Category Archives: maintenance

maintenance category

Webley Service Mark II: Part 6

Posted on by ↓ 4 Comments

by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Webley Mark II Service rifle
Webley Mark II Service rifle.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

A history of airguns

Today’s report is a follow-on to a 5-part series I did on the Webley Mark II Service rifle. Today’s post is by reader RidgeRunner, who now owns the rifle. He tells us about the maintenance he did on the rifle.

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

And now, take it away, RidgeRunner.

This report covers:

  • A Little History
  • Something Funny Going On
  • We’re Going In
  • Doodad
  • Onward Through The Fog
  • Back Together
  • What’s Next?

A little history

Those of you who have been hanging around for a while may vaguely recall BB doing a blog about one of these air rifles. What some may not know is my loving wife contacted BB and conspired with him to have that very air rifle be my Christmas present last year. Needless to say I was quite surprised — shocked is more like it. This lovely old lady is now a permanent resident at RidgeRunner’s Home For Wayward Airguns. read more

Johnson Indoor Target Gun: Part 5

Posted on by ↓ 46 Comments

by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Johnson Indoor Target Gun
The Johnson Indoor Target Gun is a catapult BB gun that was made in the late 1940s for youth target practice.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

A history of airguns

This report covers:

  • The test
  • First shot
  • Second shot
  • Adjusted down again
  • Rubber band broke
  • Now for a group
  • Proof of the pudding
  • Summary

Well, all the work we did was to get to this point. Today I shoot the Johnson Indoor Target Gun for accuracy.

The test

I shot at a target about 10 feet away. I was seated and used the UTG Monopod as a rest.

Since these BBs are only moving 126-129 f.p.s., or so, I used an aluminum foil target like the one I made for the Sharpshooter catapult gun test. We know slow-moving balls will penetrate aluminum foil readily. The target was backed by a cardboard box that stopped every BB, and then sent them back at me. More work is required on the backstop to catch the BBs successfully. read more

Johnson Indoor Target Gun: Part 4

Posted on by ↓ 23 Comments

by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Johnson Indoor Target Gun
The Johnson Indoor Target Gun is a catapult BB gun that was made in the late 1940s for youth target practice.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

A history of airguns

This report covers:

  • Research
  • Cutting trouble
  • Sloppy cutting
  • It worked — sort of
  • What to do?
  • Experiment over?
  • Too much power
  • Summary

Today I will try a different kind of rubber in the Johnson Indoor Target Gun. Several readers who are more knowledgeable than me about slingshots recommended I try Theraband Gold. It is one of the types of elastic that’s favored by catapult users and makers around the world. I watched a You Tube video of the Slingshot Channel titled, The BIGGEST slingshot EVER. The builder uses Theraband Gold to launch a bowling ball into a Mercedes car repeatedly, destroying it. read more

Benjamin 310 BB gun: Part 8

Posted on by ↓ 23 Comments

by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

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

A history of airguns

Benjamin 310
A Benjamin 310 multi-pump BB gun from 1952.

This report covers:

  • The test
  • Hobbys
  • Sig Match Ballistic Alloy
  • H&N Baracuda Match
  • Falcon
  • Discussion
  • Summary

Today I test the Benjamin 310 BB gun with pellets. We learned in the test of BBs that the gun does like to shoot with the larger BBs. Let’s now find out how that translates to pellets.

The test

I shot the gun off a sandbag 10 meters from the target. I used the plus one pumping routine that worked so well for BBs. That works like this — the gun has air remaining from the previous shot and I pump one time after each shot. I get a stable velocity with that routine. Let’s see what she will do. read more

Piston seals: Part 2

Posted on by ↓ 36 Comments

by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

This report covers:

  • Importance of round air chambers
  • My best advice
  • Out of round pistons
  • The deal
  • Plain seals
  • Leather piston seal assemblies
  • Parachute seals
  • The PTFE seal
  • Last subject — seal materials
  • Piston rings
  • Summary

Today we will continue our discussion of the piston seal. This report was prompted by the comments of new reader Arvizu, who said, “ I noticed, too, that the seal plays an important role to define performance (sometimes small variations in diameter makes the difference). I would like to clarify that this is only my appreciation and limited experience with airguns.”

In Part One I attempted to show how a piston does its job. Arvizu’s question seemed to imply that he thought there might be an unlimited horizon for the piston seal, if only the technology could extract it. I tried to show that a piston is limited by the volume of air it compresses and improving piston seals is asymptotic. In other words there is a limit on the power that’s possible and we are now shaving small percentages as we approach that limit. To put it bluntly, we will never see the power of a spring piston system doubled by the seal. Never! read more

Benjamin 310 BB gun: Part 6

Posted on by ↓ 26 Comments

by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

A history of airguns

Benjamin 310
A Benjamin 310 multi-pump BB gun from 1952.

This report covers:

  • How to test?
  • RWS Hobby
  • H&N Baracuda Match
  • One pump
  • Another test
  • Fastest shot
  • Pellet tests coming
  • One final test
  • Summary

Today is our final day of looking at the velocity of the Benjamin 310 multi-pump BB gun. You will recall that the reason this has taken so long is because this gun is very flexible about the ammo it accepts. If it turns out to be accurate, this gun may well be an all-time best airgun to own — right up there with an FWB 124 and a Diana 27..

Today we will look at the velocity with pellets. Since the gun is smoothbore I don’t expect it to be accurate past 10 meters, but I will reserve judgement until we test it. If I get nothing better than 2-inches at that distance, though, I won’t be testing it at 25 yards. There are already enough holes in my walls and woodwork! read more

Piston seals: Part 1

Posted on by ↓ 87 Comments

by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

This report covers:

  • Updates
  • Early leather seals
  • What’s next?
  • Now that you understand…
  • No magic
  • Don’t be depressed!
  • Leather piston seals
  • The better way
  • It’s all the same
  • Leather’s shortcoming
  • Summary

Updates

Pyramyd Air has shipped me the replacement Fortitude, so I will be restarting that report soon. Leapers is sending me a micro dot sight that I showed you recently. I wanted that to test on the Beeman P1 pistol that I stopped testing months ago, but now I also want to put it on the Chaser pistol and perhaps on a rifle or two. And yes, GunFun1, I am going to test the Gauntlet at 50 yards with the tightened shroud/barrel.

But today I want to talk about something different. As you are aware, this blog gets many new readers all the time. Often when they come in they have a question about a topic I have addressed in the past. If their question is easy to answer I will often just give them the links to the past report — if I can find it. But sometimes their question isn’t so easy to answer, and when that happens and I know that I have many other new readers who might perhaps benefit from it, I will write a special blog. Today is such a day. read more