Cocking Methods.

[Abasmajor]

A secondary goal when considering additions to my spring powered air pistol collection was to find examples of the different cocking methods. Listed are the ones that I am aware of unless anybody can add something that I might have missed.

Barrel cocking overlever forward cocking eg Webley
Barrel cocking overlever rearward cocking eg Cogswell & Harrison Certus
Sidelever cocking eg Frank Clarke's Warrior
Underlever cocking eg Abas Major, Anson's Star.
Crank wound eg AG Parker.
Push barrel cocking eg Hubertus, Gats etc
Pull down cocking rod mounted in grip eg Diana Mod 1.
Foldable rod cocking eg Frank Clarke's Titan.
Break barrel cocking with frame mounted compression cylinder eg Tell 3, Diana Mod 5
Break barrel cocking with cylinder in grip eg Lincoln Jeffries Junior.
Trigger guard pulled down cocking eg Haenal 28.

Please excuse the probably less than accurate terminology, but hopfully you will know what I mean.
I have not included different linkages used on some models to achieve the same basic cocking method.

Brian

[Geezer]

Top lever (EM GE Zenith/Milbro G4).

[Geezer]

I guess you could also say that on the HW45, while it’s similar to the Webley, the actual cocking is done by the pivoting upper receiver assembly (which contains the barrel), rather than by the barrel per se.

[Geezer]

Electric cocking e.g Browning Airstar.

On a pistol?

[Garvin]

There's also direct pull cocking like on this one:





There's also the Tell 2-type cocker:

[Garvin]

Falke 33:

[ccdjg]

I'm afraid you have set yourself quite a task there Brian. I have been collecting springer pistols for nearly 50 years and with now well over 300 different models,I still haven't got one example of every cocking mechanism, if by mechanism you include the loading principle and the direction that the cocking lever moves relative to the movement of the piston. (The last is an important consideration and for example sets the Anson Star apart from any other underlever pistol - another example of the genius of Edwin Anson). .

But the hunt is good fun.

****************************
It would be interesting to see how many forum members can come up with. I will throw a few more into the mix:

Hy-Score
Haenel 100
Stella 550
Eureka
Pope
El Gamo Center
Webley Stinger
MAS 50
Lampagyar
Excellent Repeater
Targ-Aire

That's why I love springer air pistols! :: You don't get this sort of variety with rifles!

[frakor]

Only one I know with a unusual cocking method is the Hubertus.

================
Frank

[ptdunk]

Similar to a Tell 2 but different

[IMG][/IMG]

Possibly my favourite weird mechanism, not sure how you’d describe it?


Cheers,
Matt

[cinedux]

Winstar 550

[Abasmajor]

I'm afraid you have set yourself quite a task there Brian. I have been collecting springer pistols for nearly 50 years and with now well over 300 different models,I still haven't got one example of every cocking mechanism, if by mechanism you include the loading principle and the direction that the cocking lever moves relative to the movement of the piston. (The last is an important consideration and for example sets the Anson Star apart from any other underlever pistol - another example of the genius of Edwin Anson). .

But the hunt is good fun.

****************************
It would be interesting to see how many forum members can come up with. I will throw a few more into the mix:

Hy-Score
Haenel 100
Stella 550
Eureka
Pope
El Gamo Center
Webley Stinger
MAS 50
Lampagyar
Excellent Repeater
Targ-Aire

That's why I love springer air pistols! :: You don't get this sort of variety with rifles!

Hi John,
I was thinking at a more basic level based on type of device used for cocking eg barrel, lever, trigger guard, pushrod etc and the direction of travel to cock the pistol.
Consequently, although a concentric design, I would consider the Tell 2 for example to be forward barrel cocking in the same class as say the Diana Mod 5 if that makes sense.
I know there are various linkages used to achieve this, but as you say collecting them all would be almost impossible.

Brian

[Garvin]

Hi John,
I was thinking at a more basic level based on type of device used for cocking eg barrel, lever, trigger guard, pushrod etc and the direction of travel to cock the pistol.
Consequently, although a concentric design, I would consider the Tell 2 for example to be forward barrel cocking in the same class as say the Diana Mod 5 if that makes sense.
I know there are various linkages used to achieve this, but as you say collecting them all would be almost impossible.

