Swiss Arms GSG/P 92 .177 BB Pistol, First Month Review, Field Strip and Lube.

The P92 comes securely packaged in a box with snug fitting polystyrene.

This is another KWC blowback pistol sold through Swiss Arms. Like the 1911 and Sig X five, it is a field strippable replica with the magazine holding BB's, Co2 and valve. What it is though is an unlicensed copy of a copy of the Beretta 92 fs, an Italian 9 mm pistol introduced in 1972 which is now also made in America under license for the police and armed forces and replaced the 1911 in 1985 as the standard issue side arm. You can also find copies of this gun produced in many countries around the world, the most well known being Taurus in Brazil. In fact you will find that this Co2 pistol is actually an unlicenced replica of the Taurus PT 92 B firearm itself, but it still originates from that iconic Italian 9 mm pistol that has proved so popular over the last 40 odd years.

 

This is what comes out the box, as well as a Chinglish instruction manual.

There are a couple of things that differ from the original Bereta firearm; these are the safety, which denotes it as the Taurus and is on the frame below the slide at the rear and not the slide, and the magazine, which is shaped slightly different at the base so a Co2 cartridge will fit below the valve. It's not a problem though as it looks like a high capacity magazine, and is roughly the right shape for a Taurus mag base.

 

This pistol has the usual light engraving of the lengthy warning on the other side of the slide as well as brand name and calibre on this side.

There is a weaver rail at the bottom of the frame which you could attach a bridge mount rail for a red dot sight, a laser designator, or even a torch, which is in keeping with it's tactical look. With the front post and unadjustable rear sight set so at 8 yards the BB's fall to the right and 2 inches down, the notch in the rear sight is quite wide and it would improve accuracy to have one of these things fitted. However there is a white dot at the base of the rear notch that helps to align the front post, it helps but only when there is plenty of light about. Considering it's not a target pistol but a tin can blasting BB gun, it works fine as it is, but it would be a lot easier to aquire targets if the white dot was on the front post instead.

The safety is a three position lever; it gives you 'safe', which can only be applied when the hammer is cocked or half cocked, 'semi auto' and 'full auto', but the gun is hobbled to give you semi auto in the semi and full auto positions. You can find the mods very easily to convert the gun to full auto on You Tube, but in the UK full auto is not allowed and you would get your pee pee severely slapped by the law of the land. 

This in another world is the selector position for full auto, it goes semi auto just as it does when the switch is horizontal.

Besides, it's wildly bloody inaccurate in full auto and a waste of Co2, basically I wouldn't bother as it will totally bugger your gun up. With the safety on, the trigger moves freely because it is disengaged somehow; remove the grips and you see how that works to some degree.

 

This is the selector position for safe, also the slide lock holds the slide back after the last shot.

What I do find totally amazing is the trigger in single action. It's really light and is set back to just before breaking point when the hammer has been cocked, and utterly predictable when compared to all other KWC blowback products I have come across. This, plus the solid, heavy feel to the blowback are most likely the main attractions to this gun. Double action isn't too heavy either which means you don't need to rack the slide to fire it, but you might as well as a BB is only loaded when the slide has been racked, besides, that's half the fun. Another groovy thing is that the trigger works just like the original with the metal bar on the right side of the gun swinging forward, as does the takedown bar and mag release. 

More moving parts than you could shake a stick at

In fact the only molded features are the trigger pin and of course the sights which have already been mentioned.

The magazine which is released by the button catch on the front of the grip by the trigger guard is a self contained ammo and power unit, just like the real steel. 

you can buy spare magazines for the P92, they're just not in stock very often.

It contains space for 21 steel BB's at the front which are loaded from the top, while the spring and follower are held down by your thumb as there is nowhere to lock it when loading. The 12g Co2 capsule fits in the bottom of the mag and is secured in place with a circular screw cup made of plastic; with fresh Co2 in the mag the cup is tightened with an allen key until just past the point the Co2 stops hissing after piercing. Tighten too much and you can damage the seal between the capsule and the valve sat at the top of the mag. A couple of times, I have had to tighten a little further when a slight hiss starts after a couple of shots into a fresh Co2 capsule, but that seems to have settled down now.

