Polishing inside of cylinder?

[jirushi]

You may need to try a tin piston liner instead. Maybe the base of biscuit tin or one if those steel coffee containers .
Could the end of the cocking leaver do with a Polish too.

Yes often PTFE can get damaged.I'd try tin sheet n a leaver end polish.

In all honestly I have a meteor never shot it or worked upon it.
But have many super sports, scorpions, air spotters lightning's.
Not dissimilar.

Persistence

Hi,
I have indeed decided to persist and it's already paying off.
In the morning before work I always have a bit of time to spend in my gun room whilst the lady is still in bed.
The accuracy problem appears to be caused by a worn barrel, with scratches from (I think) dart type pellets. Or using a metal brush rod to clean the barrel; it came with the Mk5, which should have made me wonder... Anyway, I have now fitted a good .22 carbine Lightning barrel that I had in my spare barrel box.
It is much nicer, and accurate! The balance has improved too, and the cocking effort is not too heavy.
I have fitted a red heavy duty HW breech seal from Knibbs (not a good photo, sorry).
The quad rings will arrive this morning. Can't wait to test the difference.
Also I've bought a second Meteor, a Mk4, which was really cheap. To make testing easier.
This Mk4 appears to have a better cylinder; there is less air leaking past the seal when I push the piston with my finger on the transfer port.
Also it has a 3.1 mm transfer port, as opposed to the 2.9 mm of the Mk5, which was originally a .177.
The Mk4 is already producing 9 fpe (510 ft/s), after cleaning/deburring/polishing/resealing/relube-ing/fitting a new spring. I'm sure more power and more smoothness will be achieved with a nylon spring guide and tophat, and a quad ring.
The Mk4's trigger is made of metal, whereas the Mk5 trigger is plastic. Funnily enough, and against my expectation, I prefer the plastic one.

I still need to fit a large screw at the rear of the cylinders to act as scope stops, and I'd like to find some allen screws to replace the front and rear stock screws.
Then there's the question of piston weights, and taking 2 mm off the piston head.

Cheers

[jirushi]

Ps. I've just tested the quad ring and it gives 0.6 ft/lbs extra. Great!
I'm at 9.7 ft/lbs with 15.89 gr JSB .22.

[peddy]

I'm reading this thread with interest, mine is still in a strip down stage, opened TP to 3.2mm, polished everything internally. Gone off the hw seal conversion and having my piston face machined down tomorrow and adapting a steel top hat to fit, though I suspect it's too heavy. I'm curious with the quad ring idea. Does it just replace the original seal? Hw breech seal fitted. On mine the cocking leaver was coming apart which I've sorted with using ball bearings hammered to spread the pins. Also the outer cylinder was badly scored by the leaver which I have smoothed off and may try bond some thin ptfe to reduce friction. Mine was doing 1fpe when I got it so sure it will be improved!

[original45]

I can't speak for 177 bsa barrels and their pellet choice but have and have had several in .22 , as I said before the rws hobby were awesome at 100ft resting I could pretty much place pellet on a drawing pin top maybe one in 5 clip edge .
I was gobsmacked how good ny supersports were,sold one but kept the other as its so light but accurate.

It wasn't always so ,took a good spit polish ,a piston weight ,spring .

I used the hw 80 transfer seal and the crap was brushed from barrel grooves .

Good effort any way , I have 're visited several I did in early years of simular interest to have a second bash.
If I'm honest I never did any of my collectable rifles as it prefer them unmolested as factory but enjoyed a fettle.

The supersport was fantastic possibly my most accurate rifle next to fwb 124.

I enjoyed the rws 48/52/54 platforms too. You could make these feel like heaven compared to standard and with the full stroke .

I miss the space to get one out and mess , my hands and arms only allow me to shoot very limited time now too so I rarely bother.

Nice to see enthusiasm ,maybe you will get back inside and get that solvo autosol polishing even more.

I have a meteor in loft somewhere with peep sights I bought decades back ,needs seal service .I oiled it up n stored for old age messing along with many others.
Hope one day to 're discover them.

Keep is up to speed,I'm glad you got stuck in its satisfying.

Well done

[jirushi]

The Mk4 with the light stock is doing 10.1 ft/lbs now with .22 15.89 gr JSB's.
The shot cycle is quite smooth. No harsh recoil or nasty vibrations.
It has a quad ring, a new mainspring from Protek Supplies and a steel beer can piston sleeve.
The rest is all standard (but again, polished).
I also tried to fit the nylon spring guide and top hat in this Mk4 action, but the sears won't engage, regardless of trigger adjustment.
I've also tried if the Mk5 trigger assy would work, but no.
Probably a nylon or delrin spring guide would make the gun even smoother.
The barrel on this Mk4 isn't great for 2 reasons. Firstly, the crown is dirty and I can't clean it properly as the Meteor barrels extend a few cm's beyond the muzzle end, if that makes sense. Not sure if this affects accuracy, will have to test. Secondly, this barrel has a ball detent. It operates very smoothly, but I don't think it keeps the barrel locked very well. I'll have to find another Lightning barrel, but then this Mk4 cocking link doesn't fit in a Lightning barrel as it's too wide for the slot in the barrel. Will require some machining.
Anyway, I've reached 10 ft/lbs and that's nice.
Can't wait to test a piston head that has had 2mm taken off its top.
And some piston weights perhaps.
Cheers

