BFPU and the Distressed look Airsoft DPMS Panther Arms 'Kitty Kat' M4

Amongst the real steel automatic rifle community, the practice of letting their rifles look like they're used and worn has become more and more popular of late. This is achieved naturally over many years of use in action; creating dents and scratches from dropping them, leaning them against walls or rocks, and wearing down the painted or blued coating from constant handling. This is known as 'battle field pick up', where a gun owner can buy a used rifle that has seen decades of use. A small percentage have inherited rifles from their fathers and these are worn from use; these are the better ones as they have most likely been well maintained and lovingly cared for whereas the former have often been abused by disgruntled squadies.

However there are short cuts to this 'distressed look' effect. This can be achieved by taking a new rifle and scrubbing the steel with variouse grades of wire wool, paying attention to the parts that are handled more. Or you can create the effect using enamel or ceramic based paints with an airbrush or feather brushing, this tends to be more for looks than practicality. A joke amongst gun owners is that if you want to make a brand new gun look old, simply take 20 foot of rope, said new gun and a car; tie one end of the rope to the trigger guard and the other to the back of a truck and drive for five miles up a dirt track!

The majority of Airsoft gun owners would have to use paint and a spray gun, feather brush or sponge, because as most Airsoft guns are made of plastic there simply is no other way. The more exspensive airsoft guns that have cast or milled aluminium bodies could be force worn with wire wool, though a more realistic look would be achieved with a selection of enamel paints; steel and aluminium look quite different when exposed.

I recently purchased a new plastic AEG airsoft gun for around £50, the Cyber Gun DPMS 'Kitty Kat' M4 with Panther Arms trademarks. 

Also comes in two tone clear and black in the UK, along with batteries , cheap charger, crap .12g BB's, and that all handy unjamming/cleaning rod.

It's a short AR used generally for CQB, and using a pot of dark silver enamel paint I lightly feather brushed it to look worn. 

Still had gun metal silver paint on the brush when iIadded a mud effect for the polymer stock, it's been removed since this picture was taken.

I used light tan paint to give a slightly dusty/dirty used appearance. You can really go to town if you want to give it a post apocolyptic or Steam Punk look.

White spirit is good for cleaning grease off the gun before starting as well as cleaning the brushes after, the box it came in made a good stand for the gun whilst treating it.

Feather brushing involves a large art brush with paint on it, 

Don't put too much paint on the brush.

the paint is mostly worked off by stroking the brush vigorously back and forth over some card. 

Work off the paint till there is the lightest amount on the brush - the brush can be topped up from this patch as well.

When there is the lightest hint of paint on the brush it is worked back and forth over the gun.

Flick the brush back and forth vigorously over all the parts that should be metal with gun metal silver paint, a smaller brush is good for scratch effects.

Most paint sticks to the edges, corners, and high spots leaving the flat inner areas darker. It's more effective if the open areas where the hands and fingers handle the gun regularly are given extra attention, such as above the pistol grip where the web of your hand goes, the front of the mag well and the controls for the fire select, mag release, charging handle, forward assist, weaver rail, and sight adjustment.

The magazine on this model is a high capacity one made of metal, along with sling studs and inner barrel.

Repeat brushing over areas of more wear and tear until happy, you can always rub down with a cloth before the paint really sets if too much is applied.

It's pretty accurate out to 35 yards shooting 280 FPS with 0.20g plastic BB's, it has a working fire select and mag catch for the metal hi cap mag and the charging handle drops the dust cover to reveal the hop up.  

Hop up behind the dust cover which flips down when the charging handle is pulled, I know there is a bit too much paint there but it's done no harm.

It will easily hit a small body size shape at this distance, and with the hop up adjusted correctly it will hit a 12 inch square plate at 35 yards nearly every time. The majority of AEG's in this price range are lucky to get 150 FPS with 0.20 g BB's, so i'm actually very impressed with how this gun performs.

A very, very cheap H&K G36 copy made by Double Eagle.

The body is two molded plastic halves screwed together with a seperate three position crane stock. This wider style of stock is ideal for wiring the batteries to the rear of the gun.

The butt stock has to be in the exact position otherwise the release lever rattles about.

Slide the butt pad down and the compartment for the 7.2 volt nunchuck style batteries is revealed.

It does have plenty of seperate short sections of weaver rail that screw on and hide a lot of joins. 

Plenty of rail space for such a short gun.

However the gearbox and gears as well as the piston are plastic, which does mean that it will not stand a lot of abuse without breaking down. You get what you pay for, though in this case the materials are of a better quality than most other AEG's of this price range.

Both front and rear sights are removable from the weaver rails and made from tough plastic, with the rear sight being flip up and adjustable for windage with a choice of four different sized holes. 

