Right, following my successful tuning of the HW35k with a great deal of assistance from folks on here I decided to tackle a strip down of the s/h Remington Express Compact that I bought on a whim from Guntrader during lockdown last year.

I’d had a couple of short sessions with it when I got it and although the cocking seemed quite heavy, the twang wasn’t too bad and it seemed quite accurate out to 30yrds.

Anyway, having done as much as I wanted on the 35 I started stripping the REC down. I wasn’t sure how to remove the trigger mechanism which is integral with the cylinder end plug so I did a search on here and found that shed tuner had done a strip down a few years back and described in detail how to remove the safety pin which is the first thing to do before removing the pins hold the trigger block/spring plug.

It’s a fiddly job and really needs 3 hands but after about 20mins I’d got it out and used a spring compressor ( sash clamp ) to release the spring.

There was a fair bit of preload but the most shocking thing was the complete and utter absence of any grease of any sort on all of the moving parts

The spring was so clean and grease free I had nothing on my hands at all, the cylinder was grease free and dry, as was the piston, ptfe spring guide and metal spring outer guide, there was no sign of any lubrication in the trigger mechanism either - un-bloody-believable !!!

Further examination of the breech axis pin, cocking shoe, breech pivot washers etc were all completely dry as well.

I’m finding it hard to believe that Remington or whoever makes them for them assembled it like this and with an unknown history I can only assume a previous owner had been tinkering

The spring ends were properly collapsed but could do with a bit of smoothing and polishing as could the piston where it rubs on the cylinder.
I will probably replace the breech seal as it’s quite flattened and although the parachute type piston seal looks ok, it would make sense to replace that as well.

Im hoping someone may know how many coils the spring should have ( this ones got 28 and the wire gauge is 3mm ), in case this has been swopped out ?
Hopefully this should be a relatively simple tune up with mainly a good grease up and a bit of polishing being the main things.

I did run some FAP’s through it before the dismantle and it was averaging 11ftlbs Previously when I first got it I’d set it up with JSB Exacts and it was running around 10.5

I’ll update this thread as I get it sorted but as with the 35 thread, if anyone’s got any comments, advice or do’s/don’ts I’d be very grateful.

Cheers,
Norm