The Best Bits of Two Relums to Make The Tornado

Having passed on the Norica Quick to a friend i was left with the one underlever, that one being the old Relum Tornado. This one fired pellets well enough but was a bugger to cock, and seeing as i had a Relum Telly with no stock lying around i would strip both to fix up the Tornado. As all Relums have pretty much the same power plant and trigger assembly, i figured i could make a decent air rifle out of the two of them.

 Action and stock

 Taking the stock off the Tornado was just a matter of two flat head screws on the fore stock and the front flat head on the trigger guard, though i had to screw the sear adjustment screw right in as it's in the center of the trigger guard screw.

Front trigger guard screw with sear adjustment screw in side that

Unscrewing cocking linkage from the under lever cocking arm.

 Unscrewing the cocking linkage from the breech block and pushing it back to the circular hole on the spring cylinder was easy, however it does need to be gently prized out as the linkage is held against the cylinder by a strip of spring steel. This is because the cocking linkage is articulated, which is handy as the linkage slot on the stock is shorter and makes for a sturdier stock all round.

Leaf spring holding the articulated cocking linkage against the piston cylinder, for stock screws also screw into the sides of the metal bridge

There is a bushing on the linkage to stop it scraping the metal on the cylinder, in this case it was in good nick. With the linkage removed i easily pushed the two pins holding the sear and trigger out and with the trigger spring put them to one side, it was then ready to be put in the spring compressor secured with parcel tape yet again.

Two inches of preload on the main spring.

I compressed the end cap in a smidgen and tapped out the securing pin and released the pressure, two inches of preload on two springs one within the other running concentricly came out.

Both inner and outer springs look okay.

 Both springs looked in pretty good condition if not a little compressed with age, there was no spring guide as the inner spring does this job.

Nylon piston seal replacing the original leather one.

 However the piston was a real bugger to remove and needed some real force at times, there was a nylon solid piston seal with a bit of metal showing on one side when it should have been a leather two piece inner and outer seal which is held on to the piston head by a metal rivet.

Relum Telly ready to come apart.

Some very worn springs indeed.

I put the Telly in the spring compresser and repeated the same procedure, this time there was a fairly healthy leather piston seal but both springs were buggered. Even the inner spring was to short or compressed and some plastic tube lid had been shoved in there to take up the slack, both springs were worn with bends on them.

Telly piston on the left with leather seal  for the Tornado, next to the original piston.

 So i decided the healthy springs from the tornado would go back in, and the piston with the leather seal from the Telly would be the better option. Also the trigger and sear pins from the telly would be used ,as both pins on the Tornado had snapped in half.

I cleaned the inside of the piston cylinder first with wet and dry dipped in white spirit on the end a piece of 6mm aluminium tube, this has a slit in the top so it can clamp around the edge of the wet and dry which is then rolled around the tube. Though if there is a lot of crud inside the cylinder you could pop the tubing in a drill and shift it a lot quicker, but i prefer to do it by hand as you can take a little more care doing it.

Aluminium tube with wire wool dipped in white spirit cleaning the inside of piston cylinder.

Repeated the same procedure with some 0000 wire wool wrap around the end of the tubing, this takes a bit longer as i really want to polish the cylinder up. i followed up with kitchen towel and white spirit to remove any thing inside , then polished it again with autosol and kitchen towel to give it a really good finish.

I did pretty much the same thing with the piston out of the Telly with the leather seal , and let about 10 drops of Abbey SM50 soak into the leather for a good hour. I cleaned the springs with white spirit and sanded then polished the ends, then polished the end cap and as much of the inside of the piston where the springs touched. At a later date i will have to knock up a slip washer and top hat, but that will be at another time, not now.

Trying to polish the inside of the piston

Dabbed a little SM50 around the piston seal and some Abbey LT2 grease around the rear of the piston and pushed it in to the cylinder, it was a firm fit and a lot easier to slip in than the old piston. then dabbing a little LT2 grease over the first half of the springs , i took a cloth and ran it around the coils so the excess grease spread even and thin along the whole length as to much grease can bind and slow the spring movement.

The barrel, cylinder, and piston were taped onto the spring compressor and both springs placed within with a dab of grease at each end,the end cap from the Telly was placed at the end and then compressed.

Cleaned, polished, and lubed, the end cap is lined up for the pin holes.

I also used the end pin from the telly and tapped that into the end cap when it was aligned, and the original sear, trigger, and spring were fitted with the pins from the Telly.

