replica guns | Air gun blog - Pyramyd Air Report

Resealing the Daisy model 41 pellet pistol: Part 1

Posted on December 7, 2020 by B.B. Pelletier ↓ 30 Comments

by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Today’s report is another guest blog from reader Ian McKee who writes as 45 Bravo. Today and tomorrow he will tell us of his experience in resealing a Daisy model 41 pellet pistol.

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

Now, take it away, Ian.

Resealing the Daisy model 41 pellet pistol: Part 1

Ian McKee
Writing as 45Bravo

History of airguns

This report covers:

Resealing two pellet pistols
History of the elusive Daisy 41
Separating fact from fiction
Three phases of the Daisy pellet pistols
The outside
The insides
Stop

Resealing two pellet pistols

I have resealed dozens of the S&W 78/79 series pistols over the years, and a few of the Daisy 780/790 pistols, but I have never touched one of the Daisy Model 41s.

One of the blog readers reached out to me about resealing a pair of his pistols that have a lot of sentimental attachment. One is an immaculate S&W 79G, the other is the subject of today’s blog. read more

What is the attraction of replica airguns?

Posted on June 12, 2020 by B.B. Pelletier ↓ 122 Comments

by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

This report covers:

Today’s report
HOWEVER
Taste
Replicas used for training
And, there is more!
Engraved Colt Single Action
And then…
One more reason
Summary

Before I begin let me tell you that I won a Slavia 618 in an Ebay auction and it is on it’s way to me now. I bought it because so many readers have talked about that model over the years and I have never even shot one. In my youth I owned a Slavia 621 (622?) breakbarrel for a short time. I found nothing outstanding about it and it eventually got away from me.

Many years later I acquired a Slavia 631 that I did like and shoot a lot. But it had a hinky automatic safety that turned me off so much that I — well, the truth be told, I don’t know what happened to that rifle. For all I know I may still have it laying around somewhere. You can read about it in a 2011 two-part report than was supposed to have a part 3 that never got written. read more

Sig Sauer P365 air pistol: Part 4

Posted on April 8, 2020 by B.B. Pelletier ↓ 68 Comments

by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

Sig Sauer P365 BB pistol.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

This report covers:

The test
The first shot
Sig BBs
Discussion
New CO2 cartridge
Crosman Black Widow BBs
What I’m up against
The trigger
Dust Devil BBs
Summary

Today we look at the accuracy of the Sig P365 BB pistol. So far this gun has been performing as it should. I just hope it will stay on the paper at 5 meters. There are two reasons I say that. First, with guns that have a short barrel, ANY movement of the gun/barrel causes large movements of the shots downrange. Short-barreled handguns are just as accurate as handguns with long barrels — they are just harder to shoot accurately. And second, with a sight radius (distance between the font and rear sight) of just a few inches, ANY amount the sights are off will be exaggerated downrange. read more

Gletcher Nagant pellet revolver: Part 3

Posted on July 15, 2015 by B.B. Pelletier ↓ 163 Comments

by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

The new Gletcher Nagant pellet revolver comes in both silver and black. I’m testing a silver gun.

Part 1
Part 2

Before I start the report, here is an update on Edith. This thing she may have/probably has is called Guillian Barre Syndrome. It does in hours what MS does in years. It is very rare — only one case in 100,000 they say. But it is curable, where MS isn’t. Or at least if the disease doesn’t go away, it stops bothering the patient.

Edith has been having waves of pain and weakness attacks, followed by short recoveries. Last evening she was in a lot of pain and could not get out of bed. But her doctor is optimistic that the treatment she is undergoing will work and she’ll have a full recovery. I took her computer to the hospital, but she wasn’t able to look at it last night. I will see her again today and hopefully she’ll be much better and able to read all you have written.

Now, let’s see what we have today. This report covers:

First group
Second group
Third group
Fourth group
What have we learned?

Today we look at the accuracy of Gletcher’s Nagant pellet revolver. After testing the Colt Single Action Army recently, I suspect a lot of you expect big things from this air pistol. I want to remind you that I shot the Colt smoothbore at 25 feet and today I’m shooting this pellet revolver at 10 meters, which is 8 feet farther. Yes, this one does have a rifled barrel while the BB gun has a smooth bore, but those 8 additional feet can open the group a lot with a handgun.

