Category Archives: Collecting

Collecting Category

2019 Pacific Airgun Expo

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Today’s report is a report of the 2019 Pacific Airgun Expo, written by reader Yogi.
If you’d like to write a guest post for this blog, please email me.

And now, tell us about the show, Yogi

This report covers:

  • I go to the show
  • Placerville
  • What’s up?
  • Success!
  • Lots o’ PCPs!
  • 10-meter guns
  • Summary

As a avid reader of B.B.’s Pyramid Air blog for the past several years, I decided to try and write a guest blog to lighten his burden and show appreciation for his efforts. So here is my attempt.

I go to the show

B.B. has written at great length about how interesting Airgun Shows/Swap Meets are. I live too far away to attend the big ones in Texas and Ohio. I wish I had been in airgunning when I lived on the East Coast and could easily have attended the Roanoke Show. So, when I heard that there is a smaller airgun show just 180 miles away, I knew I had to go. read more

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

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

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

Tuning BB’s Diana 27: Part1

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

A history of airguns

This report covers:

  • Bias
  • The deal
  • Krytox
  • Diana peep sight
  • Cheap peep
  • Same idea — more elegant
  • The best
  • Ebay
  • BIG teaching point
  • On with the Diana peep
  • So, what?
  • My 27
  • RWS Superpoints
  • Air Arms Falcons
  • Discussion
  • Summary
  • Sad news

Today’s report isn’t quite what the title says. I am going to tune my Hy Score 807/Diana 27 for you, because, after the success I had with Michael’s rifle, I felt it was time to strike while the iron is hot. But reader comments entered the picture as I was extolling the virtues of Tune in a Tube. One reader said he had his best luck with a lubrication product called Krytox, and then several more readers piled on, saying similar things. So, the subtitle of this report could be “The Great Krytox Experiment, or Krytox versus Tune in a Tube.” Because that’s what I plan to do — tune my Diana 27/Hy Score 807 with Krytox to compare it to a Tune in a Tube tune. read more