The Original Japanese Mk II 177. Sharp Innova Multi-pump Air Rifle, Review and Accuracy Test

The Sharp Innova is not a pellet fussy air rifle.

Oh no! Not another bloody blog about the bloody Innova!


In my most honest and humble opinion the Sharp Innova is an awesomely but simply designed multi pump air rifle, people in general tend to either love it or hate it, i myself, you may have gathered, i love it (Not unlike Jeremy Corbyn, old, honest, and reliable). This is the original Japanese Sharp Innova i'm talking about,not the later Chinese and Pacific Rim copies, and not that bloody awful Webley Rebel either.

A well thought out design, nice and simple.

Externally it has a rather blocky stock and forearm (the wood is solid and does not splinter or chip as a rule),

Though stained and varnished, the woodwork is solid.

a polymer/plastic reciever,

Even the plastic reciever is pretty tough.

and front sight housing that supports the metal barrel, pump tube and pump arm, a 10mm rifled inner barrel, and annoyly brittle plastic outer barrel sleeve

Some parts can be easily bodged

 At 90 cm's long the rifle feels compact and well balanced,

Compact little powerhouse.

The stock is held onto the reciever with one screw that secures it to the brass valve within the compression tube inside the plastic reciever, this is the heaviest and most solid part of the rifle body.

Without this one screw the whole thing falls apart.

The forearm is held onto the pump arm with two metal pins, this gives a comfortable hold for pumping.

A small piece of rubber inside the pump arm reduces the noise of pumping.

  Besides having MkII written on the reciever the only other things to denote it externally as a MkII are the plastic buttpad,

It may be ineffective as a butt pad but it does add character.

and a metal safety switch on the metal trigger guard that stops the plastic trigger from moving when engaged. There is also a small ajustment screw on the trigger which alters 1st stage travel, these tend to be missing on most 2nd hand Innova's and really is of no great loss too the airgunning world.

The safety is not automatically set, which to most people is a bonus.

When Sharp Introduced the Innova to the public in the late 70's/ early 80's the idea of all this plastic went against the grain with a lot of people, but the majority who actually got to use one soon realised it was a very accurate, powerful, and reliable air gun. The use of plastic for many external pasts proved to make it very robust with no blueing to scratch up, after 30 odd years though the plastic has started to get brittle in places and i've had my fair share of Innova's with chipped and snapped off bits. Still i have managed to fix, bodge or by-pass many of these problems, ending up with a rifle that handles as good as it ever has.


Loading pellets can be a little fiddly at first, until one gets the hang of it. With the rifle held at a 45 degree cant and a pellet placed at the bottom of the loading port, the pellet will easily roll into the breech with a small tilt of the rifle. 

The problems of a small and fiddly loading port can be easily overcome.

The bolt is sprung loaded, when the small catch at the rear of the reciever is pushed down the bolt springs open. 

The recess in the bolt is for the lever to hold it in place.

Once the pellet is loaded the bolt is pushed back in place into the reciever and seals the breech, the catch lever is pushed back up under spring tension to hold the bolt in place. 

Bolt held in place under spring tension.

Two O rings on the bolt seal the breech, loading the pellet is best done after the rifle has been charged/pumped up.

The rifle is kept under 12 ft/lb using an adjustable blow off valve built into the pump head, most Innova's will blow off excess air and leave enough air pressure to fire a pellet within an 10 FPS spread over many shots.

The large pump head houses the valve for blowing off excess air pressure.

Before any tinkering is done on the rifle, 7 or 8 pumps will charge it enough for one full powered shot.  After fine adjustment of the pump assembly, it is possible to get 12 ft/lb with 4 or 5 pumps in .177 and 3 or 4 pumps in .22.

 Supporting the rifle by the back of the reciever and pistol grip allows for the most effective pump stroke.

Squeezing the trigger will dump all the air in the valve and fire the pellet, this rifle has an exhaust valve where a sear block holds the firing pin in place. Moving the sear out of the way of the firing pin allows the pressurized air in the valve to force the pin back, with the valve empty a spring will push the firing pin back in place to seal the valve for the preparation of the next shot.

An adjustable butt pad would be a good investment for this rifle.

