Hi.
I wanna tell you a story.
A few years ago when I got back into airgunning I joined a few forums on the matter.
You know how it is.... you say hello once you are approved and then tell every one what you shoot with etc.
For those of you who don't know I'm a big fan of .25 and happen to use a BSA Challenger in said calibre.
Back comes a reply " I got one of those .25 Challengers as well " A bit of PM chit chat ensued which ended up in me buying the rifle from the guy.
Turns out his fathers mate knew a bloke that worked for Bsa . Anyway have you heard the Johnny Cash song about the car? This rifle was a parts bin special.
What I had was genuine Challenger cylinder piston and trigger block with the Maxigrip rail, fitted with a full length .25 barrel and mated to a black Mercury magnum/Cobra Strike stock. It was as dry as a bone so I intended to give it a rebuild...... that was the Sunday. On the Monday my Dad died. So it was all forgot for a good while.
Things got back to normal and I rebuilt the rifle. Testing revealed massive barrel droop. The breech was so tight it wouldn't take any pellet and there wasn't enough clearance between the breech and the cylinder so it was munching up breech seals. Off to the back of the gun cabinet it went for a couple of years.
Wibbly wobbly time passing thing you see in the movies.
Present day.....And I actually have a bit of time off.
Out of the cabinet she comes and I take the rifle down.
On comparing the barrel with another .25 one I have the problem appeared to be not enough clearance of the barrel latch axis pin. So I increased the depth of the recess in the underside of the barrel carefully with a half round needle file to decrease the droop.
I also ground off about 10 thou from the breech end of the barrel giving a clearance of 15 thou so as not to wreck the breech seal and reamed the breech slightly so it accepts Rhinos and Marksman No3's.
It all goes back together tomorrow so watch this space.
Edd.