Air guns - Pyramyd Air Report

DIY shooting rest and a Blue Wonder followup report - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Today we have a short guest blog and a followup report on the Blue Wonder cold blue project I've been working on. First the guest blog.

Guest blogger
This is Mike's first guest blog. He needed a rifle rest, so he decided to make one instead of buy something ready-made. His uses simple, everyday items that are inexpensive and readily available. Even if you have to buy some of these things, it's an economical project.

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 Mike S.

My Gamo CFX resting on my homemade shooting rest.

Some history
Every year I go on a trip where a group of us target shoot for the weekend. I use my .22 Gamo CFX, and the rest of the crew shoots .22 rimfires. The range is about 75-90 yards, and we all shoot from a benchrest position. For years, I couldn't come close to matching the accuracy of the rimfires. In fact, I couldn't consistently hit a 5-gallon bucket at 75 yards.

I knew my gun was capable of better accuracy. After doing hours of online research, I learned that firing a springer from any hard surface will completely ruin accuracy. The vibrations caused by the mainspring will shift your aim before the pellet leaves the barrel.

So, I made cushions on which I could rest my rifle. They're designed to absorb the vibrations. My accuracy improved to where I was up to par, and--in some cases--out-shooting the rimfires. The cushions are very cheap and easy to make from stuff around the house. They're weatherproof and can be built in less than 20 minutes.

It's not a showcase item, but it's functional and does the job!

Materials Needed

Plastic bag (a grocery sack or Ziplock bag will do)

5" strip of fiberglass insulation

1"x6" board cut 6.5" in length

Almighty duct tape

Just assemble a few inexpensive, ordinary items from around the house to make your rifle rest.

Procedure
Climb into your attic or crawlspace and cut a 5" strip of fiberglass insulation. Most insulation is about 16" wide. I used R13, but whatever you have should be fine. Cut the insulation in half so you have two 8"x5" pieces. Place one half on top of the other half.

A chunk of fiberglass insulation...yours may be pink or some other color.

Slide the inslation into the bag. Take the slack out of the bag and tape it on the bottom. Don't pull the bag too tight. You want the fiberglass to be uncompressed.

Assembly is a cinch!

Tape the bag to the piece of wood, taking up any additional slack in the bag. I cut a few additional pieces of wood so I could change the height of my rest. Now, lay your rifle on the bag and fire away!

[Editor's note: When handling fiberglass insulation, be sure to breathe through a half-face respirator with replaceable HEPA filters. A paper dust filter is not considered adequate filtration for fiberglass particles. Brief exposure is not likely to cause any damage, but handling and cutting the fiberglass batts may expose you to particles that have been shed into the air you breathe. If any part of the fiberglass in your shooting bag becomes exposed, re-cover it right away. Prolonged exposure to fiberglass insulation can cause nosebleeds and other respiratory problems.]

Blue Wonder update report - Part 3

Part 1
Part 2

Well, I thought I was going to have to eat some crow on this one. In Part 2, I blued a new barrel for a .17 HM2 rifle a friend put together for me, and the job turned out so beautiful that I raved about it. Then the comments came in. Some shooters were concerned about the job rusting fast and one person asked about matching the old blue. I answered the matching question to the best of my ability, but today I will shed some new light on both topics (rusting and matching).

About four days after I did the barrel, I happened to pick up the gun in my closet and was astounded to see that it had rusted almost 100 percent! The rust was extremely fine and even over the surface. When I picked up the gun and held the barrel my hands turned dark brown.

I was very disheartened by this. I knew I had to tell all of you, especially after recommending the product so highly in Part 2, but I wanted to think about it for a few days. I had also bragged on the job to my friend who rebarrelled the rifle for me. And now he wanted to see it shoot, so I had to show the rusty blue job to him also.

Then it hit me. Blue Wonder couldn't possibly have remained in business for all these years if their product always rusted. Surely, by now, there would be a great hue and cry about it and the internet would be full of warnings not to use it. I did find some warnings, but you can find warnings about almost anything if you look. There weren't the number of warnings I would expect if this product were pure snake oil (no slight meant to the oil by that name), so I reckoned I must have done something wrong.

Let's see. I cleaned the surface with acetone that several of you said wasn't good. That might be it. So, I read the Blue Wonder instructions online once more and found that they made no mention whatsoever of de-greasing the metal after cleaning it with Blue Wonder gun cleaner. Okay, so that step was unnecessary and wrong.

They also cautioned you about which oil to use after the job is finished. They said to use Break Free. I used Ballistol. So, that was point of departure number two. On the next go-round, I would not use acetone and I would finish with Break Free.

I removed the action from the stock and went to work removing the rust with 0000 steel wool. It came off immediately (1-2 minutes) and left the gun looking almost as it did after the initial bluing job. I toyed with the idea of stopping right there, but decided to go on and redo the whole barrel because I wanted to report on the entire application, not just a patch job.

After the steel wool treatment, the metal surface was free from all rust. I then cleaned the entire surface with Blue Wonder gun cleaner, just like the directions said. Then, I heated the barrel with a propane torch, again following the directions. Like before, it was hard to get the entire barrel up to the same temperature, but I got it all very warm to the touch. Speaking of touch, you are cautioned in the directions not to touch the metal with your hands at this point, so I had plenty of paper towels to use when I held things.

Next, the Blue Wonder bluing solution was applied. I remembered to shake the bottle before every application. Although the barrel did not seem to get any darker this time, some of the imperfections close to the muzzle around the front sight went away as I applied the solution. The last step was to apply the developer. Then, the metal parts were set aside for a couple hours to fully develop. Remember--this is a chemical process related to photography.

When it had developed, I wiped down the whole surface with Break Free and set the still-wet barreled action aside for the rest of the evening. The next morning, I dried the barrel and installed the action in the stock. I took the rifle out to the range, where I shot a 3/4" five-shot group at 50 yards using peep sights. Yeah--this rifle can shoot!

The guy who installed the barrel got to see the job and was very impressed. So was I. This was the first time I'd seen the job in bright daylight, and it was even better than I had reported before--though some of that was undoubtedly because of the second application.

I noticed in the sunlight that Blue Wonder has a bronze undertone to it. That must be due to the gold in the solution. The color doesn't match any blue job I've ever seen. But back under incandescent or fluorescent lighting (normal house lights) it does match. So you have to make a choice. If you plan to re-blue the entire gun, it will stand up even outdoors; but if you're doing a spot job, there will surely be a color difference in the sun. With indoor lighting, I cannot see any difference, but I'm colorblind, so proceed at your own risk.

This photo shows the bronze or gold undertone of the Blue Wonder blue. Compare the color of the barrel to that of the front sight that was blued by a hot salt bath black oxide process. Any uneveness that you see in this picture is the result of fingerprints--not the blue job, which is remarkably even.

As I write this, it's been four full days since I did the second job, and the gun still shows no signs of rusting. The blue is still dark, even and very shiny. I'm still very thrilled with the results. However, the one thing we still don't know is how well the blue will hold up to handling. The best test for this might be a revolver carried in a leather holster. Nothing wears blue faster than a leather holster. But since I don't carry holstered guns, this isn't going to work for me. Besides, I don't have anything to compare it to, so any report would simply be conjecture. I guess I need a cowboy action shooter to test this for me.

Speaking of cowboy action shooters, a friend from 40 years ago when I was a gunfighter at Frontier Village in San Jose recently contacted me with a request. Seems I sold him a Colt single-action for $150 and it recently lettered at Colt! That means Colt has a record of the gun in their files and can tell when it was sold, who it was sold to, the barrel length, caliber and original finish of the gun. It might be worth $3,000-3,500 today. He sent me a copy of the letter of authenticity, asking me for the details of how and where I came by the gun.

Here is a lesson in gun etiquette. When you find that a gun you acquired is better than you thought, do not have the insensitivity to ask the person you bought it from any questions about it, and for gosh sakes don't tell him what it may be worth. That's like taking a trophy wife to your high school reunion and introducing her to the girl who turned down your proposal 40 years ago.

Unless, of course, that is your intention. I wonder?

The Daisy 499B versus the Haenel 310 - a shoot-off!

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

This test was requested by some of our readers after I made a few remarks in the recent Haenel 310 report. They wanted to see the Haenel 310 pitted against the Daisy Avanti Champion 499 with the human error taken out. So, I got to shoot at 5 meters (16.4 feet) from a rest on a bench. I tell you, it doesn't get much lazier than that!

Problems, problems!
Would you believe that both guns acted up and refused to shoot? Or at least that's how it seemed to me. In the end I think I figured it out, but I went through lots of shots getting there.

For starters, I have three types of lead balls for the Haenel but didn't know which was the best. The copper-coated balls I bought for my other 310 were too tight for the bore of this rifle. I got several jams that took time to clear. That left two types of unplated lead balls, one of which was 100 f.p.s. faster than the other in this gun. In the end, the slower balls proved to be the best.

But try though I might, I couldn't get the rifle to group off a rest. My "groups" were more like patterns and far larger than the groups I shot offhand in Parts 2 & 3 of the 310 report. That may be hard for you to believe, but that's what happened. One thing that disconcerted me was the fact that the rifle was shooting to the right. Finally, after about seven groups, I tapped the front sight to the right to correct it (when adjusting open sights, the front sight should always be moved in the direction opposite of where you want the pellet to go), but I went too far. Even though I moved the sight just a couple hundredths of an inch, the groups were now landing to the left of the aim point. I decided that was it--I wasn't going to chase the zero and conduct this test, or I would never finish it.

However, while doing this I did discover what was apparently causing my guns to misbehave. I had been shooting them alternately, switching from one to the other after every group. I didn't allow myself to get familiar with either gun. I tend to do that at the firearms range as well--taking five to ten different guns and running through them as fast as my interest wanes, which is pretty quick. But you never get used to one gun that way and I know it, so as soon as I recognized what I was doing, I stopped.

Once I did that and settled on just one type of lead ball, the groups started to come together. I finally got what I think are two representative groups, though they are not any better than what I shot offhand with this same rifle. By the way, the 310 likes a good artillery hold with plenty of follow-through.

310 group was left of center, but I didn't bother correcting it.

Another almost identical group with the Haenel 310.

Okay, so the 310 can shoot. What about the Daisy 499? At first I was switching it off with the Haenel, as I have told you, so I had to figure that out before I could get the gun to shoot. I also started the test shooting regular Daisy zinc-plated BBs, so the first group had to be thrown out. The 499 is hyper-accurate, but only with the special Avanti Precision Ground Shot made expressly for it. The use of standard BBs will increase the group size for sure.

Once I started grouping, I discovered that the sights on this gun were also off. So, I took a couple groups to sight it in. In that endeavor, I re-learned that the directions molded right on the Daisy 5899 rear aperture sight are on backwards. If you want the BB to strike higher, you dial the sight LOWER and the same with left and right. This confused me for a group or two, but once I figured it out I was back on track.

I also learned that the 499 doesn't need an artillery hold. I had been using that hold all along, but when I grasped the forearm tightly, the groups shrank right away. Shooting from a bench is therefore not that different from shooting offhand.

By this time, I had invested several hours with this test, so I shot only a single good group, but it's representative of what a 499 can do. The 499 group is smaller than either of the 310 groups, but not by that much. The reason I'm not giving any measurements for these groups is because they tore through the target paper in such a way that taking measurements is very difficult. You don't know where the hole ends.

Daisy 499 group was smaller than either group from the Haenel.

Well, this test turned out like I had imagined. The day before, I went to the range and allowed a .44 Magnum to chew chunks of flesh out of my off hand, so using the artillery hold was particularly painful on this day. However, I did follow through after every shot, and I'm sure I couldn't have shot the 310 any better than I did.

The 499 was a surprise, though. It's been almost 10 years since I shot it off a rest, and I forgot everything I may have known about shooting it that way.

Peeping Tom - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

This is the second part of Vince's guest blog. Based on the comments for the first part, I know you'll enjoy reading and seeing more of Vince's unique and clever handiwork.

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'll edit each submission, but we won't work on any submission that contains gross misspellings and/or grammatical errors.

Take it away, Vince!

Peeping Tom - Part 1

by Vince

Peeping Tom - Part 2

After the successful completion of Wayne's rear peep sight mount, I had to give some thought to the front. The original sight is a dovetail mount that's about a half-inch too low. For reasons previously explained, I'm not willing to modify the original part.

The original sight is a simple blade that's far too low.

Suddenly, it hit me! The perfect solution! Simple, elegant and, above all, cheap! I whip out some electrical tape and presto! I've got a front sight!

Simple, light, adjustable, and flexible! It even tells you which way the wind is blowing. What's not to like?

Then it hit me: the flaw with this design! It gives a new meaning to the term windage when your front sight flaps around in the breeze like this one would. So ,I nix that idea as a permanent solution, but I DO use it to determine how high the new front sight will need to be. I test fired the gun using the tape as a front sight, and trimmed it down until the elevation was about right at 10 yards. That told me what I needed to know. In all honesty, it really was the only reason I did this to begin with. Honest. Anyway, it turns out that the front needed to be just about 1.04" above the centerline of the barrel bore.

I was kicking around how to best make a permanent sight while browsing around Home Depot, just looking at various things and trying to visualize how to do this. When I spied a piece of 3/8" key stock, I decided I would be best off--gasp!--buying one and making something out of that. Wayne, you now owe me an additional $2.09 + tax, and I DON'T WANNA HEAR ANY GUFF ABOUT IT!

The hard part is hand-cutting the proper dovetail, which really isn't that bad if you exercise a little patience, judgement and care. Which means that I had a devil of time of it. No matter, I managed to do it without overdoing it and got a set of very decent dovetails ground out of the key stock.

It took about 30-45 minutes to get the dovetail cuts just right.

After a lot of careful measuring, calculating and double-checking, I trimmed the keystock to length and ground out a "smile" on the end opposite the dovetail.

The curved cut-out will hold the hood.

I was really careful about measuring the overall length of this assembly. Remember that.

For the hood, I reverted back to one of my favorite materials--old copper water pipe. I sliced off a piece about 3/8" long and bore a single hole in it so that it sat nicely on top of the other piece.

The hole lets the hood fit over the pin.

This is how it goes together.

Since this isn't a highly stressed joint and there's lots of surface area, I'm just soldered the hood onto the mount. So, I slopped up everything with soldering paste, mounted it (gently) in my vise and had at it.

Don't laugh at my vise. It was $10 on Ebay. I got two of them.

The ever-so-carefully-crafted dovetail was a snug fit, but it went on.

I'm beginning to think this is gonna work....

Perfect!

I hate to say it, but I really like how this piece turned out. It's very solid and gives a good sight picture with the Mendoza peep. And all that careful measuring and re-measuring I did? Phooey! I still got the height wrong by about 1/8" or so. But I got it wrong in the right direction; it's a little higher than I wanted, but the Mendoza peep has LOTS of vertical adjustment. So, it's still well within the usable range. Besides, if Wayne goes shootin' those light Hobby pellets, he may very well need more room for downward adjustment.

All that's left is to finish the sight. I cold-blued the steel base and painted the copper hood to make it look half-way presentable.

Due to flash photography, it doesn't look black. But it is.

The completed rifle. I think Wayne's gonna like it.

That about wraps it up. Peeping Wayne can now peep to his heart's content. I think he'll find that it works well enough and gives him a good sight picture. And, perhaps best of all, he got his peep on the cheap, and it's one I think he'll keep.

The Benjamin Katana - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

First, an announcement. Pyramyd Air's 2009 Gift Guide is now online. Besides the usual price-related categories, they've added a "Young shooters" category for those who are looking for those types of gifts. Visit the gift guide regularly, as they'll be adding more products over the holiday season. Now, on to today's blog.

Benjamin Katana is the latest PCP from East Bloomfield.