The pump arm swings back 60 degrees to allow air into the compression tube,

The pump arm at full extention, the front sight housing stops the pump arm from going any further.

more force is needed on the pump arm the more pumps applied. The same with the trigger pull, because the more pressure that is in the valve the harder the firing pin pushes against the sear block and the harder it is to move it with the trigger. At 12 ft/lb the trigger release is still comfortable so the Innova is still very accurate, this is due to the trigger pull, a decent barrel, and the near zero recoil of a pnuematic rifle.

Shooting offhand in windy conditions does not make for the most accurate of groupings.

Fired from a rest in good conditions sub half inch groups at 25 yards are easily achievable, however a scope is usually needed for these better results.

I must get a pellet trap as the kids get really annoyed when i shoot their toys.

A simple rear open sight that clamps onto the scope rail comes fitted to the rifle, unfortunatly these tend to get lost easily as is the case with all but one of the many Innova's i have had the good fortune to own or work  on.

An Innova in decent condition for sale at around £200 will sell easily, and if it's well cared for all it's life will still be working and have all it's original parts. However, if someone has tried to ramp up the power on one in the past, it will have put excessive wear on a lot of the parts. Luckily replacement parts are reletively cheap and available from various places, they are also pretty easy to work on (I've done more than enough blogs about Innova's in the past to prove this).

My opinion? Good air rifles, i love 'em.


All the best,

Wing commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe

.177 BSA Cadet, A Review and Other Bits and Bobs

For an old air rifle that i always thought a bit of a smallish youth rifle, i was pleasently surprised to find it both considerably larger and heftier when i first laid my hands on one. 

109 cm from tip too tail

The very first thing i did though was to put her over the chronoghraph to get 4.56 ft/lbs with JSB Exacts, she was old, complete and in fairly good nick and i reckoned things could only improve from here on in.

This has the look of a sporting rifle in the 50's

 BSA was responsible for the production of over 50% of all British small arms produced during WWII, so roll on 1945 and they decide to go back to an increase in thier Air rifle production and the introduction of thier new Cadet air rifle. Capable of putting out 8 ft/lb and advertised as being able to take rabbits out to 50 yards this rifle was popular amongst young adults and adults alike, trade description was not an issue in those days. Maybe if you could throw the thing 50 yards you could possibly concuss a rabbit, with a full wooden stock and heavily engineered steel construction the rifle had some interesting early BSA design features and had to be one of the prettier looking break barrel air rifles for it's time.

The prefix of CC tells me the rifle is made in the later half of the 1950's

The Cadet has a leather piston seal which in this case needed no oil to improve velocity, from what i remember from the chrony test there was no more the 25 FPS spread with any of the pellets i tested. From what i could see through the cocking slot both spring and piston appeared to be lightly lubricated, or at least it wasn't all dry and dusty. 

The Cadet has a one peice trigger and sear that hooks on to a central piston rod in the piston, how much of the sear that holds the piston rod can be adjusted by a screw in the slope at the rear of the action.

Without dimantling the rifle i had to looke at the plans on Chambers web site too find out this adjusted sear engagement.

 The stock is a one piece beechwood affair with a very long cocking slot, because it has a single piece cocking rod that is, like the rest of the rifle, very well made and solid.

Considering the length of the cocking slot, there was no movement in the stock, not one bit, non at all, zero, zilch.

The stock fits well to the action and is fixed with two screws at a 60 degree angle at the front of the action,

Screws made the old fashioned way, roled on the thighs of dusky Brummies.

and like the later Airsporter and Mercury the rear is a bolt that runs through the pistol grip and screws into the rear section of the action. 

The reat bolt. Like it say's on the tin, bolts the rear on.

The Cadet has some weight to it for its size as i said before and although it is pretty old there is no movement between the forks, or anywhere at all come to think of it, from wear over the years.

I have no idea if a pin or a bolt holds the forks around the breech, it's still a solid fit though.

There are only open sights on this rifle and has no scope rail, because scopes just weren't commonly used in the 50's. The front sight is a bead on top of a concave ramp that sits in a dovetail on the tip of the barrel, left to right adjustment could be achieved by tapping the sight along the dovetail.

The front sight had already been adjusted and was fine, notice it hangs over too the right.

From this angle the dove tail is more noticable.

The rear sights that sit on top of the breech block are real old school and tend to be found on most early 1900's air rifles, they adjust up and down only by spinning a firm horizontal thumb wheel. This allows a plate with a V notch on top to move vertically in its frame, score marks on the side of the frame and plate help keep track of adjustments

These sights were perfectly fine in the 50's and still perform well today.