 
To strip the gun down for cleaning and lubrication the mag needs to be taken out so the slide can be removed. Press in the button on the right side of the takedown lever which is above the front of the trigger guard, so the switch on the left hand side can be moved 90 degrees to point downwards.

Press the take down lever button with your for finger,

and move the lever down 90 degrees with the thumb of the same hand. Or you could use both hands, it's up to you.

Now the slide is free to be removed by pulling forward off the pistol frame, which is cool as you don't have to pull the slide back to move the take down lever like you do on many other guns.

The slide comes off easy... Did you know that originally the Bereta did not have a take down lever and an assialant that was too close to you could reach out and just remove the slide, disarming your gun.

Then, turning the slide upside down, turn the recoil spring guide around 180 degrees and push all the way forward, compressing the recoil spring completely.

Note the flat on the collar of the recoil spring guide, facing at 90 degrees at the moment.

This now gives space for the barrel and breech unit to be removed by lifting at the breech and sliding out to the rear.

The barrel and breech do not come out until the flat of the guide is facing the barrel and the spring fully compressed.

Now that you have the slide in it's three main components, it is ready for a clean and lube.

 All ready for cleaning and lubrication.

l must admit that when it came to giving the now stripped pistol a wipe down with some kitchen towel, I found it to be pretty clean compared to say the Sig X Five which was fairly grubby. So silicone grease was dabbed on to the exposed outer barrel and rubbed in with kitchen towel to spread it sparingly.

That's too much grease really

This removes the excess.

Then, removing the recoil spring from the guide, more grease was applied to the guide and spread around between finger and thumb before replacing the spring.

More grease here and after a few shots it gets worked into the spring.

Next, using a mix of mostly silicone oil with a dab of silicone grease, I lubricated where the slide, frame and breech all came into contact; this was spread into tight corners with the aid of a little rolled up paper towel.

Add mixture along the runners on both sides here.....

here.....

and here.

Once it was cleaned and lubricated it was a simple matter of reversing the take down instructions to put it back together.

Fit and press in recoil spring and guide making sure the flat on the guide faces the barrel.

It's a snug fit but the barrel and breech slide in.

On releasing the recoil spring make sure the flat on the guide is facing the pistol frame, then he slide simply slides on again.

And push lever back into position to lock the slide in place.

Then using just the silicone oil, I lubricated the spring and BB follower in the magazine, as well as the slide lock tab at the top of the mag for good measure.

Even though silicone oil won't do any damage, it's still best to avoid getting any on the transfer port on top of the magazine.

Any excess oil and grease is wiped away and the pistol is ready for shooting again, once some more Co2 and BB's have been loaded into the magazine.

Wiping oil and grease can give the pistol a more realistic look

All in all, this is a pretty cool replica of the Taurus PT 92, apart from all the white writing all over the slide and frame. There are several methods to remove this, from sanding down and respraying to filling the writing with acrylic paint or permanent marker. Dispite the BB's not landing where the sights say they should, they do however group as small as just over an inch at six yards if care is taken. Two inch groups are the norm when shooting off hand or rapidly, and as there is no catch for the follower in the mag you can load and fire the full compliment of 21 BB's without problems.

It's not too loud either as the report and blow back can be heard in equal measure when you shoot it, in fact the most noticable noise comes from the BB's hitting the target. I have hours of fun quick drawing from my waist band and shooting at multiple 4 inch square metal plates at 6 to 9 yards, rebounding BB's were a problem until I started to angle the metal target plates pointing down.
 
Spare magazines are pretty hard to source unlike the 1911, but I recently managed to find one for my Sig X Five and they're hard to find as well. So i'm not abandoning all hope of finding one just yet, just be in the right place at the right time, or the right air gun shop web site.

TTFN

Best wishes, Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe.

