My Challenger has a beech stock, The Airsporter S is walnut allbeit very bland and plain walnut
Challenger is the centre gun, Airsporter is first on left..
John
Your cobra strike 635 may be a bitsa as the 635 has no markings on the cylinder & the cobra strike has a black stock with slightly longer barrel than the 635 with countersink in the end of bore like most bsa's. The 635 barrel does not have this & comes with a dummy plastic silencer(cocking aid like the bsa scorpion pistol) Oh & if i were you I'd very carefully test the accuracy of ANY lightning barrel before swapping & keep your barrel as every lightning i've shot didn't come anywhere near the challengers barell on mine. hope this helps.
My Challenger has a beech stock, The Airsporter S is walnut allbeit very bland and plain walnut
Challenger is the centre gun, Airsporter is first on left..
John
for my gunz guitarz and bonzai, see here
www.flickr.com/photos/8163995@N07/
The Challenger stocks were Beech, mine is but luckily highly figured, I have another challenger stock that is bland as hell, the Lightning barrel and breech block will just swap straight over, the only problem you may encounter is the slot in the bottom of the breech block where the cocking lever pins into can be a different size sometime and may either need a small washer in there to pack it out or may need the links closing up, the barrel pivot pins are the same size whether it is the bolt or pin, the Lightning is basically just a a Supersport with a shorter barrel and silencer and a Maxigrip scope rail.
I've never handled a Cobra strike or any older .25 barreled BSA's, I've only ever had .177/.22 Mercs or Challengers, the older .25's have really tight barrels as they are .243.
Pete
Far too many rifles to list now, all mainly British but the odd pesky foreigner has snuck in
Challenger beach but coloured the same way as BSA's walnut:
http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...e/IMGP6374.jpg
http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...e/IMGP6347.jpg
BSA's later Airsporter S in walnut:
http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...e/IMGP6138.jpg
BSA's Centenary, walnut but still nothing spectacular:
http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...9/IMGP6086.jpg
How Webley did walnut in their Deluxe:
http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...e/IMG_3185.jpg
How Webley used to do it:
http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...e/IMG_4098.jpg
http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...e/IMG_4094.jpg
The competition HW35E:
http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...e/IMGP6811.jpg
Venom:
http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...IMG_3971_2.jpg
Theoben could find some good wood:
http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...e/IMGP6738.jpg
Last edited by Muskett; 25-02-2017 at 06:10 PM.
Hi Muskett
Webley had their moments with the Mk3, The early ones i've seen have been rather bland but the later ones were usually much nicer
Mk3's
And again..
One more!
John
for my gunz guitarz and bonzai, see here
www.flickr.com/photos/8163995@N07/
Does anybody know who made the stocks for the Challenger?
Did BSA make their own Mercury 'S' stocks?
I suspect they did, no reason not to.
Different countries have different sources to get their wood. Often reflected in the stocks of their guns. There are levels of quality that any rifle can reach to hit the target market. So it all depends on the cost of the wood and where it comes from; some luck involved.
Air Arms has always acquired some good wood.
Exceptional wood is luck, or specifically sourced. If you like it buy it, you might not find a better one.
Far too many rifles to list now, all mainly British but the odd pesky foreigner has snuck in
That's what I meant to say earlier. Dunno where the regular stocks came from, but the 1980s "S" models were, IIRC, from an Italian manufacturer.
There is definitely a big contrast between the slabby plank of beech on my standard Mk5 and the nicely-shaped (but often lower quality) walnut I have seen on the Mk6S.
you guys have some amazing works of art!!! you good ole boys in the UK have taken airguns to an art form. yes some of them may be made in germany .but it is you like no other airgunners in the world who take a raw factory air guns into the dark depths of your sheds and strange labs and what emerges sets the standard the world over. inside and out they shine bright enough to iluminate the rest of us common folk.
Aint no fun when the rabbits got the gun
How can you come onto a BSA thread and mention German rifles
I've spent the last two weeks rubbing down my Airsporter S walnut stock as I felt I didn't finish it properly the first time (which I didn't), it is now as smooth as a babies arse and it's just had two coats of thinned down boiled linseed oil to help it soak in, it will then have a coat of 100% boiled linseed oil massaged in by hand over the next few weeks.
Pete
Far too many rifles to list now, all mainly British but the odd pesky foreigner has snuck in
The BSA article is in the July 1979 (45p) issue, page 32/33, titled Birmingham Bound!
Eddie Barber and Fred Grimwade (are they still around?) made the visit. The BSA managing director at the time was Alfred Scott. Chief designer was Roger Wackrow, who had been with the company since 1933!
The following is taken from the article..... "The wood store was fascinating. Tons of selected beech and maple are kept here and we followed the journey a piece of timber makes from this yard to the stock making department. There it is cut to length, marked out on a template and then roughed out. The stocks are then transferred to another machine to be smoothed to the right shape before being hand finished and fitted with recoil pads. The pads are then masked and the stock goes to be sprayed with a hard wearing lacquer."
No mention of walnut in the wood store. Possibly because the 'S' models were not being produced yet.
Mike.