Restoration Project – FB Record Champion – Part 2

About 18 months ago I started work on a rough and broken Record Champion air pistol. These air pistols are quite rare and very unique and so are very worthy of restoration and repair. Not only do they have a concentric oval piston and seal, but they are also side-lever cocking with a twelve-shot stick magazine that slides into the grip. Additionally, it has an adjustable two-stage trigger and a dovetail rail on which you could fit a pistol scope! How’s that for a feature-packed spring powered air pistol?

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Restoration Project – Crosman 38T “Target” – Part 1

A new pistol for the collection arrived from Germany last week. It’s a Crosman 38T “Target” model. The “Target” model is .177 calibre as opposed to the early .22 38T that Crosman produced. It is identical in all ways except externally it has a plastic rear sight and a plastic cylinder. Internally it has an alloy valve body as opposed to the brass valve body of the early model.

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Riflescope Setup – Part 3: Rifle and Scope Calibration

Quite often you hear shooters ask “What’s the best range to zero my scope at?”. It’s a perfectly valid question and yet the response can be varied from 25 to 35 yards or “the range at which you will shoot at the most”. Whilst there is nothing wrong with any of those answers, they won’t necessarily help the shooter get the most from their rifle and scope combination and there’s certainly never any mention of magnification.

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Riflescope Setup – Part 1: Eye Relief

I thought I would write a series of articles about how to correctly set up your riflescope. This will be the first article and it will show you how to correctly set up your riflescope for the optimum field of view. Future articles will cover scope cant, how to quickly and efficiently zero your riflescope and another will discuss the calibration of your riflescope and rifle combination using Chairgun Pro.

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Leading-in a barrel. What is it and why you need to do it…

I’m sure many will have heard the term leading-in a barrel. Or perhaps you’ve heard of it without realising by being told to run in a new air rifle by shooting a tin of pellets through it. I have heard this many times over but never seen any documented evidence of this. So I thought I’d have a go at recording the effect in practice.

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Weihrauch HW45 – Trigger Adjustment

Last week, I acquired another, yes, a fourth HW45 air pistol. “Four!” you say? Yeah, I must be a magnet for them. I’ll go into my reasons in another post. Anyway, whilst I had all four together I checked them over for variations and chronographed each of them to see how they compared.

Immediately I noticed that each trigger was configured differently. Probably as they were all pre-owned pistols, each owner had fiddled with the trigger adjustments. Well, those tiny grub screws in the trigger blade are very tempting.

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How to Make a Reproduction Box Lid

Back in December of 2015, I bought a Crosman 451. It’s a 1969/70 CO2 .22 Colt 45 replica with semi-auto style blow-back action. I had actually been given one by my father some years earlier and had fallen deeply in love with these rare vintage air pistols ever since. However, as with many vintage air pistols, the one my father bought was without its box. I purchased my own 451 from a Canadian dealer and had it shipped to England. This one was complete with its box except, rather oddly, it didn’t have a lid. I was fairly confident that someday I would be able to make a lid to complete the package. Nearly two years later I have finally achieved my goal!

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A Service Guide for the Theoben Rapid MKII

Recently, I took my Theoben Rapid MKII out of its case to give it a shakedown test ahead of some fieldwork. It’s been quite a while since I have used this particular rifle. In fact, I have been neglecting my rifle collection in favour of pistols for a good year or so. I know, it really is unforgivable to ignore such a superb air rifle. Nonetheless, out she came. Still full of air as the day I had carefully packed her away. I cocked the bolt back and checked that she was not loaded. Of course it wasn’t but you can never be too cautious. I pushed the bolt forwards and whilst pointing it in a safe direction, I pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. I tried again. Still nothing. Oh dear, I have a cocked rifle with no means to discharge it!

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