SIG Sauer P226 X Five Field Strip , Clean, and Lube

Like all KWC blow back pistols, they are designed to be as realistic as possible and that means field stripping amongst other things. The good thing about field stripping is that they can be cleaned and lubed so they work a little smoother, and of course it will prolong their life a tad longer. They're not designed to last a long time as they are quite cheap to begin with and generally made out of pot metal, but as most things wear or break they can be replaced, and with the slide removed this is possible for many parts.

Besides a box of cheap steel BB's, this is what you get out of the box.

Many people have wondered if with a bit of tinkering they could improve the power output, though most likely you would just end up with a stronger kickback and a slight drop in power which can only lead to the pistol wearing out and breaking sooner. Believe me, a lot better minds than mine have looked into this and I am quite happy to defer to their judgement for now, so i'm happy just to get a smoother running pistol that can happily decimate empty energy drink cans at a rapid rate.

So, down to business and the joys of field stripping your lovely SIG X Five, which has to be one of the major attractions in the purchasing of this fine Taiwanese replica. 

The X Five is a fairly large pistol

First thing to do is drop the mag out of the pistol as nothing is moving anywhere until it's out of the way. It's also a good idea to rack the slide and check for any BB's in the barrel. 

Checking to see if the air pistol is clear.

The top slide, which is made from Zinc alloy I believe, has to be racked back until the semi circular cutout on the bottom left side of the slide lines up with the take down lever. 

The semi-circular cut away in the slide allows the take down lever to turn 90 degrees.

Once here, the lever will be allowed to turn 90 degrees within the ark of the cut out in the slide, so when the lever is pointing downwards you are able to pull the slide all the way forward and further till it slides off the front of the pistol frame.

The slide moves freely to this point where it meets a little resistance,

but give it a little jiggle and it moves on and off the pistol frame.

Cool, the gun's in three bits now; the magazine, which could do with a spot of lubrication, the pistol body which only needs a wipe and some lube, and the slide which will dismantle further for cleaning and lubrication and is the part we're concentrating on mainly for now.

Flip the slide upside down to start removing the recoil spring, guide and barrel.

Note which way up the recoil spring guide sits where it sits against the breech block.

Push the guide forward and lift, then remove by pulling it back. 

The spring and guide are easily removed with one hand, the square lug on the end of the guide sits inside the slide.

Note which way around the square block at the end of the guide goes for when you put it back again.

Well it's a start, but there's more.

The barrel housing, inner barrel and breech lift out easily in one unit, 

Inner, outer barrel, and breech assembly

Outer barrel lifts off lug on the breech.

.177 smoothbore  brass inner barrel with rubber O ring to hold it in place inside outer barrel.

and once out, the inner barrel removes quite easily from the outer barrel.

Pistol fully field stripped, you want to strip it any further and you will need a tool kit and lots of photos for putting it back together correctly.

Now it's in bits, it is a good time to clean all the parts before applying grease and oil; these pistols are always dry and a bit dirty out of the box by all accounts.

For something so new I was surprised how much crap came off of it.

Just wiping a piece of kitchen towel over any parts that will come into contact when the slide moves is a good start, in fact a good wipe on all the internal surfaces won't do it any harm at all.

Kitchen towel removes nearly all the grime, but a dab of white spirits will do a better job.

Once any grime was removed, I started by removing the recoil springs and washer and applying a thin smear of silicone grease to the guide and springs, making sure I remembered which way around they were originally fitted.

This pistol has two recoil springs and a washer, whereas most others have just the one spring. The collapsed ends of the springs go on the outside.

I made a mix of silicone grease and silicone oil which I smeared over the outer barrel with kitchen towel, 

All it needs is the thinnest of coatings, and it looks oh so shiny.

and all the touching parts of the slide had a smear of silicone oil as well as the parts they touched on the pistol frame.

Smear the oil along with a finger.

A little silicone oil is all you need, though a little fine graphite powder mixed in would be even better.

Now that all parts were evenly lubricated, it was a simple matter to reverse the disassembly guide to put it back together, and it is pretty straight forward and simple as these pistols go.

