Bsa lightning early model moderator removal & strip down

[metalmickey]

Morning guys. I have a BSA Lightning early model passed on to me by a mate to investigate a problem shooting high with no adjustment left on the scope, on inspection same old problem someone has fired it off with the barrel open resulting in a barrel bent upwards. On looking down the rifling there appears to be no elliptical curve in the bore indicating that the upward bend is at the end of the breech block. so should be able to re align it to an acceptable level. This is with the model with the short volumetric moderator fitted. Gun now fully stripped down.
Having had some difficulty in initially removing the moderator retaining grub screw as it was bonded in, and then heating it up with a hot air gun I managed to undo the muzzle cap, fitted with an "O" ring and bonded on !! The the barrel would rotate but not pull out of the moderator collar ?? The inner baffle tube would also rotate with the barrel. Which suggested to me that they were secured together in some way. After a lot of head scratching and re-heating up the moderator I finally managed to get the outer tube free and removed it, there was evidence of this having been bonded into position also as well as having an "O" ring seal. To my amazement I saw that the inner baffle tube was retained into position with two roll pins passing through the ally tube into a nylon collar and into either side of the barrel crown. After removing the pins a quick re heat and all came apart. (any one who has wondered why their lightning threw pellets all over the place will now be aware that the end of the barrel has been drilled in this case causing slight burrs across the muzzle crown) These have been removed and a thorough clean of the leaded barrel bore, all now looks much better.
I have now re aligned the barrel by eye and no longer points upward from the breech block. I Just need to re assemble the moderator (leaving out the roll pins) I will just use some loctite to hold it all in place as I cannot see the need for this to be bonded and pinned into position. (BSA overkill) ?? I also drilled a shallow 1.5mm deep x 4mm dia recess into the barrel for the grub screw to locate into. Indicated by the previous mark and burring.
I will give the old gun a quick re grease and oil up and shim out the main spring to get rid of the twang that was evident on firing. Then refit the scope and re zero. " All more technical knowledge of build specs" HAPPY DAYS