Tag Archives: Do-it-yourself project

HW 35 Luxus: Part 4

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

HW35
HW35 Luxus

This report covers:

  • Disassembly
  • Rekord trigger
  • End cap comes out
  • Mainspring and guide come out
  • Piston is next
  • Assembly
  • The safety
  • Back together
  • What’s next?

Today, we’ll look inside the HW 35 Luxus to see what we find. I’ve thought from the beginning that this is a tuned air rifle, and I’ve given you the clues why. The baseblock is lubricated with some heavy grease that Weihrauch never used, and the safety seems to be defeated.

I also want to find out what material the piston seal is made of. If it’s leather, it needs more frequent lubrication than a synthetic seal would need.

Disassembly

Disassembling most Weihrauch air rifles is easy. Only the R9/HW95 and the new HW50 have those 4 tabs that hold the very thin end cap in the rifle and are a little harder to deal with. But this HW 35 is an old-school Weihrauch that has a threaded end cap. read more

RWS Diana 45: Part 8

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

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

RWS Diana 45 air rifle
Diana 45 is a large breakbarrel spring rifle.

This report covers:

  • RWS Superdome pellets
  • Uh-oh!
  • RWS Hobby pellets
  • Air Arms Falcon pellets
  • Time to stop and think
  • H&N Baracuda Match pellets with 4.53mm head
  • Where we are

Today, we’ll look at the performance of the Diana 45 that we tuned recently. Although a new mainspring was installed, it has the same power as the spring that was in the rifle, so no vast power increase was anticipated. If there’s any increase at all, it will probably come from the new breech seal I installed. The old one was flat and hard, so the breech is probably sealing air better now.

The point of this tune was to eliminate as much vibration as we could. The rifle’s owner, Johnny Hill, did not like the buzz that came with every shot, and I told him that most or even all of that could be eliminated by tightening the tolerances inside the powerplant. At my request, he made a larger spring guide, and he buttoned the piston to take out as much vibration as possible. read more

RWS Diana 45: Part 7

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

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

RWS Diana 45 air rifle
Diana 45 is a large breakbarrel spring rifle.

This report covers:

• Barrel must go on
• Piston into the tube
• Piston liner and cocking shoe go in
• Install the barrel
• Install the trigger
• Install the barreled action in the stock
• Quick function test

Barrel must go on
I’ll pick up where I left off in the last report. To assemble the parts, the barrel has to go on the spring tube. During disassembly, I’d noticed during that the breech seal was flattened and hard, so it was replaced before anything else was done. It’s just an o-ring with a steel spacer underneath, so the old one was pried out and a new one was pressed into the groove. read more

RWS Diana 45: Part 6

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

RWS Diana 45 air rifleDiana 45 is a large breakbarrel spring rifle.

This report covers:

• Piston head swaged
• Eliminate sloppy tolerances
• Buttons
• Tighter spring guide
• Remove all burrs
• Clean the spring tube
• Lube the spring tube
• Lube the piston, piston liner and mainspring
• Lube the leather piston seal
• Leave the trigger alone

Today, I’ll show you all the things that have been done to the Diana 45 parts; and I’ll clean, lubricate and assemble the rifle. This will be a long report, so I am breaking it into two parts — today and tomorrow.

Piston head swaged
Before we get to the job though, I was asked by one reader to show how the piston head is attached to the piston body. If you want to replace the leather piston seal, the piston head has to be removed — and that isn’t going to be easy, because it is mechanically swaged onto the piston body. read more

Things you can do to make your new airgun better: Part 3

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2

This report covers:

• Shoot it!
• Test it!
• Clean it — maybe
• Oil it — maybe
• Keep your hands off!

Today, I’m going to look at precharged pneumatics (PCP). Maybe you thought these came ready to go right from the factory, and in many ways they do; but even with this powerplant, there are always things you can do to make the guns shoot better.

Shoot it!
The first thing is something most people are going to do anyway — I just want to make you aware of how it affects your gun. Shoot it! Don’t take it apart to see how it works and if you can “correct” all the flaws the “stupid” factory left in the gun when they made it. Don’t send it off to be tuned. Just shoot the thing, and it will get better. read more

Things you can do to make your new airgun better: Part 2

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

This report covers:

• CO2 facts
• CO2 is a self-regulating gas
• The temperature thing
• Piercing pin problems
• Chilling bulk-fill guns to fill better
• Crosman Pellgunoil
• Automatic transmission stop leak
• Getting more power from a vintage CO2 gun

It took me long enough to get back to this report! I guess the SHOT Show and some other things just busied-up my schedule. But, this afternoon, I was installing a CO2 cartridge in a gun and had a little difficulty…when it hit me — I need to tell the readers about that! So, today I’ll talk about CO2 guns just a little.

When airgunner Jennifer Cooper Wylie asked for this report on my facebook page, I think she was looking for tuneup tips. I’ll give them, but mixed in will be some common maintenance tips, as well. We’re looking at CO2 guns today, and it’ll be helpful to remember what we know about CO2. read more

RWS Diana 45: Part 5

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by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Diana 45
Diana 45 is a large breakbarrel spring rifle.

This report covers:

• Remove the barrel
• Barrel off!
• Remove the piston
• Disassembly is complete
• One last look

We have a lot to cover today, so let’s get right to it. We left the Diana 45 with the mainspring out of the gun at the end of yesterday’s report. The only thing left in the disassembly is to remove the piston. Do not disassemble a gun if you’re not 100% certain you can put it back together again in safe working condition!

Remove the barrel
The piston will not come out of the gun until the cocking link that connects it to the underside of the barrel (for cocking) is removed. To do that, you must first separate the barrel from the spring tube. That step is easy on some breakbarrels, but not so easy with this 45. On most breakbarrels, you remove the pivot bolt from the action forks and the barrel separates from the spring tube. The Diana 45 has another step; and unless you follow it, the barrel will never come off the gun. read more