I shot with the gun rested on a sandbag. Right away I noticed a couple things. First, the Gletcher’s trigger pull is much heavier than the Colt. It is also more positive. I felt the two triggers were equal between the 2 guns. I shot single action only, since this was target work and double action is usually reserved for action shooting.

Next I noticed the Gletcher’s sights, while fixed like the Colt’s, are much better for this kind of shooting. The front blade is very thin, compared to the Colt’s blade that fills the rear sight notch. I felt aiming with the Gletcher was much more precise. The target was lit brightly and I was in the dark, so the sights were a perfect dark silhouette.

From Part 2 I remembered that the pellets have to be seated into the cartridges or they may fall back out. So each pellet was seated deep with the Air Venturi Pellet Pen.

First group

The first group was shot with 7 H&N Finale Match Pistol pellets. They impacted level with the aim point, which was the 6 o’clock spot on the bullseye. But the group was centered an inch to the left — a fact that carried through with all pellets in this test. Seven pellets landed in a group that measures 1.805 inches between centers. Not a good showing!

Seven H&N Finale Match Pistol pellets made this 1.805-inch group at 10 meters.

Second group

We’ve all seen dramatic differences in accuracy between different pellets, so I was hopeful the second pellet would surprise me. I also needed to know that my shooting was up to par, and a tighter group would do that. But it was not to be. Seven Qiang Yuan Training pellets made a 1.799-inch group that was nearly identical to the first group. If there was a difference, these pellets were spread horizontally while the Finale Match were more vertical.

Seven Qiang Yuan Training pellets made this 1.799-inch group at 10 meters.

We know from my earlier test that these Chinese pellets are high quality. So at this point I asked myself if perhaps the Nagant revolver just doesn’t like wadcutter pellets at all! Maybe I should try a dome?

Third group

The next pellet I loaded was the RWS Superdome. This time I couldn’t see the group as it formed — because the domed pellet cuts a smaller ragged hole. But Superdomes are the pellet for the Nagant. Seven of them went into 1.323 inches at 10 meters. That’s right there with some of the more expensive pellet revolvers.

Seven RWS Superdome pellets made this 1.323-inch group at 10 meters. Now, this is a group!

Of course the sad thing is the Nagant’s sights aren’t adjustable, so to move this group requires some Kentucky windage. The groups will open up that way. But for the money, the Geltcher Nagant pellet revolver is a real value. And please remember that this is shooting at 33 feet rather than 25 feet.

Fourth group

I thought I was on a roll after seeing how the Superdomes grouped. Another premium domed pellet would surely do as well, if not better? Not

Air Arms Falcon pellets read more

Tanfoglio Gold Custom Eric Grauffel CO2 blowback airsoft kit: Part 4

Posted on December 17, 2013 by B.B. Pelletier ↓ 30 Comments

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

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

The Tanfoglio Gold Custom Eric Grauffel pistol is a competition airsoft gun in a box!

Today is the day we adjust the BAXS in the Tanfoglio Gold Custom CO2 blowback airsoft kit gun to see how it affects the gun’s ablity to group. Remember, the BAXS is another form of hop-up, which is the generic name for a rubber bumper that puts a backspin on the airsoft BB as it exits the bore. That causes the BB to fly straighter and farther than it would if it were not spinning, or if it were allowed to spin randomly.

So, the first thing to do is to get to the BAXS adjustment wheel, which is located deep inside the gun’s slide. The gun must be partially disassembled, and therein lies a problem. The manual is poorly written and illustrated with confusing small photos that don’t depict what you actually must do.

To remove the slide of this pistol, the slide stop, or what the manual called the slide stopper, must first be removed. There are 2 different things that must be done precisely to get the slide stop out, and the manual doesn’t cover them. First, the slide has to be pushed back only about a quarter inch to release the slide stop. If you see the rear of the barrel dive down as you push the slide back, it’s moved too far. Second, there’s a very small clearance hole for the large end of the slide stop on the left side of the frame. Once again, pushing the slide too far back will cause the stop to pass this clearance hole, and the slide stop cannot be removed from the gun.

Of course, you don’t find out any of this until the slide is off the gun, which is too late. And the instructions are one sentence long. If you don’t know how to remove the slide, the instructions will not help you!

The slide must be removed to adjust the BAXS wheel.

Once the slide is off, the BAXS adjustment wheel is located on the underside of the slide and barrel assembly. It’s a small plastic wheel that’s turned by a small thin blade, such as a tiny screwdriver. A pin in the wheel limits its travel to less than half a turn, so the amount of adjustment is small. But if the gun was designed right and manufactured carefully, it should be enough to make a difference.