Cocking linkage ready for a touch of LT2 grease and slipping through the bridge into place.

The cocking linkage was a lot easier to reinstall than it was to take out, and the linkage pin screwed back in.

The Telly's trigger, sear and spring next to the tornado trigger show how they work.

As the Telly trigger guard stock screw didn't have an adjuster screw, the original was used when the stock was screwed back on, and then the adjuster screw was screwed back out so the sear would engage.

Trigger gaurd stock screw with sear a adjusting screw inside that.

With both fore stock screws put in, the rifle was ready to test, it was definately a lot easier to cock now so some good was done. After loading a pellet in the loading tap i fired a shot at the target board, the trigger was stiff and needed adjusting and i could feel the main spring twist the rifle in my hands when firing.

Oh well, a top hat and a slip washer needs to be made at some point to stop the rifle from twisting, as for the trigger i reckon some adjustment and a good polish of the sear contacts will sort that out. In fact an aluminium piston head with an O ring seal instead of the leather seal could possibly increase the swept volume a little, but these are the things of future work and blogs.

Relum Tornado with Crosman 4x15 scope.

At least i managed to remove that unsightly aluminium hooded site that was on it when i got it, removed the two grub screws but had to cut it off as it had been fixed on with locktite. But i like this rifle, it's quirky and appeals to me so i'm going to tinker with it till it's running just right. Though that may take a while, at least it will be experience gained and you never know it might end up a decent springer.

TTFN

Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe.        

Goodbye Norica Quick

Yep, it sure is a Norica

A friend of ours was looking for an air rifle recently, so the wifey tells him, "Oh, his Lordship has a load of them, I'm sure he'll have one that you might want". So after a bit of Facebook chat he wants one for hunting and out of the .177 Norica Quick, the .22 BSA Meteor, and the .22 Relum Tornado, he decides on the Norica. Which is just as well as the other two need a lot more tidying up before i would let them go to a friend, and besides it's knocking out H&N field trophies at 11.5 ft/lb and there would be no way in hell i would be able to get the other two above 10 ft/lb with out short stroking the piston or some other drastic measure.

Norica looking sexy with it's new scope, and unpainted new underlever catch

In the previous blog on the Norica i told you the under lever catch was missing, it was held on by two M3 screws and had temporarily screwed a turned round of aluminium with an indent for the ball to catch. Around that was a sleeve of tubing to slide over the tip of the lever so the lever would not pop off when it was fired, i was only using one screw so it moved a bit then fell off eventually. A total bodge job if truth be told, but it was only a make shift measure. Now it has a piece of round steel held on by two screws with loctite to secure them, an indent for the ball catch, and the sleeve of round pipe to hide the screw holes. The lever holds perfectly, and i painted it black to match the dark bluing of the barrel and lever. Spare parts are impossible to find in the UK, not even Chambers Gun Spares have any thing but a decent exploded diagram, which is pretty handy for dismantling, lubing, and repairs. A spot of Locktite fixed the the split on the rubber buttpad, 'simples (squeek)'

As it used to look with no scope and the old bodged catch

It was suggested that our friend buy a scope and have it sent to me so i could mount it, add shims if needed, and sight it in. I recommended a 3-9x40 or 50 as the larger objective lense lets in more light and gives you a bigger field of view, an illuminated recticle as he would most definatly be hunting at dusk, night, and dawn, and adjustable objective would be a handy thing to have though not the end of the world with out it. I suggested Nikko Sterling, Hawke, and AGS as pretty good value scopes, and i must of mentioned the Nikko Sterling Mountmaster AO IR 3-9x50 because that's what the postman delivered a week later. An excellent winning bid on Ebay, boxed and most likely used once if at all, lucky bugger.

Nikko Sterling Mountmaster with Hawke high mounts

It tells you all you need to know in one spot, very handy indeed

The scope has mil dots and red and green adjustable IR, personally i perfer duplex crosshairs or 30 30 crosshairs but i found these mil dots a good second choice as they were very fine and didn't completely cover the bullseye at 27 yards. I did have to use four shims from an aluminium can on the rear mount to keep the vertical adjustment turret knob central, i find if any adjustment knobs are dialed most of the way out the erector tube holding the recticle can move when springer fires. The spring on the other side of the turret knob is to loose and the erector tube will move slightly on each shot and change your point of impact (POI), there is enough slaming around on each shot to make your scope slide off the rails. So those clever little Spanish airgun designers put a scope stop that screws on the rear of the piston cylinder, this is just as well as the open rear sights have a minute bit of side to side play. Which is no biggey when your shooting tin cans at 30 yards , but just don't make the grade when you want a clean kill on a bunny scratching his butt at 30 yards.

