Remington Express - first impressions and basic tuning / mods

[Shed tuner]

Just got hold of one of these in .177 - secondhand, but only a few weeks and less than a tin of pellets old. The price was too good to turn down
Not much written about them, so here's my 2c.

NB I've no intention of doing any more than very basic tuning on this, as I feel it's missing the point with a budget gun to invest 20 hours of tuing and machine time !

Overall Impression
Decent looking, full size gun. Well finished on the bits you can see, decent bluing. Nice looking chequering and stock seems quite decent.
Firing cycle is fairly civilized, but there is some recoil and movement. No real twang, and pretty quick. Not as good an 99, quite similar to a 95. Accuracy from a quick test was around 1/2" at 30 yards. Scope rail grooves slightly wider than usual.

Stock & trigger
Cheekpiece is slightly low, LOP is slightly long, and trigger reach is also a fair bit too long - a set back blade is really needed here. Trigger blade is metal, guard is plastic. The trigger is two stage, and somewhat adjustable. You need to remove 1 or 2 of the spaces washer from the first stage/engagement adjustment towards the front to get it sensible. Not a patch on a rekord/CD I'm afraid, but perfectly usable. Trigger housing is die cast, steel nut insert for main stock screw, retained with a couple of steel crosspins. Trigger was completely dry, so lubed it up.

Stripping
Only noteworthy bit is how to remove the safety. First cock the trigger. There is a tiny grub scrub underneath the safety - remove this, then remove the tiny spring, then knock down the pin inside (just needs to move down a bit, not all the way out - it's tiny, don't lose it)- this then allows the safety to be removed. Then shove the end block down and push out the two pins.

Innards
Delrin guide, quite a loose fit on the spring. Very little preload, around 1/2". Piston sleeve. Spring chopped, end finished but not collapsed, around 3.0mm wire. Quick chrono tests showed that 7.9 gr JSB were nearly 1FP more than 8.3s, so quite a lot of bounce - this gun needs more spring preload to dial out that bounce. Spacing the existing spring was out, as power with 7.9s was 11.5 Also I didn't like how loose it was on the guide, so I replaced the spring with a longer, less stiff spring, to get more preload, without more power. Bounce has now almost gone, but power is barely 11. Shot cycle clearly better. However, when I add a TH, this will come perfect.

There is a TH type affair (very short ~ 1.5mm) built into the piston, but it is made for a larger spring ID, so doesn't work. So I'm going to make a new v. short TH (the main guide is long) with a recess for the existing "TH".

The seal showed some slight assembly damage where care hadn't been taken when pushing it over the various cut-outs in the tube - they were not burred or sharp, it was just carelessness.

Specs
Piston weight is 270g. Bore is 28mm, seal is diana esque. Stroke is just under 90mm , port is 4mm dia, AND A WHOPPING 24MM LONG.

Piston is clearly fairly weighty, but as I'm suffering bounce, I can't really reduce it. So left as it. Downside is you do feel some recoil. Ideally, knocking ~7mm off the stroke would be the way to go.


Misc
Cocking link is articulated, and incorporates a little roller wheel to run along the cylinder, so no gaulling worries. The lever was a bit loose within the breach block, so I shimmed it each side. The wheel is the same, will shim that too. Doesn't really matter, just nice for it to be tight and smooth.

The barrel lock up looks exactly like the FWB sport (124/7) arrangement,


Summary
It's not better than a 99; specifically, the piston is too heavy, the bore is too large, the stroke is too long, and the trigger is way inferior. However, with a modicum of basic tuning (lube, new longer, softer spring, new delrin or ally short TH), it is good, and for the price (about £120 new), even untuned, it's really impressive.

It's hard to know what to compare it to, because at it's price, not much competes. It's also not really a junior/lads gun as it's just too big in terms of trigger reach and LOP. A small proportioned version would make sense as a teenagers gun bearing in mind the budget price.

Hope this is of interest - JB