Stripping my s/h 0.22 Remington Express Compact

[Mr.Fixit-Norm]

yes, which is why lots of us fit them

I meant to ask this as well the other day, do you make them a complete cylinder or do you have to leave the bit clear where the cocking slot is ?

Cheers,

Norm

[Shed tuner]

I meant to ask this as well the other day, do you make them a complete cylinder or do you have to leave the bit clear where the cocking slot is ?

Cheers,

Norm

complete, with the join on the opposite side to the cocking slot. a small gap at the join is fine - an over-lap is not.
The cocking shoe shoudl ride on the cocking slot, and not dig into the sleeve. If it does, smooth the cocking shoe, as it would be gouging into the spring too.. then fit a new sleeve

Have you made that 15 g steel TH yet ?

[Mr.Fixit-Norm]

complete, with the join on the opposite side to the cocking slot. a small gap at the join is fine - an over-lap is not.
The cocking shoe shoudl ride on the cocking slot, and not dig into the sleeve. If it does, smooth the cocking shoe, as it would be gouging into the spring too.. then fit a new sleeve

Have you made that 15 g steel TH yet ?

Thanks for the info, I did wonder if it could be a complete cylinder as I’m sure I’d seen pics of homemade ones that had a slot that matched the cocking one ?
It’ll be a lot stronger as a complete cylinder. I was wondering about joining it, I did think about using tin and once rolled to the right dimension, make a butt joint with say a 0.5mm gap and solder it then carefully file it back ?

I did find a specialist company that made very thin walled stainless tube ( 0.5mm wall thickness ) any size in 0.5mm increments up to 35mm, I was going to ring them next week with a plausible story and see if I could get a 100mm long ‘sample’

I did make the steel top hat after a load of hassle with my lathe It’s a 1945 Myford 3 1/2 M series and it’s been playing up. It didn’t matter how sharp or how I set up the tools/ speed, it would start to chatter really badly when cutting, even if just a fine cut. The problem was two fold, the headstock bearings needed adjustment and it was only obvious when I loosened the belt drive and found about 0.5mm of up down movement at the Chuck

My mate Tony found an original Drummond manual pdf online which covered the bearing adjustment ( they’re tapered phosphor bronze ones and tighten up facing away from each other ! )

Having done that ( 3 times ) it was still chattering a bit and I think it’s because the 5” Chronos Chuck I bought to replace the worn original, is really too far away from the bearing. If I fit the low profile Crown 4 jaw Chuck ( which has its own issues ) it doesn’t chatter at all but this Chuck has damaged scroll screws - try finding a set of them on the net, it’s a bit like trying to find hens teeth buried in rocking horse poo somewhere in a large haystack

Anyway, I got it good enough to make a top hat but due to the size constants it only weights 10g

I’m going to fit it tomorrow and see what happens, I’ll also strip the HW35 and measure it up for a piston guide

Phew,

Norm

[Shed tuner]

cool, even 10g will help. if you can add a steel washer/disc weight so much the better, but try just the TH first.

Don't over think the piston sleeve - just a rolled up tube (beer can, wd40 can, plastic bottle, ptfe sheet, whatever) stuffed in there will work perfectly for years. Spend the time you save adjusting your headstock bearings

[gtfreight]

I've just bought a standard Express to have a tinker with.
I'm following this thread with interest and hopefully the gun will be sweet when finished.
I'll then pass it on to Emma's boyfriend, George, who will then have a gun of his own to enjoy the hobby with.
Hopefully, he will then be as hooked as Emma and me.

[TonyL]

I've just bought a standard Express to have a tinker with.
I'm following this thread with interest and hopefully the gun will be sweet when finished.
I'll then pass it on to Emma's boyfriend, George, who will then have a gun of his own to enjoy the hobby with.
Hopefully, he will then be as hooked as Emma and me.

Excellent. Enjoy the project, Gary. I'm sure it will go well and the resulting rifle warmly welcomed by George.

[Mr.Fixit-Norm]

I've just bought a standard Express to have a tinker with.
I'm following this thread with interest and hopefully the gun will be sweet when finished.
I'll then pass it on to Emma's boyfriend, George, who will then have a gun of his own to enjoy the hobby with.
Hopefully, he will then be as hooked as Emma and me.

Hi gtfreight, have a look at my last post and make sure you split the cocking link when reassembling it so you don’t do what I did

Let us know how you get on, I’ll be interested to see if it’s lubed when you first strip it !

I’ll put 50p and two chocolate HobNobs that it’s not

Norm

[gtfreight]

Hi gtfreight, have a look at my last post and make sure you split the cocking link when reassembling it so you don’t do what I did

Let us know how you get on, I’ll be interested to see if it’s lubed when you first strip it !

I’ll put 50p and two chocolate HobNobs that it’s not

Norm

Thanks for the advice Norm. It's going to be a while before I open it up but I'll buy some Hobnobs before I do (any excuse for a Hobnob).

[TonyL]

cool, even 10g will help. if you can add a steel washer/disc weight so much the better, but try just the TH first.

Don't over think the piston sleeve - just a rolled up tube (beer can, wd40 can, plastic bottle, ptfe sheet, whatever) stuffed in there will work perfectly for years. Spend the time you save adjusting your headstock bearings

Yip.

[Mr.Fixit-Norm]

cool, even 10g will help. if you can add a steel washer/disc weight so much the better, but try just the TH first.

Don't over think the piston sleeve - just a rolled up tube (beer can, wd40 can, plastic bottle, ptfe sheet, whatever) stuffed in there will work perfectly for years. Spend the time you save adjusting your headstock bearings

I fitted the top hat today and in doing so found when stripping the action that the spring seemed really tight in the external metal sprIng guide !

Initially I thought that the spring was bent but having examined both it and the guide I found two issues. Firstly the spring did indeed have a very slight bend in it, just over 1/2 way along from the piston end. When I put a straight edge along it and slowly turned it there was a point where the ends were about 1mm away from the straight edge. I corrected this by very carefully bending it back

Then I found a more serious issue, actually caused by me and this is something that may prevent another Remy stripper from getting the same issue !

It turns out that when I was putting the barrel back on, I left the cocking link in one piece meaning that to get the hole lined up for the barrel axis pin I was putting the cocking linkages shoe in at an angle, pushing the breech against the locking ball and then the cocking link would go from angled to snapping into an inline position.

What this was doing was pushing the end of the cocking shoe, which was quite square ended, into the thin piston liner and putting a thin line dent in it near the end !, three in fact . This was causing the spring to snag on the liner.

In the end the only way I could sort it was to very carefully file the indents as flat as I dare with a fine half round file. This worked and with a straightened spring it then slid nicely in and out - phew !

I also smoothed the end of the cocking shoe slightly as well.

When putting it all back together I split the cocking arm where the pin with circlips goes through and was then able to assemble the action without damaging the piston sleeve. I then ran 27 ( I know I lost count ) FAP pellets over the chrono and this was the result.

Ave. 580ft/ sec (10.0ftlbs), range 575 - 588ft/sec ( only one pellet at 588 so in reality 575 - 586 or 11ft / sec spread !! )

It’s up on previous results ( ave 9.7ftlbs ) but the piston is still quite tight in the cylinder, I’m hoping with use it’ll ease a bit, which will probably put the power up a bit more.

All in all a good afternoons work

Norm