Milbro Cougar-- The Scottish Scorpion?

[ggggr]

after some bits for the 2 rough ones I've recently bought. They are both missing the foresight and one is missing the rearsight as well.

What do people reckon to this pistol? It seems to have the potential but has many failings.
It is a decent pistol apart from crap sights (I guess),a heavy trigger and brittle plastic grips
However, I do think it has potential. I like the leather piston washer so that is staying. I may see if I can find a couple of washers to add to the piston as weight if I can find some of the right diameter.
One of these has slightly stretched cylinder end pin holes. I notice that it is the one that has the larger diameter pin as well so it must have been a problem with the smaller pins? Not wanting to get the cylinder welded or try to drill out for a larger pin, cut down a metric roll pin of a slightly larger diameter and it seems to be a good fit.
I have a feeling that the pistol may be over sprung with the spring as standard (It is a Diana 25 spring) so I may take a couple of coils off it.
The trigger is really heavy and does not seem a great design. The two sears are about 1/8 inch thick (0.125) but the trigger piece is 0.080. The sear spring is quite small and does not really work until the trigger adjustment is taken up quite a lot. made a trigger piece that is 1/8 thick and that has improved things a bit. trying to get the sears built up a bit but as the 2 sears pass through a narrow gap where they engage, that will always be a problem.
going to hopefully get some help with a set of wood grips for these. A prototype set of wrap around ones were not right. It looks like they will need making in 3 parts, with one side and the centre being glued together and the centre piece drilled to take a 2ba screw that the frame has been drilled for. This should make the grips more stable and take some of the stress off the grip screws. The parts diagram shows the frame drilled and a screw, but as far as I know, Milbro did not introduce it into production.
The rearsight is mounted on a L shaped bit of plastic that is screwed to the cylinder end plug. This does not seem stable and one gun has a hole on the cylinder so wondering if Milbro screwed the front of this plastic to the cylinder on later guns? found a (chinese?) rearsight that I have managed to fit to the cylinder with an extra screw but I need the small circlips for the pivot pin. So far trying to shape a bit of aluminium for the foresight.
Any views appreciated

[roll27]

One of my favourites of my collection. As a lad I had a BSA Scorpion air pistol new for Birthday and Christmas present combined, I loved that pistol, my mate had a Cougar, although the BSA was a far better build quality, had better handling and more powerful I always hankered after a Cougar because it looked more futuristic and had the attachable shoulder stock, anyways after a few years of collecting managed to get a nice boxed example see here.
http://s993.beta.photobucket.com/use...ILBRO%20COUGAR
Never seen one without a broken plastic jaw piece, but mangaed to make up a good one from the three I had, sold off the others. I'm still afer its successor the Milbro Black Major (good money waiting for the right one, preferably boxed, come on folks someone must have one). Good luck with your projects, cheers Roll

[Gwylan]

Sounds a bit rough, I think I'll cross that one off my collector's list.

Gus

[Troubledshooter]

This is a 1979 AGW article by Les Herridge, comparing the two:

http://mynetimages.com/5bde851ad3.jpg
http://mynetimages.com/24d8256c7c.jpg

[ggggr]

This is a 1979 AGW article by Les Herridge, comparing the two:

http://mynetimages.com/5bde851ad3.jpg
http://mynetimages.com/24d8256c7c.jpg

Thank you for that. I must have read that article many years ago but gave my AGW collection to another airgunner about 15 years ago.

It confirms a lot of what I thought.
(1) --The cougar is a heavy bugger
(2) the scorpion has more power
(3) the trigger on the Milbro is crappy------I actually fitted a longer adjuster screw on one as it really does feel like the screw adjustment does nothing forever.
(4) I dont like anti bear traps or automatic safety. cut the anti bear trap thing off the trigger bit of the Cougar and modified the scorpion to manual safety (If only we could do away with that crappy R safety spring that can cause problems)
(5) Cougar grips are crappy



Defense of the cougar---The trigger is hell of a lot easier to strip than a Scorpion and the housing screws go into solid metal rather than just the cylinder walls.
If they had gone for an alloy trigger housing/Frame like the Original 5g it would be a decent pistol (sights and grips apart)

[fat man]

god that brings back some memories, I have the Scorpian and its Shadow Carbine cousan. Allways fancied the Black Shadow has it looked very paramilitary( I was only 14 at the time ) in my defence. Not seen a Cougar for years, are there that many out there The Diana G80 series 1 I have is not powerful but it is accurate and more consistant than some pcp,s I have used

[Airsporter1st]

One of my favourites of my collection. As a lad I had a BSA Scorpion air pistol new for Birthday and Christmas present combined, I loved that pistol, my mate had a Cougar, although the BSA was a far better build quality, had better handling and more powerful I always hankered after a Cougar because it looked more futuristic and had the attachable shoulder stock, anyways after a few years of collecting managed to get a nice boxed example see here.
http://s993.beta.photobucket.com/use...ILBRO%20COUGAR
Never seen one without a broken plastic jaw piece, but mangaed to make up a good one from the three I had, sold off the others. I'm still afer its successor the Milbro Black Major (good money waiting for the right one, preferably boxed, come on folks someone must have one). Good luck with your projects, cheers Roll

Unfortunately, your album is private so pictures not visible. I love reading Guy's musings and a picture would really help here so hope you can fix this! No drawing on Chambers, unfortunately.