Just to show the clarity, it was not mounted so the ferrets were safe

Nice fine mil dots unlike some cheap scopes

The trigger pull is very heavy, in fact so heavy that it effects the accuracy to a degree, the trigger is a direct sear trigger which means that trigger and seal are one piece. So it looks like i will be giving it a tune and a looksee at what i can do about lightening the trigger pull, i reckon it will still be stiff but not as bad as it is now. Roll on another blog then.

A closer look at how sexy gun and scope look together

TTFN

Happy Days, Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe

Two Underlevers, Old And New

Relum Tornado above and Norica Quick below

Today I will have a look at two Underlevers, namely the Relum Tornado in .22, and the Norica Quick in .177.

Relum Tornado with slimmed down stock

First we have the Relum, which is in need of more metal restoration than I first thought, as the metal is slightly pitted with rust and 95% of the paint is missing. But when I rubbed it down with some really fine grade wire wool and oil it cleaned up quite nicely. I really need some rougher grade wire wool to remove the rest of the enamel then it could be painted, enamelled or blued, ooh! I'm spoilt for choice. The stock is interesting as only the fore grip is original, the rest has been slimmed down to come flush with the cylinder, and wood added to change the shape of the butt and grip. I have never seen a stock like this on a Relum before so I assume it's a home project, and I have seen a lot of Relums. I mean, you could buy them from the Co-op in the 60's and 70's, yes really! It may not be everyone's cup of tea but I like how it looks and it balances nicely at the foregrip, though that aluminium muzzle break and hood will have to go for sure.

Hole for scope stop.   Slimmed down stock.  Reshaped stock with wood added to comb and grip.  Hole in rear sight

The Tornado is about 7lbs in wieght without a scope, and about 40 inches long. It has the look of a long rifle about it and that is what appeals to me. This air rifle is going to need to have a lot of time invested in it to get it looking good and get it up for hunting - other people have reported thet they have got up to 11 ft/lbs but we shall have to wait and see.

serial number

All Relums have pretty much the same leather seal piston assembly and a double spring set up, which is a smaller diameter spring inside of a larger one, instead of a guide rod. This double spring can be replaced by a BSA Meteor spring, but it would be wise to have a guide rod made up to support this. They have a simple sturdy Eastern European build quality as they were made in Hungary, but have never been capable of more than 8/9 ft/lb. This I reckon could be improved upon by changing the piston head to seal with two O-rings and giving it a slightly longer piston stroke, which hopefully should not alter their light firing cycle much.

Another common feature on these air rifles are the rudimentary open sights. The rear sight is held in place by a dovetail and adjusts the elevation, whilst the front sight adjusts for windage by sliding it across its dovetail. This was originally covered by a simple hood. Pellets are loaded via a tap mechanism which still feels nice and tight, and the bore is the same as modern .22, unlike some older air rifles and pistols which are a tad larger. The BSA Mercury has this larger sized bore which is 5.6 mm instead of 5.5 mm, you can buy Wasp no2 pellets for the larger bore size. Interesting fact: did you know Relum is Muler spelt backwards, which is the surname of the owner of the factory!

Hole for scope stop (off center).  Loading tap.  Inlaid wood.  Rust removed with some oil and very fine wire wool 

Well, why won't this air rifle cock? I'll tell you why. When I removed the stock I found the sear pin was missing. This was replaced by grinding the base of a broken drill bit of the right diameter to size. Now it cocks and fires, but the piston seal and spring need looking at as it's nowhere near 8/9 ft/lb. The rear sight is a small hole through which you have to center the front sight (as opposed to a notch), this is not reliably accurate, so gluing some crosshairs made from a strand of copper electrical wire will improve this no end. There is a small hole at the rear of the scope rail which could be used for a scope stop if it ever needs one, however I suspect, along with the stock, that this has been added afterwards and was not produced this way. I reckon this air rifle will be fun to restore, and I have spares from the Relum Telly if they are needed. I could always use the Telly's barrel for another project I have in mind, so nothing is wasted.