A choice of four different size appertures on the rear sight, and adjustment for windage.

The front sight is your archetypal AR sight but has no adjustment for height as it's just molded. 

Non adjustable front sight post, niether hop up or moving the sights further apart sorted out the high shot placement. Unless shooting .28g BB's at 30 yards.

From the box the gun was shooting way too high no matter how I adjusted the hop up or distance between sights, so a thin section of black electrical wire with the copper removed was slipped over the front sight to raise it and now it's spot on.

Rubber tubing slipped over the front post was the only quick fix to hand.

I like the look of it now it has been given a distressed look, it certainly makes the controls that are just mouldings look a little more realistic. For a first attempt it's not that bad at all, the fact that I used to make and paint plenty of Airfix military models as a kid probably helped a lot. I have an old, old Cyma MP5 which I will attempt next, this thing is lucky if it reaches 100 FPS with 0.20g BB's so I might have a look inside first. 

Old Cyma AEG's were of very poor quality unlike the stuff they put out nowadays, however metal wieghts gave them a good heft.

The thing I do like about the low capacity magazine is that it fires every last BB it holds, which makes a pleasant change from having 3 or 4 BB's fall out every time you drop the mag.

Low capacity magazines usually found on spring guns use every last BB.

  
These things are technically airguns so hit the criteria for this blog, be it not very powerful airguns at all. But they do shoot plastic BB's fairly accurately and that's good enough for me, however I will draw the line at Nerf guns (for the time being).

TTFN

Best wishes, Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe.

P.S. My 5 year old daughter had a go at archery recently and really liked it, so she now wants an archery setup for Christmas. This is wicked as I like archery as well, though I haven't done it for years. Might be some blogs in it as well.

The Hunger Games series of films has a lot to answer for, not a bad thing in this case.

  

.22 Mk lI BSA Airsporter, A Review

The Airsporter was first sold in 1948 as the MkI; it wasn't until 1959 that the MkII came out with the addition of two short wide scope rails. Both of these models were the only ones to have the loading tap open automatically when the rifle was cocked, after that the quality slowly started dropping off on the later Mk's.

Mk I BSA Airsporter, bloody sexy.

The Airsporter is a tap loading underlever spring piston air rifle, and the awesome thing about the underlever part is that it is hidden from view in the underside of the stock, making it look like a sporting firearm rifle. The BSA Mercury is a break barrel that is identical in looks, but was not introduced until the MkI in 1971, by which time the Airsporter was at it's MkV stage. Even the old BSA Cadet has similar looks, though is a totally different design. They all have the smooth swept back look from the rear of the piston cylinder to the comb of the stock, instead of a step.

.22 BSA Mercury with scope, .22 BSA Airsporter and a .177 BSA Cadet, sharing a common heritage.

The big thing to remember about old BSA air rifles is that the bore of the .22 was actually 5.6 mm and not 5.5 mm, so they tend to be very pellet fussy when looking for both power and accuracy. Old Eley Wasps worked well but not the new ones, however RWS Superdomes tend to fare well in my experience.

The front sight has four interchangeable elements of different heights with a bead on top. The sight element is secured with a small screw from the left hand side. This sits atop a sloped ramp with a hood around it, though in this case there is no hood and just one of the taller elements.

Beaded sight elements come in low, standard, medium and high and are secured with a small screw.

The rear sight is of a leaf or butterfly design that flips up and down and sits in a dovetail in a sleeve around the barrel, just in front of the loading port. The unit is drifted in the dovetail for horizontal sight correction.

Rear leaf sights using the V notch at the moment.

A small notched plate secured by two small screws sits between the leaves and has a small amount of vertical adjustment, it can also be fitted upside down giving you the choice of a V or U notch to sight with.

The other option is to fit a scope, which can be done. The piston cylinder has two sets of short scope rails each set 13mm wide, this means a scope will be a little off centre with modern mounts but adapters or special mounts can be bought.

Early, rudimenary scope rails, better than nothing but still a bitch to fit modern mounts on.

To cock the rifle you have to pull down the spring loaded catch at the end of the cocking arm at the front of the fore stock,

Sturdy spring loaded catch holding the underlever arm flush to the fore stock.

this allows the cocking arm to drop a little so you can pull it back 120 degrees until it cocks. 

Underlever arm at full cock magically opening the tap loading port, Harry Potter eat your heart out.

The sweet thing about the MkI and II models is that there is a cam that automatically opens the loading port when the rifle is nearly fully cocked. The loading port can't be closed until the cocking arm is returned and locked in place.

When this air rifle grows up it wants to be an Air Arms Prosport.

