss them to a better life. Tricks like using a jeep wheel as a powered windlass to winch vehicles out of trouble. How to tear a web belt in two with your bare hands. That last one is also a bar bet.

After assembling the rifle again, the bolt operated perfectly, and I loaded a clip. The rifle then fired two clips without fault. That got me thinking about all those little problems we airgunners have. I was reading PurcHawk's plea about the failure to eject the last round of his Marlin model 60 autoloader. My model 60 started doing things like that when it got dirty, so that's what I told him.

Okay, a Marlin 60 isn't an airgun, but here are two that are. They're both Slavia 622s and both in .22 caliber, but they're not identical guns. The one that I believe is earlier has a serial number of R27887E stamped into the underside of the wooden buttstock (!), instead of on the metal anywhere. The one I believe to be the later gun has the number 93353 stamped on the left flat of the baseblock. There are small differences between the rifles, but they share a common problem. Low velocity!


A pair of Slavia 622s, both in .22 caliber. The newer one has the lighter stock (right).

How low, you ask? Well, I chronographed them shooting RWS Hobby pellets. The earlier one averaged 295 f.p.s. for 10 shots after a three-shot warmup and the later one averaged 274 f.p.s. after three warmup shots. The earlier gun had a spread from 290 to 301, while the later gun went from 266 to 281.

The early gun was a little harsh on firing, though only in comparison to the later gun that was incredibly smooth. The early trigger is creepy, while the later trigger is better. Neither trigger would win an award, though, because these are economy guns at best.


The end of the compression chamber is nicely swaged onto the compression tube on the older gun.


The newer gun must have been built on a bad day in the toolroom.

What am I leading up to? Just this--in this blog, we've learned many lessons about the performance of spring-piston airguns. We learned about cleaning the barrels, we learned what tightening the stock screws does to velocity and we learned the all-important relationship of the breech seal to velocity.


The older gun has no serial number on the metal and just a single pivot bolt.


The older gun has a serial number on the stock, behind the pistol grip.


The newer gun has a serial number on the metal, and the pivot bolt has a locking screw.

The rest of the airgun world doesn't know what we know about springers. They know how to over-oil their compression chambers and how to put too-strong springs into their guns to make them harsh and objectionable, but they don't know the subtleties we know. Let's see if any of this stuff means anything, shall we?


The older gun has nothing at the rear of the spring tube.


The newer gun has twin dovetails at the rear of the tube, plus slots cut on either side of the tube.

I traded for these two rifles from my buddy, Mac, who said he did everything he could think of, yet they still don't shoot very well. We know from testing the Haenel Model 1 that .22 caliber spring guns of small proportions are never very powerful, and I don't look for these to get any great boost from whatever we might do. But let's just see what can be done with a few simple tricks we've learned from working on other spring guns. It should be an interesting time!

Little Rock Expo 2009 - Part 2

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

First, the letters about the wire-stocked Daisy first model guns are going out this week. The Friends of the Museum will probably buy up all thousand guns, so if you didn't join when I told you, you probably missed out on a great opportunity to buy a collectible that will appreciate overnight.

Okay, round two of the show. I told you yesterday that I saw several strange things at this show. How about an adjustable rear sight made from scrap parts? Roger Yost showed me this strange item. A man made it many decades ago, and Roger was lucky enough to acquire it through his airgun repair connections. A bottle cap is the adjustment knob for windage, and the unit looks like something comedian Red Green might have made on his show.


We don't know the name of the man who made this rear sight, but he was an airgunner for sure. This is a top-down view. The thin notch is in the center of the blade.

In the past, several of you have asked about the vintage Crosman AIR 17 multi-pump pneumatic rifle. They're uncommon, but this was the show where they came out in spades. I saw no less than 4 of them, where most shows don't have even one.

There were also a couple HW 55 rifles in the room, including one Tyrolean! And there was another HW rifle that's even rarer—an EL-54, which is an HW 35 with an ether injector on the side. Made to get a .22 pellet up to 1,000 f.p.s., the EL-54 was never very popular, and examples are now quite collectible. The Baracuda pellet was created for the rifle because it blew the ends off lesser pellets with the pressure generated by the exploding ether gas. Until it was available, the rifle shot round lead balls.


