BSA Supersport/Lightning tuning?

[look no hands]

Hi all,

After shooting some lovely tuned rifles at the boinger bash and also thoroughly enjoying my own .25 Lightning, I was thinking what further steps can be done apart from the usual spring and guides, I do have a better piston seal which I've not got around to fitting but I wondered if may be reducing the cylinder size from 28mm to 25mm (or may be even smaller) would help things along?

Your thoughts please learned ones.

Pete

[baldinio]

Replace it? ideally with a hw35 just not the one Tony uses for beating non believers with

[baldinio]

Joking aside I think one of the biggest let downs on the supersport/lightning is the trigger and the relative lack of adjustability. Polishing the sears I suspect would make a huge difference. It would be interesting to see if reducing the weight of the piston would help too, or perhaps buttoning the piston?

[look no hands]

Joking aside I think one of the biggest let downs on the supersport/lightning is the trigger and the relative lack of adjustability. Polishing the sears I suspect would make a huge difference. It would be interesting to see if reducing the weight of the piston would help too, or perhaps buttoning the piston?

Now this is where I'm lucky as I have the "Custom" version which had the Superstar trigger fitted, which although still isn't a true two stage unit, it does have a crisp predictable let off, Tone and Les used it at the bash and said it was lovely, admittedly it's not as good as the usual triggers they get compared to but perfectly usable for hunting and plinking and dare I say target work as well, it was lobbing the .25 pellets down range and really whacking those spinners last weekend and I couldn't believe how well it was moving the big yellow target plate.

I wonder if the mods Jon B did to his Airsporter RB2 would be beneficial to the Supersport, it does have the same size bore and the same piston seal, may be as I live near Nick G now, I may be able to ask him nicely to have a tinker with it.

Pete

[junglie]

Joking aside I think one of the biggest let downs on the supersport/lightning is the trigger and the relative lack of adjustability. Polishing the sears I suspect would make a huge difference. It would be interesting to see if reducing the weight of the piston would help too, or perhaps buttoning the piston?

I found also shimming out the side play on the triggers with little nylon electrical washers after dressing the sides of the sears & trigger cage helps a lot too....

[Rusty nutz]

Has any had to shim the maxirail? I've run out of elevation on my xlt

[junglie]

My lightning XLT groups great, but the scope has run out of elevation since I stripped it to clean and polish. Could the maxirail cause that or is the scope goosed? It was miles out before the strip out and that scope is no longer with me

only if you've re-fitted it wrong

[merlin]

[IMG]WIN_20220101_11_50_47_Pro[/IMG]

my .177 brum Supersport XLT @24 yards, yes they can be tuned with LOTS of effort

edit, pic not showing thats annoying, anyway 5 shot grouping just under 6mm center to center about half the size of a 5 pence piece with AA express PCP territory id say and def on a par with my TX200HC, trigger needs yet more work i know it can do better, the .177 carbine barrels need lots of piston weight and i find a shortened spring reduces twang/resonance even with mated guides with the standard spring/length shot cycle being bloody horrible.

[look no hands]

Has any had to shim the maxirail? I've run out of elevation on my xlt

That won't be easy because it slots into the cylinder, so no adjustment that I can see of.

Pete

[El Garro]

Has any had to shim the maxirail? I've run out of elevation on my xlt

Is your barrel straight ?
Lay it on its side and look down the line of the top of the cylinder and along the barrel to check.
Only mention is as I've seen a couple of later ones and shorter barrelled lightnings with barrels bent upwards.
One was from an 'accident' while cocking but it straightened out easily, I wondered if the steel wasn't as good as they used to be.
It may not be the case but I thought best to mention it.

[TonyL]

Hi all,

After shooting some lovely tuned rifles at the boinger bash and also thoroughly enjoying my own .25 Lightning, I was thinking what further steps can be done apart from the usual spring and guides, I do have a better piston seal which I've not got around to fitting but I wondered if may be reducing the cylinder size from 28mm to 25mm (or may be even smaller) would help things along?

Your thoughts please learned ones.

Pete

I can't remember what stroke the Supersport / Lightning has, Pete. I would guess that it would be sufficient from that point of view to make it a candidate for sleeving down, though.

I guess the tricky thing might be getting the trigger to work properly, with the sear latching onto the piston and not a central rod? If possible, and if there'd be sufficient stroke ahead of the sear notch, I wonder if the original piston could be modded in such a way that the original sear notch could be retained?

Would a Meteor piston work?

At the end of the day, when we look to the engineering gurus we have on here, like Nick, anything may be possible. As a simpler / quicker solution, I wonder if it might be wiser to look to short stroke it via a nose extension and setting the piston weight to suit the new tune?

Let's see what Nick and Jon suggest.

[les allam]

I do remember shooting your supersport custom .25 and telling you that it shot nicer than my Lightning.
The trigger was very nice and was the icing on the cake.
Les..

[TonyL]

Hey Petey,

A couple of things:-

I'm liking your new location description.

That big bruiser of a .25 certainly shot quite nicely and the trigger most usable.

If I remember correctly, aren't Supersports 29mm and the Mercury / Airsporter 28?

[look no hands]

Hey Petey,

A couple of things:-

I'm liking your new location description.

That big bruiser of a .25 certainly shot quite nicely and the trigger most usable.

If I remember correctly, aren't Supersports 29mm and the Mercury / Airsporter 28?

I think you might be right mate, I know the RB2 piston is the same size as the Supersports as I bought a couple of swanky piston seals from that tuning bloke (not the fish guy) in the states, I did send one on to the man who tunes in sheds for his RB2 project, not sure if he used it or not though, I still haven't fitted my one yet either, actually come to think of it, I'm sure I've got a spare Supersport piston in my box of bits but since moving it could be anywhere.

I thought you might like the new location description, I've been aching to put it up for ages but didn't want to spoil the surprise of meeting you at the bash (my new location description might have given it away), I was disappointed that you didn't beat me with the soggy end of 35 and I think I did rather well trying out some HW's, shame there wasn't any tuned .22 99's kicking about to try but that tuned 30 was divine and may have been even better in .22 or even .25

I nearly bought a Bigtoe 22mm kit for my Prosport during the week and was in negotiations with him and then he informs me he sold his last kit to someone else yesterday, so I think I will go to Solware today for the first time and see if they can tempt me with anything.

Pete

[TonyL]

I hope Big Bill sorts you with a lovely 99, Pete.