anyone ever tuned a supersport ?

[richardscar]

Hi all .
As i may have mentioned in the past i have still got my old bsa supersport from many moons ago .
i would suspect it is a birmingham made rifle and it is in .177 carbine.
it has the "giant haystacks" single stage trigger btw, shoots with a massive twang and jolt , but on the face of it is a very small light rifle which if it would group could be ok ..
well as the thread title mentioned has anyone ?
I just wondered
rich.

[luap]

i had a bsa lightning about 15 yrs i didnt get on with it would not group sold it to my brother he lent it to his mate who abused it for a few years
my brother brought a gas ram for it which made it just as bad or wose last year i put a new stock on it gave it a bit of a polish in side + trigger
fitted a titan spring cant remember if i made guides for it or not but at about 10.8 ftlbs it shoots nice and is accurate now
i belive they are the same as the supersport just differnt barrel

[TonyL]

Back in 1988 I stripped, de-burred, polished and relubed a .177 Supersport.
So, not exactly a tune.
It was better, as in a little smoother and twang significantly reduced (all standard parts refitted, including spring guide).
A .177 Supersport will always be a lively little thing, unless extensively re-engineered......177s will be harsher than a .22. The gun employs quite a large bore (28mm???) and has plenty of swept volume built in for the export markets.
Sleeving it down and sourcing a smaller diameter piston would, I feel, be a little OTT attention to lavish on one of these. But it all depends on now far you want to go with it, and how much the gun means to you.
You could reduce the stroke, by making up a piston head extension.

I seem to remember that V-Mach, and maybe one or two of the other tuning houses, will do a kit for them. This will make it a lot smoother and twang free.

Once smoothed out, and if paying full attention to the correct springer shooting technique, you can be accurate with these little guns.

[Woodcock]

I did one about a year ago.

After a little research I phoned SFS because I heard they did a kit for one, however whoever I spoke to was very bolshy over the phone and said "you cant tune a superport" in his brummy accent.

I replied I had seen some advert somewhere that they are the people to ask about tuning older BSA's he then said to "no mate we don't do any kit for a supersport" I thought fair enough Ill ask them if they had any advice as Ive tuned a few HW's before, he then had the cheek to say "I doubt you have ever TOONED and airgun" I realised pretty quickly I was talking to someone with a slightly over sized head with little in it.

So I thought I will have a go.

Whilst I had it apart It was sent for a full reblue, and on inspection the internals were in great condition, so I polished both ends of the spring to look almost chrome all sharp edges were taken back and rounded off.

I then ordered some PTFE plastic square samples from e bay in different widths, starting from 0.2 up to about 0.5 they were only a few quid but just about the right size to make a piston liner from.

I also cut out some circular bushes to fit over the ends of the spring on the guide at the back like ptfe power washers.

When I got the gun back from reblue, I lubed everything I could with molly grease and fitted the guide over the polished spring with the thickest ptfe piston liner I possibly could, it all then went together very carefully as not to scratch the new bluing.

I must say the key to get rid of vibe from that spring is to get that piston liner in tight, Tin will work but make sure your cutting is neat no sharp edges.

Anyhow from the first shot it was an instant improvement no twang at all!! I was chuffed to bits with it, very little recoil and very pleasant to use, I sold it for £120 with a new set of open sights that are very hard to find now, I did regret it slightly when I shot a friends tuned hw95 as I found the supersport to be every bit as good in the vibe department, I wish I had have put it in the loft for my lad when hes older.

As Im sure like many others I learned to shoot with a supersport many moons ago with open sights, that was real airgun fun back then, makes shooting the modern pcps seem numb in comparison.

[junglie]

They should be fitted with a "spring lube tube" as standard (look on tw chambers website for diagram) that removes the twang. A little tune & trigger tune including shimming the side play out makes them a lot better. I'd go for a standard bsa spring if it needs one. I've got a spare new piston seal if you need one, you can have it for a tenner posted.

[richardscar]

Hi all ,
i am going away for a couple of days so thought i better pop in to say thanks for the replies, all gatefully recieved ... hopefully someone else found this interesting too ? , i allways enjoy reading the "tuning" threads no matter what gun it is .
its something i would tackle at a much later date but it does beg the question whether you save the money for kits/parts etc and just get an hw95 or hw57 second hand ? !
any more comments or experiences with these guns would be of interest to me ..
atb , rich.

[POK!]

I have built a SS from a mish mash of parts. A SS Custom action with new lubricant tube, nylon guides and a custom spring. The cylinders are round and true, the pistons are a good fit with little slop and very hard and a very smooth cocking/firing cycle is easily achieved. The spring gives about 10.5 with no piston weights and 30mm less OAL than standard. This is with the least efficient 10" .177 barrel so it's working well.

The spring I used was 14 3.2 28x220mm

The synthetic stocks are great, they damp vibration very well, stock screws only need nipping up and never loosen.

The triggers require time to bed in though some will always be better than others, mine's pretty good but it's over 20yrs old.

I used a Parker Hale Striker barrel bought on BBS. To secure the barrel lock up I would recommend dropping a stack of up to 10 m3.5 washers inside the hollow detent as the detent springs sometimes aren't quite up to the job of holding the barrel shut.

They shoot better with a lighter scope on board too, I'm using a 10oz Weaver 4x. @15 yds it has shot 4mm c-c with Falcon A P though you shouldn't expect miracles in the accuracy stakes as they are very light rifles and difficult to control, my combo weighing less than 7.5lbs scoped plus silencer.

