Webley and Scott Hawk Mk II

A blast from my early teens

After removing the rust from the Webley Hawk and taking a closer look at the name engraved in the top of the action, memories started to trickle in to my mind of using this air rifle as a teenager. Did my uncle have one he use to let me shoot up Lickey Hills?, or was it the one me and Paul Pedley used when we skived off school and take down Langly Mill to blast cans with? But there's no mistaking it, i have had dealings with this air rifle in my youth. So when this dawned on me it was a no brainer, this is the one to fix up first.

For now i just want to clean her up and reseal the piston and breech as the rifle was only putting out two ft/lb, if things look promising i might then invest in a new main spring, remove the paint and blue it, sand the stock, treat with oil and possibly varnish.

First i removed the stock which is held on with a philips head bolt at the front of the trigger guard and two longer philips head screw bolts that run 45 degrees upwards on the fore stock.

Webley Hawk Mk ll, the best Christmas present a big kid could get in the70's.

Using 0000 wire wool and gun oil i removed all the rust from the action and barrel, this left about 50% of the original enamaling that had not come off with rust and general wear. 

Looks almost respectable once the rust had been removed.

There was a long crack in the stock running from the end of the cocking slot to the side of the trigger guard, i eased the crack apart and let Locktite run into as much of it as i could then pressed together for ten minutes. This works amazingly well from past experience, and any excess gets sanded of when treating the stock.

 The trigger housing is welded onto the end of the compression tube, there are three pins that hold the trigger, sear, and the safety slide which are secured with circlips.

Removing the circlips then drifting the pins out allows the trigger and its tension spring to be removed then the sear, safety, and sear tension spring can slide out, i thought it best to take a photo so it would be easier to remember how to put it back together,

The tab that bends 90 degrees to hold the trigger in place on the safety slide had snapped off

The breech was loose in the forks so i drifted the pivot pin out and applied pressure to the forks in a vice in small stages,  using rubber inner tube to protect the metal.

The amount of old British air rifles from the 70's i have to do this to is unbeleivable

Now it fits nice and snug with no play what so ever.

No play in those forks any more

I don't know what it is about British air rifles not using Screw bolts for the breech pivot, it's one of the things that do let these excellent air rifles down.

A new breech catch spring might be in order, but the old one will do for now.

I was very careful to catch the breech catch pin and spring, but luckily it was not under to much tension.

I also noticed the .177 barrel was moving in the breech block slightly, this just needed a hex head grub screw on top of the breech block tightening to hold it firmly.

A hex grub screw holds the .177 barrel in place, two small hex bolts hold the rear sight on as well.

The Webley Hawk Mk11 came with two barrels originally you could interchange, but alas i only have the .177 with this one.

The end cap came of really easily as i was able to push the retaining pin out with no pressure on the end, the spring was in pretty bad shape at one end with zero preload overall.

Nice solid end cap, but a spring guide would help here for sure.

The piston is quite weighty so doesn't need a spring with loads of preload as a rule, and at first glance all lubrication had dried up.

One grubby piston with the knackered main spring next to it.

The whole of the inside of the compression tube was generally grubby along with all of its components.

The hand tells how dried and grubby it all was.

There are two piston rings made of PTFE or something similar, these had become very worn over the years and quite brittle. I broke one when i removed it but the other came out in one piece, they cost about £ 20 for spares so i think i will try rubber O rings. whether it's two O rings or one O ring and the undamaged PTFE ring, it all depends on which combination gives the least friction.

PTFE  piston rings beyond repair, 19 mm ID and 2.5mm thick. However a 17 mm ID x 2.5 mm rubber O ring makes a good replacement as the 19 mm ID was to big in rubber.

Now it was time to give the compression tube a clean with white spirits and OOOO wire wool, and definately scrub the piston down more importantly. Then white spirits on a cloth to remove any wire wool bits left behind, this was done with the aid of a rod and tape to secure the wool and cloth on.

White spirits and wire wool shift all grime, but does tend to struggle with disintegrated buffer washers on BSA's.

Now it was all nice and clean i spent the next hour polishing the compression chamber and piston with Autosol metal polish, it was well worth it as they were gleaming at the end of it.

Smooth and shiny inside and out, and a bloody aching arm.

I slipped two O rings onto the piston and tried to see if there was much resistance, though this was after i filed all the sharp edges off before i had cleaned and polished the rifle admittedly. The piston moved down the chamber with about two pounds of pressure, and moved a tiny bit and stopped still when i tried with my finger over the transfer port.
The transfer port was looking okay but i decided to rejuvenate it with some silicone grease, I also applied a smear to the piston O rings as well.

Logun silicone grease protects and rejuvenates rubber seals, ideally used on PCP's but it's always done my breech seals the world of good.

For now i'm going to make some slip washers and a delrin top hat and use the old spring, if it all looks good then i might invest in a new spring and treat the stock and metal work. So that's it for part one for now, part two will be real soon as all the rifle parts are sitting in a box on the kitchen table and getting in the way.

TTFN

Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe 

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.        

Stripping the Diana/Original Mod 16

The Mod 16 is the small one above the BSA Mercury.

This is an old smooth bore junior air rifle, and it only shot a pellet two inches down the barrel when i first got it. Letting some synthetic oil soak into the large leather breach seal and piston seal and letting it soak for a day got it firing, inch groups at ten yards on average. Still not owning a chronograph i could still tell it was well short of its full power, so why not strip it and see what could or needed to be done to improve on this.

Checking out Chambers exploded chart and spares list i could see that a lot of parts were obsolete, but my bodging skills are improving nowadays. To take the stock off two flathead screws on the fore stock and one screw which held stock, trigger, and housing were removed. 

One of the two front stock screws

The rear screw is one long screw that screws into a circular bolt with a flathead driver fitting, the trick with this was to take an old flathead screwdriver and grind the middle out leaving two flatheads spaced far enough apart to grip the round bolt leaving the long screw to undo freely. Out came trigger, trigger spring that rests in a hole in the stock, and spring cylinder and barrel.

The rear stock bolt/screw that holds a lot of stuff together.

I pulled the tight fitting metal end cap off and and the spring guide retaining pin fell out, as the metal spring guide had two tabs that twisted into small slots at the back of the spring cylinder. The spring was worn so pushing the back of a screwdriver into the end of spring guide and giving it a twist i slipped the tabs out and out came spring guide, spring, and piston.

Using a rod i  wrapped some wet and dry dipped in white spirits and thoroughly cleaned the inside of the cylinder, then removed all residue with kitchen towel. Using the same method i polished it with OOOO wire wool and cleaned it again with kitchen towel, then finally gave it a really good polish with Autosol metal polish making sure to clean it out a good four or five times. This method was repeated with the piston and the spring was given a good clean with white spirit and a kitchen towel and each end polished, i slightly roughened the leather piston seal with wet and dry and let some Abbey SM50 soak in for a few hours.

Adding some more Abbey SM50 to the side of the piston seal and Abbey LT2 grease to the last inch of the piston i carefully slipped it into the cylinder, two metal washers either side of small rubber sink washer lightly smeared in LT2 grease were placed in ahead of the spring also lightly coated in LT2 grease. Spring guide also greased was pushed back in with the back of a screw driver and the tabs locked into their slots, then the pin was replaced and the end cap tapped back on with a mallet.

It took a couple of attempts to line up stock, trigger and spring, and the cylinder body together and slip the screw through but it was no biggy, the rifle actually dents wood with Hobby's instead of slightly marking it now. 

See the trigger tension spring behind the trigger?

I can't really justify spending much money on the Mod 16 just yet, the price of a replacement spring for this rifle is the same as one for the BSA Mercury and that is a wicked air rifle. But it was fun doing it and its got a little more poke to it now, and hopefully should do better groupings at ten meters now its had a clean and relube.

TTFN

Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe  

 

Tuning the Norica Quick

Seeing as i was passing on the Norica to my mate i thought i would give it a bit of a tune up, besides i needed to drop the trigger pull a bit as well so kill two birds with one stone. Also it would give me a chance to see how the spring compressor would work out, i reckon there must be some preload as it is quite heavy to cock.