[peddy]

I took 1mm off my head today, I think 2mm may be too much, there's not loads of metal? I've glued some ptfe onto the cylinder to help stop the cocking leaver eating it! I've machined a steel piston weight to fit. Looking forward to the quad ring before assembly. The protek Spring allows room for a steel sleeve

[jirushi]

I took 1mm off my head today, I think 2mm may be too much, there's not loads of metal? I've glued some ptfe onto the cylinder to help stop the cocking leaver eating it! I've machined a steel piston weight to fit. Looking forward to the quad ring before assembly. The protek Spring allows room for a steel sleeve

Nice! To what will you attach the piston weight, and how? Have you threaded the rear "nipple" of the piston head? And how heavy is your piston weight? The quad ring will be on its way on Monday, then you should receive it on Thursday

[jirushi]

I can't speak for 177 bsa barrels and their pellet choice but have and have had several in .22 , as I said before the rws hobby were awesome at 100ft resting I could pretty much place pellet on a drawing pin top maybe one in 5 clip edge .
I was gobsmacked how good ny supersports were,sold one but kept the other as its so light but accurate.

It wasn't always so ,took a good spit polish ,a piston weight ,spring .

I used the hw 80 transfer seal and the crap was brushed from barrel grooves .

Good effort any way , I have 're visited several I did in early years of simular interest to have a second bash.
If I'm honest I never did any of my collectable rifles as it prefer them unmolested as factory but enjoyed a fettle.

The supersport was fantastic possibly my most accurate rifle next to fwb 124.

I enjoyed the rws 48/52/54 platforms too. You could make these feel like heaven compared to standard and with the full stroke .

I miss the space to get one out and mess , my hands and arms only allow me to shoot very limited time now too so I rarely bother.

Nice to see enthusiasm ,maybe you will get back inside and get that solvo autosol polishing even more.

I have a meteor in loft somewhere with peep sights I bought decades back ,needs seal service .I oiled it up n stored for old age messing along with many others.
Hope one day to 're discover them.

Keep is up to speed,I'm glad you got stuck in its satisfying.

Well done

The Meteor saga continues

A friend of mine who has some proper tools and a lathe, made some amendments to the cylinder and the innards:
following Bowkett's example, he fitted a screw at the rear of the scope rail. The Meteor's scope rail is quite shallow, so even with good quality Sportsmatch mounts (13 mm on this Meteor), the little Hawke Airmax moved backwards slowly but surely. That's over now. Also following JB's recipe, my friend Ad took about 2mm off the face of the piston head, in order to increase the stroke length. He increased the transfer port size. It was 2,7 mm, now it's 3 mm. I believe JB went 3.2 mm, under an angle towards the center of the cylinder wall. Might try 3.2 mm later. This Mk5 now has an old but straight spring, and a green nylon spring guide from Chambers. A Lightning .22 barrel (the original Meteor barrel grouped like a shotgun; lots of scratches from what I believe were darts, caused this). A quad ring. And 10 grams worth of steel rings as a piston weight, in front of the spring.

It's now producing 9,1 ft/lbs with 15.89 gr JSB's. Very smooth cocking and firing cycle. A dry "thud" and very little vibration. The trigger is crisp and quite light. It's not as good as on my pcp's and a Welsh Willy tuned Lightning that I had (this trigger only required a very light touch - it often "surprised" me, so for me it was even a bit too light). I have achieved 2cm grouping at 25 meters, but I need more practice. Plinking beer can bottoms up to my max range of 30 meters was dead easy. I'm happy with the result, but there's much more to test.

My other test Meteor is a Mk4. Its barrel was knackered too. Now it has a .22 Spitfire barrel. Ad machined the cocking lever to make it work together. The Mk4 has a new Protek spring and a steel piston head. 3mm tp. Quad ring. 10,8 ft/lbs with 15.89 gr JSB's. Smooth cocking and firing cycle.
The trigger is quite heavy though. I've found the Mk5 trigger to be much better. Even when I put a stronger spring in the Mk5, it is much easier to adjust the trigger.
With the Mk4, there's only one exact adjustment that works; turning the adjusting screw a bit either way means that the sears don't engage.

So I need to try this high power setup in the Mk5.
Then there's the issue of loosening front stock screws. After about 50 shots, they need to be tightened again. I've tried blue loctite, but this didn't help. Perhaps I didn't degrease the screws and screw holes well enough.

I've also tried steel beer can piston sleeves - they work just as well as using a good spring guide.

All in all I'm very pleased with my Meteors. Such a simple and cheap airgun, with great potential. A true wolf in sheep's clothes as John Bowkett says!

Lastly, I've just received a parcel from Hsing-ee, containing a squared off piston head and Maccari piston buttons. Thank you Hsing-ee! More experimenting on the way.