Hammer forged barrels

[RichardinDorset]

So according to the video, LW make smaller quantities of barrels than BSA as he says Button rifling is for medium quantity and Hammer forging is for mass production...

I'd have thought LW make a lot more than BSA???

[villaman]

Never had a bad BSA barrel

[bozzer]

See ... a familiar thread ...

Those that will claim the 0.177 are useless with anything other than Bis Mags/'cudas etc ... and those that say they've never had a problem.

'tis what it is.

[ChrisC]

Steyr used hammer forged barrels on the earlier LG100's...commonly referred to as 'barley twist'. I've owned 2 barley twist barrelled Steys in the past and they were both very unfussy with pellets, accurate at long range and didn't need much cleaning. The only Hammer forged BSA barrel i've used was converted to fit the Steyr and wasn't bad at all...pretty much the same as a converted CZ barrel i played with as well. the CZ and the BSA barrels needed more cleaning than the standard Steyr barrels i have so i decided to stick with the originals as there wasn't anything in accuracy or percieved more/less wind drift.

[happydad]

Steyr used hammer forged barrels on the earlier LG100's...commonly referred to as 'barley twist'. I've owned 2 barley twist barrelled Steys in the past and they were both very unfussy with pellets, accurate at long range and didn't need much cleaning. The only Hammer forged BSA barrel i've used was converted to fit the Steyr and wasn't bad at all...pretty much the same as a converted CZ barrel i played with as well. the CZ and the BSA barrels needed more cleaning than the standard Steyr barrels i have so i decided to stick with the originals as there wasn't anything in accuracy or percieved more/less wind drift.

Hi Chris,

Did you decide not to bother trying out a HW100 barrel?

Have to say that the HW barrel fitted to my Steyr is an absolute gem, and my HW100KT is also another very good barreled rifle.

ATB
Mike

[ChrisC]

Hi Chris,

Did you decide not to bother trying out a HW100 barrel?

Have to say that the HW barrel fitted to my Steyr is an absolute gem, and my HW100KT is also another very good barreled rifle.

ATB
Mike

Mike...you sod

I did put it on the back burner....until i read your post.

I think i will order a couple of barrels and get them sorted to fit the Steyr. i still fancy trying a .20 as well as the .177.

[RobF]

Call me old fashioned but I tend to like my barrel bores to be vageluy central to the barrel and for the rifling to have some touch of the pellet some of the way down it. Left in a warm room, after getting the pellet past the initial tight spot I've actually blown the slug out using my mouth from one of them.

[happydad]

Mike...you sod

I did put it on the back burner....until i read your post.

I think i will order a couple of barrels and get them sorted to fit the Steyr. i still fancy trying a .20 as well as the .177.

Sorry Chris...

back burner indeed!...more like an age thing and forgot!!

ATB
Mike

[Artfull-Bodger]

Makes you wonder if one of their mandrels is a bit dodgy?

My Scorpion barrel is a bit fussy but once I found the correct die it's a goodun, I have had two other BSA's in .177 and they were good too but had one on a Lightning which wouldn't group no matter what I put through it.

[bozzer]

Makes you wonder if one of their mandrels is a bit dodgy?

Maybe ... or just tolerances like you said earlier.

I remember the old Webley 0.22 barrels that were always oversized compared to the Continental stuff from the Germans etc.

Wasp pellets used to come in 2 sizes ... 5.5mm for German barrels and 5.6mm for British barrels as the barrels were slightly oversize. Strangely enough I used to find the generally large American Crosman pellets went well in my old Webleys.

So maybe the barrels are slightly generally oversize in the 0.177 BSA barrels. The 0.22 seem much better and less pellet fussy.

So if you have slightly oversized bores and you get a barrel that is at the large size of tolerance then maybe that is a fussy barrel and will only shoot the larger/longer pellets well?

When I first started posting about my BSA 0.177 problems a lot of lads from Rivi said to use JSB 4.53.

Now I have a lot of respect for the lads on the boards who post saying that the numbers on the tins of JSB/AA are basically pointless ( mainly Bri and RobF ). I too have found that. Just to be contrary I have also found that on the odd tin the numbers do make sense and the 4.52 or 4.53 are generally larger ( there's always a big mix of sizes within each tin ).

In general I've always found that the actual sizes of pellet heads are much smaller than any of the sizes stated.

I found the head sizes of Bis Mags/Barracudas tended to be closer to what it said on the tin ... and the boxed Crosman Prems ( which also go well in the 0.177 BSA barrels ) are massive.

I have actually found the odd batch of JSB that have shot quite well in the BSA barrel and no surprise that the heads were actually on the larger side.

When I've probed pellets through the BSA barrel, in all cases there is more resistance at the start and at the end with less resistance through the middle section. Trying the smaller pellets and through the middle section there is no felt resistance and they seem to fall through.

So maybe if you get a mix of a slack end tolerance BSA 0.177 barrel and a smaller head batch JSB pellet ... you've got problems and it takes the larger/longer pellets to go well in that barrel. Maybe if you get a tight end tolerance BSA 0.177 barrel and a larger head batch JSB pellet ... then they shoot well. Hence two groups of shooters on the boards ... one claiming no good with anything other than Bis Mags etc and the others saying great with JSB.

