Attempting to copy Anthony Rienecker's Pro-Top Part 1

A couple months ago, I saw an ad in the Yellow Airgun classifieds for a "Pro-Top"--a modification to the front half of a Crosman 22XX valve that does away with the standard piercing needle. The Pro-Top was conceptualized by Anthony Rienecker as a way to get rid of the piercing needle on the valve stem thereby improving CO2 gas flow. I found his design to be fascinating in it's straightforward solution. Some of his original design ideas can be found here. Crosman's valve design jams the needle into the CO2 cartridge when the stem is hit by the striker. The needle can--and does--restrict the gas flow by plugging the hole in the cartridge momentarily. Anthony's idea was to change the front half of the valve and use the old-style 38T type piercing design. This design gets rid of the piercing needle that compromises gas flow. The same 38T valve parts are still used today in Crosman's 357. It's ingenious. If you've read this blog for any length of time, it's obvious that I'm not a power hound when it comes to airguns--but I am a sucker for a nice design. I was going to buy one, but since I had most of the parts on hand and I'm an inveterate hack, I really wanted to make one for myself even more. Make no mistake, it wasn't about the cost of a Pro-Top. At $26 shipped, they're an absolute steal. I wanted to try to make one and see what Anthony went through to make his design work. I contacted Anthony about two weeks ago via email to get his thoughts about this blog post. I ended up calling him a day later and we spent an easy hour talking about his design and it's origins. Surprisingly, he's a regular reader of this tawdry blog and encouraged me to give it a shot. I can tell you unequivocally that I wish he lived next door. He's a genuinely good guy. If you want to buy a Pro-Top, simply contact him at amriensr@yahoo.com and he'll take care of the details.

Here we go--Hey, remember, this copy is not going to be an exact duplication of Anthony's work. I'm making a one-off based on his idea and design. His is the real deal that has gone through prototypes, testing and improvements.

Here's the spare 2240--yes, another gun from the Findlay, OH airgun show. Also scrounged up an extra 22XX valve and some brass rod

End seal on the stock valve. This one is pretty trashed. Got it used and the previous owner really overtightened the cap.

There's that piercing needle. Pressing the stem against the bench simulates the striker hitting the stem. That needle can restrict gas flow--especially when using a heavier hammer spring in an attempt to gain velocity.

Here's what I've been referring to as the 38T style piercing pieces. I have a slightly different threaded collar than what Rienecker uses.

Unscrewed the stock valve. Just trying to conceptualize how I'm going to proceed.

Cut off a 1.5" long piece of brass. Faced the ends and turned the end down.



Threaded 9/16-18 to fit the Crosman body.



Couldn't cut the full thread in the small lathe, so I transferred the work to the vise and chucked the die into a handle.

Threaded.

With a parting tool, I cut a groove for the valve body o-ring

Test fit.

Chamfered the end of the thread.

For concentricity, I threaded the piece into the (gutted) Crosman valve body and snugged it down. Took a very light skim cut to remove any runout between the halves.

Looked too long, so I used the parting tool again.



Spotted the front of the valve with a center drill.

Selected a #30 bit for the through hole.

After through drilling, I started an 11/32" hole then progressively enlarged it...

Until I finished the hole to 0.500" with a tiny boring bar. The 38T piercing pin and seal sit in the bottom this counterbore.

Had to make a quick run to Kromhard Twist Drill for an oddball 9/16-28 bottoming tap. The tap ran me $18.50 or so out the door at the good guy price. Vaughn at Kromhard is still waiting for the day when I just need a "normal" 1/4-20 plug tap. Don't hold your breath, Vaughn.

Only tapped the front half of the hole for the retaining collar.

More to come...

Notes on Reassembly of the Crosman 105

These pictures and notes show my progress, lack or progress and final success in resealing the 105…over the course of a month!

I removed the spring from a Bic lighter. It’s the correct size for a number of uses, in this case the safety detent spring and the spring in the bolt.

Turning some seals from 90 durometer urethane rubber.

The finished seals. I made a few…

The valve assembly. I figured an o-ring would work for sealing the valve body in the pistol. Unfortunately the pistol leaked. So I spent some time trying to figure out the problem…I removed the brass cup that the valve spring fit in as I couldn't find it on the parts list.

First up was the exhaust valve seat. It had dings and was rather wide.

So I recut it, I removed about .01” material from all faces. But the pistol still leaked. So I went on to the seal for the valve body. Clearly the o-ring wasn’t working.

I checked up some teflon rod and started making a seal.

Testing for fit on the ID.

The ring. It stands slightly proud to allow for “squish” so I can seal the valve body. But you guessed it, it still leaked…

I taped some 80 durometer urethane sheet down to a piece of plastic. I used a sharpened brass tube to cut the ID hole…The spindle was turning, so this was similar in function to a paper drill.

And then cut the seal out with a larger sharpened tube.

This worked well, so I’ll have to try this in the future. The 80 durometer, being softer than the 90 durometer of the first seals, seemed to work much better. But the pump was not pushing much air into the valve…

I had a Crosman 101 aftermarket pump cup sitting around, so I tried it.

I assembled the pump and it worked slightly better but not perfectly…it just didn’t seem to seal well against the wall of the pump tube.

I used the Bic spring to make a spring for the bolt.

I turned down the cut end so it wouldn’t scratch the wall of the receiver.

This screw holding screwdriver is small in diameter and worked well for putting the bolt pin back in place. You can never have too many specialty screwdrivers.

I decided to use a modified Crosman 1377 pump cup. I’ve shown that several times on the blog. I turned down an old button head cap screw for the retaining screw as the cup is shorter than the cup used on the 105 originally.

The screw turned down. I then wire brushed off the rust.

The assembly with the new pump cup and screw.

The pistol reassembled. The grips didn’t seem like they lined up with the screw holes, but then they did…odd. Now it pumps up, holds air and functions!

The pellets hang up in the bore. It seems rough.

So I used that tiny screwdriver as a split-lap and polished it with some scotch brite. Seems much better.

Finally…I noticed that Derrick said the bolt on the 116 is supposed to have tiny balls between the bolt spring and the ID of the breech, and the 105 is virtually identical, so I dug some out and put them in. the bolt is quite smooth now.

I haven’t had time to check velocity, but it seems similar to the Crosman 130, which makes sense given the size of the pump tube. I’m glad it’s done, this pistol was punishing my self-esteem!

Crosman 116 Refinish

Interestingly, the Vintage Airgun Forum recently had a discussion about "overly restoring" airguns. It's a relevant topic--at least to me--as I write this because I'm working on a cosmetically trashed gun from the 1950's and I just rebuilt a vintage Haenel 303-Super with an "over restored stock". I'm guilty. Make no mistake. In the case of the Haenel, I justified it as the gun wasn't worth much money and seemed to only benefit from the work. I did take pains to make the work look period and as though it was done on a semi-mass produced basis. And you thought I just messed stuff up by accident? Nope. I screw stuff up for all kinds of reasons.

In the case of this 116? Well, the gun looked trashed. Who wants that? It also helps to remember that these were mass produced mainly for the young adult market. As a result, many of the factory finishes really weren't all that hot to begin with. Airguns were often seen as gateway guns to "real guns"--firearms.

Again, here's what I started with:

Click on any of the pics to enlarge. The gas tube is missing exactly 37.281% of the original(?) finish.

In the last post, I stripped the gun down completely.

Strypeeze does what it says.

An old brass brush dipped in Strypeeze was wiped across the metal.

Followed immediately by a paper towel. The black paint wiped right off.

Had I been in a hurry, this would have been a three minute job. I took my time and was done in four minutes.

This pic is for you Slinging Lead! Note the brass breech is soldered to the gas tube.

Both breech and front sight are brass. The front sight is soldered to the muzzle and the gas tube. I was sorely tempted to polish out the brass then blue the barrel and gas tube. I think the effect would be beautiful--if you like the look of shiny brass on your gun--which I don't.

I wanted to try my hand at recreating the somewhat crinkly factory painted finish.

Somewhere (not shown) is the stripped grip frame. Two whole pins to removed the trigger and sear.

Four hardware stores later, I finally gave up and went to an AutoZone. Wrinkle paint at last! VHT Wrinkle Plus-- apparently, it also comes in red... I followed the directions on the can to the letter and the VHT worked exactly as advertised.

The first coat didn't make me think it was gonna wrinkle--looked like a semi-gloss. The second coat wasn't much better...

By the third coat, I knew I had something. The top coat just sort of pulled back as it dried and left a random orange peel texture.

Painted the grip frame, too, as well as the fill cap. Gave the paint 48 hours to cure. Heated the paint to 200 degrees as per the instructions for half an hour as well. The crackled finish is really beautiful. Much nicer than what I'd envisioned.

Not gonna cover the reassembly. It's just the reverse of the tear down blog post. I did wrap the fill cap and the valve retaining nut threads in PTFE tape.



After the valve was installed, I gassed up the tube and checked for leaks. Tapped the valve stem several times with a drift to test fire the valve. Looked good.

A white paint marker was used to fill in the Crosman logo.

Allowed it to almost dry, then wiped the excess off. Intentionally took out a bit too much of the paint to make it look somewhat aged and worn. Why didn't I add a trigger stop?

Installed the grips.



Looks slightly better than brand new. My wife, the arbiter of design and style, gave it the nod of acceptance.

Yeah, after shooting it all evening, I need to drill the frame for that trigger stop pin. Won't be hard to touch up...

OK, I added a #6-32 set screw as a trigger stop.

Short enough to not protrude from the guard.



Center punched the guard, used a hand held drill and hand tapped. Didn't even disassemble the grip frame. Finding a #6-32 tap took longer than doing the actual work.

You can just see the allen head of the 6-32 set screw .

It takes a 1/16" allen wrench, so it's pretty small. I touched up the very edge of the threaded hole and the screw almost disappears into the frame.



Not sure what's on the menu next. I've got the longer barreled older brother to the 116--the Crosman 112--that could stand a tear-down and rebuild. Sometimes it helps to do these in succession while the procedures are still fresh in the brain (and the tools are still on the bench).

The 112 will need some grips though, as I parted them out and sent them off to Nick for a project gun he has. Since I wanted to make grips for it anyway, it was a good way of forcing my hand.

One of us will have something new in a few days.