Quote Originally Posted by banditrob12 View Post
I have been reading this post with interest as I have been tuning my own HW45 Blackstar in .22 over the last few weeks.

Experimenting with different spring guides made out of Delrin and stainless, for my own particular gun, a solid stainless guide fitted inside the piston to give it weight, running a standard spring, I opened the transfer port up 0.5mm and reprofiled it on the cylinder end plug, I use Walther piston grease sparingly on the piston, no dieseling, consistency in single figures. Mine prefers superdome, real accurate at 10m

My son has a large collection of HW45s, my Blackstar in its current tuned state shoots better than any of his in comparison.

Just regarding external maintenance, silicone is fine to use on alloy or blueing, Abbey even manufacture a cloth impregnated with silicone. I worked in the gun trade for a number of years and every time we handled any gun (being air rifle, shot gun, or pistol) we always used to give it a wipe over with an Abbey cloth, no problems whatsoever.
Yes I remember that cloth by Abbey which was bought out many years before we understood the attack metal properties of silicones...and it etched many a blued finish too ....don't do it.
This is not a gun trade worker but a materials scientist/teacher with over 25 years of metal finish/qualities understanding. Also silicone attack identified across a whole raft of gun trades and mags as now being an issue. (do your own research across the web before taking this advice)

The 45 wiped over can remain consistent in finish if wiped over evenly but do it patchy and you will see patchiness across the finish after a year or so. I should have mentioned the process of attack does not happen overnight but is gradual over a period of months or years.
Most s/h 45s will show slight blemishes across the finish of the main frame which is owing to this longterm attack process. It can be seen as slight patchiness or etching, particularly around the front pivot pin where grease may have strayed from this pivot point and then wiped in to the metal during cleaning.
This process is firmly identified in the field of materials and I will not state it again but a good idea is do some s/h 45 searches on the Gunstar sales sight. Blow up the image and you will see some of the blemishing I speak of on some of the guns.

In regard of the stainless spring guide this would be good advice in regard of power. There is a slight improvement in coefficient of friction and resonance when employing stainless instead of regular mild steel for this purpose due to the chromium and carbon content at the surface dendrites. However, greater kinetic inertia will be felt and does increase the movement of the gun. (tested in a purpose built rig) This is a personal choice at the end of the day.

I believe Dave Welham tried a moderate top hat of steel with a delrin rear guide but concluded similar to my own obs and that almost no improvement can be had over the std parts, save for the switching around of the guide depending on which characteristic you preferred.
Both he and Bowkett recommended the flat heads for this gun.
I am astonished at the mention of Superdomes though. Already quite a heady pellet choice for a pistol, they tend to be a tight fit in the tighter bores of HW barrels, being preferred for older Beesas but I may try them if a few turn up at the club.