The Benjamin Katana is a strange new PCP. Strange because of how it came to be--not because of its design, which is straightforward, for the most part.

Earlier this year when I was at the Crosman plant in East Bloomfield, I was shown a rifle they were working on in the back room. It wasn't a new technology, in the same way that both the Discovery and the Marauder have new PCP technologies. Instead, the rifle they showed me was a blend of both of those airguns, taking features from each and putting them into one new rifle. Crosman engineers didn't even have a name for the new gun, but at the time they were leaning toward the Discovery II.

That changed during the summer, and the company approached Pyramyd Air, who is their largest dealer. They wondered if Pyramyd would be interested in a PCP they could call their own--with the Benjamin brand name, of course. They could retail it and also sell it to their dealers. Pyramyd Air owner Josh Ungier was interested and he selected the model name, "Katana," which is the proper name for a samurai sword.

As word of a new Benjamin PCP slowly leaked out in September and October, some in the airgun community made up their minds what it would be. There was the camp who felt the new rifle would finally break through the price "barrier" and Crosman would be offering the world the first PCP rifle to retail for less than $5. Lord knows, we're all breaking under the strain of the $259 Discovery that can only be afforded by Daddy Warbucks and his Hollywood cronies! Compare it to fine European guns with target triggers, choked barrels and fine stocks selling for $400. Whoops! There aren't any.

A second group thought the new gun would have all the features of the Marauder plus those they felt had been erroneously left off the big M. Things like a regulator, 100-shots per fill, 40 foot-pound power level, .25 caliber and probably some others. This crowd was certain the new rifle would be cheaper than the Marauder, which everyone knows can only be afforded by the idle rich.

In truth, the Katana is its own model, but that will be difficult for some to see because they're overlaying it against the Discovery and the Marauder. I choose to look at it differently.

What if the Disco and the Marauder were not in the world? Then the Katana would be a kick-ass single-shot PCP retailing for $400 instead of $600-800 like its European equivalents. Of course, I haven't tested it yet, so my remark about its potential for quality still have to be proven, but given that Crosman knows how to rifle barrels as well as Lothar Walther, and given that they already build some remarkable PCPs, I'm believing the Katana will be more of the same with its own special set of features.

Description
The Katana is a single-shot, precharged pneumatic rifle that comes in .22 caliber, only. When the Benjamin Marauder first came out, Crosman conducted a survey of which calibers shooters wanted in a PCP and the .22 was selected by 78 percent of those responding. It would be easy for them to also offer it in .177 down the road, but at present .22 is the caliber.

The styling of the rifle is the European look that most shooters seem to prefer. The wood stock appears to be beech and isn't as over-the-top as the Marauder stock but is styled along more conservative sporting lines. At the rear is a thick, black rubber recoil pad. The wood is finished a smooth matte that appears similar to an oil finish. The stock comes with sling swivel studs installed. There's no checkering, but there is a palm swell on both sides of the pistol grip, and the cheekpiece is on both sides of the buttstock, making this rifle very ambidextrous.

One very interesting point Edith made when I handed her the rifle is that it's very light! The sample I'm reviewing weighs 5 lbs., 12 ozs. without a scope. Of course, there are no open sights, so a scope or other optical sight will be required. The receiver has plenty of room for the scope rings, but two-piece rings will be preferred because of the loading trough.

One reason for the lightness is the inletting of the action and reservoir. There's a generous clearance on both sides of the metal parts before the stock begins. It's a look I've not seen before.

Lotsa space between the wood and metal.

The triggerguard has received a lot of criticism thus far. The angular shape appears to contrast oddly with the smooth shape of the rest of the rifle. It's a good place for the aftermarket customizers to begin.

The Katana trigger is borrowed from the Marauder, which means it's world-class. I will look at it in greater detail in a future report; but for now, know that it's adjustable to a light, crisp pull.

What pressure?
There's a pressure gauge built in, of course, and the question everyone, including me, is waiting to hear answered is just what pressure is this rifle set up to take? The answer is 2,000 psi. No, the fill pressure is not adjustable, as it is on the Marauder. That's not bad at all. The Marauder causes some confusion with newer shooters who still think air pressure relates to the velocity the gun can achieve instead of the number of shots it gets per fill. They know that putting extra gas in a Corvette doesn't make it go any faster, but when it comes to an airgun they get confused.

Speaking of confusion...
The manual that comes with the rifle needs some work. It talks about filling the rifle to somewhere between 1000 psi and 2000 psi "depending on your desired tune." The tune has nothing to do with the pressure. The pressure determines the number of shots. As long as the pressure is within limits, it has zero to do with how fast the pellet goes. Those words probably came from the Marauder manual, but someone at Crosman needs to correct them.

In paragraph 3.D., the manual also talks about using the degassing tool if you over-pressurize the gun and refers you to manual section 4.B. Unfortunately, there was no degassing tool packed with my test gun and section 4.B. of the manual talks about something else.

The barrel
I pushed several pellets from muzzle to breech, and the 24" barrel certainly seems to be choked at the muzzle. One shooter became confused by the mention of a choked barrel on a rifle in the Marauder description and argued that if the barrel was really choked then it couldn't be rifled as the description also states. Well, choked rifle barrels have been around about as long as choked smoothbores. The choke helps bring everything into alignment just before the pellet leaves the muzzle, and it is a proven benefit for accuracy.

The barrel is not shrouded, so the rifle will have a normal discharge sound. That's probably the biggest difference between the Katana and the Marauder, though doubtless many will feel the repeating function is even greater. Also, the barrel isn't free-floated. There's contact at the barrel band and at the muzzle. However, I'll be testing accuracy, so these features needn't worry you. We'll know for sure how accurate this rifle is.

Overall initial impression
I like the Katana. I'm more comfortable with a single-shot than I am with a repeater, so in my eyes, the Katana is ahead of the Marauder. However, the Katana is not shrouded, and I know some people are going to complain about that.

Just hefting it, I like the light weight and slimmer stock profile that feels quick for hunting. The trigger gives you every opportunity for great accuracy. So, instead of seeing the Katana as sandwiched in between the Discovery and the Marauder, I choose to see it as another wonderful PCP from Benjamin at a fraction of the price of any European equivalent. The rest of this report and test should determine if I'm right.

Relum Supertornado - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pellitier

This report comes to you courtesy of reader Jim Grossman, who generously shipped his Relum Supertornado to me to test. The last rifle I tested that Jim had worked on was the Haenel Model 1, which I bought earlier this year from an internet ad. You can read about it here.

I may have mentioned in that report that Jim is a careful airgun packer. I'm sure I did, because his packaging impressed me a lot. So, this time, I captured the details of the packing for you--as well as making a visual record for when I have to send the gun back.

The first step in airgun packing is when Jim selects the box he's going to fashion into an airgun shipping box. Usually, the little box is so thrilled that he runs out to the playground to tell all the other little boxes that he's going to be one of Jim's airgun shipping boxes. They all then share what stories they have heard about Jim's boxes before the bell rings and they have to come in for their afternoon nap.

Some boxes, however, don't receive the news with joy. These are the delinquent boxes. Some of them smoke, and most of them curse. They all wear leather jackets and black boots. They don't care that they could end up on the floors of garages, under cars soaking up dirty motor oil or be cut into pieces and used to light fires on cold winter evenings. They just don't want anyone telling them what they are going to do.

Jim has a program for these obstinate boxes. He doesn't give them Ritalin or send them to "Scared Straight" encounters. No, he simply starts fashioning them into the containers he needs. They complain loudly, but what else can they do? They're boxes, after all. Most of the time, before he's halfway through the box-making task, the box starts to transform after seeing that it's about to become a very useful member of society. Almost 98 percent of the boxes Jim works with go on to achieve self-actualization, which for a box is pretty hard to do. Their new owners are so impressed with them that as many as 79 percent of them are stored away in a dark, cool, dry space, awaiting the day they may be called into service again. Perhaps future archaeologists will examine these boxes and try to reconstruct what they might have held.

Outer box (although, at this point, I didn't know there was an inner box) awaits opening.

Inner box says "Open other side." You bet I will!

It's a wonderful, if somewhat humbling thing, to receive an airgun packed by Jim Grossman. On the other hand, if you're expected to return the gun to Jim, and there's no documented instance where this has ever happened before now, then it's downright scary. You feel exactly like a private pilot student at the moment their first solo flight begins. As you unpack the box, you feel like, "Oh, my gosh! The wheels just left the ground! I'm now flying. There's nothing I can do except land the airplane by myself, because I'm the only one in this cockpit!"

As each braced part of the gun is removed from its carefully fitted cushioned cutout and you see that is is actually cross-braced in its center on both sides and on the bottom, as well, you feel like you'll never be able to remember where everything goes. "Let's see, the head bone is connected to the...to the....Oh my gosh, Spock! I don't remember how it goes!"

Inside the second inner box that was braced inside the outer first box and annotated on the outside to instruct me which side I should open, I discovered a letter. Letters in airgun boxes are a lot like socks at Christmas. Yes, you'll eventually get to them; and yes, you probably need them--but they shouldn't get in the way of your fun! However, after carefully deconstructing this double-boxed bank vault to this point, I was hardly going to ignore a set of instructions from the maker! They might begin with, "If the large part begins to tick when you lift it from the foam, quickly retire from the room and seek shelter."

Flip side of inner box says "Open this side." We're getting closer!

Inside the inner box, a letter laid on top of everything. I read it first. Each part has a form-fitted compartment in the dense foam, with shims and cushions on all sides. The stock screws are pressed into the foam and taped in place. Large parts, such as the stock, are inside sacks made from nylons (kinky) to prevent rubbing from the padding. I'm sure there's a radiological dosimeter in here; I just didn't find it.

Thankfully, it wasn't anything like that. It provided the background of the gun, which I will slip into the report as I feel you need it.

Yes, this is an airgun blog, and, no, I'm not just wasting your time. We've got the Michaelangelo of airgun packers here, and it's worth turning aside for a moment to appreciate a masterpiece. Now, drink your coffee, and I'll get on with the report!

Relum Supertornado is an odd-looking underlever.

The Relum Supertornado is a spring-piston underlever that loads through a tap. It was made in Hungary at a time before the fall of the Iron Curtain. So, it has a lot of Communist in it and looks a bit crude. It probably works like a champ--kind of like that Mosin Nagant rifle that seems to set me off whenever anybody criticizes it.

The overall form of the rifle is boxy and a bit on the cobby side. Things that would be neatly tucked away in other air rifles stick out on the Supertornado. The angles of the stock and the triggerguard are too sharp, and the forearm feels just like a two-by-four. The beechwood stock is stained an uneven, muddy dark brown. The metal parts are evenly covered with black oxide over a surface that's about on par with what China was putting out in the 1990s.

It sounds like I'm setting you up for a poor report, but that's not my intention. From what Jim has told me, I sense that there's a silk purse inside this hog's ear. Jim made some repairs and modifications to the rifle, so let's look at those.

The trigger housing was welded onto the spring tube on a slight cant, which caused the trigger bar to contact the sear on an angle. Eventually, it let go, and Jim was the lucky owner when it happened. He tried to source a replacement, but Relums aren't exactly mainstream, so he wound up having a machinist make the part by examining the broken pieces and the hole it left in the trigger housing. What had been a stamped steel part is now machined from solid stock and should prove many times stronger and more reliable.

Silver part at the top of the trigger housing is the part made to replace the trigger bar. Silver at the bottom is a piece of feeler gauge cut to fit the trigger and held in place with JB Weld. The pivot pin hole broke out of the trigger, but the hard feeler gauge provides a new place for the hole to be drilled.
When he assembled the trigger again, he broke out a pivot hole on the sheetmetal trigger blade, but a piece of feeler gauge held on by JB Weld has fixed it. The trigger had an adjustment screw, but Jim opted to leave it out because it changed the depth of sear engagement. He felt that with all the trigger had been through, a little erring on the side of safety was appropriate.

The original front sight was a hooded post on a dovetailed base held fast with a setscrew. Jim replaced it with a Diana model 28 front sight that accepts inserts. He installed a clear aperture that would be found on a target rifle.

The rear sight was a crude but complex folded-metal unit that Jim replaced with a Beeman Sport aperture rear sight. He cleverly uses a rubber fender cushion washer as a disk to enlarge the small Beeman eyepiece for light reduction.

Rubber fender washer makes a nice light shield for the Beeman Sport Aperture sight.

That's all for today. Next time, I'll complete the tour and we'll get to know the rifle.

Peeping Tom - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Earlier this week, we discovered an unpublished two-part guest blog that Vince wrote...last March! He's been busy with personal things and hopes to get back to this blog some time soon. This guest blog has all the neat things we've come to expect from Vince's handiwork of fixing and working on vintage airguns.

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.

Peeping Tom - Part 1

by Vince

Well, I had to think of a catchy name for this one, and "Peeping Diana" or "Peeping Wayne" didn't quite cut it. And writing about "Peeping Wayne" might not have the, uh, best impact on the poor man's reputation. So, since this is Tom's blog, this is my title and I'm sticking with it.

OK. Enough filler. Wayne likes peeping... er, I mean peep sights. So, naturally, he wanted a peep mounted on a gun that has absolutely no provision for it whatsoever. And on a gun that has some gen-u-wine collector's value, a prewar Diana 27, which means that I can't (well, don't want to) do anything that can't be easily undone and leave the gun relatively unscathed.

When Wayne first asked me about mounting a peep on this thing, I automatically thought of copying Diana's later method of putting a scope rail on a gun, which would then give us something to mount the peep sight to. I'd get a rail and fasten it to the top of the tube with small machine screws, grind down the protruding threads on the inside, and be done with it. But a PRE-WAR Diana? Naaaahhhhhh....I briefly kicked around the idea of soldering a rail onto it, but that would have required buffing the top of the tube clean, thus removing any finish that remained. Even though that's not as invasive as drilling holes in the tube, I still didn't like that idea, so out it went.

The next idea was to glue on the scope rail on. After all, we used to use Goop (or something similar) to secure the laughably mounted rails on the old B4-2 series Chinese underlever, and this 27 is probably in the same general power range. But on the Chinese rifle, the glue served merely to keep the rail from shifting from side to side; on this gun, it would be expected to do all the work of holding it on. This idea fell further out of favor when I thought about the glue possibly damaging the remainder of the finish if the rail was ever removed.

Finally, I concluded that the best idea might be an adapter that wraps around the tube like a hose clamp. I could go really simple and have the peep sight base clamp actually hold the whole thing together, and there's no way it oughta come apart during use. This is what I'm figuring on when Wayne's gun shows up.

Wayne warned me that it was gonna be a bit rough, and he was right. Mechanically, it was pretty good. Apparently, it had been overhauled shortly before he got it, but the finish is almost non-existent on the tube. No matter. First, I've got to figure out if my idea is even gonna work. I'll need some space along the tube near the rear where I can position the strap, so I pop the action out of the stock.

Perfect spot for positioning the strap.

Bingo! I've got just about 1" behind the cocking slot to work with.

Essentially, I'm going to be making a very short strap-on dovetail mount. The first thing I did was make the actual dovetail pieces. The old table saw I got from my dad allows me to angle the blade at 60 deg. from horizontal, which matches the angle on the Mendoza peep sight clamp.

This saw is older than me, but not older than Tom or Wayne. 'Nuff said.

I cut some .75"x.1" bar stock at the required angle. I ground the plating from what will be the bottom side of the end piece and cut it to a length of about .22".

The angle is cut.

The bottom side plating is ground off.

And the piece cut off.

I repeated the above steps, and now I've got the two halves of my mount.

Short for a dovetail mount, but it'll work.

Like it was made for it! Well, actually, it was.

And they fit very nicely into the Mendoza peep.

