Shame it didnt last you long mate, If I had springer lust again I'd have it back in a heartbeat, however, as smooth and silky as it is, I have no love for springers at the moment.
For those asking regarding its state of tune, the rifle has had the following fitted or carried out by myself :
Action was completely stripped, honed internally to remove any roughness and totally de-burred
action and barrel were stripped of finish, polished and I sent the parts off to be re-blued in 2014, this mainly to remove the rust pitting
piston was machined to accept delrin rings which are a nice barely any friction fit, not slack as pee or over done like some I have seen , it was also polished and fitted with red Aussie seal.
Custom machined spring guide and top hat made to suit the polished swedish steel spring. I cant remember what these were bought for but it was the perfect fit. fitted into the piston with acustom PTFE liner for just about no metal to metal contact thoughout the cocking and firing cycle
Barrel was fitted to the linkage with a custom pin to allow easy access when servicing, just needs a 2mm allen key to remove from either side.
Custom safety with larger button was made and fitted
Custom barrel weight in blued steel fitted (it has a 1/2" UNF underneath but I preferred the weight and that was heated up and dropped on so will be a git to get off without marking the bluing
)
Trigger unit was pulled apart, fettled, sears polished and set nice but safe and a brass setback trigger & adjuster screw added (Rowan i think)
then it was finished with a lovely dark coloured CS500 sporter stock and a set of custom screws and brass trigger guard to finish it off.
After the assembly and tuning with a couple of fine Delrin pre-load washers to get the power to around 11.3FPE (5.52mm 15.9g JSB's) , then I got to shooting it for a few months, it was absolutely smooth as silk, no weird noises at all, no smells or puffs of smoke, just a pleasure and accurate as hell. At the local range we had a "christmas tree" thing going on with bottles, tin cans, pellet tins, aerosol cans etc tied to it, I learned that the last mildot on the MAP8 scope would hit the item every go and repeately shot the sh17 out of the targets for pleasure. I remember lads packing up and leaving due to the dismay of not being able to hit such targets with their bench rested PCP's. I would often do it standing, just for fun
Okay, maybe I'm remembering through rose tinted memories but it was a hell of an accurate rifle and begged to be used, unfortuntely, I had greater love for my FX Cyclone and just got my FAC through so I left it languishing in a safe for 5 years until RapidResponse1 asked me to sell it.
You know what.... Typing all of this has given me a feeling of doom that some git will buy it and pull it apart.
Stuff that!..
I'll take her back mate, she can go back in the safe for another 5 years. See you the weekend.