Carbining a Tornado?

[ogilkes]

The mighty Tornado can be made to shoot decently.

There is a .177 model, FEG (The Hungarian manufacturer) made them for Umarex and Grotthaus on the continent. But being British, Relum imported .22 (which as SMK continue to illustrate seems to be considered the British calibre!). So, you might find a .177 for sale here, but I have only ever come across one of them (ad that was a Supertornado) and that one I bought!

[Dave S]

Hurrah, newly made leather piston seal works, and the gun cocks and fires

Pics later, then the chop.



Dave

[Dave S]

The Vic^h^h^h Patient:



It has a few cosmetic blemishes, like this half finished chequering...



And the odd missing pin/bolt



The BB in the cocking lever is stuck in and overall the metalwork was a mix of flaky paint and rust.
With a few temporary pins and bolts scavanged from the garage it cocks, although the spring is very close to coil bound:



and it fires, punching a nice neat hole with hobbies at about 2 foot range.


So to the altar:

and out with the saw:


Tada!
Now the look is more balanced.

and it still shoots holes:


I did an ultra quick crown job, just to make the end square, Ill sort it out properly later on in the rebuild.


Using a cutter made something like this:


Whats a good crown angle?

Dave

PS I cant seem to get the pics to display as pics, only links?

[Hsing-ee]

Hmm. It does look better already. Possibly the best looking Relum Tornado in England, having lost its snakey sticky-out muzzle. Like the ugly step-grandfather of an HW77.

What would really improve it is a full-length Stutzen type stock, with the addition of a top cover wooden heat guard like on a military rifle of the mid 20th Century. It would look well'ard then.

[edbear2]

Hi Dave, the link thing is normal, you can't upload pics in this section As to crown angle, a full frontal one...ie. the whole diameter from the bore to the outside of the barrel is typically 11 degrees or so on powder burners, but many air rifles have rounded ends to the barrel and a chamfer just at the end of the bore of say 45 degrees X 3 mm.

The critical thing is this chamfer is perfectly even, ie. the lands of the rifling are all the same length overall, even a tiny variation has the micro effect of the pellet leaving the grip of the bore on one side, whilst still engaged on the other, destroying or badly effecting accuracy , that's the best way I can explain it.

I would copy what ever was there before (assuming you haven't lobbed the off cut over the fence), or have a look at another gun you have for ideas. There are several good videos on youtube about barrel crowning actually!

ATB, Ed

[Johnc61]

Yep, looking better already. Cant help thinking that stock still gives it an 'awkward' appearance. Needs more wood on the fore end. And of course a strip, stain and refinish. You going to reblue or paint?

[Dave S]

I still have the other end Ill make a 45 degree piloted cutter then. Can always chop a bit more off

It was originally painted with black paint, but I fancy trying bluing, as in the rescued HW77 thread in the main forum.

Not sure about the new stock yet, I do have a piece of walnut in, but I was planning on making a crossbow with it

Dave

[Odjick29]

With the Relum I was going to use that 'Black-it' stuff as it sounds ideal. I got my break barrel reblued and it is beautiful but maybe only for the 'keepers'.
http://www.black-it.co.uk/

[gedfinn 2]

The demand for that would be nearly zero. There are some .177 Relum underlevers around, ask Gedfinn2, but I think they may have a shorter compression chamber. The .22 is a better bet for tuning though, more efficient. The triggers are not great and a tap which closes upwards isn't such a great idea. If Protek guts are fitted and the tap very carefully shimmed and tweaked to fit exactly the centre line of the bore then maybe it would be OK, but many people have tried tuning these guns and they have not got more than 9.5 ft/lbs and indifferent accuracy out of them. You could spend 50 hours and £100 on one of them and still only get the performance of a BSA Meteor that had been sitting in a shed for 15 years.

However, if you want an engineering challenge, try to sort a mechanism to give the Tornado a direct-loading breech. There is plenty of meat in the breech area, you just have to work out some kind of roller-breech or trapdoor. That would be interesting.

