Tag Archives: smoothbore

Original Bugelspanner: Part 2

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

Part 1

Buglespanner spring-piston air rifle
B.B.’s Bugelspanner.

It’s been a while since I wrote about this gun, I know. Airgunner Larry Hannusch told me how to disassemble it, and I started…only to stop when I encountered a barrier. I’ve resolved that barrier, and today I’ll show you the inside of my gun to the extent that I’ve disassembled it.

Larry told me to remove the screws on top and beneath the action that were obvious, then separate the two parts — action and stock. I removed 4 screws, and the action came loose from the stock a little bit. Then, it stopped cold. That was where I stopped working and set the gun aside. Yesterday, I picked it up and began from that point. read more

Original Bugelspanner: Part 1

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

Buglespanner spring-piston air rifle

B.B.’s bügelspanner.

Today, I have a story for you. A couple weeks ago, one of our blog readers — a man named Eric — emailed me a link to a local craigslist.com posting. Eric met me at a gun show last year, and I sold him a Winchester model 427 (Diana 27) air rifle. He already knew about fine vintage airguns, and the 27 had been on his wish list for a while, but I don’t think he was a blog reader. Well, we fixed that right away! Since then, he’s been reading the blog and becoming more familiar with his new rifle and airguns in general

The listing he sent me showed a Tyrolean air rifle with the traditional high-cupped cheekpiece and hooked buttplate. What was even more fascinating were the double-set triggers and the large aperture sight located at the rear of the receiver, as well as the sporting sight mounted on the barrel. read more

Advanced airgun diagnostics: Part 1

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

I don’t know about the rest of you, but this blog is teaching me things. I’m learning a lot more things by doing all these little tests and experiments than I ever learned by reading about airguns. Of course, that’s partly because there aren’t that many good books around, but it’s more because of the excellent discussions we have here. And more often than not, something really special comes from all this study.

Yesterday, I was finishing an article for my monthly column in Shotgun News when I happened to spot something interesting. I was writing about the Chinese KL-3B Fast Deer sidelever spring-piston air rifle and I showed two targets — one shot with RWS Hobby pellets at 10 meters and another shot with the same pellet at 25 yards. The 10-shot group at 10 meters measured 0.38 inches between centers, and the 10-shot group of the same pellet that was shot at 25 yards measured 1.918 inches. That was certainly a huge increase for just moving the target 14 yards farther! But it was more than that. I had seen something similar recently — something that really stuck in my mind. read more

Airgun darts

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by B.B. Pelletier

Update on Tom/B.B.: When I visited him Monday afternoon, we discovered that he’d lost 50 lbs. of water in less than a week. All vital signs are stable and things look quite good!

Today’s blog was written by B.B., but we have an announcement first.

Pyramyd Air is having its 3rd Annual Airgun Garage Sale on June 5. As in previous years, there will be a mountain of guns and accessories with slashed prices and dented pellet tins at huge discounts. Come early, bring cash or credit cards, and shop til you drop!

Now, on to today’s blog.


An airgun dart is very accurate due to the high drag of its animal hair or fiber skirt. It’s forward-weighted and has fletching, just like the hand-thrown dart.
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