This talk of a target Tempest, as unlikely as it seems (my .22" is in brilliant shape with a great new spring and good seals), has got me thinking of how to adapt the recoil absorber design of my new Pardini K12 to a Webley pistol. It seems simple enough; a polished tungsten cylinder in a matching tube behind the breech, with a small hole going back from the transfer port to this tungsten rod and blasting it rearward at the same moment the pellet goes forward. It damps recoil utterly. If one could turn out such a thing to fit a Tempest, the dynamics would be different obviously, as the problematic mass is moving rearward and is significantly larger/heavier than a pellet. Still, if a quarter to a fifth or so of the airflow could be directed forward at the moment of firing it might be enough to counteract that rearward hammering of the piston somewhat, if not completely. Heck, to achieve accuracy it may even be worth sacrificing 1/2 to 1/3 of the airflow with a larger port.

Looking at my Tempest it seems the hole in the nitrile breech seal is about 3mm diameter. If one were to bore in from the right hand side of the transfer port block (side opposite the barrel catch lever) into that port starting with a 1.5mm or so drill, then graft on as un-ugly a cylinder as one can come up with to the outside of the pistol in front of that area and connect the two with a threaded coupling (short brass tube, threaded at one end and snugly tapped into the aluminum sight block, soldered to the rear of the cylinder at the other end), it just might work to vent 'surplus' air forward and push a cylinder with it, countering the forward recoil native to the pistol. The threaded coupling could be increased gradually in scale until achieving the desired balance. And if it all fails, well, just make a threaded aluminum bolt to fill the hole, to the right length so as to leave the inside face of the transfer port drilling relatively intact, and loctite that into place, filing off the outer surface and painting it black as if nothing had happened. If it worked the cylinder could be finished to more or less match the pistol's style and affixed to the right side of the aluminum frame however one preferred. I'd probably go with a single tab at the front end of the housing with a hole for a short bolt into the aluminum cylinder housing. And to make the anti-recoil weight (bronze rod perhaps, in a black delrin cylinder? tungsten is expensive and hard to work with common tools) maintainable one could make a front cap threaded into place, with a larger hole of course to allow the cylinder to move freely forward.