Bowkett Meteor (stripped, pics and questions)

[lightning22]

Hello,

The Story

In the mid 80's I was unleashed on an unsuspecting world with a BSA Meteor 'S' in Mk5 flavour. Over the next couple of years it was in pieces more often I care to remember, being polished and relubricated...... it was even 'treated' to an OX spring.

Had I had the money it would have been sent to John Bowkett for his 12ftlb conversion which IIRC cost £25 plus a couple of quid for postage. It was eventually chopped in for an Airsporter and the conversion never happened, though I've looked for one ever since........

Then one came up on here without a stock and it was mine!

As is typical I shot it a couple of times, winced at the recoil and put it away as my FAC came through. I bit the bullet the other day, stuck a scope on it and took it to the club. It was bloody horrible! I haven't worried about breaking a scope for ages.

Closer inspection revealed a breech seal made of cheese so it went away again and I ordered the bits.

Today I dropped my Spitfire off with the man himself and dragged the old Meteor up for him to have a peer at for old times sake. Thus galvanised into action, I've stripped it down tonight to have a look-see.

Pictures

.... and this is what I found..... the main bits, given that this is a small rifle with a reputation for doing 12ftlbs in .177 I was expecting a bit of preload, I wasn't wrong. A notched delrin bar and a sash cramp took care of the safety side of things and a rather odd looking spring and guide arrangement came out. At first I thought it was a square section spring, but it was just a thick layer of moly giving the impression of round being square. I had expected one of the custom guides that John used to sell, instead a section of spring has been wound into the spring on a standard guide, locking the spring to the guide. It can't twang as there isn't much chance of the guide touching the spring.

Next out was the piston which has also been heavily modified with a new head, a thin plastic buffer and a square section seal. The piston is retained in the piston by a large threaded bar, which together with the ring that preloads the spring acts as a substantial piston weight.

Inside the cylinder there is evidence of cross-hatch honing and what looks like a 45 deg angle applied to the transfer port.

The spring spec on the beastie is as follows......

Overall length = 240mm

No. of coils = 30

Inner diameter = 12.8mm - 0.5"

Outer diameter = 19mm - 0.748"

Wire diameter = 3mm - 0.118"

Questions

John reckons he's done 'hundreds' of these, anyone else out there got one?

Any idea where the piston ring originates from? Does it look familiar to anyone?

I will ask John, but thought I would share this here and hope that someone might know.

Rich