Stripping a Bugelspanner: my experience

[Phil Russell]

Thanks Garvin. Is your rifle a .25? Do you know what fps it produces? I have no reference to go by so do not know if mine is about right or seriously out. I suspect not far off right but it would be nice to know.
My guess is that these rifles were designed for very short range work ....

As a bit of fun I did test mine on the 'garden range' yesterday. Fired horizontally from about 40 yards and from shoulder height the pellet hit the ground at about 30 yards. Adding some elevation I did manage to hit the paper target, but it was like watching a cricket ball being lobbed.

Oh what fun ...
Cheers, Phil

[Garvin]

Phil my approx. .180 cal rifled Bugelspanner does about 370 fps with a slightly squashed (to stop it dropping down the bore) 8.4 grain pellet. It's probably a .20 cal really but I don't have any .20 pellets. I think you're right and these rifles were designed for short range work. The design only produces low power even when in perfect order so .25 cal is a strange choice of bore size. Maybe it was because they made a satisfying 'thwunk' on knock-downs in a shooting gallery? Maybe gallery owners had to hand out fewer fluffy animal toys using a gun with a banana trajectory? Maybe the public found .25 pellets easier to handle?

[Phil Russell]

Thanks again Garvin. I thought the standard bore was .25 ... but clearly other bores were available. I wonder if .20 was for the American market.

Having been thinking about our rifle (dangerous at my age) I pondered on the metal to metal face contact for the breech and wondered if there was a small gap leaking air. A test on a thin shim (aka a bit of coke tin) showed that the barrel would close with no obvious extra resistance so I duly cut a hole to match the transfer port and tried it. Over a range of shots power went down about 40fps. Quite a surprise. Initially I thought my shim must be blocking part of the transfer port but it was OK. So I abandoned that idea.
Next I tried seating the pellets about 1mm into the bore. Previously I had 'finger pushed' them in, making sure that they were seated below the surface. This time there was a distinct 'nudge' as the pellet seated. FPS went up to almost 300! Wow ... almost a heady 4 ft lbs! This was with H&N field Trophy (20.1 grains I believe) ... cheapest I found at £3.99 for 200.

I may well declare a truce with the rifle now.

Cheers, Phil

Cheers, Phil