177 vs 22 a pre metric question

[Bellycrawler]

I started shooting pre metric 177 & 22 in 1965 or '67. An age of open sights, tin cans a popular target. As we all know .22 was 5.6mm now down graded to 5.5mm. Was .177 a different size to today's 4.5mm ?

[slim63]

I started shooting pre metric 177 & 22 in 1965 or '67. An age of open sights, tin cans a popular target. As we all know .22 was 5.6mm now down graded to 5.5mm. Was .177 a different size to today's 4.5mm ?

Short answer yes

.177 was oversized to what it is now, amongst my older rifles I have a mk1 mercury in .177 even 4.53 pellets fall a few mm into the barrel when compared to old original ely wasps I also have, the good news is I think you can get wasps in the old size again now

Sorry i cant comment on other vintage rifles as the mercury is the only one i have in the tiddler size but i suspect a lot more older guns will be the same

ps you can get 5.6 pellets again, marksman if memory serves me well, but i find the new spitfires fit and work well in a few of my older rifles (guess they must be a bit oversized too

[edbear2]

.177 is 4.495.8mm is all you need to know I suppose if you look on a conversion chart and .22 is 5.588mm..


Always has been , always will.......

ATB, Ed

[Bellycrawler]

It was just an idle thought. Plenty said about the .22 / 5.6mm / 5.5mm change over the years. My old .22 - days are I suspect over. I still have 2 .177 vintage rifles. They had been sat a while unused since purchase, the other day I took a few shots to check if working & notice the "modern" pellets when in OK & seemed to shoot OK but noticed they seemed to first enter the barrel at a slight angle leveling up & seating in the barrel OK with the final thumb push then the I wonder thought. Unlike the 5.6/5.5mm differences I'd never heard about any .177 size change. Curiosity satisfied. Thanks.

[evert]

Short answer yes

.177 was oversized to what it is now, amongst my older rifles I have a mk1 mercury in .177 even 4.53 pellets fall a few mm into the barrel when compared to old original ely wasps I also have, the good news is I think you can get wasps in the old size again now

Sorry i cant comment on other vintage rifles as the mercury is the only one i have in the tiddler size but i suspect a lot more older guns will be the same

ps you can get 5.6 pellets again, marksman if memory serves me well, but i find the new spitfires fit and work well in a few of my older rifles (guess they must be a bit oversized too

Does you Mercury have a breech taper?
Many of the BSA Breakbarrels do, and the tapers are often oversize.
That does not necessarily mean that the rest of the barrel is oversize, I have old mk1 and mk2 meteors which shoot well with modern 4,5mm pellets.

[MDriskill]

Does you Mercury have a breech taper?
Many of the BSA Breakbarrels do, and the tapers are often oversize.
That does not necessarily mean that the rest of the barrel is oversize, I have old mk1 and mk2 meteors which shoot well with modern 4,5mm pellets.

The fit of the pellet at the breech is a factor often forgotten. .177 rifles I've owned with tapered breech leades include the Anschutz 335, Webley Vulcan and C1 carbine, and older examples of the Weihrauch HW 55.

Different brands and models of pellets can vary quite a bit in their dimensions, too. Many of RWS's traditional .177 designs (Hobby, Meisterkugeln, Superdome, etc.) can have skirt diameters up to 0.190 inch; the Crosman Premier can be as small as 0.180. This will of course affect which guns they "like" the best.

As already mentioned, .22 cal pellets were not "downgraded" per se. Older British ones were made to fit then-current UK airgun rifling standards, based on a true 22/100 of an inch. German airgun barrels and pellets have always used the slightly smaller - and now pretty much universal - 5.5 mm standard, as far as I know.

[slim63]

.177 is 4.495.8mm is all you need to know I suppose if you look on a conversion chart and .22 is 5.588mm..


Always has been , always will.......

ATB, Ed

Correct but older barrels were not made with metric tooling hence the slight difference in bore its a well known fact and applies to both .177 and .22

Does you Mercury have a breech taper?
Many of the BSA Breakbarrels do, and the tapers are often oversize.
That does not necessarily mean that the rest of the barrel is oversize, I have old mk1 and mk2 meteors which shoot well with modern 4,5mm pellets.