Brian

It get's confusing fast when you start breaking down into cocking methods, piston direction, location of lever pivot points and so on! But it's an interesting question Brian and John is right when he says it's fascinating how many cocking techniques have been used on pistols.

It got me thinking about spring rifles and I came up with the following:

Break barrel (Gem, EG Columbia, Webley Service, Diana mod 1, FWB sport and 1,000 others)
Side lever (Hebelspanner-type, Stella VZ36, Diana 75, Air Arms etc)
Top lever (Haenel IV/M etc)
Under lever (Lincoln Jeffries, HW77, Winchester-style Erma ELG-10, Bugelspanner-type etc)
Crank-wound kurbelspanner-type gallery guns
Push barrel (Gat, Crosman V-350)
Vertical lever bolt (Haenel mod 49 etc)
Mauser-type horizontal bolt (Diana 14 etc)
Direct pull cocking rifle (ie this Eisenwerke Gaggenau)
Cylinder cocking (Improved Britannia)
Electric cocking (Browning)

Re. pistols, I just thought of this!

[Abasmajor]

It get's confusing fast when you start breaking down into cocking methods, piston direction, location of lever pivot points and so on! But it's an interesting question Brian and John is right when he says it's fascinating how many cocking techniques have been used on pistols.

It got me thinking about spring rifles and I came up with the following:

Break barrel (Gem, EG Columbia, Webley Service, Diana mod 1, FWB sport and 1,000 others)
Side lever (Hebelspanner-type, Stella VZ36, Diana 75, Air Arms etc)
Top lever (Haenel IV/M etc)
Under lever (Lincoln Jeffries, HW77, Winchester-style Erma ELG-10 etc)
Bugelspanner-type
Crank-wound kurbelspanner-type gallery guns
Push barrel (Gat, Crosman V-350)
Vertical bolt (Haenel mod 49 etc)
Mauser-type horizontal bolt (Diana 14 etc)
Direct pull cocking rifle (ie this Eisenwerke Gaggenau)
Cylinder cocking (Improved Britannia)
Electric cocking (Browning)

Re. pistols, I just thought of this!

Hi Danny,
That twist grip cocking pistol must have been one of the worst methods considered which was probably why it never entered production.
Despite the small risk of bending the barrel through over energetic cocking especially in .22 calibre, I still think the classic Webley design represents the optimum in simplicity of cocking combined with compactness in a pistol. The silliest method that went into production must be the Hubertus or Parker which seem unnecessarily complex and time consuming to cock.

Brian

[ccdjg]

Strangely Brian, I found the twist grip to be one of the nicest pistols to cock of any, from the point of view of convenience of muscle actkion, but not of power of course.

Unlike any other action, it does not involve any pulling or pushing and one quick turn of the wrist is all it takes. Using the more retangular profile grip shown in the patent, instead of the round profile in the above illustrated version, one can get a good purchase and one's grip does not have to be particularly strong. There were two main problems however, why this system would never have been commercially viable as it stood. Firstly, for anatomical reasons the rotation can only be about three quarter of a turn, which means that the piston can only be drawn back a relatively small amount, so limiting the design to low power. In practice it was not so bad though, and using a spring that did not place too many demands on wrist strength, it was possible to get a consistent 200 fps with 7.5 grain waisted pellets (pre-sized). The power situation could have been significantly improved by introducing a ratchet system, so that you could give it two or three twists to cock. The second drawback was the tedious loading system, using a breech scew. If an automatic repeat loading magazine could have been introduced, the result would have been an excellent quick fire plinking pistol.

Cheers
John

[Lakey]

Although not an old pistol (in fact very much still in production), I like the fixed barrel, over lever - rack and pinion design of the Cometa Indian air pistol. Definitely a collectable of the future. Nice accurate and powerful design.

Only thing I am not keen on is the amount of plastic components on the gun, such as sights, slide etc. But I guess that is a sign of the times.

Lakey