by Tom Gaylord, a.k.a. B.B. Pelletier
Today, I’ll apply what I learned about bending an airgun barrel to a real problem. As I said in several earlier posts, I have a BSF S70 breakbarrel that came to me with a peep sight installed but no open sights. BSF rifles aren’t common in the U.S., so finding a correct rear sight would take some time; but more importantly, I like the peep sight that’s on the gun. It was one that Air Rifle Headquarters sold as an optional sight, but the owner of this rifle removed the original sights and didn’t replace them when he sold the gun. So, all I have is the peep.
When I tried to sight in the rifle, I discovered that it was shooting 2-3/4-inches high at 10 meters, which would put it even higher at 25 yards. Either the front sight had to be raised (because the peep was adjusted as low as it will go), or the barrel had to be bent. Since the front sight is dovetailed into the barrel, I decided to bend the barrel. That was two years ago. Since then I’ve been researching ways to bend barrels and thinking about the equipment needed to do the job.