Norica Quick and it's favourite pellets

The Norica Quick appears to be in tip top condition, apart from missing a small piece of metal that holds the cocking lever in place. There are two M3 holes on the underside of the barrel to hold it in place, so turning and drilling a replacement would be the thing to do until i can find the original part. However a search on the internet has turned up very little useful information and spares, I think this air rifle only had a short production run from its Spanish creators. You can find this same rifle bearing the name Hammerelli Nova which also returns very little information on the internet, so this one should be fun to work on.

Bodged underlever catch

                                  


 The Quick at first glance looks a little like a top quality under lever, but truth be told it is really mutton dressed as lamb. It was actually made in Germany for the Norica company. The stock is a nicely lacquered beech with chequering on the grip and forestock, the butt has a raised comb for the right handed shooter and a soft rubber butt pad which needs a spot of glue. The end cap is plastic as well as the chunky trigger guard, the front and rear sights are mainly metal with fibre optic and this is missing on the front. The trigger blade is stamped steel and the action and barrel are blued to a black finish, while the flip up loading breech which is vagly similar to the HW57 design is plainly plastic. This is a large air rifle at 46 inches long and is about 8 lbs in weight. It is full UK power to boot, action and stock fit snuggly together and is comfortable to hold.

                                         anti-beartrap on the Norica Quick

Loading and firing is a little long winded, but once you get used to it is fine. The plastic flip up breech is long, giving you plenty of space to load. It locks in place with a spring loaded knob on the right and hinges over on the left, this seals well but gives it a rather long transfer port. The cocking arm is heavy at 56 lbs and is hollow so has bent a little over the years. The trigger is really heavy and you have to hold the grip firmly to squeeze, this will obviously affect the accuracy somewhat and will also need looking at. But truth be told it's a good priced lower-mid range underlever that performs as well as it costs, and gives the appearance of a quality German air rifle.

Flip-up loading breach and dayglo open rear sight

At first loading a pellet, cocking the rifle, turning of the anti bear trap, then removing the safty in the trigger guard was a bit of a chore after firing break barrels, but it did not take long to become second nature. Improving the front open sight or fitting a scope will improve accuracy no end out to 30 yards, but will only help so much until I can improve the trigger pull. There is a slight buzz upon firing which Moly and spring grease should sort out and improve lock time, removing the anti bear trap and greasing the cocking linkage should make it a much quieter rifle, and Chambers supplies a decent exploded diagram to make the job a lot easier.

So there you have it, TTFN

Best Wishes, Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe O.B.E.

A Glut of Air Rifles

As many, many air rifle enthusiasts discover, the joy of airgunning can become an expensive business. What with pellets and maintanance, then scopes and other must haves for your rifle, and sometimes spares and repairs (though with a little skill and a decent set of tools, repairs and some spares can be done yourself at home!), it soon adds up. Luckily for me, a couple of weeks ago I was given 'a glut' of air rifles from a friend. They were all in a state of disrepair and needed varying degrees of TLC, so it will be my mission to fix these rifles and tell you about their progress as I go.

Note the bend on the barrel on the 1st rifle next to the BB gun

He called some months back to tell me he had some damaged air rifles I could have and all I had to do was pick them up. By the time the wifey took me to see him he had sorted out another four, two small scopes and two electric BB guns. This is what he gave me and what was broken or wrong with them:

  1 - .22 BSA Mercury with the barrel bent very noticeably upwards at the breech, no open sights, a SMK B2 spring fitted, and needing a good polish.

  2 - .177 Diana/Original Mod 16 which fires but will not move the pellet. It is needing a repaint.

  3 - .22 Relum Tornado which will not cock and is covered in surface rust with a chip in the stock.

  4 - .177 Norica Quick which is missing a piece of metal that holds the under lever in place. It also has a stiff trigger, but I think that is common with direct sear triggers as this rifle has.

  5 - .22 Sharp Innova which only holds one pump and is missing bits off the rear open sight.

  6 - .177 SMK B45-3 multi pump which jams and releases air after three pumps.


The BB guns have no chargers with them and the sights are Crosman, one a short 4x20 that actually looks more like a 2x20 and a 4x15 which is missing a mount.


Some of these air rifles are pretty easy to fix but will take a lot more time, effort, and money to get into top condition. I say some because not having had any experience with multi pumps before, I will have to trouble shoot for an answer to fix these and even then I doubt I will be able to get spares for the SMK. But this is what this blog is all about so hopefully it won't be long before the next blog with updates on how their restoration is coming along.

TTFN. 

Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe