Continued from
http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=30601.msg990403#msg990403Having got both halves of my “New” air rifle home, I set about repairing it. Re attaching the stock would be no problem, it was just a case of rooting about in our various tins and boxes until I found some screws of the right size to replace the ones that were missing, but I didn't want to replace the stock just yet, I wanted to strip the whole thing down and see what was what.
Most air rifles are spring powered. You break the barrel, (or in some cases operate a lever) and this cocks a heavy spring. When the trigger is pulled, it releases the spring which then drives a piston inside a cylinder, much like a bicycle pump. This produces compressed air, which then passes from the cylinder via a small hole (called, not surprisingly, the air exchange port) into the barrel, driving the pellet out.
Even when the rifle is uncocked, the spring is still semi compressed. I was unaware of this fact until I removed the end cap from the cylinder and the spring whistled past my ear and bounced around the interior of the caravan, breaking one of the gas globes in the process.
I managed to get my baby brother Joe to take the rap for the broken globe by suggesting to him in an excited smiley voice that he had broken the globe, and then congratulating him when he said that he had. He thought it was a great game until my mam came home and asked “Who broke the globe?” “I did” Joe volunteered with a huge grin.
The look of bewilderment on his face when he got a smack round the chops haunts me to this day.
Having established the the spring was in good condition, I moved on to the cylinder and piston. Both were in good shape, save for needing a bit of a clean and polish. Why then, was the rifle not expelling the pellet?
I wondered if the air exchange port could be blocked? It wasn't, but when I checked it, I noticed that the little nylon washer that sits between the port and the breech of the barrel was missing. Problem solved!
Actually, it was only problem identified, solving it would turn out to be a whole nother story.
I managed to take exact measurements for the air exchange port washer by coating the recess with a transferable medium, namely, my mam's one and only lipstick. Then I pressed a bit of cardboard against it and cut around the impression on the card to make a very workable template. From this I proceeded to make replacement washers from every type of material I could lay my hands on. They all worked, to some extent, but none of them very well.
I gauged the effectiveness of each type of washer by the same method I had seen used to test the power of the guns in the shop. I put a book (Ian Flemming's “Goldfinger”) on the back shelf and fired at it, carefully checking to see which one caused the pellet to penetrate the furthest.
The washer made from lino was among the worst, barely getting beyond Bond's introduction to villain “Auric Goldfinger” and his henchman “Oddjob”.
Next came rubber cut from a bicycle inner tube, which took me up to the part where Bond beats Goldfinger at golf after discovering that Oddjob was helping him (Goldfinger)to cheat by hiding in the bushes and throwing identical balls into favorable positions
Best of all was the leather one, cut from the tongue of an unwanted (well almost unwanted) boot. That took to me where the guard is fired from the ejector seat of Bond's Aston Martin DB5, which was OK, but still pretty poor (The air rifle, not the DB5).
To be perfectly honest, I was very disappointed with the gun's performance. Even with the leather washer fitted, if I fired it into the air I could see the pellet go as it flew away. It seemed to me like it was going no faster than a bumblebee.
“I bet I could shoot myself with that and it wouldn't hurt” I told myself, and to prove myself right, I pointed the muzzle at my left palm and pulled the trigger.
7 hours later, when I came out of hospital after having the pellet removed, I almost lost my rifle. My mam said I had to throw it into the scrap, but my dad said “No, let him keep it, he's learned that lesson, he wont be shooting himself again any time soon.
Later on, I was discussing with my dad how I had come to shoot myself in the first place, and he told me that if I were to soak my leather air exchange port washer in oil overnight, it would improve thing no end. And so it did.
After soaking the washer, I slipped it back into the gun and did another test fire, this time it went so far into Goldfinger that I can't tell you about it without spoiling the ending.
So, I had my rifle, it was working beautifully, and I could play at being The Rifleman to my heart's content.
That, gentle reader, should be where this story ends, and so it would have, save for a freakish turn of events.
After a few weeks of using the oil-soaked washer, I began to suspect a drop in muzzle velocity. A quick session with Goldfinger confirmed it, time for a re-soak. This time, I couldn't find any oil lying around, but I did find a can of red diesel...
In a diesel engine, combustion is achieved not by adding a spark, as in a petrol engine, but by compressing the fuel until it ignites. Inside my air rifle, the diesel on the leather washer went off with a boom. A short jet of smoke and flame spewed from the muzzle, and the pellet went straight through Goldfinger, two dog-eared copies of Horse and Hound, and came to rest somewhere in the middle of “Stroud's digest on the diseases of birds”.
Quickly, I stashed the gun and looked out of the windows, terrified that someone had seen or heard. If they had, it would be the end of the gun for sure. When I realized that no one had, a huge smile spread slowly over my face.
I danced a little jig, and went out to find more diesel.
This was a mistake.
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