Smoothbore Upgrade! A Daisy 499 Barrel into a Crosman 1600 pistol

BB gun accuracy conversations usually begin and end with the Daisy Avanti 499 BB gun combined with the Daisy Precision Ground Shot.  That combination is considered the gold medal standard for smoothbore accuracy in this class of gun.  A few weeks ago, writer Tom Gaylord and several of the regular commenters on the Pyramyd Airgun Blog were lamenting that there was no smoothbore BB PISTOL equivalent to the Daisy 499 BB gun.  Of course, this immediately turned into speculation and "what somebody really ought to do" statements from those of us in the peanut gallery.   After we confirmed that Daisy did indeed sell the 499 barrel separately, a few of us readers volunteered to actually retrofit various BB pistols with said 499 barrels and report what happened. Because, you know, for knowledge and the greater good...

Anyway, here's how my project played out:

Daisy calls this a "shot tube" assembly.   Its what the rest of us call a smoothbore barrel.  The barrel assembly and three containers of Precision Ground Shot ended up running about $35 shipped direct from Daisy.  They actually included a 5 meter test target with the barrel.

Removed the nut and pulled the barrel out of the black plastic collet.

 

 

This is where my project takes a hard left turn and some caveats.   I don't have much in the way of BB guns.  What I do have is a terrible test mule for an accuracy based project.  I've got a Crosman 1600 semi-auto.  It's a 16 shot, linear feed design.  Feeds from a 90 degree rotating shuttle with a double action trigger.  The 1600 is also equipped with a bare bones non-adjustable fixed rear sight. So, there's that.

Crosman made this pistol in two versions, the 454 and this 1600.  The 454 had an adjustable rear sight and much nicer grips.  We documented a rebuild on this model several years ago here.

I referred to that old blog and took a few more pics to help during reassembly later.

Take out any CO2 cartridge.

This set screw holds the barrel in the valve.

 

 More pics to remember what goes where.

Here's the Crosman BB barrel.  It's .250" in diameter.

 A small c-clip locates and sets it's depth against the front of the valve body

 

 

 

Chucked the Daisy 499 barrel in the Taig lathe and turned the end down to a matching .250" diameter.

 

 

 

Ground a quick tool and cut a 0.030" groove for the c-clip.

 

 

 

Test fit.

 

 

 

 

 

Cut a longer leade into the breech end.

Turned the barrel down between centers to .250".  Initially, I only turned down about half the barrel length.  This proved to be a mistake and I had to go back and turn the entire barrel to .250" diameter.

 

 

Cut the barrel to length for the pistol and re-crowned.

Made the new barrel about 1/2" longer than the Crosman, so I had to bore out the front sight plug.

 

 

The longer barrel is a snug slip fit through the sight assembly now.

After polishing the new crown--before I went back and recut the entire length to .250" diameter. 

Test fit.

Moly grease on the trigger pins and trigger bar.

One more quick detour/upgrade:  I don't have a 454 model, so the 1600's fixed sight had to go.

 

 

Scrounged up an old Daisy sight in my parts bin.

 

 

Thinned it down by 0.055" to fit into the sight pocket on the 1600.

 

 

Made some mounting hardware.

Not a perfect fit at the front of the pocket, but it works and will finally let me move the point of impact to correspond to point of aim.

 

 

The original sight can be reinstalled in a minute if that ever matters.

So here we are.  I even remembered to shoot some pre-conversion groups for comparison.

Old barrel:

Crosman 1600 stock barrel and Crosman BB's.  5-shots at 21 feet.  Yep, she's a shotgun.  This is one reason I'm not keen on BB guns.

 

 

Another group with the stock barrel and Crosman BB's

New Daisy 499 barrel:

 

 

Daisy 499 barrel and Daisy Precision Ground Shot.  5-shot group.

 

 

Daisy 499 barrel and Daisy Precision Ground Shot.  10-shot group.