Preload is from the start of the wider trigger slot

The first thing i did was to check out the exploded view on Chambers http://www.gunspares.co.uk/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=24977&cat=Quick, this makes life so much easier. Two plastic tabs either side of the fore stock revealed screws facing diagonally up into the cylinder block, and two screws on the trigger guard the rear one connecting stock to cylinder removed the stock. The safety latch was connected on to the trigger guard, pushed in place by the cocking linkage when cocked. The trigger unit held a nut for the rear screw and two pins held it in place to support a washer, spring guide, and the main spring. The rear of the trigger unit protruded from the cylinder by one millimeter and when pushed flush removed the two pins, however the unit could only be removed by pushing the washer and guide unit forward and slide it forward and out the wide long slot in front of it.

spring and washer pushed forward and trigger unit slipped out forwards

Handy device for removing trigger block and then letting spring and all free

I made a tool from two fat lengths of ali bar bolted to a half inch length of copper pipe which i hammered square, the bars would then fit between the outsides of the trigger unit and the inside of either side of the cylinder. With the cylinder supported on the spring compressor by using parcel tape of all things, i was able to wind the washer and guide forward two inches so i could tease the trigger unit out through the slot. Unwinding the pressure off the spring soon started to become a little alarming as the compressor was fully unwound and still under tension but i could push this by hand and slip it off, it would seem that this air rifle has four inches of preload and six if i included pushing it forward for removing the trigger unit.

Held down by loads of parcel tape

Handy device being slipped between trigger block and cylinder walls

I removed the guts or the rifle which was pretty dry except for a spot of oil behind the nylon piston seal, it all seemed in pretty good nick apart from where the piston had rub a little on top of the cylinder. however the end of the main spring had not been ground flat, and the sharp ends had left a ring of tiny marks on the top hat and the metal washer on the inside of the spring guide. The mainspring itself was in near new condition but where the sharp edges had nicked the tophat and washer there were minute flecks of metal scattered about, the piston was heavy with an inner sleeve which was a tube with cocking and sear latching cut into the outer layer.

Spring as it came out of rifle

Both ends ground down flat and polished

Right then, what did i do? Oh yes now i remember. First off i ground down flat both ends of the spring and gave them a polish, then  sanded the washer and tophat with wet medium then fine wet and dry' then polished with OOO wire wool the tophat, spring ends, and washer that all connected with each other. I then cleaned out the piston cylinder with white spirits and wire  wool on the end of a piece of dowel then polished and cleaned out any old crap left in there with a J cloth on the same dowel. Mmmmm shiney smooth. The piston was polished before the seal and at the end, and all deburring was done with my trusty Dremmel.

Heavy polished top hat and piston seal

this is one heavy piston i can tell you

Putting Abbey SM50 oil around the base of the piston seal and Abbey LT2 grease of around an inch at the end of the piston i slipped it back into the cylinder, LT2 grease on the end of the tophat and slipped that in the piston, the spring was then liberally coated in LT2 and then inserted making sure both ends had a tad extra grease applied was put in, then the spring guide and washer was smeared with a little extra LT2 grease and popped into the main spring.

Just some handy shit to have around for tuning

Before reversing the whole process of using the special tool to slip the trigger unit back into the slot in the cylinder i used the Dremmel to grind the sharp edges off the sear and piston, but only a little as i did not want to mess it up big time. Carried on putting the Norica back together and put the scope back on, which with the stop on it should not interfere with its previous POI.

spring pushed back in so trigger block can be replaced

Out in the back garden and took a five shot group, though sometimes i perfer a ten shot group. Anyway the trigger pull was down and there was most definately room to take more off, and the grouping was tighter and three inches above point of aim which means that it is now putting out more power. The rifle was also not so hold sensative, which i would call a successful tune indeed. What more could you ask for, i am indeed one happy little marsupial.

As i said i could lighten the trigger some more, but i shall leave that up to my mates discretion . Me personally, i would take it down a lot more but then i am used to being spoilt on Record triggers

TTFN

Best Wishes, Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe DOA OBE MBE FOAD