Tag Archives: airgun design

Interesting gun designs — Benjamin Legacy: Part 4

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Benjamin Legacy SE
Benjamin Legacy with a gas spring was a short-lived breakbarrel.

This report covers:

  • Getting started
  • The hold
  • First group
  • Second group
  • After that
  • Additional data
  • What’s next?

Let’s look at the accuracy of the .22-caliber Benjamin Legacy gas-spring rifle. If you remember, this was a rifle that came out just before I went into the hospital in 2010. When I got out 3 months later, the gun had already been taken off the market. I never reviewed it for you because it was an airgun you couldn’t buy, but the fact that it only took 16 lbs. of force to cock it fascinated me. I wanted to see what it could do regardless of whether or not you could buy one; because, if this turned out to be a good idea, it’s worth doing again. read more

An open letter to airgun designers

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Announcement: Pyramyd Air has asked me to announce their Memorial Day Madness sale, which features some sizable price reductions.

This report covers:

  • Design parameters and constraints
  • Barrel
  • Pivot joint
  • Coiled steel spring items
  • Piston
  • Spring guides
  • Mainspring
  • Gas-spring items
  • Piston bore
  • Trigger and safety
  • Stock
  • Sights
  • Scope base
  • Disassembly
  • Discussion
  • You do the rest

I used to teach a subject called Value Engineering to Department of Defense procurement personnel. Value Engineering was a U.S. Army initiative from World War II, where a design was examined by not just engineers, but by all the disciplines that dealt with the product. The goal was to create the function of an item at the lowest cost.

They discovered, for example, that a maintenance man could make a small change that saved the Army millions of dollars by either making the item easier to maintain or making it so it didn’t require maintenance at all. On the other hand, a production manager might make a change in the design that dropped the cost to produce the item from $2000 to $3.00 by simply changing the way it was produced. read more

Interesting gun designs — Benjamin Legacy: Part 3

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2

Benjamin Legacy SE
Benjamin Legacy with a gas spring was a short-lived breakbarrel.

This report covers:

  • Something special from the back room!
  • Benefits of a lower-pressure gas spring
  • Trigger
  • Lower power
  • RWS Hobby pellets
  • Crosman Premier pellets
  • JSB Exact RS pellets
  • The point of this review

Something special from the back room!

I’m going slow with this report, because it concerns an airgun you cannot purchase. Read Part 2 to see where I found out about the .22-caliber Benjamin Legacy breakbarrel with a gas spring — not the Legacy with a steel spring that sold many years earlier. In the 3 months between the time I contracted pancreatitis in March of 2010 until I was discharged from the last hospital in June of that year, the Benjamin Legacy with gas spring was born, died and forgotten. I never had the chance to review it for you. read more

Interesting gun designs — Benjamin Legacy: Part 2

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

This report covers:

  • Something special from the back room!
  • Easy to cock
  • Smooth shooting
  • Testus interruptus
  • No more Legacy
  • Something’s coming — maybe
  • The rifle
  • Cocking effort 16 lbs.
  • A modern Diana 27?

Today’s report is the reason I wrote the whole report about interesting designs. Today, I’m going to address what I’ve wanted to show you for the past 5 years. This is an interesting story, so fill your cup, sit back and enjoy.

It began in 2009, when Paul Capello and I started the television show American Airgunner. We needed content for the show, and the Crosman Corporation in East Bloomfield, New York, invited us to come in and film their operation. I had toured parts of their plant before, and I knew there was a lot to see.

Something special from the back room!

During the tour, their head engineer, Ed Schultz, asked if we would like to see something special. Naturally, we were excited! He took us out a back door next to the bulk CO2 tank that fills all the cartridges they make. Then, he told us about a secret project of his. read more

Interesting gun designs: Part 1

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

This report covers:

  • M1 Carbine
  • Investment casting
  • The Swedish Luger
  • Weak steel alloy
  • No criticism intended
  • Airguns are next

This is Part 1 because there is are additional parts planned. I have wanted to write this report for many years, which will come out as the story unfolds.

Mention interesting gun design to anyone 60 years and younger and sooner or later the AR-15/M16 will enter into the discussion. They’ll call it the Mattel-o-Matic and other derogatory terms. It deserves much of that derision, not because of the gun’s design, but because of the unsuccessful way in which it was launched. It was tested in just a cursory way and then quickly modified and shoved out the door to satisfy political pressure. It was proven (field tested) in battle, where tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines paid a very high price for the shortcomings of the initial design. In the half-century since that time the design has evolved into something robust, reliable and very adaptive. read more

2014 SHOT Show: Part 3

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by Tom Gaylord, a.k.a. B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2

Mea Culpa!
You know, Babe Ruth was the home run king of his era. But he was also the strikeout king. Sometimes when you swing for the fence, you get fanned by the pitcher. I’ve done that a couple of times in recent reports.

The AirForce Escape SS has a 12-inch barrel. I said it was an 18-inch barrel, but several of you clever guys spotted why that could not be. And, while I was starting to redden from embarrassment in the AirForce booth, John McCaslin also took the opportunity to inform me that what I wrote about the Escape valve is also incorrect. It isn’t different than the TalonP valve — it is identical. So, gather a crowd and paint me red…I goofed! read more

What’s possible?

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by Tom Gaylord, a.k.a. B.B. Pelletier

Today, I just have to address all the discussions in the comments we’ve been having regarding the cost of production (of airguns) and why some companies can or cannot build certain guns. Let me begin with the Benjamin Discovery, whose story is a wonderful lesson of what’s possible.

History of the Benjamin Discovery
In 2006, Crosman held a conference with all the airgun writers. The four of us (Stop laughing! I’m telling the truth, here!) were flown to upstate New York and initially presented with Crosman’s corporate goals and objectives. We were then shown things that were soon to be launched. Finally, they asked us to tell them what we thought airgunners wanted. We sat in what they call their War Room (a boardroom with many of their products on the walls) and told them things we thought they should make — or at least consider making. read more