Saxby and Palmer

[para]

Hi Gents
I was chatting to a guy at work today and found out he used to be an engineer and made the Saxby and Palmer Ensign cartridge air rifle I know they where pre brocock, does any one know about these rifles and where they any good, what where they like to shot etc...?

[sbd]

...weren't brilliant to be honest but did have a bit of a following there were quite a few clever ideas (like the trigger sear) the problem was you needed them all to work properly at the same time. The TAC cartridge was a much better design and the Safari Rifle the absolute pinnacle of modern air rifle design and ingenuity (in my humble opinion)

[Geezer]

I had a couple back in the day. Liked them. But I could never get the cartridges 100% reliable. Or very accurate when they worked. So more of an interesting engineering project/novelty than a practical field gun.

I preferred the light carbine design to the magnificent but also awful Herald rifles that came later. Always fancied a Safari, but never had one though. Thought that might have been when they got the idea right, after ten or more years of getting it a bit wrong.

Very quiet even with a small silencer. Nice trigger.

Two odd design features: if it was cocked, and you bumped the bolt handle, the bolt would fly open, driven by the striker spring, and carve a lump out of your right hand - unless you religiously kept your thumb on the bolt handle, holding it down. And I don't know how heavy the striker was, and how powerful the spring, but despite the recoilless action, it fired with a big sproing/twang, enough to disturb the aim sometimes.

Oh, and they had really nice little iron sights, though I imagine everyone scoped them from the start.

[Geezer]

And on more general history, which I may not have remembered right.

They were launched as Ensigns in 1982. The Elite (beech plain stock) and the Royale (walnut, chequered). And the Magnum, an FAC Elite. Ensign was a joint venture between Saxby & Palmer and I think the UK branch of Tasco?

That changed after a year or two, and they became Saxby & Palmer. The Royale and Magnum faded away. The Eilte changed name to Galaxy. At some point a synthetic stock version arrived, the Saturn.

The cartridges were originally plastic. They were unreliable and chipped and cracked easily. They were replaced with metal ones, that did not chip or break easily, but were still unreliable. There was a kit to put the innards of plastic cartridges in metal bodies.

The original pump was a huge bench-mounted thing. Later the Slim Jim came along. I preferred the former.

[sbd]

..."firing pin" spring wouldn't have looked out of place in a springer the physics of the cartridge meant you had to give a hell of a whack, hence the propensity for the bolt to fly back which often led it to fracture at the rear and they weren't cheap to replace.

The Safari got everything right

[Geezer]

..."firing pin" spring wouldn't have looked out of place in a springer the physics of the cartridge meant you had to give a hell of a whack, hence the propensity for the bolt to fly back which often led it to fracture at the rear and they weren't cheap to replace.

The Safari got everything right

Exactly. I could never work out why they hadn't realised that the safety needed to postively lock the bolt in the forward position.

And, for the benefit of others, building a PCP where each shot used a different air reservoir, valve, seals, pelllet support, and a different endcap through which the pellet had to pass, and which was then loaded into a chamber, potentially seating slightly diiferently according the variation in tolerances in each cartridge body, was a recipe for poor accuracy and reliability.

sbd: how much better was the Safari? Even when they were new, I recall the reviews praising a lot, but not exactly extolling their accuracy.

[premierpistol]

A colleague of mine still has a safari, a lovely looking rifle, light enough to carry all day but it's not very powerful? he reckoned it was over the limit but a run over the chrono showed it to be 7FPE? we experimented with number of pumps from the slim-jim and found that 10 pumps gave the same as 15 or 20 or 25 i.e. there was no more air being compressed into each TAC?

I suggested getting the pump resealed but another buddy suggested his TAC's might have been designed for the pistol Brococks?

Never the less a great looking rifle.

Wish I could own one, I'd swap a HW100 for one tomorrow...

[sbd]

...speaking the Safari's were a different beast for all the reasons you identify above, the TAC cartridge was infinitely more consistant and were effectively a knock open valve so either on or off so to speak. The smaller volume was a major boon.

One of my favorite bits of the Safari was the bolt handle and body were linked by a left hand thread so that as you locked the bolt down it took up any variance in COL arising from the tolerances of the components. As to accuracy I can remember clover leafing with them but there were always compromises such as the pellet having to jump from the nose cone to the barrel.

[sbd]

...for the pistols/Safari were the same, pumping them more and more is a a waste of time as you found out, they were never power monsters with 10/11 fpe being tops but 7 is a little low, maybe look to re-set the barrel, the bolt handle should tighten as it's closed, if it doesn't then the barrel may have moved forward a bit losing the seal at the front of the cartridge.

A couple of protos were made using the Herald cartridge, they were a bit pokier

[mike.watkins]

A colleague of mine still has a safari, a lovely looking rifle, light enough to carry all day but it's not very powerful? he reckoned it was over the limit but a run over the chrono showed it to be 7FPE? we experimented with number of pumps from the slim-jim and found that 10 pumps gave the same as 15 or 20 or 25 i.e. there was no more air being compressed into each TAC?

I suggested getting the pump resealed but another buddy suggested his TAC's might have been designed for the pistol Brococks?

Never the less a great looking rifle.

Wish I could own one, I'd swap a HW100 for one tomorrow...

they looked great i always wanted one

[sbd]

they looked great i always wanted one

...Purdiest one I ever saw was a proto action with a stock that Mick Dawes knocked up for the fun of it, the daintiest thing I ever did see, wish I'd kept it

[para]

Some very interesting info about a rifle I'd never heard of until recently! the guy I spoke to was involved in making the barrel assembly and of course owned one. I have sent him a link to the BBS so hopefuly he will sign up and be able to pass on his knowledge and experience.
Would I be right in thinking these are now under the same FAC restrictions as the brockcock cartridge range

[Geezer]

Some very interesting info about a rifle I'd never heard of until recently! the guy I spoke to was involved in making the barrel assembly and of course owned one. I have sent him a link to the BBS so hopefuly he will sign up and be able to pass on his knowledge and experience.
Would I be right in thinking these are now under the same FAC restrictions as the brockcock cartridge range

Yes, sadly they are.

[Nemesis]

I had one of the early Royales. As I recall, it was one of a numbered batch - a kind of limited edition with a certificate. The walnut stock was quite attractive but the action was rather crude. The bolt used to rattle around like a coke can in a downpipe. Later on, I bought a Saturn; same action, synthetic stock, reputed to have been designed by Venom.

The early rifle shells were grey and the extractor used to tear chunks off their plastic rims. Later on, the aluminium shells appeared so you could saw the cases off the old shells and insert the innards into the new shells. Orange plastic cases also existed, allegedly for FAC rifles.

The original bench press charger was very heavy and the mounting bracket sheared off one end of mine very quickly. Later on, the Slim Jim appeared but had a nasty habit of swivelling in the hands on the closing stroke, especially if you had any of that Saxby coconut oil on your hands.

All gone now but I still have the Saturn stock and a large collection of cartridges, upgrade kits, seals and NATO bullets.

[premierpistol]

...for the pistols/Safari were the same, pumping them more and more is a a waste of time as you found out, they were never power monsters with 10/11 fpe being tops but 7 is a little low, maybe look to re-set the barrel, the bolt handle should tighten as it's closed, if it doesn't then the barrel may have moved forward a bit losing the seal at the front of the cartridge.

A couple of protos were made using the Herald cartridge, they were a bit pokier

Thanks for that SBD. I'll suggest that to him and hopefully get it running right, not that it matters though, it sits in a glass cabinet with the rest of his collection.... just to show off..... the git.

Merry Christmas all!