.22 Mk lI BSA Airsporter, A Review

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

Mk I BSA Airsporter, bloody sexy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rear leaf sights using the V notch at the moment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's it for now.

TTFN

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

Two Breakbarrels, Big and Small

 Today I shall take a look at two break barrels, and see the odd bits of repair that have been done to them to get them up and running. Both guns are classics in their own right and deserve a little TLC at least, so here is what has been done so far to the Original Mod 16, and BSA Mercury mk11.

Diana/Mod 16 with BSA Mercury and scope

Firstly I picked up the Mod 16 which was looking in fair condition, but alas when i cocked, loaded a pellet and fired it, the pellet did not move more than two inches down the barrel. The Mod 16 is a small rifle made from pressed steel with a brass smooth bore inner barrel. It has a leather piston seal and a large leather breach seal on the cylinder which runs flush with the inner barrel and the large outer barrel - the outer barrel is a a tad smaller in diameter than the piston cylinder. The cocking linkage is pressed steel with a notch that locks onto a pin under the cylinder, you can cock it with one finger once unlatched. Cosmetically it just needs a paint job as the wooden stock is in pretty good nick.

Mod 16 breach and sight

Large leather breach seal on barrel and liner

Barrel catch is the loop piston lever

To get it working I popped a few drops of synthetic oil on the breach seal to rejuvinate it, and a little bit more of the same down the transfer port to put some life back into the piston seal. I then stored it barrel up for 18 hours to let the oil soak into the leather, and sure enough it fired just fine after that. I was getting 1 1/2 inch groups at 10 yards with the simple open sights, but I knew it should do a lot better than this. This is a junior rifle and is working just dandy at at the moment, but it does need a new spring and piston seal really. I reckon I can get away with soaking the leather in WD/40 then oil to bring it back to its former glory.

Tis a dinky lil' rifle, and pooch

Mod 16 shoulder stock

Pressed steel trigger

Whole barrel presses onto leather breach seal

Getting on to the BSA Mercury ... I find an air rifle that looks in a tidy condition, the bluing is fine and the stock just has a few surface dinks on it. The Airsporter is basically the underlever version of the Mercury and has the same trigger unit that creates a flowing curve from the piston cylinder to the stock, which makes for a a rather sexy looking air rifle in my mind. However, at one point someone has pulled the trigger while the rifle was cocked open, resulting in a very noticeable bend in the barrel at the breech. Also the rifle has had the open sights removed at some time, the jaws holding the breech are slack so the barrel moves from side to side a little, and the original spring has been taken out and replaced by one from a SMK B2. Why? I don't know, but it's sure easy to cock and probably produces about 8 ft/lb if it's in a good mood.

Smooth flowing lines of a Mercury

Ventilated rubber shoulder pad

So the first thing i did was to remove the stock, then tapping out the pivot pin i removed the barrel from the action. Clamping the breech end in a vice putting pieces of leather between the vice jaws and barrel to protect it, i used a piece of pipe slipped over the barrel till it came just short of the bend then pushed like mad till the barrel looked straight. Metal used to make gun barrels needs to be fairly soft, so it wasn't that hard a job to do. Using a long metal rule i held it flush to the barrel to see if any fine adjustments were needed, of which two or three were needed but the barrel was now true.

Straightened out barrel

Breach seal still in good nick

For fixing the barrel side play i used dial calipers to check if the jaws were out of alignment, and sure enough they were. By using the 90 degree angle on the end of a small rule i found out which jaw was bent, and again i used the vice to remedy this. By placing a 5 mm piece of metal at the end of the bent jaw i close the vice around both jaws and the end of the piston cylinder, on releasing the vice the jaw sprung back but only so far as to make a tight fit for the breech. Whoopee! Problem solved.

Articulated linkage on piston rod

I then slapped a Crosman 4x20 scope on it and it fired on target no problem, the only problem is that the scope is rather short and i have to crane my neck to use it, and the magnification is more like x2. With a lot of older BSA's in .22 the bore is a tad wider than most other .22's, so i found that using Eley Wasp no2 pellets work the best as they are 5.6 mm as opposed to 5.5 mm.

Cheap Crosman scope soon to be removed when i get something better

Some time soon i will get to sevicing and tuning the springers, but for now they seem to be doing fine. It's all down to when i can afford to buy the spares and springs for them, so it looks like i'll be doing a fair bit of busking to finance this air gun habit of mine.

Trigger guard needs a spot of paint i think

TTFN

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

" Saturday nights alright for sniping"

Ahhhhh, Saturday night, kids in bed, Basa fish, potatoes, sweetcorn in cajun spice for dinner as I write this blog and the understanding wife watching the 'best and worst of the X fu blowbackctor' (good grief), well my wife finds air rifles as obscure as i find the X fuctor. Saying that though, she loves plinking with the 1077 and 2240 in the garden when I get the guns out. If I ever  get her a cheap bb pistol, i'd most likely get her a Gamo 95 or someting like that, she would have a wicked time with it (and i'd get to use it too cos I love the blowback on those pistols and they use pellets, the ones with the built on silencers is a longer barrel and has a higher fps).

Today was a good day all said and done, without a doubt. The ferrets and chickens are chuffed to be sorted early, kids sorted, busking stuff sorted. Now a few days ago the crosman 1077 decides to dump its entire caplet in 1 whoosh. "Bugger" says I, so I soaked the end of a used caplet in Logun synthetic oil and left it to soak into the rubber seal. Today I tried a fresh co2 caplet and it was all snug and totally leak free,as simple as that, just a few drops of synthetic oil and the seal is as good as new. thank Dog i didn't have to take it apart, i got too many odd job going on at the moment.

Feeling chuffed with that result  on the way to getting dropped off for busking in Cirencester, we popped into the local gun shop and get the Airarms shamal topped up with air from the  tank for 3 quid, i took this time to have a mooch thru the air rifles, the new stuff was HW100's or Daystates and the like, not the cheapest of rifles  to say the least, they had some loverly 2nd hand stuff in tip top condition and top prices too, mod 34, hw77, airsporter but not a mk1, shame really, and some quality sidelevers also. with that done it was off for an abysmal day's busking.

Busking was tight today, not much cash but what the hell i got to play some awesone 'stranglers', 'pogues' 'hawkwind' (that was interesting) and some 'council house tetley'
 so i got to have a good day, and Rosie's asleep when i get back so i get to cook a lush meal.

So roll on sunday and a day of playing in the shed, it seems those  projects don't get done by those airgun pixies anymore, such is life, so it's up to me and my homemade tools to get things done, should be a bit of a wheeze i reckon. i'm going to take the camera to document it, and also a guided tour of the work space too boot.

TTFN from wing commander
 Sir Nigel Tetlington Smythe