I'm holding a Weihrauch EL-54 ether-injected air rifle. Except for the ether tube on the right side of the compression tube, this is an HW 35 breakbarrel. A glass ampule of medical ether was crushed in the tube and injected into the compression chamber just before each shot.

The big bore crowd gathered around Dennis Quackenbush and Big Bore Bob Dean. This year there were many cast lead bullets available for the first time. Also, there were examples of the big bores Pyramyd Air sells, as well.

One shooter managed to get his Dragon Slayer up over 400 foot-pounds without making major modifications to the rifle. He also had a pistol with a 12-inch barrel that he said was making well over 300 foot-pounds. I don't have any chronograph results to report, but I watched a couple people shoot it and the recoil was quite significant.


Lots of big bore bullets to buy this year.

Dennis Quackenbush was delivering rifles to buyers at the show--and I was among those taking delivery of a new .308. I'll be testing it for you later this year, and I plan on testing it for the television show as well. You'll be amazed at the nice figured wood Dennis had to call standard on my gun because it had a repaired crack.

Quackenbush also had six pistols laying on his table, and a single buyer bought four of them in one pop. The big bore pistols are not as powerful as the rifles, but some of the larger calibers develop 100 foot-pounds, which is more than enough for medium-sized game.


This new action target works for air pistols and rifles, alike. The developer is seeking industry support.

Another curiosity at this show was the new electronic action targets brought and shown by Rocky Mraz. The target is computer-controlled and it scores the shot as well as times the shooter. Three targets took on all airguns during both days and never suffered a bit. We will probably be seeing more of this target at the club level in the future if the right competitions can be developed for it.

The show broke up early--just after noon on Saturday. The inclement weather no doubt had a lot to do with that. But from my perspective, this was still one of the great airgun shows. The unusual and desirable airguns were present; there were bargains for everyone and just meeting old friends made it worthwhile. I hope to see more of you there next year.

The Little Rock Airgun Expo - Part 1

by B.B. Pelletier

It was a smaller show this year, as several dealers we expected to show had either gone to the Pennsylvania show instead or they just didn't go to any show. The scheduling error of two airgun shows on the same weekend was not intentional, and next year the two shows will coordinate to avoid a repeat.


Collector Tom Strayhorn always displays a nice stand of fine vintage air rifles. These Walthers are beauties!

Small or not, though, this show was still a good one. I met several blog readers there, and each person I met was kind enough to introduce himself to me.

What made it a good show for me and for most people were the guns that were there. I made a video to show more of this to you (in a few days). For today, I'll just rely on words and a few pictures. Let's begin with desirable airguns.

The FWB 124 is always asked for, and this show had several. One of them was in a gorgeous Maccari Tyrolean stock and sported a nice target aperture rear sight. There was also a deluxe model that appeared to be stock.

Sheridan Blue and Silver Streaks are always in demand, and this show was loaded with them. Some of the prices were very reasonable--much better than what you see on the internet classified ads.


Westley Richards Highest Possible spring-piston pistols are very desirable. This model, though, is nearly unheard-of. About 100 may exist.

One model I almost never see for sale is a Beeman C1.Well, there was a beautiful .22 cal. C1 present, and it had been broken in completely, which means it was a delight to shoot. My buddy, Mac, got it in a big trade, and I traded it out of him before he headed home. It didn't come cheap, though! I will report on it in a future blog, of course.

I also bought a Haenel breakbarrel target rifle that looks very much like a 311 without the bolt. It has the same target sights and the same general look and feel, but the trigger is more of a sporter and less of a target unit like the one on the 311.


The carnival gun! This Shooting Star Pneumatic Gun is the one that shot out the red star on the midway. People who are not on the internet haven't a clue where to get them, but there were at least three at this show.

I was disappointed that there were no BSF S55 rifles at this show. Imagine how I felt when I discovered that there was a beautiful one that reader David Enoch had scored from under me! Actually, I'd already spent 2X my budget by the time he showed it to me. If he hadn't bought and it had still been for sale, l would have had to walk away from it, as I did the BSF S70 last year!


Big Bore Bob Dean had this boxed American Luger on his table. That's about as unexpected as it gets, as he usually doesn't have anything under about .357 caliber. You could make the down payment on a fine used car with what this rarity is worth.

