What sort of power did these bsa standards give out in .177?

[Lakey]

70 odd years of grot may take some shifting! I wonder how many BSA's get any sort of barrel cleaning at all?? Not many is my guess. And it only take one patch of rust or one area of sticky dirt up the bore to significantly reduce accuracy and velocity.

Dont forget you can start the process off without waiting for cleaning rods. You can use cotton parcel string with a couple of big (.177 sized) knots in. Tie the knots in one end (one after the other) and add a small narrow weight to the other and pass the string (weight first) down the barrel until you can grasp the end, then a couple of drops of oil on the knots and pull them steadily through the barrel, If you have a phosphor bronze brush, then that can be tied to the end as well. If you cant find cotton parcel string, then fishing line witha couple of lead split shot nipped onto one end to provide weight is good, Tie on a small bit of cotton sheet. or J cloth (it needs to be a fairly tight fit up the bore) and pull through. Check out the colour of the emerging cloth - it will surprise you I am sure


Good luck and post up your findings to put us all out of our misery

Good luck.......

[Dan944]

70 odd years of grot may take some shifting! I wonder how many BSA's get any sort of barrel cleaning at all?? Not many is my guess. And it only take one patch of rust or one area of sticky dirt up the bore to significantly reduce accuracy and velocity.

Dont forget you can start the process off without waiting for cleaning rods. You can use cotton parcel string with a couple of big (.177 sized) knots in. Tie the knots in one end (one after the other) and add a small narrow weight to the other and pass the string (weight first) down the barrel until you can grasp the end, then a couple of drops of oil on the knots and pull them steadily through the barrel, If you have a phosphor bronze brush, then that can be tied to the end as well. If you cant find cotton parcel string, then fishing line witha couple of lead split shot nipped onto one end to provide weight is good, Tie on a small bit of cotton sheet. or J cloth (it needs to be a fairly tight fit up the bore) and pull through. Check out the colour of the emerging cloth - it will surprise you I am sure


Good luck and post up your findings to put us all out of our misery

Good luck.......

Thanks for this great idea Lakey!

I will start doing this tonight after work. I have parcel sting and fishing line and split weights.

When I looked through the barrel yesterday with a torch, I noticed that not only was there a few raised pieces of rust but all the rifling seemed to be filled in with crud, so I'm essence almost giving a smooth bore look.

I'd never thought of putting knots in this type of string before and going pull throughs. The good thing about it is this type of string will soak up any king of oil I put on it and drag it through the bore.

I have a little birch casey rust remoover left over, so I may put a little down and pull a few times with the knotted string and see if I can get rid of some stuff.

I will only have an hour after work if that, as I have the family coming round for dinner, but I will try and post my result with a photo of the string if I can, and it will be interesting to see the colour!

Thanks for this great idea, ( the small things in life eh ) this will be a good start Untill I recieve my riding set!

[Dan944]

Didnt get a chance to do any pull throughs after work today, but i did have another look through the barrel, and saw a couple of things a little worrying?

Firstly the couple of bits of rust i thought i saw may acually be rings of rather rust or a scored ring? Im hoping its a ring of rust but im fearing that its scored?

The second thing that i saw that is conserning me and maybe someone can confirm if theres is any deeper, is that the rifling the other day seemed to look like the grooves were filled in with crud ect, but looking again in the daylight, it almost looks like the rifling has been quite worn down if that makes sence, almost on the border of being smooth bore???

The lines are deffinately there but just look as though maybe it has had allot of metal bbs shot through it in its life, or are rifling lines normally deeper in these old guns?

I hope that i am wrong, but im now worrying if this could be my biggest problem, but am obviously gonna continue to see this through with the rodding set thats on its way to me, in hooe that im wrong?

I will be very sad if this old girl is ruined becuase of this but i really hope that something positive comes out of rodding the barell with some chemicals, as i was getting quite attached to this riffle unlike any other rifle i own, and i own quite a few.

[edbear2]

Hi, you could try either firing a few pellets into some soft cotton waste, or if the gun is apart, carefully push a pellet through the bore and then inspect the skirt to see if the rifling lands have engaged the skirt of the pellet, and by how much. The rifling on these is micro groove in comparison to later guns, so it may not be as bad as you think.

I have never encountered one of these that has been "shot out", but I suppose it could be possible...I would just do a normal bore clean for now, forget about it, and concentrate on the powerplant, ie. spring and piston. There has been a link posted to something I wrote on the BSA forum, and funnily enough I have just been test firing a prewar BSA I rebuilt some time ago.

I followed my normal (personal preference) procedure of fitting a Knibbs washer set, making sure it was done up very snug with a drop of loctite 242. The next day I sized the leather washer with sand paper until the piston would just slide in with slight drag, and then assembled the gun as normal, with moly on the piston bearing surfaces and spring ends etc. as per normal.

I filled the tap with oil (I used cengar airline oil, but any 30 to 40 weight mineral oil is suitable so you can buy a classic bike oil by silkolene or similar and get a lifetime supply)...

I then closed the tap, stood the gun upright, and forgot about it for a week (my normal length of time)....normally after this a small amount of dieseling will occur...the secret is not to fire the gun again if it happens for a few mins to allow any atomised oil to settle, a second rapid shot is a no-no.

