Idiots guide to classic airgun strips (pt 1)

[ggggr]

I dont know if this is collectable but its a good plinker. I left the sights on when I stripped this. Undo the two frame grip screws on the sides and the one to the rear of the trigger guard (the one on the cap on the pistol grip can be left on) and lift the action out of the frame. I stripped the trigger down by remoing the sear coil spring and the trigger coil spring first. I then removed the middle pin that is a stop pin. I then took the front one out and removed the presse steel trigger and its actual trigger piece and small spring. I took the sear pin out and removed the sear from the front of the housing. I had to knock out the cocking arm pivot to enable me to remove the cocking arm from the cylinder. I undid the barrel pivot and removed the barrel. You can remove the small pin from the breech block to clean and lube the plunger and spring if you want. I put weight on the cylinder end plug and removed the pin and released the tension. Mainspring and piston came out. I didn,t change the piston washer which was a parachute washer on a boss. Clean and lube and put the piston and spring in and then replace the endplug and pin. Replace the barrel and breech and barrel pivot bolt. Go to pt 2

[ggggr]

Replace the cacking arm in the cylinder slot and replace cocking arm pivot pin. I peened this over a little after replacing it. Slide in sear and locate pin. Locate trigger and small spring and locate pin and then locate middle pin (stop pin). Replace the two big coil springs on the trigger and sear. Replace action in frame and replace the three screws.
I find this to be a nice pistol. The instructions in the handbook are not much use. To adjust the elevation of the foresight, you have to press down on the blade so the small square of steel on the adjuster screw is out of its slot before turning the adjuster screw. I dont like the ratchet/antibeartrap device. I think if you struggle for a mainspring, a Diana 25 one would fit but I wouldnt swear to it. I fitted a small bit of tube inside the mainspring to act as a floating guide. If you know someone with a lathe, they could make up a longer cylinder end plug and tap it to take a shoulder stock.

[ggggr]

I reckon these are really well made.The cocking arms push onto a boss on the underside of the piston (like a B2 but better). Ive seen two of them so far,one had no scope rails but had a piston weight/guide in the piston and the other had rails but no weight/guide. Undo and remove two front stock screws and the one in front of the trigger guard and remove action from stock. Undo lock screw for barrel pivot and barrel pivot and remove. Remove barrel and cocking arm from cylinder but watch out that the barrel release catch and its spring dont fall off. You can remove catch and spring to lubricate. On mine the spring was a little short so I used a small screw down it as a spacer. If you want to get at the barrel plunger and spring, knock out the pin at the front of the cylinder. I will assume you will do that now and replace it. Knock the pin out from the rear of the cylinder and then place cylinder with the breech end down onto a piece of wood. If you now push onto the cylinder end cap and turn anti clockwise about 3/16 of an inch it will free the pin that locates on a recess in the cylinder and you should be able to release pressure.(I have seen a pin that has been knocked into the trigger housing. You can knock it further and it should drop out and you can replace it in the hole. Otherwise a small pin could be fitted if it is missing) Guide, spring, weight/front guide (if fitted )and piston shoul now all come out. Go to pt 2.



EDIT----Ive recently seen one of these that was different to others Ive seen. It had no barrel catch and the breech seal was on the end of the cylinder and not on the barrel. Stock screws were crossheads instead of slots. It had scope rails and the guide looked a little different to the others I've seen.

Another EDIT. It seems that up to the late 80's they still had the barrel catch as someone recently said

"A friend of mine used to work at a place called Country Skittles near Townshend in Cornwall in the mid 1990's, where one of his jobs was operating an air rifle target range.

The guns used were Baikal IJ38's, but these were the version without the thumb latch and with a seal in the standing breech face rather than on the barrel, the stocks were wood although had a slightly different shape without any schnabel style tip on the fore-end.

I believe these were a later version of the IJ38, as I had bought one a few years earlier (late 1980's) that had the thumb latch to break the barrel. "

[ggggr]

You dont have to touch the trigger if you dont want to. It has two coil springs, one for the trigger and one for the sear. This goes between the sear and the anti beartrap bar. Piston washer is leather and held on by a 5mm countersunk head screw. Clean and lube. Replace piston, front guide/weight (if fitted),spring and guide. The mainsprings are quite soft in these guns, fat but with coils close together. I dont know if you can get them but I tried a old mainspring (maybe from a meteor) and it went in and upped the power a fair bit. Ive since taken it out and tried one about 1/2 inch shorter and this is closer in power to the original. Push trigger block into cylinder and turn clockwise until pin locates in cylinder recess. Replace cylinder end pin, taking care to line up the hole in the trigger as the trigger pivots on this. Fit your barrel catch spring and catch and locate barrel in breech jaws and cocking arm onto piston. You may have to fiddle about getting the anti beartrap bar into place as its quite springy. Replace barrel pivot screw and lock screw. Drop action into stock and tighten the 3 stock screws.
As said, a well made rifle and I think it will take the meteor spring with no problems if you want the extra power.

[aerocomengineer]

I got a mk 3 and gave it a total stripdown, it was in turps for two weeks to clean everything. that done i found the sear spring in two bits, got another from local gunshop and yes done some swearing trying to get it in, secret is hold the trigger and sear together, push the two bits up into the housing, once located use a fine tapered punch to hold the two componants together, once you have got them in, follow up with the pin, if your pin is to worn, use the smooth end of the right size drill bit cut to size, i cut mine with a dremel and a fine cutting disk. worked a treat.

[ggggr]

The one been waiting for. This is very similar to the Tornado underlever and I think a lot of parts are inter changable. This one arrived without the trigger adjusting screw up the centre of the rear stock screw but it doesn,t make much diffence to the trigger anyway. I think this is a 3.5mm screw and one from a light switch plate will cut down to fit. Remove this screw as it makes it easier to undo the rear stock screw. I use a stubby screwdriver ground a fork in to undo this. Remove the two front stock screws and lift action from stock. Tap out front trigger pin and remove sear and then rear trigger pin to remove trigger and its spring. Undo the cocking arm pivot screw and remove cocking arm from its slot and slide out through the bracket welded to the underside of cylinder. You may have to push up against the spring steel bit of the lever to get it out. Inspect the lever to see if it has the nylon rubbing plate standing proud of the lever. If not, or if it is missing, you can dig it out with a pin or similar and put some epoxy adhesive in the slot before replacing it so it stands proud. I used half a bush from a butterfly tin opener on my Tornado. Undo barrel pivot lock screw and barrel pivot screw and remove barrel from jaws. Go to part 2.

[ggggr]

On this gun the lock screw would not come out even when unscrewed. I eventually had to drill a part of the screw head to get something under it. Probably not a common problem and I think it was down to an off centre screw head. If you want to remove the barrel plunger and spring, use a pin punch to tap out the small pin in the breech block with a pin that holds them. Clean and grease and replace now. Put a bit of pressure on the cylinder end cap and tap out its pin with a punch. Slowly release the pressure as you remove the punch. The mainsprings should now come out, followed by the piston. The piston washer is a leather, secured by a rivet. Mine didnt need changing. You can try to grind the end of the rivet off or drill it if the washer and buffer need changing.(I have since done one and managed to punch the rivet out and re-use it) I have tapped a piston to about 8mm and used a countersunk screw on one gun and a 5mm screw secured by a piece of tapped roundbar inside the piston on another instead of sending off for a rivet. (I made up my own leatherwashers). Clean and lube everything and replace the piston. Slide cocking arm through the welded bracket on the underside of the cylinder and locate it in the cocking slot in the cylinder (remember you may have to use a bit of pressure to compress the spring steel bit to get it through the slot). Locate cocking lever in its slot in the breech block and replace its screw. Replace sear into front of trigger block and line it up and replace its pin. Replace the trigger and its spring and try to line it up with its pin. Its one of those things that will go in first time or may take ten minutes of swearing. You may have to push the sear up a bit to let the trigger get into the right place. Replace mainsprings (Bsa meteor mk1-mk5 mainsprings are a better option and a mk6 will give power but make the gun hard to cock). Replace cylinder end cap and locate the pin. Place barrel in jaws and replace the barrel pivot screw and its lock screw. Go to pt3

[ggggr]

Replace action in stock and replace the two front stock screws and then the rear one. I usually pull the trigger when screwing in the rear screw as it can feel home but it is only in a couple of threads as it is pushing against the sear. This can cause the screw to pull out when the gun is cocked and result in a split stock. Replace the trigger adjusting screw and turn it until it just starts to move the trigger. On my gun there was something catching when I cocked and released the gun. It was one of the front stock screws catching on the cocking arm so I just filed a bit off the end of the screw.

[ggggr]

seen two of these recently and dont rate them. The trigger rocks and the piston wears on the cocking slot. If you get one then I would try it with a G25 mainspring to give it an easier life. If your cocking slot is worn, then you can get it welded up (Red Bob off here has done a few pistons for me and is doing a G80 one now---- just sent him the pistons, rather than the cylinder as well,to save on postage costs and you will probably need to use a bit of wet and dry paper to get the piston to fit properly again---about 5 or ten minutes of messing around---which I prefer to it being a p-ss fit).
I advise you to take the front sight off before you start the strip as this is fragile. Undo the two front stock screws and the rear one at the front of the trigger guard and lift action out of the stock. You can knock out cocking lever pin if you want to lube this up but barrel will come out by removing the barrel pivot pin. If you want to get at the barrel plunger and spring, you will need to put pressure on the plunger and undo the little grub screw on the side of the breech block enough for the plunger and spring to come out. deal with that now and replace them. Go to next post.

[ggggr]

You can now take the end cap off the cylinder and remove the pin holding the trigger unit in. When you remove the unit, a thick washer should follow but this is often put behind the guide by mistake. This washer helps to stop the trigger from rocking. The trigger adjusting screws were corroded on the one I stripped so I just removed the trigger and sear and the spring and lubed them up. They had corroded in so I used a bit of "plus gas" to free them first. The pins are held by little circlips similar to Webley trigger pins. Once you have this sorted put it to one side. To remove the mainspring etc get your bit of tube with a cutaway (see very first post in guide) OR with this you can get away with a bit of brush handle. You will see a big nut on the underside of the cylinder. This needs undoing like the Gamo set up, so put your bit of wood down the cylinder to keep pressure on while you undo the nut. Once its out, release pressure and remove the thing it screws into, guide, spring and piston. Piston washer is held on (on the ones seen, which I think are late ones) by a slotted alloy nut. Undo this with a forked screwdriver or similar if you want to remove the piston washer and buffer. The one I did was a bugger to get off as it had been cross threaded. I managed to clean it up and get it back on to fit by winding it on with some cutting and tapping paste (trefolux I think). Go to next post.

[ggggr]

So you have your gun striped and lubed and your piston washer on the piston. Replace the piston in the cylinder (often with leather washers you have to push on the edge of the washer to ease it past pivot holes or where the cocking slot ends) and then the mainspring and guide. Replace the thing the rear stock bolt screws into with the boss facing the rear of the cylinder. Use your bit of wood to compress the spring enough to get the bolt that secures it back in and tighten it up. Replace the spacer washer in the cylinder and then the trigger unit and locate it with its pin. Replace the barrel in the breech jaws and tap the pivot pin back in then relace the cocking arm if you removed it at the start. Replace action in stock and put foresight back on. On the one I did, I swapped the socket headed front stock screws for slot heads. They are 2ba thread and about 10p each from an engineers supplier. The rear stock bolt is 0Ba but you may have to file up the head to fit the trigger guard. Like I said earlier on, try a G25 spring to give it an easier life. If your stock broke at the front (assuming that the gun would have to be a plinker now) get two lugs welded at the front of the cylinder and tap them 2Ba and drill the stock lower down to fit them in a better position.

[heladoxa]

My advice would be to take photos or make sketches of everything before and after it is dismantled. Also, I label everything with a pice of sticky tape so that I am not left wondering what pin goes where

[fenman67]

Wish i had your Knowladge may be if i keeep reading it will come Many Many THANKS for all your info

[ggggr]

Just an update. I recently did a Tracker and it strips the same as an Osprey (check earlier in the guide). The only differences I could see ( in the strip) is that the Tracker had a piston weight in it and had a seal on the front of the piston head instead of the 2 ptfe rings of the Osprey. On the gun I did the safety catch was missing and the sear spring. I replaced the sear spring with one from a Webley Victor, which hooks under the trigger pin. You could use this mod if you want to leave off the safety catch on a Hawk mk2, Hawk mk3, Vulcan and Osprey. As I dont like safety catches anyway, especially automatic ones, this seems a good idea. I think the added bonus will be that the sear spring will last longer as the catch is not "sawing" the spring like normal, where it hooks over the catch. It also makes the trigger a lot easier to assemble and you can leave out the front of the three pins and keep it as spare.

[ggggr]

Remove the two trigger guard screws and the trigger guard. Remove the two screws that you can now see that hold the action to the frame. Watch out for the trigger spring as you lift the action out although it may remain in the frame. Undo cocking arm pivot lockscrew and remove pivot. Undo barrel pivot lockscrew and remove barrel pivot. Lift barrel and cocking arm away. If you need to change the breech washer do it now. Remove sear spring and then the trigger and sear pins and the trigger and sear. You may have a bit of trouble either getting the pins out or back in as they are sometimes popped with a centre punch to retain them. Push endcap against a piece of wood and squeeze together the tangs of the retaining circlip and then let off pressure so endcap comes away with circlip and probably mainspring. When you pull the piston back to remove it, the cocking arm should lift out once its far enough back in the cocking slot. Remove piston and change piston washer if needed. The last one I did was leather, held on by a small countersunk screw. Clean and lube everything and place piston in cylinder so you can get cocking arm in and then push all the way in. Go to part two.