Or ... maybe it's down to the imperfections and polishing etc. Some barrels have less imperfections and will shoot JSB ok but some have bad imperfections that do need polishing out.

So we've arrived back at your " ... one of their mandrels is a bit dodgy? ".

I drove myself mad trying to sort out that BSA barrel. I've still got the rifle and that barrel. I read all sorts of stuff. People saying that the type of end on the bolt probe on the BSA meant that some pellet tails went better than other pellet tails due to the shape of the probe. That seemed to make sense also as the bolt probe is a larger diameter and the bases of the Crosman Prems and Bis Mags maybe coped better that the thinner, more flimsy tails of the JSB.

[Artfull-Bodger]

Maybe ... or just tolerances like you said earlier.

I remember the old Webley 0.22 barrels that were always oversized compared to the Continental stuff from the Germans etc.

Wasp pellets used to come in 2 sizes ... 5.5mm for German barrels and 5.6mm for British barrels as the barrels were slightly oversize. Strangely enough I used to find the generally large American Crosman pellets went well in my old Webleys.

So maybe the barrels are slightly generally oversize in the 0.177 BSA barrels. The 0.22 seem much better and less pellet fussy.

So if you have slightly oversized bores and you get a barrel that is at the large size of tolerance then maybe that is a fussy barrel and will only shoot the larger/longer pellets well?

When I first started posting about my BSA 0.177 problems a lot of lads from Rivi said to use JSB 4.53.

Now I have a lot of respect for the lads on the boards who post saying that the numbers on the tins of JSB/AA are basically pointless ( mainly Bri and RobF ). I too have found that. Just to be contrary I have also found that on the odd tin the numbers do make sense and the 4.52 or 4.53 are generally larger ( there's always a big mix of sizes within each tin ).

In general I've always found that the actual sizes of pellet heads are much smaller than any of the sizes stated.

I found the head sizes of Bis Mags/Barracudas tended to be closer to what it said on the tin ... and the boxed Crosman Prems ( which also go well in the 0.177 BSA barrels ) are massive.

I have actually found the odd batch of JSB that have shot quite well in the BSA barrel and no surprise that the heads were actually on the larger side.

When I've probed pellets through the BSA barrel, in all cases there is more resistance at the start and at the end with less resistance through the middle section. Trying the smaller pellets and through the middle section there is no felt resistance and they seem to fall through.

So maybe if you get a mix of a slack end tolerance BSA 0.177 barrel and a smaller head batch JSB pellet ... you've got problems and it takes the larger/longer pellets to go well in that barrel. Maybe if you get a tight end tolerance BSA 0.177 barrel and a larger head batch JSB pellet ... then they shoot well. Hence two groups of shooters on the boards ... one claiming no good with anything other than Bis Mags etc and the others saying great with JSB.

Or ... maybe it's down to the imperfections and polishing etc. Some barrels have less imperfections and will shoot JSB ok but some have bad imperfections that do need polishing out.

So we've arrived back at your " ... one of their mandrels is a bit dodgy? ".

I drove myself mad trying to sort out that BSA barrel. I've still got the rifle and that barrel. I read all sorts of stuff. People saying that the type of end on the bolt probe on the BSA meant that some pellet tails went better than other pellet tails due to the shape of the probe. That seemed to make sense also as the bolt probe is a larger diameter and the bases of the Crosman Prems and Bis Mags maybe coped better that the thinner, more flimsy tails of the JSB.

It wasn't that barrels were oversize, they were correct, .220 is actually 5.588mm, it's the European barrels that are not true .22 they are 5.5mm, but as everyone was going metric it's standardised on 5.5mm.

I have a few old barrels here that have tight spots and slack spots or mark the pellets, and they all group badly ( which is why they ended up in a box ) one of the things I do is push a few pellets through the bore to check the resistance and then inspect the head and skirt for rifling marks, I have found a correlation in my barrels between markings on the head and if that pellet groups well, if there is faint marking the pellets tend not to group well, if it's cleanly marked they group, I have not found a tight bore that causes excessive marking yet, but that's just my barrels.

On my Pro Target I know if the pellet will group well as I insert it as you can feel the pellet seat in the rifling, if it feels slack the group opens, if it's snug it groups well, I can't do this on my HW100 ,BSA Scorpion or MPR as the probe seats the pellet, but I found that of interest, my Pro Target barrel is quite pellet fussy but it got me wondering if there is a ideal head fit for your barrel.

[bozzer]

... On my Pro Target I know if the pellet will group well as I insert it as you can feel the pellet seat in the rifling, if it feels slack the group opens, if it's snug it groups well, I can't do this on my HW100 ,BSA Scorpion or MPR as the probe seats the pellet, but I found that of interest, my Pro Target barrel is quite pellet fussy but it got me wondering if there is a ideal head fit for your barrel.

Nice post ... thanks.

I know what you mean.

In my 77s I'm thumbing in the pellets. I can basically tell you if that pellet is going to be good or a flyer by the way it goes in ( from a known decent batch ). The ones that go in with a certain snugness will shoot well. If one just goes in with no resistance then it will fly, and, if on a course, I shoot those into the ground, after informing my colleagues.

The pellets are probed in with the S10. I measured some Prems and tested them and found that the bigger the better.

I've also done similar re pushing through and noting the rifling marks.