On 45 inch guns it may take 15 -20 shots to settle down, a few less on 43 inch guns, and on light models often none occurs, in fact this was a light model that I did maybe 3 weeks ago, and have not got around to shooting yet. The first two or three shots at a bell target showed a bit of oil being blown through as spotting was occurring at the target, but it is shooting really well and making good power already...I may guns this long in future!

I then put two or three drops of oil into the tap and work the action a bit every tin of pellets or so...I have at least three guns here which are nicely settled down and can hold +/- 5 F.P.S. in velocity and make good power.

Pellet wise, you may want to try hobby pellets, or find an older tin of Pylarms / Wasps / Webley specials, as the 45 inch .177 guns I have had do seem to prefer a lighter pellet...you may be suprised at the difference in noise / feel / power even a pellet swap will make.

Hope you get it running well,

ATB, Ed

[Dan944]

Hi, you could try either firing a few pellets into some soft cotton waste, or if the gun is apart, carefully push a pellet through the bore and then inspect the skirt to see if the rifling lands have engaged the skirt of the pellet, and by how much. The rifling on these is micro groove in comparison to later guns, so it may not be as bad as you think.

I have never encountered one of these that has been "shot out", but I suppose it could be possible...I would just do a normal bore clean for now, forget about it, and concentrate on the powerplant, ie. spring and piston. There has been a link posted to something I wrote on the BSA forum, and funnily enough I have just been test firing a prewar BSA I rebuilt some time ago.

I followed my normal (personal preference) procedure of fitting a Knibbs washer set, making sure it was done up very snug with a drop of loctite 242. The next day I sized the leather washer with sand paper until the piston would just slide in with slight drag, and then assembled the gun as normal, with moly on the piston bearing surfaces and spring ends etc. as per normal.

I filled the tap with oil (I used cengar airline oil, but any 30 to 40 weight mineral oil is suitable so you can buy a classic bike oil by silkolene or similar and get a lifetime supply)...

I then closed the tap, stood the gun upright, and forgot about it for a week (my normal length of time)....normally after this a small amount of dieseling will occur...the secret is not to fire the gun again if it happens for a few mins to allow any atomised oil to settle, a second rapid shot is a no-no.

On 45 inch guns it may take 15 -20 shots to settle down, a few less on 43 inch guns, and on light models often none occurs, in fact this was a light model that I did maybe 3 weeks ago, and have not got around to shooting yet. The first two or three shots at a bell target showed a bit of oil being blown through as spotting was occurring at the target, but it is shooting really well and making good power already...I may guns this long in future!

I then put two or three drops of oil into the tap and work the action a bit every tin of pellets or so...I have at least three guns here which are nicely settled down and can hold +/- 5 F.P.S. in velocity and make good power.

Pellet wise, you may want to try hobby pellets, or find an older tin of Pylarms / Wasps / Webley specials, as the 45 inch .177 guns I have had do seem to prefer a lighter pellet...you may be suprised at the difference in noise / feel / power even a pellet swap will make.

Hope you get it running well,

ATB, Ed

Hi Ed, thanks for the advise, lucky enough I just picked up my roding set from the Royal Mail sorting office, so I'm hoping to have a go at cleaning her tonight and see if the power increases from 3ftlb which is where it's at right now.

Then I will go from there and if the power is increased at least I know the barrel condition is causing it, and I will post my findings. ( at this power it just seems a little ridiculas considering this old girl is capable of full power!)

Anyhow, we shall have a go later on hopefully

[Lakey]

You will not see what you have until you have given the barrel a thorough going over. If you can see rust down the barrel, I would maybe start by wrapping a little OOOO grade wire wool around a jag (hopefully in the new kit that has just arrived) and put a few drops of oil on it the work it up the barrel a few times. That should shift 90% of the stubborn rust that may be present, then work on the barrel with the phosophor bronze brush. I bet you will get a real suprise and re-discover your missing rifling ...

[Dan944]

You will not see what you have until you have given the barrel a thorough going over. If you can see rust down the barrel, I would maybe start by wrapping a little OOOO grade wire wool around a jag (hopefully in the new kit that has just arrived) and put a few drops of oil on it the work it up the barrel a few times. That should shift 90% of the stubborn rust that may be present, then work on the barrel with the phosophor bronze brush. I bet you will get a real suprise and re-discover your missing rifling ...

I would love you to be right mate I really would!

[edbear2]

I would love you to be right mate I really would!

Don't forget to try some different pellets as well

ATB, Ed

[pegasus]

Don't forget to try some different pellets as well

ATB, Ed

Hi there, I have three of them, and when I got my first Lakey advised me on cleaning and luring, you would not believe the s&&t that came out of the barrell, especially the first four inches or so at the muzzle, as Lakey explained they can spend a long time standing upright allowing anything to get down the barrell, I hope that this is the case with yours, also the biggest problem that I have found with these old guns is they suffer terribly from loneliness, one on its own is sad they are happier in groups of at least two or more, I am sure you will rectify this in the future
Sorry Edd comments for Dan, senior moment

[keith66]

I have owned a few of these, all have had filthy barrels. I normally run a phospor bronze brush down the barrel with hoppes no 9. If that dont get them clean nothing will.
One rifle i have an old 1910 imp mod d is well & truly shot out lord knows how many rounds its fired. If you load a pellet & push it through the barel with a cleaning rod it skips the rifling about halfway down. It tends to throw flyers!
Another standard on the workbench is cosmetically challenged but has a perfect barrel. Winter project me thinks!