Next step is to make the strap that's going to hold the whole thing together. At first, I was going to make it out of brass, but I decided against that for two reasons. First, because that would force me to solder the end pieces onto it instead of brazing them, and I wasn't sure that soldering would be as strong as I wanted. Second, I didn't have any brass, and the one store I checked didn't have any either. Instead, Wayne is getting his adapter made from the highest grade of coffee can stock.

I figure on making the strap .75" wide to match the dovetail length, so I dug out a coffee can and started cutting.

I couldn't use a decaf can, it wouldn't be strong enough!

Turns out that the .010" thickness of the coffee can works out about perfect. I wrapped the metal strip around the action and popped it back into the stock.

Test-fitting the strap.

The metal is snug without unduly impacting the fit between the stock and the action. Which is, of course, just what I wanted. Now, I can proceed as planned.

The metal strap with one of the end pieces.

I used part of a tri-square to make sure I positioned the end piece perpendicular to the strap and used a small (Chinese knockoff) vise-grip to clamp it in place.

Chinese vise-grips, Chinese tri-square, nothing but the cheapest!

The end piece is brazed on, I did some careful measuring and marking (the details of which I will spare you), cut the strap and brazed the second piece in place. Wrapping it around the tube again shows that I seem to have measured and cut pretty accurately, and (I think!) it's good to go!

Looks pretty much like what I had in mind all along.

It's a bit of a hassle, but I finally got the whole thing wrapped around the tube AND the sight clamped over it. The base clamp on the sight pulls the end pieces together and tightens the strap just as I had planned.

Yep, it fits like a glove.

Since this is steel, I've still got some concerns about damaging the gun, so I take it apart and put a layer of cellophane tape on the inside of the strap where it contacts the surface of the gun.

Cellophane tape is very thin--less than .002"--so it won't interfere with the fit.

I remount the adapter with the sight and reassemble the gun.

The mount works just as it should!

After cleaning up the outside of the strap with my cheap Dremel knock-off, I noticed something unexpected. After brazing, the strap metal took on a yellowish patina that doesn't look terribly out of place on the aged finish of the rest of the gun. The photograph shows a bit more contrast than is apparent to the naked eye, and it might stand out more if I blacken it. So, I'm leaving it as is.

Wayne's old 27 now has a rear peep sight mounted. Of course, the stock front sight is so low that it'd shoot about a yard high at 10 yards if I tried using it with the relatively high peep. So, I've gotta do something about the front. And I've gotta do it with old toilet paper tubes, broken shoe laces, used gum wrappers and anything else I've got laying around...because I'm cheap and don't like spending Wayne's money!

Haenel 310 - Parts 2 & 3

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Parts 1 & 2

That's right, Parts 2 and 3. I reserve the right to go back and revisit velocity, though I'm going to focus on the accuracy of the Haenel 310. I also want to add a little more background on the rifle.

Haenel 310 is an upscale BB gun that shoots lead balls. It's also a rifle.

It's a rifle!
You don't expect airguns that shoot round balls to be rifled--at least I don't. And there is the precedent of at least two smoothbore guns that are incredibly accurate. The Daisy 499B, which is now called the Avanti Champion, is a single-shot BB gun that has a smooth bore. What keeps the BB on track is the precision of the bore, plus the fact that 5 meters or 16.4 feet is about the greatest distance this gun is expected to perform. While the 499's bore is a simple piece of tube, it is very precisely sized inside, and, when coupled with Daisy's number 515 precision ground steel shot, it provides all the guidance the shot requires for extremely careful shooting. In international competition, the 499 in the hands of a champion can keep all of its shots on an aspirin at the given range.

The other super-accurate gun most airgunners know about is the Diana model 30 arcade gun. Its accuracy is due to both a precise barrel and ammunition that is even more precise than Daisy's 515 shot. Apparently, the Diana shoots balls that are as good as ball bearings. I have heard tales of this gun being as accurate as the 499, which is to say nearly flawless.

Diana model 30 gallery gun was used in public shooting galleries in Europe. There are two shot counters on the left side--one for the lifetime total count and the other for the gallery operator. Accurate gun and also a smoothbore.

There are other ball-shooters that are rifled, but I don't want to turn this into a huge history lesson. However, to complete the circle, the Czech Vz 35 and Vz 47 are both rifled and both shoot 4.4mm balls. They're accurate, as well, though not quite up to the 499.

Having said that, I've thrown down the gauntlet for the 310. We know what a 499 can do, and I know that the Czech rifles will group about half an inch at 5 meters. So, the question is, where does the 310 fit? There's only one way to find out.

The acid test!
This one is a toughie for me because I do it offhand. I'm not a good offhand rifle shot, and this light little rifle waves back and forth like amber waves of grain as I try to maintain my balance. Actually, more like a hippo on a pogo stick.

What I'm about to show you isn't the best test of just the rifle by itself. There is a lot of me on these targets, too.

A good group for me, but not quite as good as a 499 at the same distance.

Another good group.

Modesty demands that I also show this group to you. It is as representative as the first two targets of how well I shot.

So, the 310 is about as good as the two Czech rifles, but not quite up to the Daisy 499. That's still pretty impressive, and I don't think anyone would be dissatisfied with this rifle.

Velocity
I wanted to check velocity again, now that the piston seal had a week to absorb the oil and distribute it. Also, I shot the rifle many times in the accuracy test, so things should be well-mixed in the compression chamber by this time.

This recovered ball is almost a perfect hemisphere, so we should be able to apply splatology to learn how fast it was going when it hit the backstop.

Remember splatology? It's the science of determining how fast a lead ball is traveling when it hits a steel plate by examining the deformation. I did a report on it back in September. If you try to read this ball, it looks like it was traveling 250-275 f.p.s. when it hit the backstop. A couple things to take into account are the backstop in the bullet trap is on a slant, so it robs the ball of some energy when it hits, and also the fact that the ball had to travel 16.4 feet plus go through target paper before it hit. That's going to subtract a little more of the velocity. Let's see what the chronograph says.

Well, surprise, surprise! The balls were averaging 250 f.p.s. at the muzzle. That's egg on my pompous face from three different directions. First, the fact that spatology predicted the terminal velocity EXACTLY, and I didn't have to temporize with all the reasons it might not.

Second, the piston seal was dry after all and the velocity did increase after oiling. Initially the balls were going only about 200 f.p.s., until I oiled the piston seal and let it sit for half an hour. Then, the velocity jumped up to 250. So much for what I think I know about the frequency of oiling airguns!

And finally, you may not remember, but in Parts 1 & 2, I said, "And a certain sized sphere made of pure lead tends to be pretty much the same from brand to brand." Well, they aren't! The balls I had not yet tested were the ones that shot in the 250s or the 280s after oiling. But the bulk balls I used in the velocity test generated an average of 355 f.p.s.--very close to what they did in Parts 1 & 2 (351 f.p.s.).

We live and learn...
So, shut my mouth! You do have to oil the leather piston seal before shooting every time, and round lead balls are not all the same and splatology does work exactly as we said.

It's a lotta fun, this little gun. If you ever had a notion you wanted to shoot accurately in a short space, a Haenel 310 might be the gun for you. And for you apartment dwellers, I'm reminded of the u-boat captain who was found with a Haenel model 2 pistol in his cabin on board a captured submarine. I doubt your efficiency flat is any smaller than than a cabin on a sub.

SAM 10-meter target pistol - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

I've begun familiarizing myself with the SAM 10.

Before I begin, thank you for all your suggestions about my failure with the Massimo yesterday. I think Kevin came closest when he said I was too rushed. I'm sure it sounded like that in my writing. And I felt rushed. But I also was stumped about the results I got, and you guys have given me plenty of things to think about. Now, on to today's report.

In the time since the last report, I've been adjusting and shooting my new SAM 10. I loaded most of the mandatory 500-gram trigger-pull weight into the first stage of the trigger, so stage two breaks with about an additional 50 grams or so. The rear sight notch had to be widened a bit, so I could see some daylight on either side of the front post. That helped me pick up exactly where the front sight is against the bull. And I've dry-fired the gun several hundred times. I also shot 20 pellets at an actual 10-meter target, and the results weren't too pretty, I can tell you.

I'm currently testing pellets to discover the most accurate style and size. But that's not what today is about. Today, we'll see what kind of velocity the pistol has.

Filling the gun
The SAM 10 came with two air tanks that screw into the front of the receiver. They had to be filled, so I attached the adapter to a Hill pump and started pumping. The SAM can take a fill of 300 bar, but the first fill was only to 200 bar (2900 psi). That should be good for around 100 shots because 300 bar gets you about 220 shots.

Funny story about filling 10-meter tanks--and this also applies to target rifle tanks. The tanks do not contain the firing valve. All they have is a retention valve, so they can be removed from the gun at any time. When they're screwed into the gun or into the fill adapter, a valve stem at the end of the tank is opened mechanically and the tank can be filled. That's important to know, because it determines how you connect to the scuba tank or pump. When connecting, the bleed screw MUST be closed; as the tank is screwed home, the valve opens and the tank exhausts air. That air will be contained in the hose and base of the pump unless you leave the bleed screw open--which I did, the first time I filled a tank. Before I could react, the tank emptied itself. Because I was using the pump to fill the tank, the lesson was ingrained in my consciousness on the first try.

Vogel target pellets
Vogel pellets have an interesting history. They used to be made in Germany, but Scott Pilkington brought the brand to the United States and now makes the pellets in Monteagle, Tennessee. Vogels have won top honors in World Cup competition in the past, and I took the opportunity of Scott being at the Roanoke airgun show this year to buy a tin for evaluation. I bought the pellets with a 4.50mm diameter head. They weigh 8.1 grains.

Vogels averaged 450 f.p.s. with a spread from 444 to 460. Fourteen feet per second seems a bit high for a regulated gun, but that may not have any affect on accuracy.

RWS R10 pellets
RWS R10 8.2-grain pellets averaged 453 f.p.s., with a spread from 442 to 462. Now, 20 f.p.s. is a very large velocity spread for a regulated gun. It won't affect accuracy at 10 meters, but I'd still like to see a lower number. The head size is 4.50mm.

JSB Match S100
JSB Match S100 pellets were next. This is a JSB pellet that Pyramyd Air used to stock and may still do so, but they're out as of this time. They weigh 8.2 grains and averaged 462 f.p.s., with a spread from 457 to 470. That's a little tighter, but still not what I expected from this gun. This pellet has a 4.52mm head size and may perform differently in the gun.

H&N Finale Match
The next pellet I shot was an H&N Finale Match. This was the light one, at 7.6 grains weight. they averaged 484 f.p.s. with a tight spread from 479 to 487. These are a 4.50mm head size.

Adjustable power
You may recall that one of the many adjustments this pistol has is for velocity. To access the adjustment you must first remove the grips. The adjustment screw is located at the rear of the receiver. Screw in for more velocity and out for less. For this evaluation, I decided to use the H&N Match pellets, because at present they are shooting fastest in the pistol.

The adjustment screw for power/velocity is at the back of the receiver. The grips must come off to get to it.

With one complete turn in on the power screw, the velocity increased to 505 f.p.s. Another full turn did not advance it at all. That was also the limit the screw could be turned in. So, 505 is the top speed with this particular pellet. Two complete turns in the other direction took me back to the start, and the speed was 482 f.p.s. That's close enough to the average to be right on. One turn to the negative, and the speed dropped to 469. One more turn, and the speed dropped to 411. The gun didn't sound as though it liked that speed very much. It just sounded hollow and a bit flat. Hard to describe, but if you had been in the room you would have heard it. Two turns back to the start, and the speed was 486 f.p.s. So, once again, right on.

Performance with the spare tank
What the heck...I decided to install the spare tank--the one without the manometer-- and see if the velocity was still in the same range. I couldn't, though, because there was no air in the tank. It had bled down entirely from a 200-bar fill the week before. The tank should hold a full charge indefinitely, so this one has to go in for repairs. In the U.S., Scott Pilkington at pilkguns.com is the best 10-meter repair station around. Scott travels with the U.S. Olympic team and services their airguns at every Olympics. I would trust him to do anything on my gun.

Where are we?
Well, I now know a lot more about the pistol than I did. And I've adjusted it pretty close to how I want it, though there's still some grip work to be done. Now, I have to learn how to shoot 10-meter all over again. Fortunately, there are a couple of instructional tutorials on the internet that I can follow :-)

Norica Massimo - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2

Let's test the accuracy of the Norica Massimo.

Today, I'll scope the Massimo to see how accurate it is. I promised to test the open sights first, so that's what I'll do.

The open sights are fiberoptic, so they don't have any precision; but where I shot was dark enough that the front rod did not glow. So, all I saw was a black bead, like a post-and-bead sight. I held the front bead in the center of a 10-meter pistol target placed out at 25 yards and shot some groups.

Crosman Premiers
Crosman Premier 7.9-grain pellets were the first that I tried with open sights. Surprisingly I got the best group I was to get all day, with 10 shots going into a group measuring 1.255" between the centers of the two widest shots. I know that sounds like a large group, but look at it for a moment. It's round which means even distribution, and it contains seven shots that are about one-third the overall group size. Remember, too, that I was shooting with a bead sight, which is not high precision. This group tells me the Massimo wants to be accurate.

Crosman Premier lites grouped 10 in 1.255" at 25 yards.

JSB Exact
The first group was very encouraging, given the imprecision of the post and bead sights, so I selected JSB Exact 8.4-grain pellets next. Ten of them gave me a group measuring 1.4". Very close to what the Premiers had done and, again, there was the lack of sighting precision to consider. Again, the group was distributed in a fairly round pattern, indicating a tendency for greater accuracy if the aiming precision was increased.

JSB Exacts went into this group measuring 1.4" c-t-c. Like the Premiers, this group shows some promise.

And then IT happened!
Satisfied with the groups shot with open sights, I mounted a nice four-power scope and proceeded to screw up what had been a good day up to that point. I will show you what I saw after 10 shots with JSB Exacts that I know can shoot because they just did with open sights.

WHAAAT??? This is a 10-shot group of 8.4-grain JSB Exacts shot with the aid of--or perhaps I should say the hinderance of--a 4x scope. Only nine pellets actually seem to have hit the paper.

Well, that wasn't what I expected at all. Normally, I suspect something other than the scope when this happens, but in this case I knew it was the scope and I knew what was wrong. This is one of those scopes that has the base built into the scope. While that sounds like a good idea it isn't. When there's lots of barrel droop for which to compensate, as there seems to be with the Massimo, you can't compensate if the base and scope tube are made from a single casting. There's no way to shim or adjust the scope other than its internal adjustments. And when you run the elevation all the way to the top, the erector tube inside starts floating on top of its return spring. That's where all that lateral dispersion comes from.

When somebody else tells me their tale of woe about a scope that won't hold zero, I tell them to take it off the gun and use the open sights. But I had just done that, so I already knew the rifle could shoot. So, thinking I had found the problem, I changed scopes.

And then IT got worse!
I now felt jammed for time, because I was still testing the rifle after several hours had passed and wasn't done shooting--to say nothing about writing my report. So, after mounting a new scope, I decided to skip one step in my zeroing procedure.

You know my 10-minute zero procedure? If not you can read about it here. The step I skipped was the first one, which consists of establishing exactly where the scope is shooting after you have mounted it. In fact, I skipped ALL the steps after that one, too. Instead, I fast-forwarded ahead to the final step, where you just shoot the gun at the target 25 yards away and hope that the scope is aligned close enough to get you on paper.

Remember a few years ago I shot my couch? That was the fault of the gun. This time the fault was all mine as the pellet impacted the aluminum lip of the open window I was shooting through.