This is handy in my mind as there is less of a chance of the rifle being dry fired. It's not 100 percent foolproof, but the loading port lever is pretty noticeable and you would have to be pretty well distracted (a polite way of saying idiot!) if you forget to load a pellet before returning it home, where it sits nice and flush in a small cutout in the stock.

As the loading tap only ever needs to be pushed down it can sit flusher than others.

It is definitely an adult air rifle as the cocking arm is fairly short and gives the illusion of pulling the piston back as opposed to pushing; the underlever linkage does not connect directly to the piston, but to a a rail that slides along the underside of the piston cylinder.

All the metal inside the stock is the slide that allows the linkage to push the piston backwards.

The rail system also triggers the cam for the loading port and pushes the piston on cocking, it is held against the piston cylinder by a plate and a nut.

 The nut and plate that keep the slide against the piston cylinder.

The plate also holds the cam and the guide holes for the single screw bolt and nut that holds the fore stock side panels in place. When I first saw the bolt side of the stock, I thought someone had bodged it and broke one of the two screws I mistakenly assume were used. No, just one nut and screw bolt running from one side to the other.  

The stock itself is made up of three seperate pieces of walnut, the butt and pistol grip and the two side pieces - seeing as the cut out would be for the cocking arm as well as the trigger housing it's just easier to make it in parts.

Looking very carefully you can see where the pieces of fore stock are joined to the rest of the stock, from just in front of the serial number, out a bit, and sweeping back just past the rear of the trigger guard.

At first glance it looked like a very clever and professional fix, but again I was wrong. The butt has no shoulder pad and is finished off with a shallow curve with horizontal ridges cut into the wood, the forestock has finger ridges carved down both sides. This is all very common for it's age and looks very shapely, although there a few scuffs and marks which again is not uncommon for a rifle this old.

I took the rifle into the shed and put it over the chronoscope. Using 10 Superdomes at 14.5 grains I was getting a 500fps to 509fps spread, with one odd one at 540fps which I ignored. This converted to 8.3 ft/lb, not to bad for an old air rifle. A couple of drops of oil will soften the leather piston seal and the muzzle velicty should improve, and would do even more so with a new piston seal, main spring and lube.

That's it for now.

TTFN

All the best, Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe. 

Webley and Scott Hawk Mk II accuracy at 30 Yards and other stuff

The Webley Hawk with the two Relum springs fitted can put out 10 ft/lb with manageable recoil, however it did cause the 3-9x40 AGS scope to shift as the Hawke medium mounts needed fitting more securely. So with the screws tightened all the way up and the stop pin pressing tight down on top of the compression tube I took it down the woods for a test, i had also built a new bit of stock for the pump arm on the SMK B45-3 as the old one was too short and moved. So the multi pump could have a field test as well, it would be nice to see how well the open sights worked now the rear sight had been moved forward a bit.

Webley and Scott Hawk Mk II and SMK B45-3 multi pump, both in .177.

I sighted the scope at a little over 10 yards, then moved back to a tree a little over 30 yards away and resighted. My shooting position was sitting with my back against the tree with the rifle supported on my fore arm which was wrapped around my knees, this is quite comfortable and the rifle is nearly as stable as it would be in a rifle rest. I have found that i had to concentrate on my breathing in this position, and my heartbeat can effect the shot a little as the rifle is rested against my shoulder no matter how lightly.

A4 target paper on a tree 30 yards away.

Changing the target paper i then shot groups of 8 or 10 shots, and though the sun did interfere with the scope a little the groups were generally about an inch and a bit with .177 RWS Superdomes.

Not the best 8 shot group of the day, but most the groups were similar to this.

The scope did shift a little but stopped and the only spread in the groups were from left to right, which i would put down to the sun shine in my scope and a slight side wind. All in all the Webley Hawk Mk II with the .177 barrel would appear to be a capable hunting rifle out to 30 yards at least, maybe a bit further once i got to grips with it's hold over and any side wind.

SMK with the original stock and pump handle.

Happy with the Hawk i started on the open sights on the SMK B45-3 .177 multi pump, the rear sight had been moved forward and the square notch and post were a tight fit and proved to give good accuracy. I love this air rifle because it is so accurate with a scope fitted, it can give ragged hole groups out to 40 yards at times and that was with the old stock.

SMK with new stock Mk I, the bend in the pump arm is exposed.

Making a new stock for it made it feel more comfortable to shoot as  the combe held my head at the perfect height for the scope, But the stock on the pump arm was a bit short. So i built a new longer piece with the last of the wood i used to build it, which made the pump arm a lot more stable and secure.

SMK with new stock Mk II, does it really look like i want an Air Arms s410?

Happy with both air rifles i spent the rest of the afternoon shooting both of them at a hole in a steel drum some 40 yards away, i moved a bit closer for the multi pump as i couldn't see the hole without a scope from 40 or 30 yards.

Well it looks like i did want an s410 after all.

I must have put half a tin of Superdomes through the Hawk and nearly all went through the 1 1/2 inch wide hole, those that hit the drum still had plenty of energy and splatted flat against the metal.

A couple of mullered .177 Superdomes from 40/45 yards down range, these were hard to find as most were on target and passed through the hole.

It would be nice to get the other .22 barrel for the Hawk now the power plant is working well, also i reckon fixing the stock so its more like the Mk I and earlier Mk II and a reblue would not be wasted on this lovely 70's British springer. 

TTFN

Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe

SMK 15, Small plinker for Small People

My wife got a message from a friend of hers the other week asking if she'd know of anywhere she could sell her sons old .177 air rifle. He was no longer interested and Mum was aware of my hobby (obsession) with air rifles. Wife says " it's never really been used and it's got SMK and 15 written on it, oh and it's got a scope and gun bag with it". She won't get a lot for that I thought, i'd give her 20 or 25 quid at the most though I could suggest a few sites she could advertise it. Seems she was happy with 25 because a week later we're off to pick up the wife's new air rifle. I hand over 25 of our English pounds and in return I am given a very well padded gun bag with an unknown quantity of wood and metal inside it. Mmmm, this should be fun, I thought!

As it came, Rifle, Scope, Gun slip, and bits and bobs.

The SMK XS 15 Supergrade  air rifle is a junior size Chinese air rifle very much along the lines of the Webley Cub. For 70ish quid you get an air rifle and a 4x32 scope. Now this is an older version of the same deal coming with an extra gun slip, two packs of .177 darts, and an abrasive cloth for cleaning the gun. I would say it's about 10 years old owing to the fact that the open sights are not fibre optic, which to some people is a good thing. I reckon they're OK on some rifles, but I would be mortified if they were on my HW35, if you know what I mean!

The front sight is a square post in a hood on a raised slope and has no adjustment, apart from the post, the sight is made from a molded plastic which fits around the end of the barrel.

 The rear sight is adjustable for both elevation and windage in the traditional style and is also mainly composed of plastic, however it makes a clear and crisp sight picture when aligned with the front sight. The wheels turn with nice pronounced clicks, and there is no looseness to them at all.

When I tested the rifle, it was pretty accurate with open sights but with the scope fitted you could see the rifle could do with an internal overhaul, or maybe it was just typical of an old Chinese air rifle. We shall have to see.

The rifle having been stored for ages had tiny little rust spots all over it, so some very fine 000 wire wool and gun oil soon had those removed.

The wood was in really good condition apart from a tiny nick at the front of the stock.

I don't know what wood it is, most likely something cheap, but still looks of reasonable quality - the wood on my SMK multi pump is awful in comparison!

The SMK sign could be seen through the the half decent bluing. It has a blackness to it that is common to all SMK's I have found, not very deep.

The end cap is made of plastic along with the safety catch, the end cap being held in place with a steel pin.

 

The safety sets on cocking and pushes in easily at the rear like many Diana air rifles. I'm truly tempted to paint the white dot red but alas it is not my call.
.

The breech is held between the forks by bolt as opposed to a pin, which is always a bonus in my opinion, and a locking screw keeps the whole business in place.

The trigger is made of pressed steel and is not too heavy, it feels as if there are two stages to let off though I imagine there is no adjustment.The front screw of the trigger guard holds the stock to the action, along with two screws at the front which screw in diagonally up into front of the compression chamber.

The rubber butt pad is just what it is, made of rubber and screwed into the rear of the butt by two screws.

It doesn't need to be ventilated or anything fancy as this is a junior rifle and fires lightly with no major kick to it, and it takes very little effort to cock the gun.

The break barrel breech is held in place with a ball bearing and spring, which with the power this puts out should do the job nicely. Though wear and tear could see problems with vertical accuracy, which is a shame as the breech block is bolted horizontally.

The breech seal looks nice and healthy so I can't see any problems there for a while. In fact when I took the rifle out to the woods for some free hand practice it was surprisingly accurate at ten yards, and at 25 yards could hit a drinks can every time.

It's a junior plinking air rifle and does what it says on the tin. It's pretty solidly constructed and feels hefty in your hands and I must admit i like how it looks. The rifle feels small to me but will fit the wife nicely, I also have a Crosman 1077 which she likes to shoot as well.

I reckon that should do it for now and im sure I will be back with a blog on the internals of this feisty little bugger, that is if it's OK with the missus for me to take it apart.

TTFN

Best wishes, Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe OBE.