SA6 Refinish Complete--???

Been stuck refinishing this SA6 for way too long. This was supposed to be a quick respray, a few new o-rings and some spit and polish. A "fluff and buff" if you will.

The finish kept orange peeling on the second coat. I've been waiting too long between each coat and apparently, that's a no no. Blame it on my 10 hour days at work or whatever, the paint that has worked so well for me in the past has become my nemesis.

I buffed out the orange peeled areas and managed to not burn through all the finish. Rubbed out the remaining paint with some polishing compound until it looked passable. Great. Just what I was after--passable.

Since it was apart, thought I'd at least fix the finish on the trigger blade. The face of the blade was pockmarked and rough. I started on the wire wheel.

Followed with a small cratex wheel in the Dremel tool.

This left an acceptable surface.

At least the trigger blade looks good.

Blued the trigger and the hammer with Birchwood Casey Perma Blue Paste.

Think I mentioned previously that the accuracy of the SA6 was lackluster. Note the rough crown on the barrel. (In truth, there's actually no crown on the barrel.) A quick twist with a tapered reamer would be an improvement. It's so bad that banging it on a concrete block might even help. The rifling is also not uniform. The lands and grooves aren't spaced equidistant from each other. Ah, and the barrel rattles inside the gun. That's probably not good either. This is the single worst barrel I've ever seen--in anything. The inside of a toilet paper roll has a more uniform spiral.

Top soda straw is the stock SA6 barrel. Bottom is a remnant of a Crosman 2240 or 2250 barrel from the parts box.

Chucked the barrel into the Taig and set up a dead center.

Turned the OD down to 0.316"--about 0.003" larger than the stock barrel.

Needs cut to final length, a leade, and crowned.

Faced off one end of the barrel. Started with the leade as that was the easiest to screw up and the extra barrel length meant I'd get a second or even a third chance to get it right. The fired pellet from the SA6 jumps from the cylinder into the barrel. The leade acts as a funnel, easing the pellet into the rifling.

A cone shaped burr was used to remove some of the rifling and cut a taper.

Followed with another burr to chamfer the edge. A brass rod and some 600 grit emery cloth finished the leade.

Looked OK on the first try. Not shown: Cut the barrel to length and crowned the muzzle.

Almost forgot to cut the relief groove at the breach.

The relief is for the hole in the plate.

The barrel is secured in the hole--this fixes the breach end of the barrel at the cylinder. I went for a tight, no barrel rattle, press-fit.

While it was apart, I refinished all the screw heads. Cleaned up all the screwdriver slots, beveled the screw heads, and reblued. Reassembled as per Nick's blog post.

Reassembly note: I put the hammer spring in the third slot from the bottom of the grip. This would be the second highest tension location.

A few pics.



Here's the other accuracy issue. The rear sight is just a groove between the halves of the frame. Not sure if I should cut it deeper to make it easier to see, mount a red dot sight on a Picitinny rail, or live with it. Living with it is currently winning.

There should be a black plastic cover that wraps around and hides the CO2 cartridge. Um, maybe I'll just paint a case of cartridges. Wouldn't they work better in cold weather?

It looks pretty good, but...

after firing 30 only shots, the epoxy finish on the cylinder was coming off from the indexing lock-up. I'd had enough with flaking paint and stripped the cylinder down to bare metal.

An unseen bolt through the cylinder let me chuck it in the 3-jaw. I sanded the cylinder to 400 grit.

And it was put the gun back together again time.

I hate it...

I hate it a bit less...

I can sort of live with it for now. So, it must be growing on me. Actually, no more scratching the paint off the cylinder is growing on me. Most importantly, it shoots groups now. The sight picture is abysmal, but the trigger (being single action) is a winner. It breaks at just over a pound. I did exactly nothing to the trigger/sear interface as far as smoothing or adjusting. The SA6 has one of the very best triggers I've ever encountered outside of a purpose built target gun. This is really a fun gun to shoot, and the relative lack of mechanical complexity should keep it running trouble free for years.

After the newness of the SA6 wears off, I might try repraying it yet again (what? a fourth time?) and giving it a solid week of drying time. Looking back at a few of the projects that were successfully painted with the appliance epoxy, I see they all got substantially longer curing times before handling.

Spinning the Wheels on the SA6

Progress report.


The second coat of epoxy paint orange peeled pretty badly. My fault. I second-coated about 10 hours after the first coat. Had I followed the directions on the can, I should have waited only about half an hour. Or maybe it was the 90% relative humidity. Either way, I'm stripping paint and waiting for the cold front to arrive. Today is almost 20 degrees cooler already than yesterday. I'm slowly getting there.

If you've not checked out the blog links, my uncle recently started writing a rather unique blog about knives. He's pretty articulate and thoughtful in his writing style. Maybe check it out.

I'll get back to the SA6 as soon as I have some dry paint that doesn't look cratered.

Still More Crosman SA6? Refinish and Refurb

Nick just covered basic disassembly and repair of his Crosman SA6 about a week ago, so I don't have much substance to add in that regard. I bought two SA6 guns at a flea market on Memorial Day and sent Nick the cosmetically better example of the pair. The fact that his didn't actually work was icing on the cake as he loathes receiving functional airguns.

Here's the one left behind.

Double click on any of the pics to blow them up. You'll find that the finish is pretty trashed when you get up close and personal. Looks like someone repainted parts of it with a brush--except on the cylinder--where the paint is just gone.

The valve seal is different between our two guns. This one seals around the neck of the 12g CO2 cartridge rather than on the front of the cartridge as is the norm these days. I replaced the old trashed o-ring in mine with a #009 o-ring in under a minute with a dental pick. I like the ease of access to the o-ring on the gun.

Attempting to decipher the various EVP's from Crosman, I think this valve is a Series 1. Nick probably has a a Series 2--as his was missing the #45-52 end seal and (maybe) the #45-51 seal retaining collar. A Series 3 should also be out there that uses the common 38T type seal and a thread in collar.

Took the grips off and separated the halves of the frame. The hammer spring #45-24 popped out of location before I saw which slot it was in. This forward-most location is where Crosman pictures the spring in the various EVP's.

Just a blurry pic to remind me of the pawl index spring orientation.

A few more Kodak moments as reminders.

Nothing new here, nothing to see.

Finish has really seen better days. Probably better years. I think this gun is from around 1972.

Valve just pulls straight out the front of the cylinder.

Used a silver Sharpie to mark the front of the plate--Crosman part # 6-10. It could be a week or more before I get back to reassemble this gun and it'll save me from having to think about it.

Removed the o-ring (Crosman part #140-058) from the end of the valve. This #005 o-ring seals the end of the valve inside the back end of the pellet cylinder. However, I'm going to attempt to replace this seal with a P8 metric o-ring that is very slightly larger in OD to obtain a better working seal in this location.

Valve unscrews.

Nothing unusual.

Removed the pellet retaining spring (this part was missing on Nick's gun) Some repair shops use a large o-ring as a substitute for the spring.

Enough with the disassembly. The gist of the entire post is thus: It's time to fix the finish. The brass wire wheel is a go.

Done. Took about 10 minutes.

Buffed out the scratch marks with some rouge.

Rustoleum Appliance Epoxy spray paint. Long drying time, but worth it for the superb durability and the cheap price. It's about $5 a can around these here parts. You gotta talk like a cowboy when you're working on an SA6. Says so right in the manual.

Hanging by a wire and ready for paint. The current plan is to refinish the gun and tweak a couple things to tighten group size as well as attempt to get the gun to hit closer to point of aim. Check back again in a few days.