Thursday, October 10, 2024

Vacation Airguns and Impressions From the Crosman 1322

Probably a pneumatic first--at least for me.  I brought the 1322 on our trip to the Laurel Highlands in Pennsylvania.   I can't remember bringing a multi-pump pneumatic along on one of our vacations before this.  Our trips usually have a similar theme; cabin in the middle of nowhere, hiking, lunch out on the trail then back to the cabin for some airguns and a good meal.  Hiking plans, weather forecasts, and proximity to other properties always factor into which and how many airguns make the trip.  This time around, we'd stayed at this cabin several years ago and knew it was ideal for shooting. 

















The red dot was a useful addition.  The silhouette targets we bring get hard to find in the evening light, making iron sights practically useless.  














































The Adco red dot is nice and round with no flares.   The short, almost stubby steel bolt seems just right to cock the hammer.















If you squint, or if I took better pics, there's an adjustable trigger stop at the rear of the trigger guard.











Two hex screws to remove the red dot.  I'm tempted now to remove it then see if it returns to zero.   My gut says it will.

For me, the conversion to .22 made this a lot more fun to shoot.  Bigger pellets are easier to manipulate and load into the trough.   



























This 1322 has one other interesting feature to reveal.  




























There's no trigger spring.  

Instead, I installed two small rare earth magnets.  One on the base for the conventional spring and the other was bonded to the bottom of the sear.  The magnetic poles face and repel each other.  In practice, it feels  frictionless. 




























Tried this sorcery several years ago and I'd all but forgotten to show it.








































Hope to show a couple of the other guns I got to spend some time with.  

While I don't expect to take any deep dives into multi-stroke Crosman 1377/22 madness with flat-top pistons, swept volume, dead space, etc...this pistol is very satisfying to shoot.

More soon.

4 comments:

Paul said...

You guys never cease to amaze me. I'd never have thought of using magnets on the sear. Now I'm wondering were I could source some here in Coffee Country> :-)

The Crosman pump pistols are a hoot. I picked up a 1377 years ago and it's gone through a variety of incarnations. Right now it's set up as a 14" "swat 'em" 22 caliber carbine with a steel breech and I THINK it's set up with a peep at the moment. Hmmm.. about time I dug it out for a session at the range.

Years ago I used it to show folks I could beat their 25 meter 22 LR pistol scores using it in .177 caliber. Shot it a lot better than the 22 Llama revolver they'd loaned me for the impromptu competition. They are a very versatile platform indeed!

derrick38 said...

The Crosman 13XX and 22XX platforms are great to try anything and everything you can imagine. Relative to firearms, they're dirt cheap and punch way above their weight class. I've wanted a wraparound free pistol type grip for some time now. Maybe for a 22XX frame... And now you've got me thinking about trying a longer barrel for my 1322. It literally never ends.

Unknown said...

That is really out of the box thinking using a pair of opposing magnets to replace the spring. How did you determine how strong the magnets needed to be or did you just trust that the neodymium magnets would simply do the trick?

derrick38 said...

I just tried some neodymium magnets that would fit into the channel for the trigger spring. I'd like to tell you how I did a bunch of math and figured out how many Gauss I needed, but I'm not that smart. So, the reality is pretty mundane-- I just bought a bunch of magnets and tried a few. These seemed to work well. It would be easy to make the bottom grip frame mounted magnet adjustable in height , which would kind of have the same effect as an adjustable trigger spring.