 

The groups are running over 40% smaller with the new Daisy barrel and Daisy shot.  Substantially better.  Though I know this isn't the pistol Mr. Gaylord is really asking for in that Pyramyd Airgun post, it certainly shows the potential of the Daisy 499 barrel combined with the ground BB shot.  I'd imagine if a 499 barrel was retrofit to a single stroke pneumatic with a decent trigger (maybe a Beeman P17?) it would do even better.  What this Crosman pistol does do well--unlike most pellet shooters out there--is hold 16 shots in rapid-fire succession.  It's a backyard pop can shredder. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Be safe.

Vacation Airguns!

We escaped to Lost City, WV last week to do some hiking and unwind from the insanity of the world.  Before the trip, I had the task of deciding which airguns to bring.  Started to make a short list, but it started feeling like the hypothetical nonsense often asked on airgun forums:  "If you could only have one (or three) airguns on a deserted island, what would it be?"  Please, no.  It always devolves into a couple guys arguing the merits of whatever their personal pet gun is and you're all fools to believe otherwise.  So what it came down to:  I had room in the car for a pistol and a couple rifles.  I did briefly consider renting a box van to bring more airguns, but I'm not that far gone yet.  Besides, I'm pretty sure my wife would shoot that idea down. 

Guilt made this selection.  This old Beeman P-1 doesn't get the attention it deserves anymore. Bought it years ago (new!) from a pawn shop that was a 5-Star Beeman Dealer.  Remember those?  The Five Star part, not the pawn shop part...

Anyway, this was really an excuse to spend some time with these skeletonized 1911 grips made out of G10.  They're basically fiberglass and epoxy.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cutouts make for some aggressive feeling grips.

Yep.  Here we go again.  This 2260 came along for my wife.  She absolutely loves the light weight and easy cocking of this CO2 platform modified Crosman.  At 35 yards, she hit the silhouette target almost non-stop.  She did struggle a bit loading the .22 pellets.  The Picatinny to 11mm adapter overhangs the loading trough.  Maybe we need to move that Marauder magazine compatible breech over to this gun? 

It was hardest to pin down which springer rifle to bring.  In the end, the HW97K got packed because it doesn't get shot enough and deserved some field time.  The black label .20 cal pellets from Benjamin shoot well enough.  There's a 4-16X scope mounted that seems just about right for anything I ever do with this rifle.  This is one of those rifles that just never seems to need any attention.  Every time I grab it, it's zeroed for that red Coke can.

I'm lucky and grateful these were the hardest decisions I had to make for our trip.  Hope you can find some time like we did to get outside, relax and just focus on hitting an empty pop can for a couple hours. 

Building a Cool Crosman 22XX for a Cool 10 Year-Old

This is sort of an extension of a previous blog detailing the addition of an AR-15 adjustable stock to a Crosman 22XX platform.    I've abbreviated much of it so this wouldn't turn into a five part mini-series of madness.  It does jump around a little.  It'll probably be OK. 


Backstory:  Two years ago, with the goal of teaching gun safety and shooting fundamentals, my neighbors purchased a Crosman Custom Shop 2240 with the optional 1399 shoulder stock for their 12 year old. They quickly found out that a 1399 shoulder stock has a rather LONG length of pull.  By LONG, I mean it's too long for 6' tall knuckle-draggers like me.  Completely unsuitable for their 12 yr-old daughter.  The easy solution was to copy my wife's Crosman/AR 15 stock set-up as described in the link above.  We sourced an MFT stock and buffer tube, made another stock adapter and it all worked out perfectly.

Now, it's the brother's turn.  Except he's 10--and this time we know going into this what he needs.  A used UTG Pro AR stock and buffer tube were purchased online for cheap.  His gun is being built from an assortment of Crosman 2240 and 2260 parts rather than starting with a preassembled gun. 

I've seen some of the AR stock adapters for the Crosman 22XX guns.  They're OK, though I find them a bit long and bulky because they utilize the buffer tube thread.  That works, but I'd rather cut the buffer tube threads off and sleeve the buffer over the adapter.

