TARGET TEMPEST update. I've gone through this thread and deleted some of the posts in an effort not to confuse people so much with wrong information/failed experiments.
As a recap, the TARGET TEMPEST is actually a dog rough .22 Hurricane with a Premier/Tempest barrel on it. The trigger pin holes are pretty well butchered
and the grips are buggered.
I wanted to see what could be done with a Tempest/Hurricane with relatively little work and cost. (failing on the last part).
After trying my nieces .177 Tempest with a cut down mainspring and finding it nice, I wanted to try a short stroked pistol to see how it would shoot/feel in regards to accuracy,trigger and recoil.
had a few problems along the way, with a head of the wrong material but the info here should be good enough to get a pretty good pistol for plinking/informal match shooting.
Ok here are the details/spec.
A rough old .22 Hurricane with butchered trigger pin holes and broken grips.
The safety catch has been removed.
The mainspring has been cut down so it will hardly stick out of the end of the cylinder with the endcap/guide off.
The piston has had the boss that the standard piston seal goes on machined off.
The piston head has been drilled and tapped to 2BA
A PTFE piston seal 12mm long is secured to the piston with a 2BA cheese headed screw (obviously the head seal is recessed for this)
The trigger has been worked on but retains the standard narrow trigger blade.
update later once I've had a bit more of a plink, but I've managed about 17 or 18 shots dodging the rain/hail/sleet and lightning
The gun has obviously lost power and even for punching paper feels a little down in .22, but sure that with a.177 barrel, it would be good enough that the mainspring could even have a bit more taken off it.
The grouping was pretty good considering I'm a crap shot,the weather and the speed I got the shots off. After the first 2 shots ( I didn't fire the pistol without a pellet to bed the seal in), 10 of the next 12 would be covered by a 10p piece and the other 2 were only just above, which was down to me. 3 bottle caps were then hit. This was at 7 1/2 yards.
The trigger is nice and light and there is hardly any noticeable recoil. I was even shooting this without grips on.
now waiting for a set of Airgunner .177 wooden grips.
So there you have it---as simple as a machine the piston boss off,tap a thread in the piston head and fit a 12mm long PTFE seal. Cut the mainspring sown and do a bit of work on the trigger.
I hope people find this of some use
Ps---With an early Premier or with a Mk1, this should be even easier to do as they have screws to hold the piston washers. I've fitted an 11mm long one to a Webley Junior today and it seemed ok but the light was very poor. With the Junior, the cut down mainspring stands about 1/4 inch proud of the cylinder, with the piston fitted. UPDATE---seems only a little down on power, is accurate and very easy to cock.
And a .177 barrel for the Hurricane/Tempest would be nice if anybody has one spare?
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