The BAXS wheel is turned to adjust the amount of backspin put on the BB. The adjustment is limited to less than half a rotation of the wheel.

I noted where the adjustment wheel was when the gun was disassembled. It was close to one end, so I moved it to the other extreme end. If there was going to be a difference, I wanted it to be immediate and visible. And it was — as I will now show you.

I decided to begin with the Air Venturi Pro CQBBs that weigh 0.25 grams because they were the most accurate in the previous test. When you adjust something as finicky as hop-up, stick to one BB whose performance you know. To do otherwise would just waste your time because you would never know if it was the particular BB or the gun’s adjustment that was right or wrong.

I shot a lot of targets in this test, but I’m not going to show you all of them. For the first couple, I was just getting the BBs back on target at 10 meters. The BAXS adjustment moved the point of impact several inches higher than it was the last time. But as I adjusted the dot sight and brought them back down onto the paper, I noticed something. They all tended to be strung out vertically, but were very tight horizontally. And each target, of 5 that I shot, had 4 BBs tight together and one that was apart from the group — a flier. Only there was no reason for the flier that I could see.

So, there were 4 BBs grouped together and the fifth BB would be more than one inch away from the main group. I adjusted the BAXS a couple times to correct this, but it persisted with this BB.

This 5-shot group measures 3.197 inches, but the lone shot at the bottom opens it up by more than one inch. Notice how narrow the group is.

Another 5-shot group of 0.20-gram Air Venturi CQBBs is also tall and even narrower. This time, 4 BBs went into 1.08 inches, and the fifth shot opened the group to 2.26 inches.

There were 3 more groups just like these, and then I decided to switch BBs. The next BB I tried was the 0.20-gram Marui Black that Pyramyd Air does not stock. Being lighter, these BBs went faster than the others. The first group was really tight.

Here are 5 shots in 0.847 inches at 10 meters. The Tanfoglio seems to like the 0.20-gram Marui Black BBs. This is what a good airsoft pistol can do at 10 meters. read more

Tanfoglio Gold Custom Eric Grauffel CO2 blowback airsoft kit: Part 3

Posted on November 29, 2013 by B.B. Pelletier ↓ 45 Comments

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

Part 1
Part 2

The Tanfoglio Gold Custom Eric Grauffel pistol is a competition airsoft gun in a box!

Today is accuracy day for the Tanfoglio Gold Custom CO2 blowback airsoft kit gun, but it’s just the first of many tests. An airsoft gun with adjustable Hop-up, or BAXS in this case, has to be adjusted to shoot its best. I’ve never adjusted a gun with BAXS, but I’ve adjusted plenty of them with Hop-up and that is how it always happens. The gun never shoots its best right out of the box. I’m assuming the BAXS is the same.

All I did today was find out which BBs are worth continuing with and which aren’t. As it turned out, I got good results with several 0.20-gram BBs, which is what the manufacturer recommends for this gun. I also did well with one 0.25-gram BB.

I’ll warn you right now, the targets you’re about to see are not very impressive. They look terrible, in fact. If you’re used to good groups from pellet guns, these are going to seem hopeless. But they do show small differences between the good BBs and those that aren’t worth pursuing, and that was all I wanted to do today.

I shot off a bag rest with the butt of the gun (the bottom of the magazine well) rested against the bag. I also tried holding it ahead of the bag and just resting my arms on the bag, but it moved around too much. Maybe next time I’ll play with some different holds.

I shot only 5-shot groups today because I was testing a large number of different BBs. In all, I tested over 10 different brands, but only the most promising will be shown here.

Sight failure!
Before I get to that, however, there was another problem not related to the gun. The Swiss Arms red dot sight that was bundled with the pistol quit working suddenly during the first session. It wasn’t the battery because that’s still good. So, I dismounted it and installed a Walther Competition II Top Point red dot sight that I got from Pyramyd Air for testing; but some funny-bunny at the factory had left the sight turned to high power, and the battery was dead. I replaced it with a fresh battery but the sight failed to respond. So — two red dot sights out of the running even before we start. That was what ticked me off yesterday and caused the rewriting of my blog.

Fortunately, I have an older Tasco Pro Point red dot sight that has functioned perfectly on many airguns over the past 15 years. That one went on for this test, and everything was good again.