The trigger and guard are very slim but also pretty solid due to the fine quality of the metal used to build it. The trigger appears to have a light too mediun release and along with the angle of the pistol grip and the low combe on the buttstock, found it very comfortable too shoot with satisfying results.

The trigger guard design is a tried and tested BSA design and can be found on later Meteors

Low recoil, trigger release, weight, and pretty nifty old school sights all added up to some good off hand accuracy. 7 out of 9 Geco wadcutters made one impressive one cm ragged hole and JSB Exacts appeared to spred vertically, however they were the only two pellets i tried at the time.

I reckon Superdomes would do well in this air rifle, should get some really.

When all is said and done, the BSA Cadet is an awesome back yard plinker that reeks of nostalgia from a time we can only imagine and most likely never happened.

This rifle came to me in good condition internally and out, and as a plinker did not need any attention apart from a little oil and wire wool for the matal work. It's fun and definately gets a thumbs up.

All the best,

Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe 

ASI Sniper Vs The SMK 15, A Comparison Test.

Comparing two cheap youth air rifles made 30 years apart.

The ASI Sniper is a youth air rifle also known as the Gamo Expo. It was popular during the late 70's and early 80's. This model is .177 which was capable of reaching power levels of around 9.5 ft/lb; mine is currently happily reaching 6 ft/lb since I dropped some oil down the transfer port to put a bit of life into the leather piston seal.

ASI Sniper, i really like the feel and looks of this rifle.

Just shy of 6 ft/lb.

The SMK 15 is aimed at the same age group and with a bit of tweaking could reach 9 ft/lb, though at the moment is fine knocking out .177 pellets at around 6 ft/lb. 

More like 5 ft/lb but does do 6 ft/lb with Hobby's.

Like ASI, SMK is an import company which buys up air rifles from different parts of the world, re-brands them in their company name and sells them on at a cheap rate compared to rifles with a well recognised brand name. They have been doing this from the late 80's onwards and are still doing it today.

SMK 15, quirky little thing that it is.

ASI took Gamo and El Gamo rifles and sold them on cheaper than their competitors, and SMK took cheap massed produced Chinese air rifles and sold them on at, in some cases, a considerably cheaper price. Recently, SMK have been given the import rights for air rifles from big names like Diana, Remington and Gunpower, to name but a few. But my favourite at the moment are Swiss Arms and Cybergun which make the .177 BB replica pistols, though if truth be told they're actually made by KWC and re-branded. Since then, Gamo have grown larger and now own BSA, and have an extensive range of air rifles and pistols on offer.

So there you have it, two similar imported air rifles made three decades apart. I plan to do a comparison test between them to see which one out performs the other, if indeed one does out perform the other. Two air rifles imported by British companies who buy cheap air rifles and put them on the British market cheaper than other brands - one is Chinese, one is Spanish.

 

Chinese made especially for SMK.

Gamo mark and country of origin. Rick Lamphere of Rick's Shop blog told me this was also sold as the Daisy 120 in the USA.

The open sights on both are pretty solid with no slackness to them and almost identical in looks; front square post with a hood, and rear square notched sights, click adjustable for windage and elevation.

Rear sights for the ASI Sniper.

Rear sights for the SMK15, both mostly plastic but pretty solid all the same.

Both are break barrels and their power plants produce roughly the same power. Cocking effort for both feel the same, though the SMK spring is stiffer and slammy on firing and the Sniper is softer with more pre-load. The trigger on the Sniper feels noticeably lighter than the one on the SMK, but neither are what you would call light triggers by a long shot.

The ASI Sniper trigger has adjustment for sear contact, but a long pull.

The SMK 15 rigger has a long pull and a stiffer break.

Both rifles are pretty much the same in size, looks and weight, and most importantly both rifles are in a .177 flavour which, with all factors combined, make them perfect for this comparison test.

Two rifles ready for testing, (and the SIG Sauer X Five pistol for a bit of fun after the test)

For this test, all shots were taken while sitting, with the air rifle supported in front of the trigger guard at their points of balance. The pistol grip was held as lightly as possible and the butt plate gently rested in my shoulder, giving both rifles chance to recoil freely and (hopefully) in the same way for each shot. Both rifles were tested with the same four types of pellets at 12 yards, once with open sights and once with a 4 x 32 scope with five shots per group to give a general idea of performance and accuracy.