The magazine just needed a little silicone oil along the BB tension spring and follower, 

just to help it along I worked the follower up and down the mag with my thumb.

Once the spring and follower are oiled it will not need doing again for quite a while.

Another drop of oil to the lip of the BB feed at the top of the mag and where the follower connects with and pushes the slide stop into position for good measure. 

Just the tiniest drop here, and wipe any excess that goes near the square Co2 transfer port seal behind it.

By using silicone oil you are using an oil that does not damage rubber and plastic seals, but it's still best to wipe away any excess as you only need a little to do the job properly.

As this pistol is pretty easy to field strip it should be no problem to clean and lubricate at any time, and for me this is one of the main attractions in owning a replica like this.

TTFN

Best wishes, Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe

.22 BSA Meteor Mk IV Reassembly

In a far flung corner of the kitchen, south of the bread bin and east of the kettle, just past the pile of battery chargers and assorted bike lights, sat the dismantled BSA Meteor. It sat there for a week and every time i made a cup of tea or dinner, i thought, i really should put this back together and get some pictures. So one day while i had a korma simmering away, it , the tool kit, and all my other bits and bobs got moved to the kitchen table and work commensed.

 The serial number puts this as a late model MkIV.

Even though this air rifle is about four decades old, general wear a tear had not removed all the burrs and sharp edges, so attaching a small grinding head to the Draper mini drill i gave the rifle a once over. 

Removing burrs from where the cocking arm is fitted.

Removing the sharp edge to the piston and compression tube cocking slot by gently running the grinding head along, 

Old air rifles still have a sharp edge on the piston as a rule.

and the edges and corners where the cocking arm goes in as well as the inner edges of the holes for the main spring retaining pin. 

Main spring retaining pin holes tend to need deburring to protect the piston seal.

Then using the cleaning rod with some white spirit on some kitchen towel i cleaned the inside of the piston and compression tube, i didn't want any tiny bits of metal dust from the grinding buggering up the O ring seal.

Clean the metal dust out of the tube and piston before reassembly.

The piston with the old O ring would slide half way down the compression tube with my finger over the transfer port telling me the O ring seal was very worn, 

With the old piston seal this is where the piston rested with the transfer port blocked.

so the O ring seal came off and a new one was sized up from the big red box of O rings. 

A slightly undersized O ring makes a good fit as a general rule.

 The inner diameter of the compression tube is 26 mm but a 3 mm thick O ring that size  was a tad to big on the piston, so going the next size down had the O ring fitting the piston head pretty snug. It was also a snug fit in the compression tube and stayed were it was when i tried to push it down with my finger over the transfer port, and took very little pressure to move the piston when i removed my finger from the transfer port, perfect!

With new O ring the piston stays at the top with the transfer port blocked

Applying a little Abbey SM2 to the O ring seal and some Abbey LT50 below the piston head and on the skirt,

A touch of Abbey SM 2 for the O ring seal.

A dab of Abbey LT50 (moly grease) for the head and skirt of the piston body.

 the piston was fitted into the compression tube with both cocking slots aligned. I cleaned the mainspring and polished the ends with the mini drill as it saves time and blisters,

Just a few of the many useful attachments for the mini drill.

 and applying a liberal amount of LT 50 grease and a a bronze slip washer to the end i fitted it in the piston. 

Bronze slip washer, main spring, and not too much moly grease.

The washer that sits at the end of the spring guide and holds the main spring is a little chewed up, so another bronze slip washer was placed between it and the main spring. With a little LT 50 grease over all surfaces it was put in the end of the main spring, i left out the 4 mm delrin spacer i had in it from last time. I made sure the washer was a tight as possible to the spring guide, as it slips down the guide and rests against a slight lip.

Spring guide, spring support washer, and bronze slip washer before a light coating of moly grease.

Placing the compression tube assembly in the spring compressor with the fitting tool in place the two inches of pre load was pushed back in, it needed a light guiding hand to get it past the end of the tube. 

Min spring removal tool will need guiding by hand as it enters the compression tube.

The spring guide stayed where it was and had to be teased up with a screw driver so the retaining pin would fit, it also aligned the retaining pin holes with the cut out in the special tool. 

Screw driver will clear the path of the retaining pin.

The retaining pin slipped in the right way around and pressure was released from the spring compressor, there is a little chip out of the shaped side if the retaining pin but it's not on a pressure bearing side.

 The pressure bearing side of the pin is on the undamaged side as the spring compressor is released.

The barrel had a crap home made delrin breech seal which was removed and cleaned, and a spare breech seal i had sitting in the spares box put in it's place.

New BSA breech seal is fitted.

 Over the years the pivot pin in the breech had worn the breech hole a tad wider making the the barrel loose and move in the forks, and the only way to fix this without replacing the barrel is to shim the hole.

A very worn pivot pin hole on the breech.

 I originally used a piece of bar the same diameter as the pin to hold a shim cut from a tango can in place in the breech when fitting the pivot pin, i had lost that so i used a piece of 6 mm wooden dowel which had swollen slightly to the .25 inch which is the diameter of the pin..The dowel was cut so it was the same width as the breech and a strip of shim also cut to that size, the shim was wrapped around the dowel and where it creased where it met the start of the shim it was cut. 

Shim material is rolled around the dowel and cut to size.

Applying a little spot of LT 50 to the breech hole the dowel with the shim around it was pushed in sightly. The detent bar and spring were greased a replaced, 

Moly grease the detent bar and spring

and pushing it down on the back of a chair the dowel and shim where pushed all the way in so they were flush with the breech holding the detent bar in place.

Dowel and shim holding the detent bar in place.

The forks had been bent out because the stock screws had bit into the stock and push the tabs below outwards by pressing against the breech, i had bent them back in the vice making sure i had something between them so as not to damage them. 

Pressure from a vice staightens out the forks.

With this done the barrel breech was very tight between the forks, slipping the breech behind the pivot hole upside down and flipping around so the holes lined up. Making sure the lightly greased pivot pin was entering the right way around through the left hand fork it was gently tapped through the breech with a rubber mallet, the pin pushed the dowel out the other side leaving the shim behind. 

The barrel is uncocked at this point so the pivot pin can drive all the way home.

When the pin reached the other fork the barrel was cocked making it easier to guide it all the way home, as i didn't want to knock the forks out of alignment again.With the barrel fitted the cocking arm was ground for sharp edges, cleaned, greased both ends, then fitted into the compression chamber, then the breech.

Fitting the cocking arm with a dab of moly grease at each end.

Getting on to the trigger i had noticed that a small bit had broken off that held the spring,it held but needed cutting deeper to make it more secure.

The trigger with a bit broken off it seems to be made of cast metal.

So a deeper groove was cut using the cutting disk off the mini drill, this also has a benefit by creating less tension on the trigger.

Cutting a lip to hold the trigger spring securely.

Now the sear could be replaced, followed by the trigger, then the stop pin behind that.

The fitting of the pins in the trigger assembly is reletively easy.

Now the action and barrel were sorted the plastic end cap can go on the back, the stock was attached by the trigger guard screw a little, then the guard was slipped in and the screw tightened by finger then finished with a screw driver.

I sometimes have to waggle the trigger guard slightly to slip it into place.

Finally the front stock screws had to have enough washers to make sure the forks weren't pushed out when tightened, ideally some sort of brass cup would do the job here.

The forstock screws are pretty knackered, but hold tight with some washers to stop them pushing the forks apart.

Seeing as the rear sights were missing i decided to fit the Rangeright 4x32 scope for testing, i dont know what it is about me and old BSA's but they are always missing the rear sights when i get my hands on them.

Ready for a trip to the woods.

That's the Meteor sorted for now, all i need to do is sight it in and see how it does. If all goes well with that then i might clean and oil the stock and put some enamel paint on the metal work, mind you i quite like the bare metal finish when it's cleaned, polished and oiled.

TTFN

Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe