Barrel movement

[boonergooner]

Hi, I have recently acquired a mk 3 meteor. The barrel, if moved side to side, will move, only fractionally maybe a mm or less, it seems the fork on the end of the chamber(?) is marginally wider than the breach end of the barrel that fits in to it, allowing for a little bit of play, is this normal? It would surely affect the accuracy at least at longer distances? My only idea was to put the forked end of the chamber in a vice and close the gap a touch? or is that too agricultural? Any thoughts would be welcome. Cheers.

[mallyally]

Hi, I have recently acquired a mk 3 meteor. The barrel, if moved side to side, will move, only fractionally maybe a mm or less, it seems the fork on the end of the chamber(?) is marginally wider than the breach end of the barrel that fits in to it, allowing for a little bit of play, is this normal? It would surely affect the accuracy at least at longer distances? My only idea was to put the forked end of the chamber in a vice and close the gap a touch? or is that too agricultural? Any thoughts would be welcome. Cheers.

hi mate .
sometimes its the stock screws wearing the wood and pushing againsed the breechblock that does it try it with these screws out and if its better use washers to stop it happening again.you can squeze the jaws together but be carefull you dont overdo it or bend one side so the pin wont line up also if the hole is worn it will keep opening up no matter what you do
atb MALLY

[RustyBuzz]

This will only be a problem if you intend to use a scope as the open sights are attached to the barrel. If you are fitting a scope then 1mm movement at the point of pivot will be potentially a big problem, depends what you want to hit and at what range.

Giving the jaws a bit of a squeeze has been known to help but the problem might also be a worn pin and pivot.

ATB

Richard

[Kingplinker]

IIRC

The barrel pin on the jaws can sometimes be out of alignment and what happens is that people tend to keep belting the pin through the barrel and it does not go into the hole on the other side this causes the action to bend under the strain .

I have found this on a couple of meteors - If you remove the barrel you will see that the front of the action ( the prongs either side of the barrel ) are probably bent outward slightly , with a small amount of force you will be able to push them back ' square ' .

Hope that makes sense ?

Dave

[Hsing-ee]

This problem is common on Meteors.
It is caused by the stock fore-end screws - if you even slightly overtighten them them cause the jaws of the breech-block to spread and a wobbly barrel results.

The cure is to

1. Arrange a proper washer-set and pad the inside of the stock so that the stock-screws don't need to be overtightened to hold the action in the stock. Locktite the screws while you are at it.

2. Like you suggest, gently tweak the breech jaws in a vice so that they hold the barrel properly. The correct adjustment is so that the barrel will JUST swing under its own weight when the rifle is cocked (hands away from trigger, chaps, its dangerous!).

3. The Ultimate Solution is to fit the breech BOLT from the BSA Mercury 'S', you may need a little engineering assistance to fit it cleanly, but you can bodge it OK as well. This nut & bolt replaces the simple pin, and you can tighten it up to compensate for wear. However, if you overtighten the stock boolts with this in position, you will strip their threads, so easy does it.

The End.

I am fitting my Meteor with open sights because its that kind of a rifle.

I thought I was repeating myself - here's what I said in an earlier post ...

Improving The Bsa Meteor

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The plain breech pins on BSA Meteor have a tendency to let the breech jaws to become sloppy and allow the barrel to wobble about. With a bit of countersinking you can fit the nut&bolt arrangement off the BSA Mercury-S.

These items are available on the Chambers website at

http://www.chambersgunmakers.co.uk/BSA%20plans
BSA%20Mercury%20list.htm

It is a unit called 'B1470' and costs £8.80 before post. The parts are common to the Mercury 'S', Mercury Mk4, Challenger and 635 Magnum air-rifles.

[keith66]

Meteors made in the 70's were made from soft steel and the barrel jaws worked loose easily, I used to squash mine in a vice on a weekly basis and shoot it until it was absolutely worn out. In reality its build quality was much worse than a relum.