This knocks about an inch off and allows the adapter to be smaller in diameter.   The largest diameter of the adapter fits inside the tube.

So, here's a truncated version of machining an adapter.   It replaces the Crosman tube plug on the gun.



Detour #1:  As I did for my wife's project gun, a Benjamin Marauder pistol forend was fit after modifying a Crosman 2250 barrel band and hardware.

Turned an acetal plug to fill the hole for the pressure gage.





Detour #2:  A forward sling swivel.  Rifles need slings.  Ask anyone.

My current favorite way of adding a sling to a Crosman 22XX platform--a modified 2250 barrel band.  Set screws added to the sides at 4 and 8 o-clock. 

Made this.

Used a permanent loctite on the threads for the sling stud. 

OK, enough detours.   Back to making the rifle fit the kiddo.

 

Here's the (WAY too long for me!) Crosman 1399 stock.  The six-position AR stock is at full extension and fits my 6' frame perfectly.

 

And more importantly, the UTG stock at it's shortest compared again to the 1399.   Of course, I forgot to write down the LOP.  Think it was 8".  It's really short.




Here's what I gave his father.  It's my jaded take on a 10 year-old's first air rifle.   A 2260 gas tube and a cut to length barrel.  Keeps it short and in proportion for a 10 year-old.  Used a Crosman steel breech with a simple red dot sight.  Made sense to give him a similar sight to what he was already comfortable with from using his sister's gun.    It's a .22 caliber.  The bigger pellets are easier for the kids to handle--and its the same caliber as his sibling's.

Before dropping it off, I shot it for the better part of a week and a half.  The carbine length is appealing.  Fast, light, easy to carry slung.  Really liked it.  If he wasn't such a good kid I would've kept it, grinch that I am.

Yeah, you know how this ends.  He was elated with the rifle.  He's allowed to use it with his parent's supervision.  They're happy it actually fits and appreciate that it's not a cheap toy, but is accurate, easy to use and can be adjusted as he gets taller every week.

Anyway, I'm hoping Crosman redesigns the 1399 stock.  I've read several online posts about parents running into this same problem.  It'd be pretty slick if they made a length adjustable stock that would retrofit to all the zillions of 22XX and 13XX guns out there.  Oh, and a longer forend. With a built in sling QD socket.   And while we're talking about it...


More soon.  Thanks for reading along.

The 2020 Flag CIty Toys That Shoot Airgun Show is CANCELED

Show has been canceled

15th Annual

Flag City Toys that Shoot Airgun Show

Findlay, Ohio

Saturday, April 18th

 https://www.flagcitytoysthatshoot.com/show-information

Some notes on a reseal & customizing a Crosman 1377

A local friend asked me to look at his 1377 which was not holding pressure. He also wondered if it could be made more accurate. Some notes on what's an established process that doesn't need great detail (disassemble, clean, reseal, assemble).

The valve assembly was crusty.


O-rings had given up any hint of elasticity.


Something new? The 1377 piston had a pin retaining the pump cup. I had not seen this before and the cups I have do not have a hole.


I can only guess that they found that the cups were popping out of the plastic retainer - possibly due to the design changing or the injection mold wearing?


I have a new ultrasonic cleaner that is almost big enough.


While parts were soaking I set about adapting a spare sight to a spare Crosman steel breech I had on hand.


Fitting.


Filed and formed. It's a tight fit, but slightly tighter one way t'other.


Sight mounted. It's held by two screws, one into the breech and one into the brass.


Taig now offers a 5C lathe headstock. It's a bit spendy but just the ticket for doing barrel work.


Lapping the crown. Not match grade lapping but enough to remove any burr from the lathe ops.


Finished. A longer barrel, a 760 plastic front sight and barrel band. I raided the parts boxes for this one. Friend was delighted and finds it much improved.