[Gamocfx]

Fat man...what is the Shadow thing you speak of? A Scorpian with a shoulder stock?

[fat man]

Its a scorpian pistol with a longer barrell fitted in to the back part of a buccanear stock, mines serial number 000094 in .22 cal, they were according to John Knibbs book only sold here for a short time, never seen another one , got it of Gunstar about 3 years back.

[ogilkes]

Grrrrr y has really been working on this Cougar, but given his known ability to ressurect the dead then somethign good will come of this. I have always had a hankering to get wooden grips made for a Cougar, ideally exact copies of the plastic originals, but I don't have the ability. Its a fiu pistol to shoot, but I'm not a fan of the die-cast construction.

[roll27]

Unfortunately, your album is private so pictures not visible. I love reading Guy's musings and a picture would really help here so hope you can fix this! No drawing on Chambers, unfortunately.

now sorted, cheers Roll

[ggggr]

One of my favourites of my collection. As a lad I had a BSA Scorpion air pistol new for Birthday and Christmas present combined, I loved that pistol, my mate had a Cougar, although the BSA was a far better build quality, had better handling and more powerful I always hankered after a Cougar because it looked more futuristic and had the attachable shoulder stock, anyways after a few years of collecting managed to get a nice boxed example see here.
http://s993.beta.photobucket.com/use...ILBRO%20COUGAR
Never seen one without a broken plastic jaw piece, but mangaed to make up a good one from the three I had, sold off the others. I'm still afer its successor the Milbro Black Major (good money waiting for the right one, preferably boxed, come on folks someone must have one). Good luck with your projects, cheers Roll

Looking at the pics, it shows the trigger set up and if anyone looks at where the 2 sears meet, there is very little clearance in the trigger housing, so these cannot really be built up

I notice another sight ramp in the box ( that crappy L shaped thing between the pellet tin and the scope)---Is that the same size as the one the open sights are mounted on or longer for a scope.
Also, does your gun have a small hole (6ba I think) on the cylinder? My guess is that this might have been done to stop that L shaped bit flapping around. ( It is normally only held by a screw that goes into the cylinder end plug.

[greasemonkey]

hi ggggr,have been following this thread with interest,you certainly give your guns your all to get the best out of them.i think i am the former owner of one of your cougars.i cant be much help to you i am afraid,i bought it in the same condition as i sold it[no sights, no front skirt thingy, no shoulder stock]all i did with it was put a few pellets through it,thought it could be a nice pistol if it wasnt for that dammed heavy trigger,all the best greasemonkey

[ggggr]

hi ggggr,have been following this thread with interest,you certainly give your guns your all to get the best out of them.i think i am the former owner of one of your cougars.i cant be much help to you i am afraid,i bought it in the same condition as i sold it[no sights, no front skirt thingy, no shoulder stock]all i did with it was put a few pellets through it,thought it could be a nice pistol if it wasnt for that dammed heavy trigger,all the best greasemonkey

not really done much with it other than a little experimenting with the trigger and trying to sort out some sights. HOWEVER, I have been getting some help from gentlemen in this corner who wish you remain anonymous. Once the trigger mod is tried, I will report back. My main concern with the trigger is that my arms are bolloxed and any strain with the trigger goes up into my elbow and it does hurt a lot.
. A set of wood grips have been made for me and they are a good job. They only have one screw on either side of the frame to hold them and on the underside are held by a 2ba screw where I tapped into the frame like Milbro show on the parts diagram but never fitted. These grips are thinner than the plastic ones and seem to make the gun feel lighter (sure it;s in my head) and also make the gun look a lot different.
All trying to end up with here is a pistol that Milbro could have turned out themselves with very little effort. I like the leather piston washer and the 2,4 and 6ba screws used. The trigger is fairly simple the gun is easy to strip.
Walks off into the distance thinking "if only"

[sunndog]

One of my favourites of my collection. As a lad I had a BSA Scorpion air pistol new for Birthday and Christmas present combined, I loved that pistol, my mate had a Cougar, although the BSA was a far better build quality, had better handling and more powerful I always hankered after a Cougar because it looked more futuristic and had the attachable shoulder stock, anyways after a few years of collecting managed to get a nice boxed example see here.
http://s993.beta.photobucket.com/use...ILBRO%20COUGAR
Never seen one without a broken plastic jaw piece, but mangaed to make up a good one from the three I had, sold off the others. I'm still afer its successor the Milbro Black Major (good money waiting for the right one, preferably boxed, come on folks someone must have one). Good luck with your projects, cheers Roll

thanks for posting those 2 pics mate. just brought some long forgotten memorys
my mates dad had a boxed cougar under his bed and we would have sneaky plinking sessions when his dad did a saturday morning shift