I'm looking for an alternative to needle roller bearings (springers)

[bigtoe01]

I think that suspending the rifle using a fairly long (>1m?) string is probably best. Ideally the system would also be free to pivot, but perhaps in the interests of safety there should be a minimal restoring force to keep it pointing somewhere down the range!

aye this would work also...

[Artfull-Bodger]

Since installing bearings both my test rifles have now shot over 3000 pellets, popped the end caps off both yesterday and no sight of wear at all, they have now been fitted roughly five months!

How are you guys getting on?

[Shed tuner]

It is different to the recoil case because, as you say, the piston may want to rotate, but it cannot.

It would be equivalent to the linear recoil if the piston was free to rotate - the reaction to the rotation of the piston would be for the gun to rotate. But if the piston is constrained, it has no angular momentum to conserve. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...er.html#conamo

Of course.. I'm so used to freely rotating piston guns (TX200s) that I forgot some don't