Remember the word I gave you to substitute for the word "accident"? That word was "stupident," and this qualifies as a big one. I decided to confess to Edith, who would have read about it here anyway, as she is my editor. The window still closes and the lip can be fixed with a little hammering and some paint. It's not unlike the hole I shot in my office ceiling a few years ago when the trigger of my BSF 55N let go without warning. Spackle fixed that one. Too bad they don't make spackle for couches.

Back on track
I finally got the new scope zeroed, and you know what? Steps one through four of my 10-minute sight-in procedure are important after all.

But nothing is as good...
And that's when the day became utterly confusing. Because the scoped gun was not as accurate as the same gun with open sights.

The scoped rifle shot this 10-shot group of Premiers. It measures 2.455" c-t-c. That's more than one inch larger than the same pellet shot with open sights.

Ten JSBs went into this group that measures 2.119" c-t-c. That's only a little better than the Premiers but still worse than the same pellet did when shot with open sights.

At this point, I had to back away from the test. I couldn't make any sense from the results. The hold can't be in question because I held the rifle the same way during the open-sight tests. The scope now seems to be working, although it certainly isn't as good as open sights.

Some days the bear gets you, and I've run out of ideas for this Massimo test. I believe the rifle is not only accurate but even a very good shooter. I know that if I try other pellets I may find a better one, but can anyone tell me why a rifle would shoot more accurately with a post-and-bead open sight than with an 8x scope? Am I having gross parallax issues (this scope has no parallax adjustment)?

I never even tried the Norica pellets that came packed with this rifle. Obviously there is more to do with the Massimo, but before I do it I want to figure the thing out.

Help!

Blue Wonder cold blue - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

The first report on the Blue Wonder cold bluing system sparked a nice discussion of cold blues in general. It was fun to read all the accounts of experiments with various cold bluing solutions. And, at the end of that report I promised you that I would return with more examples of what Blue Wonder can do. Today, we'll see what else I was able to do with this stuff.

I tried to make the point in the first report that I'm not a good craftsman. I rush jobs, and I sometimes don't follow all the directions to the letter. In the case of Blue Wonder, I did try to make an exception, but some of you felt I shouldn't have used acetone as a degreaser before applying the blue. Still, I did it and the results stand.

Two different projects--let's start with the first one
For today's report I have two very different bluing projects. The first is a spot-blue job on an old rifle that is otherwise 98 percent blued. I own a nice little Remington Model 24 semiauto that I bought for $175 in a local gun store. The gun had been stored in a place where it was in contact with something hygroscopic that wicked moisture out of the air. According to the gun store salesman, the former owner had stored the rifle in a gun safe, so I will assume the safe has notched holders that are lined with open-celled foam. It's a common story.

The barrel had rusted more than a little where it touched the foam. The former owner had removed all the rust, but the bluing went with it. The barrel has two large, unsightly areas of shiny metal surrounded by good, even bluing. The job is to cover those spots and bring them to the same deep blue as the area around them.

When the rust was removed from the barrel of this Remington model 24, the blue came with it.

The fix covered the shiny spots, but doesn't blend into the rest of the rifle yet. Area coverage doesn't work for spot jobs.

Oops!
For this job, I tried something that I don't recommend. On the BB gun job I did in Part 1, it appeared that the blue blended in with the blue that was already on the gun so you can't tell where I worked. I had hoped that would also happen on this rifle, so I spread the blue solution much farther than just on the bright spots. That turned out to be a mistake, because the Blue Wonder mixed with the blue on the gun and darkened it. I would recommend using a cotton swab for a job like this and try to stay inside the spot.

To fix the job that now looks better than before but not yet good, I can try to blend the area in with the rest of the gun by carefully applying more solution at the edges of the patched part. Or I can try to remove the Blue Wonder with 0000 steel wool and start over. Or I suppose I could just darken the whole rifle to a much deeper shade. The value will not be affected no matter which course I take because the original two bright spots lowered the value of a $400 rifle to about $175. No amount of careful restoration can change that. But it's always nice to have a smart-looking rifle, so I'll try to fix it.

On to job No. 2
The second job is much larger. It involves bluing a brand new rifle barrel. A friend rebarreled an old .22 rimfire of mine with a .17 HM2 bull barrel he bought on eBay. He actually bought three barrels at the same time, and the first rifle he built for himself is a real tackdriver. He has managed a sub-0.20" group at 50 yards and I have managed a 0.21" group at the same distance. We both hope the barrel on my rifle will be as accurate.

The new barrel has no finish yet.

The barrel was polished fairly well when installed. I didn't have to do a thing.

New barrel has a target crown.

Heating the whole barrel was a chore. I'm sure I didn't get it as hot as it should have been, but it was warm to the touch when I went to work.

Once again, I used acetone to degrease the barrel and once again it seemed to work fine. As the blue went on, the barrel started out very splotchy and uneven. Some parts were still silver while others were getting black. But I kept on applying more and more bluing liquid, always remembering to shake the bottle before each application.

The front sight was a chore to get around, so I brought out the cotton swabs, which worked fine. The liquid really has to be forced into the corners to work evenly.

Have faith in the directions
The instructions say to use between 5 and 15 coats of bluing solution. I'm sure I used at least 15 this time. After the overall finish was dark, the metal started turning dull as the application dried, just like the other cold blues will do. But I had faith in the directions and stuck with it. Finally, I came to the point that no more uneveness could be seen. When that happened, I stopped applying the blue. I let it stand for a minute, then I wiped down the barrel and applied the developer. I let it develop for a full three hours before wiping off the remaining developer.

This job turned out great. It's not perfect--there are a couple of uneven spots, but I can always come back and apply more blue later. The barrel looks like it has received a professional blue.

It's difficult to see how deep and even this barrel blue is, but take my word for it--this is the best cold blue job I have ever seen.

Here's a closeup, but it's still difficult to see the depth and eveness of this blue job.

Even the muzzle got blued.

For a product to work this well in my hands, it must be as dummy-proof as it can be. I don't know how well it will hold up, but Blue Wonder is the best cold bluing system to apply that I have ever seen or used. I may report on it again, as I have a couple other dogs that could stand a refinish.

Haenel 310 - Parts 1 & 2

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

First things, first. Two days ago, I showed you a teaser photo of the new PCP from Pyramyd Air. I said it is a derivation of the Benjamin Discovery, and in fact I was shown an early prototype of this rifle very early this year when the American Airgunner TV show visited the Crosman factory. At that time, they were toying with the idea of an upgraded Discovery, but since then the marketing plan changed.

The new rifle is called the Katana--named by Josh Ungier, for whom it was ultimately built. Actually, that name is attached to the blurred photo we teased you with on Wednesday. Paul Capello caught it, and I wonder how many others did without saying?

Follow this link to the Katana page. As soon as I get one, I'll review it for you. The low price puts the new rifle in a very good position among the new crop of high-value PCP rifles.

Now, on to today's blog report. Yes, this really is both Parts 1 and 2. I'm doing this because this is Friday and I like you to have something you can chew on for the weekend.

Haenel 310 is a bolt-action round ball rifle.

The Haenel 310 is a curious airgun. It shoots 4.4mm round lead balls instead of BBs or pellets. Before you get your knickers in a knot, 4.4mm lead balls are easy to get. Just contact John Groenewold. He sells them by the pound. He hides them on his website under "Shootable Ammo" and further under "JG Ammo," but here's a link to the exact page. Just buy 5 lbs., and you'll wind up with a lifetime supply. You can use them in a variety of other airguns and BB guns, so it's a long-term investment. I figure that if you're going to shoot a Haenel 310, you're going to be involved with a lot of oddball airguns in your life.

I reported on this model back in February 2007. That gun was different than the one I'm looking at now, but the layout is identical.

Haenel was a German company that wound up in East Germany after the war; and, when the Iron Curtain dropped in 1989, tons of airguns came out of there. A pawnshop located in South Carolina bought several containers of surplus stuff in the mid-1990s from the East German secret police (Stasi), among which were several thousand airguns. Most of them were Haenel 310, 311 and 312 models. The pawnshop contacted us at The Airgun Letter, and we helped put the word out about these guns. We bought several, as did many of our subscribers.

One person who bought many of these 310s was my good friend Earl McDonald. Over the years, Mac gave some away and traded others until he was down to his last example, which he took to the 2009 Roanoke Airgun Expo to sell. Several times people had the rifle in their hands but always they laid it back down again. The rifle was still with us at the end of the show, when Mac gave it to me to test for you.

Mac kept this one because it was the best one he saw out of those he received. It's a far better example than I ever saw from this source, so I'd agree that he got lucky in the surplus lottery.

The 310 is a spring-piston rifle that cocks via an articulated bolt. By articulated, I mean that it's hinged to stick out to the right side of the "receiver" when at rest, but it flips up to become part of a longer cocking lever. You pull it straight back to cock the rifle, but what really happens is the lever pivots at its base, inside that triangular metal cover under the stock. At the top it pulls the piston straight back against a powerful mainspring. It's not an easy rifle to cock, taking 29 lbs. of force according to my scale. While that doesn't sound too bad, you're doing is with just your hand instead of your entire arm. Adult men will find it difficult to cock. Most younger teenagers may be challenged.

When the bolt is down like this, the rifle looks conventional.

Flip the bolt up like this to make a handy cocking lever.

The bottom of the bolt is anchored deep under the stock in this triangular metal cover. When you pull the bolt back, it rocks in this fulcrum.

The rifle is 40.25 inches long with a fixed 14.25-inch rifled barrel. The length of pull measures 13.5 inches long, so a larger-youth-to-adult size, but trust me-- smaller kids aren't going to be able to cock this one very easily. This one weighs 5.75 lbs. That's 4 oz. less than the other one I tested, which could be the weight of the wood. Since I now use a balance beam scale to weigh guns, I'm inclined to think it's due to the better accuracy of the scale.

The rear sight adjusts for elevation, only.

The front sight is a simple barleycorn covered with a globe. It can be adjusted sideways in a dovetail.

It's a repeater!
While the triangular metal cover under the stock looks like a magazine but is not, there's a tiny magazine located under the stock directly under the rear sight. The normal removable magazine holds 6 balls, but there are also 12-shot magazines around. I used to own one. They're not as reliable as the 6-shot mags.

The 6-shot magazine is another engineering marvel. Just press down the lead balls from the top.

Prior to starting
First thing--I oiled the piston seal. I believe it's leather, which is consistent with the time and place of the gun's manufacture. And, once it's oiled, it responds in the same way as other oiled leather seals. I put 10 drops of Crosman Pellgunoil down the muzzle of the rifle and stood it on its butt for 30 minutes. Then, I worked the piston back and forth with the cocking lever and a slurping sound came out of the muzzle, which is what leather seals do when they're absorbing oil. Thirty minutes after that, I loaded the 6-shot magazine and shot the first rounds--being careful of the carpet because I knew oil droplets would be coming out of the muzzle. Kind of like a sneeze.

The oiling was to refresh the leather seal, of course, and also to get it ready for velocity testing. Leather seals tend to last a very long time and keeping them oiled is one thing that helps preserve them. Just use a good petroleum oil. Pellgunoil is made from 20-weight non-detergent motor oil and works fine.

Talk about quiet!
Apartment dwellers and others who are concerned about sound, the Haenel 310 was made for you! This little rifle makes a Benjamin Marauder sound loud. One of these coupled with the Air Venturi Quiet Pellet Trap, and you're rigged for silent running! And it's the perfect scale (velocity, range of accurate shooting) for indoors. What a wonderful house gun it makes. As for critters, it might take a small mouse or perhaps a bad insect, but don't even think of it for general hunting.

Velocity
Okay, not a lot of different 4.4mm lead balls to check. And a certain-sized sphere made of pure lead tends to be pretty much the same from brand to brand. Mac gave me a container of lead balls that I assume came from John Groenewold, so that's what I used for this test. The average was 345 f.p.s., but one low shot of 303 brought that number down. Without it, the average was 351 f.p.s., with a spread from 325 to 362.

The other 310 I tested in 2007 averaged slightly over 400 f.p.s., so this one is obviously a little slower. That happens with spring guns.

While all lead balls of the same size and purity may weigh the same, they aren't necessarily all uniformly round. I had one jam while firing--something that's never happened to me with this model before this test. So, using good undamaged ammo is a real plus.

Of course a 4.4mm lead ball weighs more (7.6 grains) than a 4.3mm steel ball (5.1 grains), so this rifle is a little more powerful than the average Red Ryder. It should also be a lot more accurate, but we'll look at that in Part 3.

Healthways Plainsman BB gun - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

A short announcement before we start. Airgun Arena is an alternate chat place that now has eMatches (postal matches). Click here to read more about them and to participate.

Part 1

Well, I'm back to the Plainsman today, and we're going to look at velocity. I have to tell you--I was surprised by what you're about to see.

But first, don't mistake the Healthways Plainsman that I am testing for the Challenger Plainsman--another CO2 pellet gun. The Challenger is much scarcer and commands a higher price.

Challenger Plainsman is a completely different airgun.

Remember that the pistol I'm testing still has a fast leak, so I can't test total shot count. And I have to be sensitive to when the velocity drops off during a string. That said, though, I believe I got good test figures--and what figures they are!

Healthways Plainsman is a very comfortable air pistol. It has a light, smooth trigger.

Low power
I started with the lowest power setting. I figured the gun would be down in the 200s, with the promised shot count of 100 on this power setting. The Czechoslovakian APP 661 is another semiautomatic BB pistol that gets lots of shots per CO2 cartridge. It gets over 200 per, but the velocity is down below 250 f.p.s. And the 661 uses some of the CO2 to cock itself as you shoot.

This Plainsman started out at 355 f.p.s., but after several shots to loosen the action, it averaged 385 f.p.s. The spread went from 381 to 388, but again I remind you that the gun is losing gas all the time. At 385 f.p.s., this is a brisk little BB pistol. And remember--this is all on the lowest power setting.

The safety is located on the left side of the grip.

Medium power
On some other airguns with adjustable power, the velocity often doesn't change significantly, so I was pleased to see the average on medium power was up to 415 f.p.s. The spread went from 410 to 419--a tight string! You drop to half the number of available shots when you go to medium, and I don't think it's enough of an increase to warrant the additional use of gas.

Firing behavior
As I shot the Plainsman, I remembered why I liked the gun so much as a kid. The trigger-pull is so smooth and light! It's long, but there's none of the stacking of effort as the blade comes back. You don't feel the hammer being cocked. Simply a smooth pull until the release.

High power
On high power, the average jumped to 437. The spread was 435 to 439, so it was very tight. I half-expected a higher velocity on high power because of the claims for penetration, but maybe that's all it takes to penetrate a coffee can. And maybe my pistol isn't performing up to par. I think I have to get this gun resealed.

On high power, the adjustment screw is all the way out. The detents are so distinctive that you will make no mistakes when selecting power.

Now, for something special
The Plainsman had another feature that was groundbreaking in its day and is still a pretty good idea. They offered a separate cap for the CO2 cartridges that allowed the use of longer 12-gram cartridges. I have seen one of these in a boxed Plainsman set over a decade ago, so I know they're out there. The set I saw had the cap inside the box, and words on the box told about it. I don't know if the cap was also available as a separate option for other Plainsman owners, but that's what I would think. Now that my interest in the pistols has been piqued, I'm going to look for this set.

With a different end cap, the Plainsman pistol can accept longer 12-gram CO2 cartridges.

Where can I get one?
I found two Plainsman pistols on Gun Broker and one on Auction Arms. One of the two on Gun Broker holds and shoots hard. It's boxed for $60, which probably isn't too bad. The boxed one on Auction Arms starts at $135 and the seller doesn't state whether it holds, so it's way too high in my opinion. If you want one, they do come up.