[Dan944]

Thanks guys for all your support and guildence of things to try so far.

I have had a loooooooong night of fiddling! And am wiped out.

I've cleaned the barrel thoroughly and those rings and specs that I was hoping was rust, where actually a few round scores (which is what I was hoping it wasn't )

The rust spots I could see where actually old rust that has slightly pitted the riffling to a point of no return as it has already left small pits in the metal

I have a possible positive idea about what could be done about this that I will ask what you guys think after.

Now I clean everything off with white spirit and allot of black crud did come out, and the rifling didn't look that much deeper, but was deffinately now clean and shiny!

I put the rifle back together with the leather piston seal again and chrono end it with a variety of pellets from 8.4 jsb to 7grain flat heads and the outcome was still 3.1ftlb ( I wasn't too happy)

Then I desided to size the seal a little more as it wasn't falling down under its own weight as someone mentioned, and the pier went up 4ftlb which was progress but didn't show me any light at the end of the tunnel I was now feeling like I'm never gonna get there , so..... In short I got a little bit of the hump and decided to fit the oring mod and on the chrono again and it came out at 5.2 ftlb, so it's very very slightly getting better but a long way off!

I realised that I much preferred the feel of the leather washer even if I had to deal with lower power, it just felt a lot smoother shot cycle.

So I then began to have a slight brain wave and thought, what if I have the wrong springs from John knibs, maybe I bought one of the lady's standard spring sets????? So I began trying all sorts of springs I had lying around . I settled on a aftermarket longer spring giving about 20mm preload.

This gave me 6.2 ftlbs with nearly all the different pellets, although I havnt tried all the brands of .177 pellets that I have.

At least I'm half way there but not sure I can get much more out of her to be honest?

I understand there's a few things I still need to try, like shooting into rags to see if I have any rifling grip on the pellet, and if not then maybe I'm loosing allot of presure around the pellet?

Also I think I need to push a pellet though the barrel to see if I can feel it catching on those pits and scores??????

It's been a busy and dirty and very long night in the garage! but it had to be done so its another few things crossed off the list. I'm thinking its got to be the barrel? But will have to do those few tests to confirm if there's any sudden district ion there.

[maximus]

Hi, not the same gun but when I was messing with my airsporter s .177 I found that if the pellets fell deap into the loading tap this had a marked effect on the power.
It may be worth flaring out the tales of some of the pellets, thus seating them at the top of the tap to see if it pushes up the velocity a bit. Superdomes gave the best power in my gun as they have quite a wide skirt to begin with. Keep at it! atb Max

[edbear2]

Your last remark about the spring was quite telling, It sounds like the original was too short / weak. I will try and get some info on regarding free lengths and preload etc. later, but around 235-240 mm for a single spring seems to be a figure I remember for the spring length.

ATB, Ed

[Dan944]

Your last remark about the spring was quite telling, It sounds like the original was too short / weak. I will try and get some info on regarding free lengths and preload etc. later, but around 235-240 mm for a single spring seems to be a figure I remember for the spring length.

ATB, Ed

Thanks maximus and edbear,
If anyone could tell me what spring is normally used in these i woukd be gratefull, as the original bsa double springs that i bought from john knibs, when i shot a few dry fires to size the seal, i noticed that it felt very weak and hardly no real kick, but now i have found another single longer spring, it definately feels more poky but still very nice shot cycle with the leather seal, and it is putting out 6.2 at present so something is going in the right direction.

I shot a friends s range longtom he said it was, and it felt awfull very snappy and twangy, not a pleasant shot cycle at all.

I asked him what spring it had and he said it had just been fitted with a airsporter spring by his local gunsmith. Hes not sure what power it has though. He is going to find out soon he said, so will be interesting to know.

The riffle is lovely to cock but pig awfull to shoot!

I hope to spend a few hours on the rifle tommorow as i shot the pcp today in competition and miss it

[edbear2]

Okey Dokey...Taken from a sweet shooting .22 standard just now (10.95 energy);

Overall length 260mm ....now this is not all you need as the spring is not new, what you need also is the wire gauge = 0.127" / 3.20mm and the number of coils = 33

From memory, this is very close to Airsporter spec, may even be one as I bought a few N.O.S. ones a spell back, and have not noted which guns I used them on

They can work well in Standards, normally better in the .22's, which are (IMHO) normally slightly sweeter / smoother than the .177's in 45" size.

Another fly in the ointment is that the number of coils versus spring length can vary due to quality of winding...original vintage BSA springs are very consistent, with the distance between coils varying by very little (talking thous here!) whereas some patterns I have seen have been all over the shop, and have had "looser" winding, giving a greater length / preload.

HTH, Regards, Ed