Saturday brought a Noah-level rainstorm, which probably kept the locals home, so there were fewer bluebirds than I usually see, but a fine Diana model 6 pistol did walk in as did several other nice sporting rifles.

The best deal at the show was the Webley Tempest that sold for $50. The buyer has to feel good about that one.

Tomorrow, I'll show you some really strange things I saw, so please bear with me. This was a really great show that was well worth the trip, in my book.

Daisy Powerline 953 TargetPro - Part 1

by B.B. Pelletier

Daisy's 853 target rifle has been an icon in youth target programs for the better part of 30 years. As an inexpensive 10-meter rifle, it has long represented the ground floor, but for causal shooters it is a bit pricey. However, Daisy also offers essentially the same gun as the Powerline 953 TargetPro with none of the frills and without the Lothar Walther barrel for just a fraction of the cost of the vetted target rifle. For the casual target shooter and plinker, it's a price that cannot be overlooked

General description
The 953 is a single-stroke pneumatic rifle that can function as a single-shot and as a five-shot repeater--it's your choice. I will show you how to convert the rifle from repeater to single-shot in a future report. You must switch from the single-shot loading platform to the five-shot magazine, which is quick and simple to do. The magazine indexes automatically each time you pull the bolt back to cock the gun and, when the last pellet is fired, the bolt is blocked from going forward, signaling the need to reload.

The rifle is available in .177 caliber only and buyers should know there are no possibilities to increase the power. Be prepared to accept plinking velocities around 525-550 f.p.s.

Trigger
The trigger is perhaps the weakest part of the gun, but it's no worse than the trigger on the 853. It's called a two-stage trigger, but in my opinion it's really a single-stage with a long, creepy pull. It releases at just under 5 lbs. on the test rifle, but shows signs of breaking in to a lower-effort pull. Well-used rifles are often breaking below 4 lbs. and coaches all over American are able to adjust it to break at less 2 lbs. with less creep. The instructions are all over the internet. Any reader who has tuned their 953 trigger is welcome to chime in here.

This trigger is non-adjustable by design. Competition rules require a 1.5-lb. pull and rifles are tested at every competition, where a cocked trigger must lift a 1.5-lb. weight. There's a manual safety located in the triggerguard, which is the best of all worlds.

Sights
The sights are fully adjustable fiberoptic open sights, which to my thinking are the most inappropriate sights this rifle could have. But if you view it as a pure plinker instead of a target rifle, I guess they're okay. However, they come off easily and better sights can be installed in their place, which I plan on doing. A small scope is also possible, as is a red dot.

Stock
You have to love the stock! It's shaped as an offhand stock with a vertical pistol grip and a very high butt and Monte Carlo comb. The forearm is flat on the bottom, but the pump handle precludes any accessory rail. It's perfect for offhand work, which plinkers do as much as target shooters.

The stock is made from a dark synthetic. It is dense and adds some weight so the rifle doesn't feel like a kid's gun. It hefts like a lightweight adult rifle, and most adults will like the feel and balance.

The pump handle is metal and swings easier than the ones I remember on new 853s. Keep the felt washer and o-ring on the pump head lubricated with either Crosman Pellgunoil or the "clean motor oil" Daisy recommends for wiping down the outside of the gun (!) and the inside of the barrel. My only comment here comes from 20 years of having Pellgunoil (from Crosman) and 20-weight non-detergent motor oil (from Daisy) drilled into me. I guess modern synthetic seals can take almost anything, so just follow the instructions. Pennzoil will work, apparently.

The rifle is cocked by pulling straight back on the plastic cocking handle on the right side of the action. The location of the handle and loading tray favors right-handed shooters, but the rest of the stock and trigger are ambidextrous.

The barrel looks spindly, but bear in mind the powerplant has zero vibration. It's plenty stiff to handle the load asked of it. And, from what some of our readers have said, it's a good one.

As for ruggedness and longevity, this same action in the 853 has endured hundreds of thousands of shots and rough handling by hundreds of shooters. These are the club guns that everyone uses and no one but the coaches care for. The seals (o-rings) have to be replaced periodically, but that's about it.

I'm going to test this rifle normally, then I will try a few sight options and maybe some other things. So, settle in for a long, thorough test.