Quick rundown
Sight-in was a bit frantic because I unknowingly chose the least accurate 0.20 BB for the job. The gun doesn’t like the

Air Venturi Pro CQBBs that weigh 0.20-grams read more

Tanfoglio Gold Custom Eric Grauffel CO2 blowback airsoft kit: Part 2

Posted on November 20, 2013 by B.B. Pelletier ↓ 44 Comments

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

Part 1

The Tanfoglio Gold Custom Eric Grauffel pistol is a competition airsoft gun in a box!

Let’s look at the velocity of the Tanfoglio Gold Custom CO2 blowback airsoft kit gun. When I started the test, I discovered something unusual. The CO2 cartridge I’d loaded last week to test the gun initially had leaked down completely. That usually doesn’t happen until several months have passed, so it got me wondering. I’ll watch the gun and see if it happens again. I left the test today with a 75 percent filled cartridge; so if I test it again in a week and it’s out, I’ll know. And to answer your question, yes, I did use Crosman Pellgunoil on the tip of each fresh cartridge when I installed it.

Testing the velocity of an airsoft gun is a little different than testing a pellet gun. It’s more like testing a BB gun because the airsoft BBs come in specific weights. The velocities tend to conform to the weights rather than to the individual brands of BBs used. I’ll test the pistol today with the 4 most popular weights — 0.12 grams, 0.20 grams, 0.25 grams and 0.28 grams. And let’s get something straight right now. When we’re talking about airsoft BBs, we’re speaking in terms of GRAMS — not grains. There are about 454 grams in a pound, but 7,000 GRAINS per pound. So a gram is MUCH heavier than a grain. A gram is a decimal unit of the metric system. It’s one-thousandth of a kilogram. A grain is an apothecary (medical) weight from the old English system of weights — a system that is also used by jewelers. It was historically the weight of one barley seed, but has been standardized to one seven-thousandth of a pound.

Regardless of the weight of each BB, they’re all the same size. Their weight is controlled by the material used to make them.

UHC Precision Ground BBs, 0.12 grams
First up are 0.12-gram (1.85 grains) UHC BBs. They averaged 417 f.p.s. in the Tanfoglio pistol. The range went from a low of 406 to a high of 425 f.p.s. That’s slightly slower than the maximum advertised veloicity of 453 f.p.s for this pistol. At the average velocity they produce 0.71-foot-pounds of energy at the muzzle. Given the design goals of airsoft, that’s fine, because much more than that will start to injure anyone hit by them.

Air Venturi Pro CQBBs, 0.20 grams
Next up were Air Venturi Pro CQBBs 0.20-gram (3.09 grains) BBs. These are value-priced BBs that come in bottles of 2,700 rounds, 5,000 rounds and, for the serious shooter, supersized bags of 125,000!

These averaged 333 f.p.s. with a spread from 315 to 346 f.p.s. This is the recommended BB weight for this pistol, which means it will probably be the easiest one to tune the BAXS (the trajectory adjustment in the pistol) with. At the average velocity, this BB produced 0.76 foot-pounds of muzzle energy. I have other brands of 0.20-gram BBs, including competition BBs; so if this weight turns out to work well in the gun, I plan to give it the biggest test. As a final note, the velocity was right where the specs say it should be (320-350 f.p.s.).

Air Venturi Pro CQBBs, 0.25 grams
This 0.25-gram (3.86 grains) BB is a little heavier than the recommended weight, but sometimes that doesn’t hurt the accuracy at all. With the right BBs, it can enhance it — and this is where having several different brands of premium airsoft BBs is an advantage. I tested velocity with the Air Venturi Pro CQBBs 0.25-gram BB that’s the equivalent of the 0.20-gram BB mentioned above, but heavier. It comes packaged the same way, and I have the 2,700 BB bottle for the test.

These BBs averaged 296 f.p.s. in the Tanfoglio pistol. The range went from 282 to 304 f.p.s. At the average velocity, this BB produced 0.75 foot-pounds of muzzle energy.

TSD Tactical, 0.28 gram BBs
The last BB I tried was the TSD Tactical 0.28-gram (4.32 grains) BBs. These are clearly too heavy for this gun, but they did produce velocity very close to the 0.25-gram BBs. The average was 289 f.p.s., with a spread from 274 to 302 f.p.s. At the average velocity, this BB developed 0.80 foot-pounds of energy at the muzzle.

Loading the magazine read more