Sunday, December 28, 2014

Benjamin Trail Nitro Piston Pistol--Part 1

Bought this Benjamin Trail pistol at a flea market several months ago.  It looked to be new in the box and after some haggling, I got it for around $50 or thereabouts.   Knew going into it that there have been some "issues" with the pistol--mainly problems with it shooting high.










Here it is with the cocking assist lever installed.






 














 De-stalled.





















Oh, good.  Fiber optic sights. 




















Seems you can't get away from them nowadays.   The bright dots make it very difficult to achieve a repeatable sight picture--at least on a paper target.





















The rear sight is pretty flimsy--lot of play both horizontally as well as vertically. 





































Along with the sights, the long and heavy trigger pull has been almost universally panned.  A longer adjusting screw (It's a 3mm) will take care of most trigger complaints. 




















While digging through the bolt assortment, I swapped out all the phillips head stock fasteners for allens.


















































The grip is aggressive and took some getting used to.  There's a couple rub points, esp right under the trigger guard. 

This has taken so long because I couldn't get the gun to shoot worth a damn.  I shot some awful groups, changed pellets a couple times and shot even worse.  Couldn't get the pellets in the same neighborhood.  I mean I was missing the 8" x 12" backstop at 30 feet.  This thing was a complete dog.  Crosman owes me a quart of paint to touch up the concrete block wall it was so bad.  Since I've got a pile of other guns that are actually, you know, accurate, the Nitro Piston was set aside until my memory faded and I forgot just how bad things were.



















Initially, I had hopes that getting rid of the horrible sights would make thing better.  Used a heat gun to break the front loose.



















Pulled right off after about a minute at low heat.






















An angled flat on top of the muzzle.  At this point I started digging through my collection of pieces and parts to see if anything looked promising.
























This part of my experimentation didn't pan out for me, though it would work with a different rear sight.  This is the front sight unit from a AR2078 --it was a snug fit to the 15mm NP barrel.




















Removed the globe insert and installed a post.























Used an M5 cross bolt to clamp it to the gun.  Note that the proper way to mount this sight is to groove the barrel for a cross pin.  This is virtually identical to how break-barrel pistols used to be equipped with front sights.   The protective hood shields your hand from the sharp sight edges while cocking.   Archer Airguns sells these for about $15 here.  After getting this installed, I shot another group and realized that the grouping problems weren't related to poor sights.





















 Looked at the breech seal next. 

























 Really didn't see a problem.






















 Removed it and found a steel shim.


































Checked my breech seals and found I actually had a new one, so I tried that--with and without the steel shim.  The gun leaked slightly without the shim.   Looked at the spring plunger and found that the tension was very, very low.  I think the barrel lock-up is inconsistent and the cause of the inaccuracy.





















Removed the four screws and pulled the action out of the stock.
























Removed the e-clip at the rear of the anti-beartrap lever.
































Then the return spring and lifted it off.  I see that it's already slightly bent.  Superb.
































Barrel pivot lock screw...
























Barrel pivot.  The shim washers are plastic.  I didn't get to it today, but in my experience, these plastic washers are nothing but trouble for consistent lock-up.   Bronze will be a good replacement material.































Knocked out the roll pin and there was zero preload on the plunger.  Zip.  None.  I actually found this encouraging.













































Found a longer spring of about the same wire size.  It's about 2 coils longer.  If I do this again, I'll make it 3.





























A small nail made for a fine slave pin.  Tapped the roll pin back in.











































The bent anti-beartrap lever is humped slightly in the middle.

















Put it all back together with a cheap  red dot and a muzzle weight from the old TF79 project.
































I can live with this.  Just one called flier on the right.  Fifteen shots with a mix of RWS Super H-Points and Geco wadcutters.   Some bronze pivot washers and an even stiffer plunger spring should make this even better.  Lot of work.  A typical Crosman 2240 or 1377 will outshoot the Nitro Piston pistol all day long with no mechanical effort--or wall painting.

4 comments:

Arturo said...

how did you remove the rear optics?

Unknown said...

Minus a shoulder stock It does make it rather difficult to shoot accurately especially so much power and weight. I used to be an armortech in the military so it was kind of fun as a challenge to make my own. I am actively looking for manufacturer sold us. As well as a bipod. I put a serious I just go from the company Gamo in modified a crutch shoulder piece and floor piece to come up with a detachable stock. There is a flaw in the design as a rubber is too flexible I do have a fix for it but I have not yet applied it. What the rubber provides is a nice snug fit without the use of pins or clips. But again the flexibility of the walking cane has little too much play.

Will post the pics on here if possible I will try to remember to come back up on here and post it. I think I'm going to YouTube video I might be Facebook live as well but I can't find it.

As I like to recycle the remaining parts of the crutch along with a cheap generic basic paper Target and 2 liter soda bottle made for perfect made for perfect upright Target going down to 2 Acres of property we have in the woods.

Initially back in the late 80s or early 90s I fell in love with her Crossman/Benjamin Sheridan 25-0B Backpacker .22 Cal bolt action CO2 which I modified with an extended Barrel & a scuba tank from my paintball gun. And that's what brought me on to this particular air pistol just like my car I love making modifications.

Ivan said...

Can you please provide a link for the muzzle weight adapter? Or the measurements?

Thank you very much

george allen said...

Hello
Now my mark ii now out shoots crosman2240 1322 and both strike points all day long after dremmeling the lower edge behind the barrel under the detent which hits the detent pin before closing creating a weak closed position , now its a consistent 520ish with crosman 7.9g hollow points