Something from nothing - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2

Before we begin today's report, I have an announcement. Actually, I'm announcing that on Friday there will be a special announcement about the rifle I have alluded to several times. Crosman is making an upgraded version of the Benjamin Discovery. It's highly exclusive and designed for Pyramyd Air. They'll be selling and distributing the rifle, too. I've seen it at Pyramyd Air, but I haven't tested it yet. On Friday, you'll be given the details about this new PCP. They should be in stock very soon, and I'm scheduled to get one as soon as it becomes available. I'll rush it into testing for you.

On Friday, everything will be clear.

Today's report started as something simple I could write while on the road, but it has evolved into something much greater. Writing it and thinking about what I'm saying has reminded me of things I had almost forgotten about dealing in guns. And last Saturday that knowledge came in extremely handy when I was in a favorite local gun store. By telling you the story, I can illustrate how research helps you as a collector.

The dealer doesn't know what he has
So, I'm in the store looking at the used long guns in a glass case when I spotted a Savage over-under rifle/shotgun combo gun. It's model 24, and the gun I'm referring to specifically is the model 24B-DL. It was listed on the tag as .22 LR over 20 gauge and was selling for $200.

This Savage was found in a gun store last Saturday.

The Savage 24B-DL is the deluxe version of the combo. It has upgraded features.

I've long wanted a Savage model 24, but at the gun shows they seem to ask $425 for good used ones. I have that much, but it just seems high to me. They come in many rifle calibers, and the shotguns are either .410, 20 gauge or 12 gauge. The most popular two calibers found in the model 24 are .22 long rifle over .410. From perusing Gunbroker.com, I know that Savage 24s most often sell for $375 to $425. Some of the rifle calibers, such as .357 Magnum, are considered extremely desirable and command much more money, but I thought that a .22 Magnum over a 20 gauge shotgun would be ideal for me.

Wrong caliber!
Well, they pulled this one out of the glass case, and, lo and behold, it was mislabeled! It was a .22 Magnum over 20 gauge--exactly what I wanted. And it was the deluxe model with checkered walnut stock and forearm and a nickelplated, engraved receiver! The barrels were coated with rust and grime but seemed to have pretty good bluing underneath. I knew steel wool and Ballistol would clean it right up, which they did.

Long story short, I bought that combo gun fast, because at $200 I reckoned it was undervalued by about half. Nothing I have discovered since then causes me to change that assessment.

Why was it so cheap? The rust, for starters. Many buyers could not look past it to see a great gun. Also, some former owner had attached an aftermarket recoil pad and his work looks about as good as mine, which is to say something from the early hobo movement. While not quite as primitive as rice-paddy chic, early hobo displays a blatant disregard for style, good work or coloring within the lines. I, however, was armed with the knowledge that I could easily source a replacement buttplate for very little, if I ever felt the need for style closure--which I never will. Again, my research paid off.

Here's the lesson to take away: If you study the airgun market and know what to look for, you'll be prepared to jump on a real bargain whenever it presents itself. Yes, you may be looking for a Diana model 27. If, instead, you stumble across a Hy Score model 807, you'll know that it's really a 27 and know what it should cost. And if, instead of the Hy Score 807, you encounter a Hy Score model 801, you'll also know that it's a superior model because you have read David Enoch's remarks about them on this blog. I guess the bottom line is this: knowledge is power.

Here's some more knowledge
This next point is one I have wanted to tell you about for a long time, but other things kept intruding. This may not sound like a big deal, but I have another story to illustrate just how important it is.

The dealer isn't interested in the same things as you
Dealers sell what they are familiar with and discount what they're not familiar with. That is the nugget I'm giving to you. What does it mean?

It means that I can go to my CO2 repair center and spot an FWB 124 standing in a rack of used guns with a tag on it for $35. Yes, that really happened to me. Oh, the gun was rusty and missing its sights and it was the standard model--not the deluxe. But still--$35 for what should have been a $200 air rifle AT LEAST! I bought it, took it apart, cleaned it, installed a Maccari seal and mainspring and a cheap scope and sold it for $250. I did so because I knew what I was doing. Of course, I had to find the rifle to begin with; and if you live in Port Radium, Canada, (or Hilo, Hawaii), you might not have the same opportunities as I do. But you're on the internet, right? Yesterday, I did a special search on Gunbroker.com. Instead of looking for guns by their model names I looked for them by their attributes.

Believe it or not, there are dealers who advertise things not by their model names but by their features. This eliminates from the list of potential buyers everyone who is looking for the item by its common name. Therein lies my second story.

I've wanted to buy a Sheridan Knocabout single-shot pistol for a couple of years. The name is not misspelled. Sheridan spelled it that way in the literature and on the gun. I have special alerts on all the popular gun auction sites set up to notify me when one of these guns goes up. And they work. I get notices almost every week of a gun for sale. Unfortunately, so does every other Sheridan collector. These pistols usually sell for over $300, despite existing in great numbers and not being that unique. I don't want to pay that much, so I always get outbid.

But yesterday I found where a dealer on Gunbroker had listed one as a Knocabout .22 cal. single-shot pistol. I found it by looking at all the single shots. He said in his description, "Not the type of gun I normally sell, so $9.99 start price and $15 shipping."

Oh, and did I mention that this is a boxed gun with all the paperwork and is in UNFIRED condition? So, it's worth WAY more than a typical Knocabout, and we now know about what they go for. Here was an opportunity to buy something and make a little money.

Now, the last thing I do on auction sites is announce my presence. I don't want the other bidders to get their panties in a knot and get into a bidding war with them over who is the most macho. I don't bid until the last possible moment. On Gunbroker, they have a thing called the "15-minute rule" that says if a bid is received within 15 minutes of the end of the auction, the bidding time is extended by 15 minutes from the time of that bid. My strategy is to figure the most I will pay for an item and bid that much 15 minutes before the end of the general auction. If there's a crowd of anxious bidders waiting until the end, this strategy doesn't work very well; but if the item is flying below the radar, as this one seemed to be, there's a chance I'll get it.

When I discovered the gun with over a day remaining in the auction, the bid was $155.99. As the bid time expired down to 15 minutes, the bid didn't change, so I was either watching it alone, or the other bidder was watching silently. I knew the pistol in this condition was worth well beyond $300, so I decided that that would be my cap. If I couldn't get it for that or less, the other bidder wanted it more than I did. However, my study of human nature has also taught me that internet auction bidders never bid in even amounts, so my top bid would be $309.99

And here's what happened
I was immediately out-bid by $5. So the other bidder wanted it more than me. His maximum bid was larger than mine and the aution software automatically advanced his next bid past mine. That's okay, too. There is a saying in the buying business, "You win some and you lose some, but you suit up for them all."

So, I didn't get the pistol, but I did get a nice combination gun on Saturday. I'll continue to look for that Knocabout and dozens of other things that are on my list. And the next time a good buy comes my way, I'll recognize it.

Norica Quick - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

For those who are following the podcast, the November issue went up this weekend.

Part 1
Part 2

Norica Quick is a big, robust-looking underlever.

Today, I'll look at the accuracy of our Norica Quick.

I mounted a Leapers 5th Gen. 1.25-4x24 long eye-relief scope on the Quick using BKL two-piece rings. Before we get to the accuracy part of this report, I want to say a word about this particular scope. It is extremely bright and even though it doesn't magnify more than 4 times, I found it quite easy to bisect the small bullseye at 25 yards with the crosshairs. This scope is parallax corrected for 100 yards, so I focused the eyepiece to make the target sharp, and that's what made the difference. This would be a wonderful hunting scope for a centerfire.

This is not a cheap scope, but it won't break the bank, either. It's just more expensive than you might expect for a lower-powered scope. The optics seem to be first-rate, because the image is especially bright. If you need a scope that can make sense of targets in the dawn and twilight times, this is it. This would be a wonderful hunting scope for a centerfire rifle, as long as the range was held to 150 yards or less.

The front sight appeared clearly in the scope when it was set on low power, so I removed it. Only two screws hold it on.

On to accuracy
The first pellet I tried was the RWS Meisterkugeln. During sight-in, they seemed to want to group, so I continued to test them for several 10-shot groups. I noted that the Quick is not very hold-sensitive. I used a standard artillery hold that seemed to work best of all with this rifle. When I tried some more sophisticated modifications of the artillery hold, the groups opened up.

Following sight-in, four Meisterkugeln grouped well at 25 yards, but one dropped away without explanation.

This is pretty representative of a 10-shot group of RWS Meisterkugeln at 25 yards.

The feel of the shot is quick (no pun intended) and sharp. The trigger is a bit stiff, but it breaks clean.

Gamo Match
Gamo Match pellets did not do well at all. They fit the breech very loose, like the Meisterkugeln before them.

Beeman Kodiak
Beeman Kodiak pellets fit the breech tighter than the first two pellets, and they had such a tight velocity spread in Part 2 that I thought they would be good candidates for accuracy.

Beeman Kodiaks were a disappointment. They acted like they wanted to group, but they spread out way too much.

At this point I wondered what I would tell you about the Quick. I could see good groups inside the 10-shots I was firing, but the rest of the shots opened things up too much. It was at this time that I remembered I had promised to shoot the Norica wadcutters for you.

Norica Wadcutters
Inside the Norica Massimo box was a tin of Norica wadcutter pellets. Some shooters believe that a pellet that bears the same name as the gun will be accurate, so I'll include them in future tests of Norica rifles.

These Norica wadcutters were packed with the Massimo rifle. I'm going to include them in all future Norica accuracy testing.

This 25-yard group of Norica wadcutters looks encouraging, except for those two wide shots. We're getting closer!

JSB Match Diabolo
Next I tried JSB Match Diabolo pellets. They sprayed all over the place, so I didn't record any groups.

JSB Exact domes
The last pellet I tried was JSB Exact 8.4-grain domes. They gave me the groups I was looking for.

JSB Exact domes gave good groups at 25 yards. No wide shots and no surprises. These are the best of the six pellets I tested.

I showed you more bad groups than normal to give you the sense of what I was seeing as this test unfolded. As you can see, it was worth it to continue the test until the JSB Exacts were discovered. This is what you must do sometimes when looking for a good pellet for your own air rifle.

Sticky trigger
In the final 30 shots the rifle's trigger began sticking in the second stage, which was somewhat disconcerting. However, the best group(s) of the day were fired with this happening, so it didn't disrupt a good test of the rifle. It feels like the sort of thing that will work through with time, so I wouldn't worry about it. I just wanted you to know.

The bottom line is that the Norica Quick is a large, powerful underlever spring rifle that has good, neutral shooting characteristics. The trigger is a bit stiff, but crisp enough to do very good work. If you want something different in a man-sized spring rifle, this may be it!

SAM 10-meter target pistol - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:52:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

I know I have a couple reports left to finish, and I'll get right on them. With the trip to Roanoke and the weekend, plus the end of the month all coming at the same time, I got jammed with a lot of other things. There were articles, videos (that will be up very soon) and a podcast to do, and I just didn't have the time to mount scopes and shoot for accuracy. Sorry, but it happens.

I thought I would take today and start looking at the new (to me) SAM (Swiss Arms Manufacture) 10-meter pistol I got at Roanoke. You can't even buy this exact model any longer, but it's quite similar to Steyr and Anschutz 10-meter pistols, plus SAM still makes 10-meter target pistols, so I hope it will satisfy the curiosity of those what want to see reports on those other guns. The current top SAM model is the K15.

SAM M10 target pistol is world class.

One great thing about this pistol is that its design is guided and influenced by Cesare Morini, the famous maker of the finest target pistol grips available. You're assured that the grips on this gun will be the very best. While I've tested a great many air pistols with Morini grips, this is the first pistol I've owned with them.

My pistol came to me with two air tanks--each of which is supposed to get 220 shots from a fill of air to 300 bar (4,350 psi). I'll fill to 200 bar and get about 100 shots. One tank has a manometer built into the end and the other does not, but this pistol has another fail-safe feature. There's a lock that engages whenever the air pressure drops below a minimum. When that happens, the breech cover that cocks the gun is locked and you cannot cock the pistol. However, you can manually hold the locking lever back out of the way and cock the pistol anyway, and the manual says there are still 20 good shots when the lock first engages. So, you shouldn't get caught short in a match. With this feature, a manometer isn't really needed.

This hook stays away from the cocking arm until the air pressure drops too low. Then it locks the cocking arm. At that point there are still 20 good shots left, but the hook has to be manually moved each time the gun is cocked.

I had shot this pistol many years before, when the owner first acquired it. At the time, I remarked that the trigger was the best I'd ever felt. Well, in the interim, Feinwerkbau has managed to get their P44 trigger working just as well, but nothing I've ever tested felt better than this one. And that includes a Morini electronic trigger.

It felt like it was breaking at 10 oz. or less on dry-fire; but when I put it on the RCBS trigger-pull scale, it measured 18 oz. The trouble is, that's too close for comfort. The last thing I want is to have to adjust my trigger in a match, so I bumped it up to 19 oz. Five hundred grams, which is the required minimum trigger-pull weight, is ~17.7 oz.

Adjustments
The trigger adjusts for location, first-stage travel, first-stage weight, second-stage weight and overtravel. I fiddled with it after adjusting the medium-sized Morini grip to suit my hand. The grip adjusts for size (palm shelf), sideways angle and forward angle. You set it up so your wrist is locked when you're on target.

There's a dry-fire lever on the right side of the gun so you can fire hundreds of shots without exhausting any air. This is so essential for a 10-meter competitor, because they shoot many more shots dry than they shoot actual pellets. Their nervous systems get very accustomed to how that trigger feels, to the point that they can hold on the target and simply "wish" the shot off. I explained how this is done in a 7-part report on 10-meter pistol shooting. You might want to read that if this kind of shooting interests you.

Pull the dry-fire lever to the rear (left in this photo), and the trigger is set without cocking the gun. Trigger-pull remains the same with or without air.

More adjustments
The sights adjust for both windage and elevation. The front blade adjusts for width, and the rear notch can be adjusted to compliment it. Total sight radius (how far the sights are separated) is also adjustable.

The weight bar attaches to the front of the triggerguard if you like and there are two weights that attach to it and adjust forward and aft. The pistol weighs 950 grams without any weight and the bar, called a weight carrier, weighs 100 grams. Each of the weights weighs 25 grams, and you can go up to a maximum of 1,100 grams as the pistol comes from the factory. Naturally, you can buy optional weights for the bar if necessary.

And even more...
The pistol's velocity is adjustable to a limited extent. It comes set up for about 490 feet per second (~150 meters per second).

Next time, I'll chrono it and play with the adjuster. Meanwhile, I'll shoot a few dry rounds each day to get back into the swing of things.

Healthways Plainsman BB gun - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

I wanted to title this report Americana, because that's what it really is. But when someone on the internet wants to research their gun, the model is the only thing they are interested in. Make no mistake, though--the Healthways Plainsman is Americana, as much as Dad's Root Beer and Buster Brown shoes.

Unlike the Daisy Red Ryder that everyone knows by name, the Healthways Plainsman is the BB pistol that almost everybody knows on sight, without knowing what it is. It's about as ubiquitous as the Marksman 1010 BB pistol, but most of you may have to think about it for awhile. And showing you a period ad may stimulate your memories.

A Plainsman ad from 1965. They called the gun semiautomatic because you just keep pulling the trigger to fire. Actually it's double-action.

I DID NOT go to Roanoke to buy a Plainsman! In fact, I have assiduously avoided the Plainsman for the past 20 years. Before that, I wasn't a writer, so my avoidance was private and didn't count. I have blogged Chinese spring guns. I have blogged Marksman BB pistols. I have even blogged Wamo cap-firing BB guns that have less power than thrown BBs. So, why was I avoiding the Plainsman? No good reason. I just was.

In fact, this is a great little BB gun that I actually shot in my youth. My favorite relative was Uncle Don. He was a man's man. Whenever we got together, he got out his guns and let me shoot. One summer I spent a couple weeks with him and Aunt Gert on the shores of the St. Lawrence River. There, he introduced me to his Plainsman. It shot fast and hard--two things a 12-year-old boy likes. I went through so much of his CO2 that he had to put the brakes on and get me fishing to slow me down.