[bozzer]

In my experience these older, simpler, break barrels like the Supersport and the Webley Hawk, Vulcans, Excels etc are all limited by the very basic triggers.

You can tune up the insides to a point to get rid of twang etc but the basic triggers will always mean you have to work your socks off in trigger release to get any good accuracy. You can't really squeeze the triggers back like you can with Rekords etc. You almost have to put some initial pressure on them and then snatch them back to release ... not ideal. The triggers are basically a sear straight into a hole in the piston wall.

Like many others I put the AWT gas ram inside my Webley and others were available for the BSA Supersport. In my opinion there was just never enough metalwork or weight in the guns to take the harsh hammer of the rams so I went back to spring. The Webleys had quite a useful 'anti twang' plastic rear spring guide that 'splayed' out to remove the twang ... and it worked on mine.

I think you are limited to cleaning out cylinders, proper fitting piston seal, polishing the piston skirts and getting a decent spring that has the coils all in line and decent delrin guides. You can try and work the trigger by cleaning up ( burs ) and polishing the contact surface of the sear and then setting it as light as you SAFELY dare. Please be careful though as you don't want to knacker the sear up or set it too light so the gun goes off on it's own.

I think by the time you've done much more to these you could have bought a HW99.

[Truckcab79]

Don't know if they're still around, but i bought a second hand supersport to refurbish. Cosmetic job really as the internals were fine. Came fitted with a Bonnie and Clyde tuning kit which I believe is from a guy called Dave Hall. Can't compare it with others as I've only ever shot this one, but it shoots nice, and very accurate.

[look no hands]

If you want to improve the trigger then get a Superstar set up, transforms it and I also believe the Superstar trigger to be the best trigger on any sporter air rifle produced (there you go, that will upset a few HW fans), I've had a SFS tuned Lightning before and it was lovely to shoot but a little snappy.

If you want a tuning kit then try Welsh Willy.

Pete

[MattyBoy]

If you want to improve the trigger then get a Superstar set up, transforms it and I also believe the Superstar trigger to be the best trigger on any sporter air rifle produced (there you go, that will upset a few HW fans)

Pete

I agree with you Pete that the Superstar has a superb trigger. Is it better than the CD and Rekord? Dunno

I've not done a direct side by side test with the HW77 and the TX200 but I will do now.

That will answer the question for me


Matty

[look no hands]

I agree with you Pete that the Superstar has a superb trigger. Is it better than the CD and Rekord? Dunno

I've not done a direct side by side test with the HW77 and the TX200 but I will do now.

That will answer the question for me


Matty

The two Superstars I've owned had trigger that broke like glass with no creep or drag when pulled.

Pete

[POK!]

owners try to set the trigger too light and then complain when it doesn't perform as expected. Where this idea comes from that an air rifle trigger must break @ x ounces or it's no good I don't know. It's one of the most stupid ideas I hear on the BBS but it seems quite common.

[Woodcock]

I forgot to mention as simple as the trigger is, it took some putting back together as I stripped the gun to the bare shell for reblue.

As most will know the rebluing process would eat into spring steel rendering it useless and prone to breakage.

I actually broke one of the springs putting it back in so had to wait for a new one from chambers, plus I made the schoolboy error of not takeing photos before I took it apart, so it was a pain.

Also the barrel latch on the example I bought had seized in so I had to buy a new one of those and that was a ball ache to get out, as you must turn it a certain way to come out, but mine wasn't playing.

I also replaced the main barrel axis pin and shimmed the barrel so there was no side play whatsoever, The first thing you need to do is check that on a supersport as obviously barrel play on a break barrel is a no no, as it don't matter how smooth you get it if the barrel doesn't return to the same place every time.

And the last thing I forgot to mention was the sizing of the piston seal has to be correct, the seal I bought was way oversized and needed reducing a little and be carefull when putting it beware of sharp edges infact I even smoothed the sharp edges down on the action tube before reblue.

I would definitely look at the superstar over supersport for the fact that the trigger is an improvement, you have fixed barrel accuracy and a bit more weight, but finding a mint example is getting difficult.

[Steve A]

I have never shot a Supersport but have owned and "tuned" a Superstar.

The Superstar Mk1 .177 was bought through this forum in the spring of this year. Having heard good things of this model and having a soft spot for old Beezas I had been looking out for a Superstar for a few years.

When I stripped the gun down I found a bent spring, no spring guide and a stack of washers inside. No wonder it had a hellish recoil and a twang that matched my tinnitus (on steroids!)

Anyway, it still shot quite accurately, so just needed smoothed out a bit - a little TLC!

Ordered a Titan spring for the gun, when it arrived though I was not impressed. To my mind too long and stiff!

I had a spring and spring guide from a HW99 that I tuned last winter. Although I had fitted a Maccari kit to the 99 there was nothing wrong with the original spring and the guide was a fairly tight fit. Anyway it is now in the Superstar with a top hat and some delrin washers, and it's knocking out 11.4 with Falcon Accuracy+

Today I was on the clubs indoor 20yd range and getting my 5 shot groups down to under 5mm. The best group of 5 shots only showed two holes overlapping - a Bic ballpoint pen would not fit in the hole!

As a couple of others have already said, the trigger is pretty damned good. I have owned a couple of HWs and a TX200 - yet I prefer this BSA trigger to any of them. To my mind it is a single stage trigger with a cheats extra movement built into the blade. But it works nicely and can be set quite light and is very predictable in its let-off.

BSA had a winner in this gun, why have they not cashed in on it?