The AirGun Guild

A friendly place to share one's interest in all things airguns.

I started working on the new valve front end today to convert to a 2-piece valve.... The body for the front end is made from scratch, turned from a piece of 6061-T6 aluminum.... The space between the O-rings is 1/2", to give room for the gauge port and the two low-profile 8-32 high tensile screws.... They are set down on spot faces on the valve, so that the head will be supported by the brass tube.... I made the check valve from a piece of 1/4" Teflon rod with a light spring.... The valve spring is the Conical spring I use inside an MRod valve.... In order to provide a spring seat for both, I made a thin stepped washer, and it is supported in a column high enough to provide about 3/8" preload on the valve spring.... I can shorten the column if that is too much.... The tublular column only has a 1/32" wall so that it doesn't take up much volume inside the valve....



The seat for the check valve is an 8-32 setscrew, threaded into the front of the valve so that the cup point just protrudes into the check valve hole.... It is drilled though with a 3/64" drill to minimize head space, glued in with Loctite 638, baked to cure it, and then machined off flush with the flat front on the valve....



I still have to drill the holes in the tube for the mounting screws and then I can check for leaks before I do the final machining on the back of the valve to shorten it just in front of the seat.... I also have to make a new flat faced piston for the pump....

Bob

Yesterday, I managed to take care of two squirrels. For those in the know, the New Mexico G&F rules for private land owners, are a bit different than those for public land. You have a right to protect your crop, and we're talking pecan orchard here. Okay?

One of the shots was very close—20 yards maybe? The extra velocity (≈950 FPS) caused the impact of the pellet, shall we say, loud! The second shoot was a guesstimate, based on the extension of the reticle and focus—about 90 yards. Must have been close enough, because the squirrel dropped like a stone. This brings up another important point.

I replaced the stock suppressor, if you could call it that, with DonnyFL's Ronin model. This fact changed the barrel vibration frequency, and the 100 yard groups weren't all that good. The solution was to "increase' the velocity to about 950 average (of all things?). As a result, the groups became "very" tight, at about 3/4 inch at 75 yard. I have some astigmatism in my right eye, which makes visually leveling the scope a bit iffy. I ordered a new, rather expensive level, which fits nicely on the picatinny rail under the rear of the scope. I'm sure this will "fix" the astigmatism issue.

So far, I am highly impressed. With the replacement suppressor, as it is very quiet. Even the sheep, which are typically a bit skittish, don't seem to mind the muzzle blast. That is, if you can call it a blast!

More later!

We all know of Bob Sterne, and his contributions to the airgun hobby. His depth of knowledge of the science behind airguns, is in fact, legendary! Based on this, the staff of the AirGunGuild (Bob is a member of the staff), decided to challenge the membership about their depth of knowledge of that science. Therefore, in the next day or so, Bob will post his challenge questions. Since the answers aren’t simply yes/no, we’ll give the membership until February 1st., to post their answers. Bob alone will decide who the winner is, and rightly so. Whomever that winner is, will win an FX Radar Chronograph, as supplied by Utah Airguns.

Good Luck to all!

I have three duct seal pellet traps. They are awesome for even the Sumatra fling JSB Heavies, as long as you have three layers of duct seal. The stuff gets hard in the winter and soft in the summer and boy do those traps increasingly get heavy. And yup if you shoot in the same spot you will end up getting a perfect tunnel that eventually will pass all the way through. Big bores will just break the whole thing. Ask me how I know.

I built a box completely framed in 2x wood, and it’s double walled, and filled with rubber mulch. It weighs way too much, but it sits at the top of the hill and currently is the rat’s favorite peanut butter station. I probably need a rat doc come by and check their obesity index as these rats are fat.

My favorite pellet and bullet trap these days is a five gallon Home Depot bucket filled with Lowe’s Rubber mulch, fitted with the normal snap on lid. I pack the mulch tight. It’s easy to pick up and move, cheap to buy, and when the lid wears out just get a new one.

The bucket will not handle the .458 or .58 DAQs for long but if you shoot straight on and shake the mulch back into shape every 5-10 shots you’ll get rid of the tunnel and the bucket will last longer. I use stick on and staple reinforced orange targets mounted to the lid. Gotta be color coordinated dontcha know.

Oh I tried melted candle wax filled traps that worked ok for weak airguns, but were completely destroyed by the big bores. Fun though.

I like to retrieve pellets and bullets and melt them down. The duct seal is miserable for retrieving lead. The mulch is awesome as you can add bits of mulch from your trap to another container filled with water, and find the rubber mulch floats and the lead sinks. Easy peasy to separate!

My first pellet trap was a wood box about 3-1/2" deep filled with Duct Seal a non-Harding product from Gardner Bender.
Duct Seal has been called ballistic putty, will stop pellets, but if several high energy shots are fired at the same point,
a hole will form allowing additional pellets to penetrate the trap.  Happened shooting my Airforce .22.  Maintenance of
the Duct Seal is required; removal of pellets, pellets form lead clumps, and filling in holes before the back is penetrated. 

Rubber mulch filled trap is a better solution.  The cardboard I use to hold mulch requires replacement, would like to use
something besides cardboard, any ideas? 

A group of us airgun shooters gather weekly shooting into traps filled with playground rubber mulch.  After a year pellet lead
was recovered yielding over 80 pounds of lead!