But I never owned one of these pistols myself; and when the time came to get airguns, I went other ways. In this report, I want to discover what I missed--right along with you.

I stumbled across this pistol on Mike Ahuna's table at the Roanoke airgun show last weekend. It was in the box and included an owner's manual, sales receipt (without the year of sale, unfortunately) and several other papers associated with both the gun and with Numrich Arms (the former name of Gun Parts Corporation), where it was sold. I've seen plenty of other boxed Plainsmans--there was even one at this show--but the condition of this box and papers caught my attention. The gun sang to me!

The Plainsman box looks like a big smile to me. It looks happy, and it makes me feel happy to look at it.

The timeframe
I've found ads for the Plainsman pistol as early as 1960 and as late as 1969. With just a quick check, let's assume I missed some and extend that by a couple years on both ends. The owner's manual that came with the gun is dated 1957, which may be the first year of release. The earliest price I've seen in 1960 is $14.95.

On the late end of the run, there would have been new-old-stock guns for sale for several years after they stopped making them, so they no doubt were sold well into the 1970s. But companies like Daisy were putting pressure on the market with newer guns made of plastic and having the same features and more modern profiles. The final price I saw in 1969 was $18.95.

Who?
Pat Pending must have been a prolific airgun designer, because we see his name on so many guns from the 1950s and '60s. Seriously, that was a dodge used by many companies to avoid the costly fees and time spent in getting patents. Many of the guns that say Pat. Pending have nothing patentable in them. I'm not saying that's the case for the Plainsman, but I sure am hinting at it!

Description
The pistol is all metal with plastic grips. It resembles a Colt Woodsman in shape, though its grip is larger than a Woodsman grip. The trigger works with or without CO2 in the gun and has a smooth, light two-stage pull, though stage two is somewhat long. The gun weighs 29.3 oz. The smoothbore barrel is six inches long.

Plainsman on top and Colt Woodsman on the bottom. The Plainsman is a little beefier than the firearm.

The Plainsman uses 8-gram CO2 cartridges instead of the 12-gram cartridges of today. In its day, more guns used the smaller cartridge, so it didn't seem so strange. Today, however, you can buy these vintage small cartridges here at Pyramyd Air, so there's no reason not to shoot your vintage gun.

Adjustable power
The Plainsman comes with adjustable power. There are three power settings. A coin-operated screw at the bottom of the grip selects each setting, and the detents are stiff enough that there's no question where you are. Healthways didn't use velocity figures for their gun because at this time nobody had access to a chronograph. So, they stated power by what a BB would do to a tin can. Remember, when this gun was made, tin cans were actually made of steel. Don't confuse them with the soft soda cans of today. Think more of a stout soup can or a coffee can. On low power, where you got up to 100 shots, a BB would dent one side of a can at 15 feet. On medium power, you got 55 shots and the BB would deeply dent or pierce one side of a tin can at 15 feet. On high power, you got about 45 shots, and a BB would almost go through both sides of a tin coffee can at 15 feet.

Turn the screw at the top to the left (located at the bottom rear of the pistol grip) with a coin to increase power. There are three settings.

Healthways claimed an accuracy of 50 shots through a one-inch group (they say pattern in the manual) at 25 feet. That seems reasonable, and places it among the most accurate BB guns. I've seen accuracy like that from the Umarex Makarov, so I know it's possible.

The barrel is a thin steel tube, but it's encased in a metal housing that looks more substantial. In fact, everything about this gun looks and feels substantial.

When I researched this pistol, I learned that Healthways put out many different models. This pistol, for example, has a rifled counterpart that looks the same but uses nickelplated lead balls for ammo. And there's a single-action western model I admit to never having seen before, though I might have seen one and thought it was something else. It, too, had a rifled-barrel counterpart that shot lead balls. Finally, there's the Topscore spring-piston model that's fairly well-known, though I admit that I never shot one.

Healthways also offered this Western-style revolver at the same time as the Plainsman.

Lift this gate and drop 100 BBs into the gun. Feeding is handled by the mechanism inside.

Crosman 114 - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Well, I'm back, and today I'll resume testing the Crosman 114, but before I do I must comment on how relaxed I was at this year's Roanoke show. Taking three days to drive there and three to drive back made all the difference in the world. I got home without being exhausted. Maybe this gallbladder diet is beginning to work its magic.

Part 1
Part 2

Crosman's 114 is what little boys' dreams are made of. Read this report to learn just how true that is!

114 Man
I know I told you the story of the man at the show who discovered that he wasn't alone in owning a Crosman 114. I spoke to him at the Roanoke show, and, if I was persuasive enough, he is now reading this blog. I hope so, because the look in his eye when he discovered the world of airguns was priceless. I've been in the same position as he was several times, and I know what a joy it can be to finally connect with the right people over an area of common interest. So, 114 Man, I hope you're now with us. This is your gun.

I also must comment that I didn't see a 114 or a 113 at Roanoke this year. There might have been one, or even more than one, but I was looking and didn't see any.

What do we know about the 114?
We know the gun runs on CO2, and I will tell you now that it has a 22-inch, .22-caliber brass barrel. So, expect 14.3-grain Crosman Premiers to go in the range of 575 f.p.s. to 610 f.p.s., if the rifle has a factory tune. That would be at 70 deg., F. My office temp was 80 degrees when I did the velocity test for you, so I'll get right to the Premiers.

Premiers
I knew from the first shot that something was wrong with the rifle. There was a tremendous outgassing at the breech every time the rifle fired--something these rifles and pistols never do when they're working right. The blast of gas told me the gun has a serious leak in the firing system, which was evident in two different ways as I shot the Crosman Premier pellets. First, the average velocity was only 536 f.p.s.--well below what I expected to see. Second, the velocity dropped with almost every shot--something that does not happen with CO2 at 80 degrees. Look at the shot string below:

550
549
550
539
541
534
532
525
525
518

This isn't typical of a filled CO2 gun that gets 70 shots per fill. Something's wrong, and the blast of gas coming from around the action is a clear indication that repairs are in order.

RWS Superpoints
I started to shoot a string of RWS Superpoints, but stopped after just four shots. Look at the velocity:

517
509
507
494

If this were a PCP, I would think it had dropped off the power curve, but CO2 guns don't drop off like this until the end, when their liquid runs out. That should be after at least 50 good shots, if not more. Certainly not after the first five!

So, my 114 needs some attention. Maybe if it were made modular, like the 2260, I might even tackle the repairs myself, but it's not. It's all integrated into a whole, so I think I will send it off to a repair station. Only the metal action has to go, so the package can be small and light. I just have to exhaust all the CO2 before I pack it.

I could check accuracy now, but with the wide velocity variation, I don't think we would be doing the rifle any favors. I know this hasn't gone the normal way of a blog report, but sometimes this is what happens--especially with vintage airguns. We'll stay on top of it and see how it comes out on the other side.

Shooting the breeze - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

Just a reminder that the "Shooting the breeze" series is meant as humor. I made up everything just to entertain you. All names, businesses and locations are fictitious. Enjoy!

August 1995
Paper moon
The Billabong Air Gun Company announced today a departure from wasteful manufacturing practices of the past. After years-long search for a less costly material to replace the expensive synthetics and plastics now used in airguns, the company believes they have found at least a partial answer in paper. That's right--paper!

Billabong production engineers propose to begin manufacture of a brand new design of CO2 rifle targeted at their brisk discount store trade. Many of the structural components will be made from a proprietary paper-based product that company researches say is as strong and workable as plastic. Parts like valve bodies and receivers, once made of costly resin-based materials, can now be fabricated from what is essentially a modern derivative of that old grade-school favorite--paper mache. Where additional strength is required, the parts will be lined with inexpensive stamped foil sleeves and reinforcements; but the structural members will be entirely comprised of the remarkable new cellulose material. "Our new paper buttstocks are virtually indistinguishable from genuine plastic," company officials reported. "They even warp and separate in warm weather--just like the real thing! Kids won't be able to tell the difference."

Billabong President Harleigh Werthit said that the new material solves another problem the company has long struggled with--obsolescence. The new gun, when abandoned for a month in the back yard by young owners, rapidly assumes the appearance of the environment, leaving only the tiniest handful of non-bio-degradable parts to mark its one-time existence. One pass with a lawnmower and the gun is history. He concluded, "Billabong is committed to making concerns about quality a thing of the past."

October 1995
Phargone's aural chronograph
How many of you determine your airgun's velocity by the sound of the shot? This is a very common practice among airgunners, because it eliminates the need for an expensive chronograph that nobody knows how to use, anyway.

Professor Elvis B. Phargone has just released a CD of typical airgun shot sounds accompanied by a table of corresponding velocities. Now, you can fine-tune your ears to real precision.

"The human ear can distinguish velocity differences as small as 25 f.p.s.," noted the famous researcher from his Breakwynd, Indiana, laboratory. "With my CD a-helpin' them, they'll be able to get it down to 10. I personally calibrated each shot with my own ears, which are especially sensitive. I never had a chrono 'cause I don't need one.

Included on the new release are Phargone's back-door-to-hickory-tree velocity tables, his "hiss-bang" CO2 pressure gauge and a new method he calls the "garbage can" system. "You'd be surprised how good you can tell sounds when your head is stuck halfway down an empty metal can."

When questioned about the accuracy of aural chronographing, professor Phargone replied, "Heck, it's no big deal. Doctors have been putting thermometers there for years."

December 1995
How to turn your valuable firearms into quality pellet guns in four easy steps!
Did you know that you may have a valuable air rifle lurking in your gun collection? Elvis B. Phargone tells our readers that almost every quality-made .22 rifle can easily be turned into an accurate pellet shooter with just a little diligent work.

"I take a Winchester model 63 automatic, and I make an insert for the breech to hold a shotgun primer. All I have to do is insert a pellet up the barrel, slide in the insert with a fresh primer, close the action and shoot. The whole operation takes less than a minute, and I get real good power from the pellet, too. With hot primers, I can get a .22 Crosman Premier pellet goin' 475 f.p.s. with no sweat.

"Of course, getting the insert out of the breech is a bother, but I made a thin ramrod that does the trick in nothin' flat. You bang it out of the gun with the ramrod, pick it up and just pry out the old primer with a jackknife, clean the insert with a brass brush, put in a new primer and she's ready to go again. I can put two shots downrange in less than five minutes, and I don't have to buy an expensive pellet rifle!"

With the holidays approaching, readers will want to scout for Winchester 63s and Remington 141s they can convert to pellet shooters. Professor Phargone even thinks the Belgian-made Browning .22 automatic would work, though he cautions not to convert a grade IV. The conversion could lower the gun's intrinsic value a bit.

2009 Roanoke Airgun Show

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Well, it was a good one! In fact, it was the best one I have ever been to! Let me describe it for you and tell you why I liked it. But let me also tell you what wasn't so nice.

Pyramyd Air was not there. They usually send their techs and top sales persons to man the tables, but this year they are so swamped with they couldn't spare the people. A few people lamented the loss--especially one man who wanted to buy a Crosman NPSS. There were none there, so for him the show didn't pan out. Several other people mentioned wanting to see a Marauder, so I guess Crosman Corporation should team with Pyramyd Air to man a smaller sales booth in the future. I don't know if that's possible, but they were missed.

The show opened to dealers before 7 a.m. on Friday and to the public at noon. By 10 a.m., there was a brisk business going on among the dealers. That's normal for a show. Dealers are buyers, too. Because they're there before the doors open, they get to see the buys first.

Mike Driskill (left) was recognized as an outstanding airgunner for his selfless service to other collectors. Mike is pictured with award presenter Dennis Quackenbush (right) and show organizer Fred Liady.

Mike holds a Benjamin 392 that's been modified to shoot .320 caliber ammo! This unique rifle was built by James Perotti of NC. It generates 70 ft-lbs of muzzle energy with 12 pumps, which is 3x the power of a 392.

Blog reader Fred Nemiroff found this Crosman 99 lever-action at a garage sale for $25.

Collector/shooter Joe Giunti found this FWB C10 at the show for a song.

Blog reader Mike White brought this Walther LGR Universal to sell.

But don't think for a moment they bought it all, or that there weren't plenty of great buys left for the public. Let me just list a few and you be the judge.

1. A 99 percent BSF 55 in the Air Rifle Headquarters box with all the shipping material and paperwork for $250! Suddenly, it was 1974 all over again. When I pointed out to the man who was examining it ON DAY TWO OF THE SHOW...that it came in the box...he didn't believe it. The dealer had to convince him that it was included. He then sprained his wrist getting his wallet out!

2. A Working Crosman 116 pistol with a Working 10-oz. tank IN THE FREAKIN' BOX for $100. I know it's a shooter because I used to own it, though it wasn't mine at this show. And here's an anecdote that will bring a tear to your eye. A man about my age asked if I would remove the pistol's end cap so he could try one he had that was just like it. I knew what was about to happen, and I couldn't stop smiling. His cap fit the gun, of course, and he proceeded to tell me the story of how he had been given a Crosman rifle just like this pistol when he was a little boy. I told him he had a Crosman 114, and he was amazed that I knew. So, I pointed him to this blog and airgunning grew by one more little boy. He then bought that boxed pistol, which was a great deal.

I used to own this 112. It didn't sell at the show.

3. Across the aisle, a Working Crosman 112 pistol in the box with a Working 10-oz. tank and all the papers. Also a gun I used to own! The price? $115.

4. A new-in-the-box Erma ELG-10 lever-action spring rifle owned by Toshiko Beeman for $615. I don't know where you can get ANY ELG-10 in like-new condition for any price, so this was a good one.

5. A Beeman R7 in like-new condition for $300. Suddenly, it's 1997 again. Plenty of used R7s priced at $400, but this was the only one for $300.The blog reader who wondered whether Roanoke was worth attending bought it.

6. A Weihrauch HW35 with the thumbhole stock, new-in-the-box! They didn't even import that model into the U.S. When I told a show attendee about it (after listening to how nice the others in the room were), he found himself standing three feet from the very airgun he had come to the show to find.

7. Not ONE but TWO working Crosman 451 semiautos for under $250 each. The 600 gets all the attention, but the 451 is the real prize. Trouble is, nobody can ever find one.

8. A complete Daisy 325 2-Way Target Outfit for $200! I asked the buyer if he reported the theft after buying it, and he asked me if I did the same, which shut me up. Seconds later, a dealer presented me with a Red Ryder target set in the box, minus the scope for $100! This is the same set as the 325, only with the Red Ryder as the gun. The boxed Daisy Quick Skill set he sold me cost $5. Yes, I am not making this up. This really happened!

9. A fine working Diana model 60 recoilless target rifle for $325. I missed it by five minutes, though I did have my hands on it earlier. Too many guns, too little money!

10. An entire 40-year collection of cast-iron and folded metal BB guns, dating back to the first model Daisy. The advanced collectors in the room went berserk and spent tens of thousands of dollars in just a few hours. I watched it happen, because my table was across the aisle.

Oh, there was much, much more, but this gives you a quick taste of what went on. I traded for a SAM 10-meter pistol (made by Anschutz and designed by Cesare Morini). This is the first PCP 10-meter pistol I have ever owned and I will now try to get back into form. The trigger on this pistol is beautiful, which will help me immeasurably. I will blog it for you some time.

Yes, there were some new guns in the hall. Yes, there were some PCPs. Scott Pilkington sold 10-meter rifles and pistols, plus the accessories as well as his own Vogel pellets (he makes them in Tennessee).

A great many blog readers came up and introduced themselves, though not some of the ones I was expecting. But I got to meet many who just read the blog. I hope they'll write some comments someday soon.

Everybody at the show talked about how the economy is in the tank. Two people told me they are out of work. Yet I saw people spending money without reserve at this show. Perhaps the prices were that much better this year, but you could not tell that the times are tough from what went on in that room. I don't think I'll every forget Roanoke 2009.

Shooting the breeze - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

I'm still on the road, traveling back from the airgun show in Roanoke, VA. The following short articles come from The Airgun Letter archives. These are meant to humor and entertain...they're not serious. Some Airgun Letter subscribers thought these were serious pieces and called me to get more details and contact info for the individuals mentioned. All names, businesses and locations are fictitious. Enjoy!

February 1995
Readers will be pleased to learn that noted airgun experimenter Elvis B. Phargone of Breakwynd, Indiana, is recovering nicely after his recent test of the dynamite-ram air rifle. Though the gun fired only a single shot, inventor Phargone reports, "She was a doozie. I only wish the chronograph had survived, so we'd know for sure how fast that li'l hummer was a-goin'."

Patterning his experiment after the dynamite cannons used by American forces in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, Phargone now believes that the dynamite should probably not be used to power the gun's piston but to be the projectile, instead. "Them reports wasn't too clear on that," the convalescing scientist noted from his hospital bed.

The Airgun Letter wishes a speedy and complete recovery to the man who is the living embodiment of his own motto: "I find the solution before others find the problem."

March 1995
The 1995 Arctic Circle Invitational Field Target Match
Distinguished airgun designer Elvis B. Phargone has done it again--or so says Alaskan field target champion Gelbert Schnee. Readers will recall that Mr. Schnee won last year's Arctic Circle Field Target Invitational held at Point Barrow on December 26.

According to Gelb, the newest Phargone invention is a single-stroke pneumatic rifle producing approximately 40 ft-lbs of energy--not at the muzzle, but at the target! "We really need this kind of performance in polar competition," said the three-time Arctic Circle champion, "because the crosswind is seldom less than 20 mph on clam [sic] days."

Constructed from an M79 grenade launcher, the new gun propels a two-inch, 454-gram round ball at 30 f.p.s. It is ideally suited to the unique requirement of the northern competition. The Point Barrow range is completely vertical, with firing points on the catwalk of the town's communications tower, where Schnee is employed as an antenna cleaner. Gravity boosts the ponderous projectile to about 200 f.p.s. by the time it reaches the highly modified targets below.

The new gun also has a broader attachment point for sights, which Schnee praises. "In the Arctic Circle/Tundra Airgun Association (ACTAA), we mount surplus Norden bomb sights on our guns instead of scopes. The new rifle accommodates them perfectly. Now, all we need is to get some shooters from the lower 48 to come up here and compete with us."

Readers who are interested in competing in this year's festivities should contact Gelb Schnee through the newsletter. Entrants must submit a court certificate of competency and pay a non-refundable $1,500.00 entry fee. Accommodations at Point Barrow this year will consist of separate cots in a heated U.S. Army GP Medium tent. Travel arrangements must be booked through Whiteout Tours, which operates a weekly supply/mail service into Barrow, weather permitting.

May 1995
The screw-ram air rifle
The threshold of airgun technology rolled a back a bit further, recently, when Professor Elvis B. Phargone announced that he has finally perfected the screw-ram air rifle. The well-known inventor has secretly been working for more than a decade on his creation, which he now says is almost ready for market. The heart of the Phargone idea is the replacement of the conventional coil mainspring with a piston driven by a worm screw. "It was a mite slow at first," admitted the Wizard of Breakwynd, Indiana, in his converted chicken coop/laboratory.

"I was usin' the screw offa my bench vice, and the motor took a couple seconds to drive the piston home. Then, I hit on the idea of usin' one of them Army surplus Gatling gun motors. They're real fast! That piston slams home like a bear trap. There's a little problem with the screw not stoppin' in the right place an' extrudin' the piston crown out the transfer port, but I'll get to that next. I've just about got it." Phargone's ever-present gallery of well-wishers agrees that he does, indeed, seem to "have it."

The next step is finding a backer for the invention. That may prove difficult, since, with its ancillary gear, the rifle weighs 55 lbs. and requires a tractor battery for power. In the scientist's own words, "It shore [sic] don't recoil as much as it used to!"

June 1995
The Billabong Screw-Shooter
The Billabong Air Gun Company of Laleche, Wisconsin, announced today their latest sporting air rifle--the Screw-Shooter. Long plagued by the rising cost of quality barrels, Billabong President Harleigh Werthit revealed that his company's latest creation isn't rifled at all! In fact, it doesn't really have a barrel in the traditional sense. Although the new design is closely protected by patents, The Airgun Letter was able to learn that the revolutionary Screw-Shooter is based on studies recently completed by famous airgun researcher Elvis B. Phargone, in which some of the functions of the barrel and projectile are exchanged. In Phargone's latest triumph, the barrel is a hollow tube of soft lead encased in a plastic pipe, and the pellet is made of hardened steel with a reverse rifling pattern machined on the outside. When the pellet travels down the bore, its spiral "rifling" grabs the soft lead walls of the barrel and literally screws its way out of the gun. "Concerns over barrel quality have become a relic of the past," said the Billabong chief.

The company expects sales of the new gun to boom once thrifty airgunners realize they can reuse the same pellet hundreds of times. The need for frequent barrel changes offsets the savings a bit, but optimistic company officials see a day when shooters will buy replacements like they once bought tins of ammunition.

From the company that gave the world its only commercial cow-patty launcher, now comes the Billabong Screw-Shooter--an honest attempt at ending the airgun quality race, forever.

Something from nothing - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

I'm actually at the Roanoke Airgun Expo today, and writing this report has really started my juices flowing! I wanted to tell you about strategies to use on airgun dealers in this part, but while I was driving here I got inspired to write something else for today.

I got a question from a new reader that went like this,"I'm going to a gun show, and I'm a novice collector. What should I look for?" I wrote him some half-hearted reply, because how can I really help that guy? I have no idea what will be at that gun show. And then it hit me--the subject of today's report.

I never know what's going to turn up at ANY show!
And that's the real answer. Since no one can predict what will show up, don't plan on anything. Just be there and have cash or trade goods or both.

When the show opens at about 6:30 a.m. for the dealers to start bringing in all their guns, the buying and selling starts. Advanced collectors will pay for the price for a table just to get in the door at this time. They won't actually have a table, but many of they're ready to spend.

Some deals will have been made before the show and all that's taking place is inspection, payment and delivery. It breaks your heart when this happens in front of you, and a gun you really wanted is sold under your nose without a word being spoken.The solution is to get to know the dealers of the kind of guns you want; next time, you'll be the lucky guy.

But what I like to do is peruse all the tables in search of great bargains. That sounds so simple and straightforward that you probably think everybody is doing the same thing, and maybe they are--but when one guy wants a Nightforce scope and another wants a Crosman 120 multi-pump, there's a lot of latitude! As an airgun writer, I try to keep my mind open to the good deals in all categories, even those that I personally am not interested in. For example, I don't care much for action pistols, but when I see someone willing to sell a Colt 1911A1 for $80, I know it's a good deal.

But something like that is just run-of-the-mill. A GREAT deal is when a local doctor backs his car up to the front door and starts offloading the like-new spring guns he has been buying since the 1980s. He has all the paper and the boxes for each gun (I love anal people when I'm buying something from them, don't you?), and he wants exactly what he paid for each gun. So, someone goes home with a 1983 Beeman R1 for less than $300. THAT is a great deal, in my book. That scenario actually happened at the an airgun show and I mentioned it in my report on the2007 Airgun Expo in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Another thing that always happens is several people will walk the floor searching for someone to give them cash for their airguns. Again at Little Rock, this happened to me about 12 years back. A guy brought me three Daisy .118 Targeteers and six tin containers of the steel shot for them. The containers were commonly selling for $10 each at that time, but the guy asked for $100 for the whole bunch. There was at least $300 worth in that bunch. I knew he really needed the money, so I bought it. I spent my trip food money to get it, so I turned around and sold two guns and four tins of shot for $100--giving someone else a chance to get a good deal, too.

At one Winston-Salem show, the forerunner of Roanoke, a man walked in with a genuine Girandoni Austrian military repeater. A well-known American collector low-balled him with an $1,800 offer, so he stormed away and sold it to a British collector five minutes later for $3,500 cash! I know because the sale took place in front of my table! That rifle is worth over $50,000 today, and even back then it was worth about $15,000. The collector who low-balled the guy kicked himself, but that's how the cookie crumbles. It's assumed that everybody is a big boy at these shows.

I remember a show at which a husband and wife in the business had a pile of Johnson Target Guns in their original boxes with all the parts and paperwork. They were asking $100 for each of the approximately 20 boxes they had. Now, when something like that happens, it's just wrong to be so focused on finding an R9 in .20 caliber that you miss the opportunity of a lifetime. I remember another show where a guy had well over 50 new-in-the-box S&W 78G and 79G pistols. He was also asking $100 each. That is not the time to try to complete your Diana model 27 collection. If the deal presents itself and you're at all interested or if you're just smart enough to know that you can triple your money in a couple years--TAKE THE DEAL.

I once located a second-model Crosman pump rifle left over from the Crosman morgue. The rifle didn't work. I tried to be as honest as I could, since I was buying it from the wife of an airgun dealer close by. I offered her $150 cash money and she accepted readily. Inside one month I resold it for $600, because I knew who really wanted it. Had I wanted to, I could have dragged my feet and gotten $1,500, by talking it up and pitting one collector against another, but that's not my style.

My wife bought an 1800s BB pistol for $5 at a local flea market. At the Damascus airgun show about a year later she sold it to a collector for $400. He restored it (refinished with paint) and sold it for $1,100 to another collector who knew it was restored. An original with the same finish is worth about $7,500.

One more dynamic that I see at almost every show is the guy with that one gun you really want. He has priced it at the high end of what's acceptable, and it sat on his table throughout the show. Lots of lookers and failed trades, but at the end, it's still there. Now, he would much rather go home with cash in his pocket than drag that gun back and store it for another year. So, a good offer right as he is starting to pack up often wins the day. To do this one, you have to be there for the whole show, and this is one of the benefits of doing that.

Speaking of packing, know that airgun shows keep strange hours. The dealers all wait for the show and dream about it all year long, yet when they get there they immediately start making plans to leave. Airgun shows always break up before they're supposed to. And by always, I mean 100 percent--no exceptions. So, don't arrive late on the last day!

I got a million stories like these, but this will do for now. I'm at the Roanoke show today, along with a few hundred other avid airgunners. Let's see what treasures I find this year! The point of this report is that no amount of searching at a show can help you do what I have just reported. You have to go, look around and listen, too, and the deals will make themselves known.

I'll finish with an anecdote I use to illustrate the new airgunner with the attention deficit problem. Years ago, I took my young sons to see the Harlem Globetrotters play a game at a local high school gym. Some of the players were standing at the entrance to greet the audience. My two sons were about 8 and 4 at the time, so they weren't very tall. As we were walking past the Globetrotter center, who stood 7'1", my oldest boy asked me in a loud voice, "Dad, do you think we will get to see any of the players close up?" When he asked that question, his head was nearly touching the knee of the Globetrotter center. I looked up at the player and we both smiled, because the crowd was pushing us past one another. Ships that pass in the night! Don't be like that when you look for airguns.

Crosman 114 - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

I made the picture big, so you can really see it. Crosman's 114 is what little boy's dreams are made of.

Back to the 114 today. As I mentioned last time, this is a bulk-fill CO2 rifle. What that means is that it doesn't use any kind of disposable CO2 cartridge, as many CO2 guns do. Instead, a separate tank of CO2 liquid and gas is connected to the rifle, and CO2 is introduced from that tank. So, a short refresher on how CO2 works is now in order.

To fill the rifle, a separate CO2 tank is used. Every rifle was initially sold with a tank, plus spares were also sold. This tank holds about 10 oz. of liquid CO2, so it is called a 10-ounce tank.

How CO2 works
Carbon dioxide is a strange gas. At room temperature when liquid carbon dioxide (or solid carbon dioxide--which is also called dry ice) is confined in a pressure vessel like an airgun reservoir or a separate tank, it will evaporate until it reaches a pressure around 900 psi. Actually, at 70 deg. F. it attains the pressure of 853 psi when confined. At that point, no more gas will evaporate and the pressure will stay constant, as long as the temperature doesn't fluctuate. The remaining liquid or solid will stay as it is, with the solid turning to liquid at this temperature.

If some of the gas is released, such as through a valve when an airgun fires, the pressure inside the vessel will drop and immediately more of the liquid will turn to gas. As long as liquid remains in the pressure vessel, the pressure of the gas remains more or less constant--except for one thing. As the gas is exhausted, it carries some latent heat with it. That lowers the temperature of the pressure vessel and the firing valve in the gun. In turn, that cooling effect lowers the pressure of the remaining gas to some extent. On a hot day, the temperature returns to normal relatively fast. But on a cooler day, the temperature takes longer to cycle back. When the ambient temperature drops below about 50 deg. F., the temperature of the gun takes a very long time to recover, and the pressure of the gas continues to drop as the gun is fired.

You can learn two things from this. First, CO2 regulates its own pressure. Nobody compresses it, in the traditional sense of the word. At least airgunners don't. They rely on that high-vapor pressure to operate their guns. While the pressure is limited, it's also self-sustaining, so it's possible to get a lot of shots at a very consistent velocity--except in cold weather.

When the temperature is below about 50-60 deg. F., CO2 will chill the gun as it fires, causing the gas pressure to drop. It's a warm-weather gas. Knowing that, you will be able to use it without many problems. As long as there's some liquid remaining, the gas will maintain the same pressure. Once the last of the liquid is gone, the pressure of the gas drops straight off and the shots quickly become slow and unusable.

Now, apply the knowledge
CO2 liquid maintains pressure by evaporation to gas. CO2 gas does not maintain pressure and drops pressure rapidly. Knowing that, you understand that you want to have liquid CO2 in your gun. How much you have determines how many shots you can get at a sustained velocity. So, bulk-fill guns are designed to introduce liquid CO2 into the gun during a fill. With the 114, it's very easy to do.

First, unscrew the protective cap at the end of the reservoir. If you have a gun that doesn't have a cap, do something to protect this area, because any dirt that gets into the fill port can be blown into the gun during a fill. Many CO2 guns have a fine mesh screen to catch dirt particles, but don't rely on that. Make sure no dirt is present to begin with.

The end cap is a screw that protects the fill port from dirt. Remove it to attach the CO2 tank.

Next, screw the separate CO2 tank to the gun. Now, hold the gun so it's pointing straight up and the tank is pointing straight down. That lets the liquid CO2 gather in what is now the bottom of the tank (it's being held upside-down), where it will be blown into the airgun. Hold onto the wheel on the tank and rotate the tank body so the valve will open. You will both hear and feel the liquid CO2 flow into the gun (the gun's reservoir gets noticeably colder). The gas and liquid will stop flowing when equilibrium is reached, so you don't have to do anything special. Today, some guns require the owner to weigh the reservoir before and after the fill to ensure that too much liquid did not get into the reservoir. The older Crosman guns didn't have such a requirement. Under normal conditions (room temperature or higher), it's nearly impossible to overfill the gun.

The tank is screwed to the end of the gun for filling.

Once the gun is filled--it only takes a few seconds--close the tank's valve and unscrew the tank from the gun. If you got a good fill (the right amount of liquid), your gun will shoot for many shots before velocity drops off. This is the point at which the 114 starts to resemble a PCP. In fact, in a curious twist of irony, Crosman designed the Benjamin Discovery to use either CO2 or high-pressure air. Many confirmed CO2 shooters who had sworn they would never go over to "the dark side" and use air have discovered (pun intended) that filling with air to 2,000 psi isn't much different than filling with CO2. You just get fewer shots and much higher velocity. They became reluctant converts to air power!

The modern way to full
If you don't have a 10-oz. tank or you don't want to invest in a 20-lb. tank to fill it when it gets empty, you can buy an adapter to fill these guns from paintball tanks that are easy to get filled at paintball shops. The adapters are available from those companies specializing in CO2 guns.

So, now we have a good idea of what a 114 is and how to fill it. Next time, we'll look at the rifle's performance.

Something from nothing - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Before we move on to today's blog, here's a link to a recent interview with Josh Ungier, founder and owner of Pyramyd Air. It was published in the October issue of Smart Business Cleveland.

Just a reminder that I'm on my way to the airgun show in Roanoke and not able to answer most blog questions. Edith is monitoring the comments, but I'd appreciate any help answering questions.

It's been a while since I wrote a report like this. Our readers have discussed it, but it doesn't get nearly enough exposure, so here it goes. Notice that I made it a multi-parter, because each of you has a different set of circumstances, and I have more than just a little to say. What prompted it was a message I received on Monday from a reader named Jay. It went like this, "I see the sign up for the airgun show here in Roanoke. Is it worth attending?"

That reminds me of the farmer who sold his farm to finance a worldwide search for diamonds. He supposedly ended his life at the Straits of Gibraltar after a long and disappointing search. Then diamonds were discovered on the farm he sold. His land became the Golconda diamond mine, one of the richest diamond mines ever and the source of many of the crown jewels on Europe. Whether or not the story is true doesn't matter. It illustrates a powerful lesson in life that applies to us all.

So, right now there is a guy driving past the Roanoke Expo Center every day, wondering if he should waste his time and money to attend. And, then, there is Joe B., paying paradise tax out on Maui, who would probably be willing to drive 200 miles--if it were possible to drive 200 miles in Hawaii--just to see a show like Roanoke!

My point is that Roanoke is the largest airgun show in the world, and it's held this coming Friday and Saturday. I don't have any problem convincing those who have already been to attend again--they know what awaits them. But some airgunners will say, "My gosh, Roanoke is a 400-mile drive! No way am I going to do that." Then I will get a question two weeks after the show, asking where someone can buy an FWB 124.

Roanoke is 1,150 miles for me, but I drive it every year. I almost can't afford to miss it, because it is a large part of what I do and even who I am. Besides all the guns and the old friends, I get a post-graduate course in airguns at every show. So, that's why I think it's important to go.

Get a route...
But what about the guy who lives in Keokuk, Iowa, or even in Kennewick, Washington? For them, Roanoke really is too far. But there are alternatives. Start with pawn shops. I have a route I run periodically here in Texas, and it's really paid off over the past five years. Not just for airguns--I have also found some nicer firearms. As the economy gets ever tighter, more will appear in the pawn shop and the pawnbroker will be more willing to deal. I watch Pawn Stars on TV, which is a look at a Las Vegas pawn shop that gets really nice stuff. From the episodes, I can tell that the pawnbrokers are very willing to make deals these days. I know that's how it's been around here. My route is local, with no store being more than five miles from my house, but that doesn't stop me from checking out a pawn shop in a distant place if I happen to be there.

Gun stores
Yes, I said gun stores! I don't mean the gun stores that also carry airguns, either. I mean the narrow-minded gun stores that laugh at us and call all airguns BB guns.

Where does everyone go when they have a "gun" to sell? A gun store! So, old widow Smith bundles up her late husband's guns, including the Browning shotguns, Mauser rifles and Colt revolvers. She also takes along a Feinwerkbau 300, because it looks like a gun and she knows they will know what to do with it.

Well, they don't know what to do with it, but it's no big deal. They got the Brownings. The store owner dry-fires it a couple times because he's too cheap to buy a tin of pellets at Wal-Mart, and then he leans it in the corner and forgets it for the next eleven years. Then, you walk in one day and ask him if he has any old airguns, and he remembers the gun in the corner. He knows it's well made but he accepts that $150 cash offer you make because it's green cash money and because this rifle isn't in his book. He can take his wife out to a nice dinner, and you get a great buy. Everyone wins.

Here is a fact. I don't think I have ever been in an established gun store that didn't have a couple airguns laying around somewhere. Yes, some of them might be Chinese guns, but I've also bought Benjamins, vintage Crosmans, a Diana 27 and the list goes on. Gun stores. Even small, hole-in-the-wall gun stores. In fact, especially hole-in-the-wall gun stores!

Gun shows
I used to walk around gun shows with a big sign stuck in the hatband of my Stetson--(I BUY AIRGUNS). At one show I was with my wife and my best buddy, Mac, plus another Airgun Letter reader. I told them I was going to buy an airgun and turn around and sell it to get material for an article. I walked down ONE AISLE and a guy almost jumped over his table at me. "I've got an airgun you'll like." Long story short, I gave $200 for a 1920 BSA underlever rifle made up for a shooting club. It had a flip-up tang peep sight and a number on the stock, which are two telltale signs of British club guns.

In the VERY NEXT AISLE, a man pulled the rifle away from me and bought it for $250. I had what I needed for my story inside five minutes, though I never made it out of the building, nor did I get a picture of that rifle. So, wear a sign to the gun show and bring cash. You will be amazed at what happens!

Newspaper ads
This isn't my tip; it belongs to one or more of our readers. You place an ad to buy airguns in your newspaper, Thrifty Nickel or whatever you have that will take your ad. Then, you start answering ads and buying airguns. I now ask those readers who have done or are doing this to tell us their stories in the comments.

Cleaning crews
This technique belongs to one of the most successful airgun dealers of vintage guns that I know. He tells a cleaning crew that he will buy all the airguns they find. He may actually buy other eBay stuff, too, I don't know. Cleaning crews find lots of stuff in the apartments and houses they clean. Sometimes, they're asked to remove all the stuff in a house and it's theirs to do with as they wish. They still get paid for cleaning the building. too.

Most of the time, they sell him modern crap guns and airsoft or paintball. But a couple times each year he scores something fantastic to make up for all the disappointments. The trick here is to buy everything they bring you. Pay very low and bring the stuff you don't want to airguns shows.

Those are my tips for today, but there is at least one more part to this report. How can you buy airguns among airgunners and still get great deals? Next time.

Crosman 114 - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

I'm on the road driving to the Roanoke Airgun Expo today, so I'm asking the old hands to help me with the comments. I'm taking an extra travel day both ways to ease the strain. Naturally, I'll give you a report of this year's show.

I made the picture big so you can really see the rifle. Crosman's 114 is what little boys' dreams are made of.

Crosman's 114 pellet rifle may have been the precursor to the modern precharged rifle. It's a single-shot. It stores bulk CO2 gas and liquid in a reservoir under the barrel, and it has the same general look of the Benjamin Discovery. It also has a simple rear aperture sight.

Wacky Wayne saw this 114 and asked me how it shot. To tell the truth, I never shot this one before now, but the last 114 I owned shot just like a PCP.

History
The 114 was the .22-caliber companion to the 113, a .177 caliber bulk-fill CO2 rifle made between 1950 and 1955. Crosman had limited success with their first CO2 rifle, the CG that launched league shooting in the late 1940s. Oh, there was an earlier version of the bolt-action repeating model 118 (model 117) that existed in the 1930s, before the war, but it never went anyplace. So, the 113/114 rifles were really Crosman's first successful foray into the world of commercial CO2 air rifles. The repeating 118 came out two years later.

At the same time these rifles were selling, Crosman also made four CO2 pistols--the 111 and 112 that have 8-inch barrels and the shorter 115 and 116 with 6-inch barrels. With all of the Crosman guns from this era, the lower number is the .177 and the higher is the .22.

The bulk-fill guns came with a CO2 tank that holds 10 oz. of liquid and gaseous CO2. The tank connects to the guns at the front of the reservoir (under the muzzle) and opens to fill the gun. I've recorded about 70 shots on my other 114 and 50 shots from a 111 I used to own, so I would expect this one to do about the same.

Back when these rifles were new, an owner was expected to send his CO2 tank through the Postal Service (those were simpler days) to get it refilled. Today, most serious airgunners fill their own CO2 tanks from a 20-pound bulk tank they have on hand. That large tank is sometimes used as a fire extinguisher, and I once used one of the three bulk tanks I own to put out a fire in a stolen Mustang that the thief abandoned in front of my house.

There's another, even easier way to fill bulk-fill guns that I'll discuss in Part 2.

Design
The 114 is simplicity itself. A small brass receiver is attached to a brass tube that houses both the action and the reservoir. The valve is a straightforward, knock-open type, and the barrel can be made of brass or steel, with brass preferred because of condensation.

The breech is sealed at the rear, not by an o-ring, but by a metal bulge on the bolt that's pushed into a mating flare at the rear of the barrel. That's all that keeps the pressurized gas from coming back at your face like a supercharged glaucoma test. It does work, as long as the shooter remembers to engage the locking slot for the bolt.

The trigger couldn't be simpler. Just a lever that gets out of the way of the hammer. The safety is equally simple--a crossbolt that blocks the trigger.

The finish is black paint on the metal and a thin shellac finish on the wood. Most of these guns have been refinished numerous times by now, so original finish on a gun is always a plus. The Blue Book of Airguns has a lot of special things to look for on these models--things that can boost the value because of rarity, so don't start carving on the stock before you check to see if you have something special.

The rifle is just over 38 inches long with a 21.5-inch barrel. It weighs 4.75 lbs., which makes it a light, handy rifle. The stock is without comb or cheekpiece, so it's quite ambidextrous, though the cocking-bolt handle is on the right side of the receiver.

One neat tidbit is that all three CO2 guns came with power adjusters. Even back in 1950, Crosman engineers knew what shooters wanted. Imagine a power adjuster two decades before the first affordable chronographs!

The rear sight is an aperture that adjusts via an oval slot for windage; and for elevation, the eyepiece loosens to slide up and down. It couldn't be simpler, and it mimics the inexpensive peep sights seen on single-shot youth rimfires of the day.

This is action central. The bolt works conventionally. The knob just below adjusts the power through tension on the hammer spring. The peep sight is held in place by friction screws. And the safety is a crossbolt through the stock.

When we come to Part 2, I'll show you how this little rifle is filled.

Evanix Blizzard S10-Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Today, I'll show you the results of testing the Evanix Blizzard S10 with the barrel shroud removed. I tested it against the CB cap-firing Winchester Winder musket and will show you those results, as well.

You may remember that in Part 3 I was disappointed with the accuracy of the rifle and thought that the baffles in the shroud might be touching the pellets on their way out. In fact, I implied that rather strongly. Today, I'm not so sure. I think I have discovered what was wrong--because when I fixed it, the rifle suddenly became much more accurate.

So, we have a lot in store for today's report. Sit back and enjoy the ride!

Pride goeth before a fall...
I was SO CERTAIN that the pellets were touching one or more baffles on the way out of the shroud that I couldn't think of anything else. I fully expected the first group at 50 yards from the unshrouded barrel to be a pleasant surprise and a welcome relief to this problem. I selected the new 18-grain JSB Exacts because I also "knew" that they would be the most accurate pellets in this rifle.

With the barrel shroud removed, the Blizzard S10 barrel is free-floating.

The machine worked fine until we turned it on!
The day was breezy, but the breeze came in gusts and it was possible to wait them out. I took great care to shoot only when the wind was calm. But even with all that care, my first group of 10 with the JSBs measured 1.658". That's only a little better than the last time I tested it, which surprised me a lot. I expected a sub-inch group.

Beeman Kodiaks
Switching to Beeman Kodiaks, the groups got larger. Ten shots went into 2.25". Sorry, Kevin, but that's the truth.

Eun Jin
The big Eun Jin dome shrank the group back to 1.716", but that's not what I was hoping to see. After that, I just sat for awhile and examined the rifle. Was the scope tight? Yes, it was. Was the barrel well-anchored in the receiver? Yes, it was, but when I checked that I felt a bump of something else shifting.

The action was loose in the stock! I felt like such a rookie for not checking the stock screws--except that's a problem you normally associate with spring guns, not PCPs. And, when I tried to tighten the stock screw, it was already tight. But the action was definitely rocking in the stock.

There was no way to tighten the action, so I reverted to an old-time standby--shimming! I folded a foot-long length of duct tape into a two-inch pad and stuck it between the front of the forearm and the reservoir tube. It went in and stopped when there was no more room. Now, the action and stock were tight--no rocking movement.

As you can see, my shim was not a precision fix. But it worked, and that's the lesson to take from this.

Success!
The next group of 10 JSBs went into a group measuring 0.862." That was exactly the level of accuracy I had been expecting from the Blizzard S10. Remember, these are 10-shot groups and will be larger than a 5-shot group from the same gun.

Unshimmed group of 10 18-grain JSBs on the left. Shimmed group on the right. Pretty conclusive evidence that the action needs to be tight in the stock.

Before and after
The difference before and after the field fix is obvious. From 1.658" down to 0.862" for the JSBs is nearly a 50 percent reduction in size! The Eun Jins dropped from 1.716" down to 1.106," another significant reduction. Kodiaks and Air Arms domes had reductions as well, though not as large. Kodiaks went from 2.224" to 1.735" and Air Arms pellets dropped from 1.125" to 0.973."

Unshimmed group of 10 Eun Jins on the left. Shimmed group on the right. Could the results be any clearer?

These reductions in 10-shot group sizes are both immediate and quite dramatic. And this is just with my quickie field fix. If I bed the action correctly, we could expect at least this and maybe even more.

I contacted Pyramyd Air. After they researched it, we learned that they had received an initial lot of guns that were missing a washer for the stock screw. All were loose in their stocks. The Pyramyd Air technicians added the necessary washers and the rifles tightened up just as mine did. So, I went to the hardware store and bought some washers to fix my rifle permanently.

This has been an interesting test for me. First, I was surprised by how quiet the Blizzard is, even though it puts out a lot of power. Second, the accuracy thing was a learning experience. I always default to my experience--which in this case was with baffles that nick the pellets on their way out. This strange turn of events really surprised me, which is a good cure for hardening of the attitudes.

Lest I forget--the Winder musket and CB caps
I also had the Winder musket at the range to test the accuracy of CB caps against the Blizzard. I wasn't able to fool you guys about CB caps. Most of you already knew their capabilities and their shortcomings. And this is not a report on them--just an update as they play against the Blizzard S10, since I introduced that topic last time.

At 50 yards, the CB cap bullet drops a lot more than a pellet from the Blizzard--even a heavy one. While the advertised velocity is 710 f.p.s., that has to be with a short barrel. The Winder has a 28" barrel, so it should rob some velocity from that bullet. CB caps are so low-powered that I can test them in my office, just like pellets from a powerful rifle, so that's what I did.

They averaged 696 f.p.s., with a spread from 659 to 720. They were faster than I thought they'd be, so apparently the long barrel doesn't slow them down much. But they're also quieter than most PCPs. The impact of the 29-grain bullet makes more noise than the muzzle blast.

CB caps are not a match for an accurate air rifle like the Blizzard. They're lower in power and far less accurate, plus they cost a lot for anyone with access to a powerful air rifle. I suppose that if all you own is a .22 rimfire, they make sense as long as thousands of shots aren't in order. However, with the huge difference in price over pellets, you could buy a Discovery and soon make up the difference.

Ten short CB caps from the Winder musket went into this group at 50 yards that measures 1.837" between the centers of the two widest shots. It's not bad for CB caps, but don't even think of competing with an accurate PCP!

CB caps did pretty much what I expected at 50 yards, but that's not the end of testing them. I'm going to try them in a number of accurate .22 rifles, including the CB longs that fit long rifle chambers. When I'm finished, we should have a pretty good idea of where CB caps fit into the big picture.