The mercury does not have a taper as far as I am aware, it is one of the few .177 i own so have not taken much notice to be honest
i also have mk2 super and mk 3 meteors that shoot fine with new pellets but they are all .22, i have noticed the mk1 .22 meteor shoots more accurately and softer if i put some vintage marksman, wasp or bisley through it, there seem to be no real differnce in how the newer guns shoot

My mk2 Airsporter in .22 hates new pellets, its harsher than it should be on those with a nominal size of 5.5 ...5.53 are much better but as we all know the barrel is for 5.6 and with those its shoots softly, is much more accurate and consistent

[edbear2]

Correct but older barrels were not made with metric tooling hence the slight difference in bore its a well known fact and applies to both .177 and .22

How do you think holes are made ..Older British guns were made in nominal .177, and .22, guns made in countries where the metric system was used were made in nominal 4.5mm and 5.5mm simple as.

Depending on maker / tooling wear / day of the week / if the inspector was thinking about the footy.......

Shock horror, they all came out different sizes, just like any engineered part, be it for an F1 car or space rocket, as there are a set of tolerances given, so any barrel can be from "low" to "high" in any batch, ie be different sizes (but within the allowed range) and still be fine to go onto actions.

Also the standard procedure is to pull one every now and again to check in mass production, not carefully gauge every one, we are talking cheap airguns here, so sometimes really bad ones will slip though the net as well.

The older BSA barrels (especially before hammer forming or broaching was more used as quicker and cheaper) had singly cut rifling flutes done in the same manner, and on the same machines as the BSA small bore firearms of the period, and I am sure when new were of a very high standard (see what i did!), just a glance at the inspection marks all over each and every gun tell a tale.


All the rest is down to pellet compatabilty / the host of tiny things that happen in an air rifle firing cycle...which means some old guns like new pellets and some don't.

That's it really, plus the fact some BSA barrels got fitted the wrong way round now and again in the later cheapskate years

People have been agonizing and expending countless ideas and opinions about this since the arrival of the German rifles in large numbers back in the day, when Eley made the Wasps in 5.5 especially for them, and this latter subject (Wasps or Bisley / die life / die types) has also been talked about for years too.

I really would not worry about it too much, just ask on places like this what folk seem to use in their old stuff, then do your own tests, and you will soon work out what works for you.

The results may be an eye opener as you never know what some guns like.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/312284...57616669873978

ATB, Ed

[evert]

Thanks Ed- thats the best answer I've seen to this question so far.

[edbear2]

Thanks Ed- thats the best answer I've seen to this question so far.

Hi Mate, I suppose it's just I did an engineering apprenticeship in the 1970's when pegboard and CNC was just starting, but most stuff was still made on manual turret or capstan lathes.

I started off making torque limiters which fitted all sorts of stuff, and had a set of plug go/no go gauges which I measured the bores with, the size limit was -0.000" to + 0.0012 so a thou and two tenths on a thing that would fit on a shaft.

Been at it for 50 years since in all sorts of types of engineering, from motorsport to aircraft engines, and even now working on gas turbines you get variation in sizes of parts!.......Not much but no two parts are the same, even turbine blades from passenger aircraft, or turbine shaft bearing races.

And yet folk who have items (airguns) made of bits of tube with brackets welded on and various pivoting assemblies made in the 10's of thousands down to a price (usually as cheap as possible) expect them to be made to the same standard as a hand built match rifle and the one they own to be identical in performance and accuracy with another of the same model made maybe years apart


Also they expect them to be made with the same care and attention they lavish on them, when in fact a lot of folks who work in various industries have zero interest in the product they create, it's just a job, and often a boring one at that, making the same little bit in their 1000's for months on end, pulling on levers etc....

I found this looking for "airgun factory images" which I thought was good, not saying Air Arms and the like are anything like this, as have more modern kit, but I would love to know the factory door price / actual basic cost of some modern guns to make, that would be an eye opener I reckon!

Ie. HW35 is circa £350 at the moment.......so you have factory /distributer/importer/retailer mark ups/VAT to add......so minus Vat alone takes it to £290 already.....so cost to manufacture what.....must be sub £200 I would hazard!

https://www.theguardian.com/artandde...ng-photography


Not being a cynic at all, I have done years in places doing mass production and seen all sorts of stuff, so am well aware of the reality of factory work, even at very high levels / products costing huge amounts some folk will "let stuff go" or do a bodge if it saves time / they are having a bad day. I have often repaired the consequences!


ATB, ED

[evert]

Hi Mate, I suppose it's just I did an engineering apprenticeship in the 1970's when pegboard and CNC was just starting, but most stuff was still made on manual turret or capstan lathes.

....

Yeah, doing your own metalwork, both professionally and in your spare time can give insight into how manufacturing processes affect dimensions...

My professional experience in metalworking is limitied to about a years work of assembling CNC made parts, and even there you quickly understand that dimensions never are fixed in the real world.