So from 12 yards I sat down and shot at a paper target with the ASI Sniper, with just the open sights as I had forgotten to bring the allen key to take the SMK 4x32 scope off the SMK 15. Using RWS Superdomes, AA Diabolo's, Geco Wadcutters and H&N FTT's, I shot groups of five. The trigger was heavy and this was the first time I had really fired this rifle, but despite that it was very comfortable to shoot.
   

Not a brilliant set of groups for the Sniper but they will tighten up with practice, besides i'm short and long sighted so open sights are a bit of a chore. Also it was 12 yards not 10 like it says on the target paper

Then, using the same pellets in the SMK 15 with the 4x32 scope, I shot five of each at 12 yards. I had to remember to take the safety off and the trigger was a tad stiffer, with the rifle being a lot harsher to shoot. Even with the scope, the groups were larger than the ASI with open sights. I would say the fact that the ASI was well run in helped out here, and again it was the second time I had ever shot the SMK.

The SMK with a 4x32 sights was no better than the Sniper without, but Superdomes and H&N's seem the way to go if i'm going to try and improve on this.

Days later when the weather had settled down again, I swapped the scope over to the ASI and took both rifles out again. I had ran out of Superdomes but I did have a new tin of JBS Exacts to try instead. I gave the SMK 15 a go with open sights first, but the spread was that bad that I gave up and didn't even bother recording the results.

After three days of howling winds we're back out with the scope swapped over to the Sniper and a brand new tin of JBS Exacts.

   
However, when it came to the ASI Sniper with the 4x32 scope, the results were a lot better - remember this was only the second time I had fired this rifle. The Diabolo's and Exacts gave amazing groups considering, but it didn't seem to like the H&N's. The Geco's were not too bad and they are pretty cheap pellet, so a decent Wadcutter could give results as good as the Diabolo's and the Exacts.

The line of shots at the top left are sighting in shots, but on the whole i'm pretty chuffed with these results and with the JBS Exacts as well.

So there you go, two cheap air rifles from decades apart and it looks like the Spanish Gamo won hands down. With a little fettling the ASI could have the power brought up, the trigger made lighter, and still be a smooth shooting accurate air rifle. The same could be done for the SMK 15 as well, but to me it sounds a bit like polishing a dog turd, afterall you can only do so much with cheap air rifles.

TTFN

Best wishes, Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe



PS. Please don't think that I am of the opinion that all Chinese air rifles are crap. Some are pretty good. You just get what you pay for really, and with a bit of time and effort working on them some people have achieved amazing results.

Crosman 2240 Co2 pistol, The Most Moddable Pistol Ever. A Review

The Crosman 2240 is Co2 air pistol that only comes in .22, but will knock out a pellet at close to 6 ft/lb if you get a good one. This one tends to do around 5 ft/lb with medium weight pellets on a warm day, though as is the case with all Co2 guns, power drops with the temperature.  

That's 4.65 ft/lb on a cold winters day

Costing under £100 quid, you could easily spend up to four times that on replacing parts and modding the gun to your own satisfaction which thousands of owners have done, turning out some rather splendid guns, some of which are nothing like the original.

My basic model, this one is over two years old and has had a lot of use.

The pistol itself is a very simple design and one that Crosman and Benjamin have been using for many decades, though the 2240 is by far the sleekest model to date. It consists of a tube that holds the 12 gram Co2  and the 22XX valve, with a hammer and spring behind that and an end cap to hold it in place. The front end has a weighty knurled steel front cap which when screwed in pushes the Co2 cartridge against the valve to seal it.  First shot will pierce the Co2 capsule, then it's ready to shoot pellets at it's full power.

The front cap needs only to be fairly finger tight, though there is a slot so it could be made tighter by using a penny or a screwdriver with a very large flat head.

The trigger guard and pistol grip frame screw in with two screws from the underside; the pistol grips are ambidextrous  with a thumb rest both sides which sweep back in the way that modern pistol grips do. It is just as comfortable to hold and shoot in either hand and the trigger, though quite thin, is a crescent moon shape and is surprisingly comfortable to use, a bit like one you would find on a PO8 or Luger (same thing really). The safety is built into the frame and blocks the trigger, a typical Crosman design.