Hi, As usual the Relum threads have turned into a " Pisstake "

I only replied because my mate Hsing-ee, Mentioned me ,
First off, The Relums & their copies came in 3, Cylinder lengths.
there were 2, for the UK market & an Export version , ( I am talking about the Tornado & The break barrel version,)

They had 2, trigger types , One basic ( My favourite & used on all my homemade guns ) & A later design & a number of piston head designs , These included piston lengths & Attachments,
I might add, I used these Barrels too,
I bought a number of guns & Spares about 8-10 years ago, get a little bit of my own back here , Ha ha, For £40 !! Check out the spare prices now, !

I have sold 90% of the guns & Still have a number of parts, Many new,
Here are a few of whats left , : Note cylinder lengths ??
I might add, The Export versions are Export power , ( But you knew this )
These Pics are a few years old ! & The parts are in storage , not sure what I have left, Ged.

[Johnc61]

With the Relum I was going to use that 'Black-it' stuff as it sounds ideal. I got my break barrel reblued and it is beautiful but maybe only for the 'keepers'.
http://www.black-it.co.uk/

Anybody used Black It? Ive seen it before but not sure if it would stand up to wear or prevent rust like bluing will.

[Dave S]

Had a good garage day yesterday.
Made all but 1 of the missing parts (the mising on is the cocking lever leaf spring).
I didnt have any stock screws, so made them,

Alos made the missing cocking link pins/bolts and the trigger pin.

I also managed to unsieze and remove the cocking detent. Unfortunatly it was to far gone, so I knocked up a new one:

Ive converted the Piston to M8 bolt and made the Leather seal:


Now Ive managed to put it all together and shoot some shots with it.


Its not bad, the single stage trigger is actually quite crisp, however the *TWANG* on firing is horrible.
I also got out my Fenman for a couple of shots, its lovely, a nice quite, engineered THUNK.

So now I have to strip it all down again and refinish it. I found the 'its a bit rusty' thread in the main forum, and I think Ill have a go at that sort of slow blue, see if I can get it to look as nice....

Dave

PS I know, it only a tornado, but it is keeping me occupied for free

[ggggr]

Dave----I guess you just put up a pic of the bolt on the piston with the 8mm bolt and do actually have the buffer washer and a countersunk head bolt?
I did something similar on one ---I think I used a 5/16 bsf countersunk head.
They are not bad guns to tinker with. I found that the trigger cannot really be improved much, the only bit that seemed to make a difference was slightly rounding the sear face that engages with the piston.
As you have the skills, why not try to alter that cocking linkage angle. found that you get about 2/3 of the way through cocking and then they become difficult because of the angle of the small arm.
Keep at it

[Dave S]

Nope, the piston is in the gun just like that...
The Leather seal lips protrude past the bolt head.

did I boob badly?

Dave

[Hsing-ee]

Nope, the piston is in the gun just like that...
The Leather seal lips protrude past the bolt head.

did I boob badly?

Dave

I think that leaves alot of lost volume in front of the piston, so your rifle will be very underpowered. Making up an adaptor thing and putting a HW77 seal seems to be the thing to do for best efficiency. With the present arrangement you need a washer that fills in the gap between the head of the bolt and the lips of the piston washer.

[ggggr]

Nope, the piston is in the gun just like that...
The Leather seal lips protrude past the bolt head.

did I boob badly?

Dave

Hi Dave----Bugger if I can find decent pics now. I think Dcl Dave might have some up on here or maybe protek supplies on their site? There should be a solid (apart from the screw hole) buffer washer inside of the cup washer. the 2 things I can find quickly are the Nibbs picture of a Webley falcon piston washer http://www.airgunspares.com/store/ca...64/465/WEBLEY/

And the adapter thing that Edbear has already put up (bottom of the page) http://www.woodfield-gcp.co.uk/springtuning.htm.
I think Rob M has put up a guide to making leather washers in the spring gun tuning guide on here and also Garvin (I think) put up pics of making one for a pre war BSA.
It looks like what you have done is similar to on the Diana 15, where you just really have a leather flap. This will not be efficient,will not have any buffering effect and will result in the screw, slamming into the end of the cylinder.
If you do not fancy making a leather washer or buying the woodfield adapter, the other option is making up a metal head and fit an O ring. I think T20 (Mick) did this for one of the magazines?
Good luck with it.