Thursday 27 February 2014

Ok so power wise the rifle is near perfect, but I have still been having the recoil issues in that the rifle is hard to hold on line for the follow through. The rifle "jumps" that little bit to much and "following" the pellet to the target is near impossible (compared to what I am trying to achieve)
So a little re-thinking and I havegone back to the titan spring, but this time I have fitted new delrin guides and spacers. I still have the thrust race up front. I have reduced the length of the spring again, by another coil, and refinished the ends again.
Now we are cooking on gas. Interestingly power has risen to 11.7fpe, but, more importantly the recoil is significantly reduced.
Pulled the rifle out of the slip, cocked it (again improved to almost silk like smoothness) and first shot, hit the 55 yard reset. Hmmm I am liking the latest incantation of this rifle.

OK so following on from the original (out of box) set up, here's what I have done.

Stripped the rifle completely cleaned everything (no need to deburr this one) I have removed the anti-bear trap linkage, (not really needed, as I never cock a rifle till I need to, and never let go if the barrel anyway) I have fitted a Titan spring with Welsh Willy delrin parts (from a Mod95 kit I had) I have removed the safety linkage (and all the bits and pieces).

The rifle is sporting an MTC Viper 10x44 SCB scope.

So the outcome, as it is, is I have an accurate, lightweight(ish) break-barrel rifle that is capable of 55 yard knockdowns, with little recoil.
The object of the exercise was to make a FT quality springer for under £200.
So the rifle cost £109 from Solware
A spring tuning kit from Woodfield Gun Care  about £50 (I know I didnt have to buy this as I had all the bits in my tool box) (but  am assuming you would buy one)
The muzzle brake was £14.
I will fit a sling and sling mounts, that will be another £25  so all in about £198

Mission accomplished.
Next test will be the British Recoiling Championships in April, so until then, practice, practice and a bit more practice

Monday 17 February 2014

So the new year has started well for me, I have been working on my Hatsan Mod55s and it all seems to be going well. Power has not been an issue, however trying to tame the rifle down a little has been an issue which I have finally got my gead around now. The problem has been with the original spring. Now I want to make it clear that the whole point has been to make this a rifle suitable for FT so a very accurate rifle is the be all and end all, and to that end, recoil, is what it is all about.
The standard Mod55s is a cracking rifle as it comes out of the box, but for FT I need the rifle to, not only be accurate, but with very little recoil. The rifle itself came to me, new from Solware, and as I say, out of the box, is bloody good. Nothing wrong with power, accuracy or weight, but I wanted more.
The standard spring is fairly soft so to keep the power up to a servicable level (10.5+) fpe there needs to be some preload. This preload increases the amount of recoil, so the problem is to reduce the preload but without sacrificing power. Back in my MotoX days and playing with suspension, if you shorten the spring but replace the length with a preload spacer you harden the effective spring action, this was, and is not the result I need. I would have to go down the replacement spring route.
I had a Titan spring in the tool box, so I tried that. The spring was way too long (3") so I cut it down. I had a delrin guide kicking around so used that as well. A series of trial and error then took place until I was happy with the level of recoil and the balance of power.
As a consequence of all the stripping and rebuilding I managed to damage the safety mechanism in so much as I had to remove the auto safety mechanism, as what was happening was I would cock the rifle and sometimes the safety would get stuck on, which needed the rifle recocking and such too many times and it bacame tiresome.
So as it stands now, the rifle shoots 8.4gr JSB exacts at 758fps which works out about 10.7fpe Which is what I was looking for in the first place. Recoil is down sufficiently I can place a pellet on top of the rear scope mount and fire a pellet and the pellet stay on top of the rifle. Its not perfect but for me its very close.
So for now its a good un