A design that has been going for decades on many American air pistols.

The breech is plastic and holds on with an Hex screw found in the loading tray, which itself is fairly spacious and loading pellets is a doddle. 

Pellets just drop in, even these 25 gr Norica bullet shaped ones, and they are very long.

The sealing O ring is found on the brass cocking bolt as is the way with the majority of single shot pneumatics. 

Bolt probe with seal and a hex bolt that connects the plastic breech to the body. Can easily strip if not careful when removing it.

The bolt handle is small but does the job, there is no spring but it locks into place in the L shaped slot on the right hand side, being only an annoyance to left handed people. The size, shape or material of the breech means there are no scope rails, though some scope mounts would bolt onto the 10 mm barrel if you want to scope the basic model. The Sheridan multi pump air rifles use the same block mounts.

Brass bolt and plastic breech, cheap but it does work.

The barrel sits in the breech and is supported by an ali barrel band that is held in place with a grub screw and protrudes past the main tube of the body.  It is cast and not of a high finish as you can clearly see the molding lines, same with the plastic breech as well.

The one grub screw is ample to secure the short barrel in place.

Over the front end is a plastic ramped sight with a square post, which has a tendency to be knocked out of place at times. 

The front sight which is not glued or heat shrunk in place and annoyingly moves, suppose its an easy way to adjust the windage.

The rear sight is a flat piece of steel that screws into an adjustable plastic mount at the rear of the breech. Adjustment is made by loosening the screws and moving the sight to the desired position by small nudges then tightening again. I tend to find it annoying if truth be told, but on the bright side you can flip the rear sight upside down giving you the option of a square notch or a hole for a simple peep sight.

The rear sight, loosen screws, adjust to taste then tighten. Tight enough so they don't move when knocked, but not too tight so you strip the plastic that is in abundance here.

At arms length the front post has a lot of space either side of it when viewed through the rear notch, so one could be smaller or the other a bit wider to increase accuracy. Practice can only improve your group sizes as you get use to the sights, a lot more practice in my case and a new glasses perscription as well!

Five shot group with superdome's with two hands free standing at 10 yards, vertical line is because power was dropping off (honest!). I got off three more shots then ended the test as I had no more Co2 capsules on me.

The basic pistol is moddable in countless ways without even buying any extras. A small screw and hex kit, some small round files and a cheapo Dremel drill and you're away. Though there are countless companies out there that sell upgrade aftermarket parts, you could end up spending a large amount of money doing one up. Access to a lathe and milling machine will save you loads if you have the knowhow to use them, but most people will order all their upgrades from companies such as Gmac http://www.gmaccustomparts.com/ for the UK market. In the US, the Crosman company itself now offer their own design yourself 2240 as home modding has proved so popular.

The starting point for some of the wildest air rifle and pistol creations out there.

Steel breech conversions are the most popular and make good sense as you can fit scope rings onto them; shiny brass replacement parts to bling up the pistol are another popular choice. With Gmac alone the possibilities are endless, with countless pistol grip designs, full stocks, extension barrels, conversion to HPA (high powered air, or something like that), muzzle breaks, power adjusters, shiny barrel bands and bits and bobs in brass or many adonised colours. As I say, the choice is never ending. If you look at the Ratcatcher Crosman 2250 which is being sold for 200 quid at the moment , you will find it's just the same valve, hammer, spring and tube as the 2240 pistol, but with a steel breech for mounting scope rings, a plastic fore stock and shoulder stock, and an 18 inch barrel which knocks the power up to 10 ft/lb from 6 ft/lb. As it is not a pistol any longer but a carbine rifle you can get it up to 12 ft/lb will a little fettling, I have heard of FAC versions of 60ft/lb which with a larger bore, a long barrel, and a bit of valve and transfer port fettling is entirely believable. 

The best conversion i've seen to date is one where it's made to look an AR 15, but it's all down to personal taste and it's only imagination that can limit any creation based on the 2240 chassis. But I like the basic model, it is accurate and is very comfortable to hold and shoot and fun. I have often taken it with me when taking the dogs on a walk around the woods where I can shoot, just shooting stones off walls or hitting small branches and leaves keeps my simple mind happy.

TTFN

Keep safe and warm, Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe