Category Archives: Airgun History Project

History of airguns posts

BSF S54 Match rifle: Part 5

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

BSF S54
BSF S54 target rifle.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

A history of airguns

This report covers:

  • Insert
  • The test
  • Sight-in
  • H&N Finale Match Light
  • H&N Match Green
  • Sig Match Ballistic Alloy
  • Why so much better?
  • Finale Match Light again
  • One last time
  • 10-meter rifle?
  • Summary

I said the next step with this BSF S54 was a teardown and lube tune with Tune in a Tube, but I changed my mind. The front sight insert I bought from Chambers arrived and I wanted to give it a go first. I’m glad I did, as you will learn later on.

Insert

Remember, I told you that T.W. Chambers in the UK has some front sight inserts for the S54? RidgeRunner wondered if there was an aperture or ring insert for the front and I thought there might have been, so I looked. Sure enough there was and I ordered one.

BSF S54 sight inserts
The new ring insert, left, will circle the black bull and hopefully give a more precise aim point. read more

My best lesson

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

A history of airguns

This report covers:

  • Valuable lesson
  • Sighting
  • Multi-tasking
  • Student behavior
  • Sign’s up!
  • Why this is so important
  • History?
  • Bottom line
  • Why airguns are important
  • And why today?

When I was a kid I knew everything there was to know about guns. Just ask me; I would tell you. I read Guns & Ammo and was learning the ballistics of popular cartridges like other kids were learning baseball stats. I didn’t own a gun, which in retrospect was a good thing, but I knew all about them.

Valuable lesson

Then my mother sent me to an NRA basic marksmanship course. Over the course of three weeks they taught me how to shoot. I wish I had been more observant because those gentlemen really knew what they were talking about.

Sighting

We started by everyone learning how to sight. We did something they called triangulation where we learned the proper sight picture with target sights. It involved getting down on the floor and sighting through a homemade set of “sights” that rested on a box at a target that was 40 feet away. The object was to watch the instructor move the target and tell him how to move it. When you got it perfectly aligned in your “sights” you told him to mark it, and he marked through the center of the bullseye with a sharp pencil on a sheet of plain paper behind the target. This was done three times. If you did it well you got three pencil dots on the plain paper that were very close to each other. The goal was to get the dots as close to each other as possible read more

Old Blue and White

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Daisy 110
Daisy’s model 110 Rocket Command BB gun.

A history of airguns

This report covers:

  • The deal
  • What is it?
  • Earlier model 26
  • Blue Book of Airguns
  • Trigger
  • Stock
  • Description
  • Sights
  • Comparison to the 27
  • Summary

Sputnik

When I was a kid in the 1950s, western movies where the big thing. We saw them in the theaters and we also saw westerns on TV. This trend continued into the 1960s, but another trend overlaid it and eventually eclipsed it. In October of 1957 the Soviet union launched the first man-made satellite into orbit. Most people know Sputnik. Technologically it was both crude and incredibly advanced. But what it did to society far eclipsed anything that it did for science!

Sputnik ushered in the space age. Until then only scientists and nerds knew anything about rockets and space travel. After then, space was all that anyone could talk about. read more

Diana model 26 breakbarrel air rifle: Part 1

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Diana 26
The Diana 26 air rifle.

A history of airguns

This report covers:

  • The deal
  • What is it?
  • Earlier model 26
  • Blue Book of Airguns
  • Trigger
  • Stock
  • Description
  • Sights
  • Comparison to the 27
  • Summary

I have written a lot about Diana air rifles over the course of this blog. A quick look finds 2 articles about the Diana model 25, and 6 articles about the Diana 27. There are probably more on each rifle, but they may be titled so I can’t find them. While I have written a lot about these Diana models, I never heard of the Diana 26 until reader Carel from the Netherlands told me he had one.

The deal

Back in February I mentioned on the blog that I would like to find a Diana model 35 to detune, just to see how sweet it could be. Carel contacted me and told me he had a nice old one I might like. Then he told me about this model 26. I had never heard of it, and he tells me they are quite scarce in Europe, too. I think the gap between the models 25 and 27 was too narrow to support another model. read more

BSF S54 Match rifle: Part 4

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

BSF S54
BSF S54 target rifle.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

A history of airguns

This report covers:

  • Something else
  • Rear sight has to come off
  • 1950s design
  • Assemble the rifle again
  • Install the peep sight
  • Ordered a new target front sight insert
  • Accuracy
  • The test
  • H&N Finale High Speed
  • H&N Finale Match Light
  • Discussion
  • Summary

Today will be another accuracy test of the BSF S54 Match rifle. But it’s a test with a twist. In Part 3 we learned which pellet does best in this rifle — the H&N Finale Match High Speed — a 7-grain wadcutter that is no longer being offered. I have received the current Finale Match Light target pellets, so I can start testing with them today, as well.

Something else

And, there is something else. A couple weeks back reader Kevin alerted me to the fact that the seller in Bulgaria from whom I bought the Diana peep sight also had a BSF peep sight for sale. He had it advertised for Anschütz, FWB and Walther, which is why I never noticed it. The price was reasonable and, as before, the shipping was free, so I ordered it. It’s here and I would like to show it to you. read more

The American Zimmerstutzen: Part 3

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2

A history of airguns

American Zimmerstutzen
The American Zimmerstutzen.

This report covers:

  • I didn’t know the gun was loaded
  • And again…
  • And again
  • STOP!!!
  • Blanks?
  • Can real blanks hurt you?
  • They were blanks but he fired too soon
  • KaBOOM!
  • So what?
  • Sooner started…
  • Does this thing even work?
  • No fit?
  • Serendipity
  • HOWEVER
  • Summary

I first titled this report, “Can blanks hurt you?”

In writing about the American Zimmerstutzen today, I rediscovered all my fears about shooting blanks in guns. Why would I worry about that? Well, this home-built pellet rifle was made to be powered by a blank cartridge. And, over the three score and ten years of my life, I have seen countless injuries and deaths from blanks.

I didn’t know the gun was loaded

You may have heard the story that actor Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee, was killed during filming, “The Crow.” He was shot with what Hollywood and the media called a “blank gun.” But it wasn’t really a blank gun — it was a firearm. And he wasn’t shot with a blank; he was shot with a bullet. How, many ask? Simple — the film crew was careless while using a firearm to shoot blanks and someone loaded a live cartridge into the handgun that shot and killed Lee. And that was not the only time it’s happened. read more

Tuning BB’s Diana 27: Part 2

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

A history of airguns

This report covers:

  • Teardown
  • 25 years?
  • Krytox!
  • Petroleum archaeology!
  • Grease to oil
  • Spring is fully scragged
  • Grease formed plugs and solidified
  • Start cleaning
  • Removing the barrel
  • Surprise!
  • Piston out
  • And rust!
  • Diana peened the blind pin in the piston head!
  • Cleaning done, time for the Krytox
  • Lubed the mainspring
  • Assembly
  • The rest of the parts go in
  • Finishing assembly
  • The verdict
  • Did I do it wrong?
  • What should I do now?
  • Don’tcha wanna know how it works?
  • RWS Superpoint
  • Air Arms Falcon
  • Summary

Today is the day we learn whether Krytox is the miracle lubricant that both fixes and quiets spring-piston airguns. I have been hounded by people for more than a decade to try this stuff, and I had dug my heels in real deep, but then it dawned on me that Gene from Pyramyd Air had been after me for an equally long time to try Almagard 3752 — the grease that turned out to be Tune in a Tube. We all know how that went!

I promised to become the number one Krytox cheerleader if the stuff really works as advertised — by some airgunners, not by Krytox, themselves. But, I will also be only too happy to poke a hole in the Krytox balloon if it turns out we have been hoodwinked. read more