A.B.T. Ammo Update

This post is from 2011 - Unfortunately Stuart's website is not available anymore and I have no contact info for for him.

Stuart Shippee emailed me to say that he has around a thousand original, loaded ammo tubes for the A.B.T. rifle for sale. He was kind enough to send me a few tubes to check out. The price is quite reasonable and so far as I know he’s the only source for the tubes right now.

Heavier duty than my crude home made tubes. They are marked AIR-O-MATIC A.B.T. MFG. CORP. CHICAGO, ILL. U.S.A. with illegible patent numbers.

The tubes I received (for free, no complaints here!) were his “seconds” from the bottom of his box and the balls had some rust. When I tried to force (again, if I have learned anything, and in this case I haven’t, never force anything when it comes to airguns) the feed the tube got carried into the action and shredded.

After cleaning out the mess I ended up manually pushing all the balls out of the other tubes with a pin punch (I had to gently tap with a hammer at first, holding the tube loosely in my hand, to get them started) and reloading the tubes with clean 3/16” ball bearings. I would probably do this even with the good quality ones he’s selling just to make sure, as well as to exercise the 50 year old cardboard. Would you shoot 50 year old cardboard shotgun shells? Again, I have no complaints as what I was after wasn’t 50 year old ball bearings, but 50 year old cardboard tubes.

With the tubes reloaded I had no problem loading, firing, reloading over and over. You just have to be careful with the ends of the tubes that they don’t get mushed, or bent when loading them. I’m happy to have authentic ammunition for my old carny rifle.

A.B.T. Shooting Gallery Rifle, Final Notes

Finally found some time to put the A.B.T. back together…

This needed some fixing.

My precision drawing.

Surgery.

An attempt at precision.

A walnut block.

JB Weld. Why? Because I was out of clear epoxy and didn’t have time to go to the hardware store. It’s not going to be visible.

Clamped up. I let it cure for a day.

I roughed out the block with the mill.

Almost done.

I left it oversize so I could fit it after I reassembled the rifle.

Another shot of the receiver.

Sear.

Fitting…there was a bunch of chiseling and rasping.

Now to drill the hole for the bushing. I left those steel plates because they look cool. This was a gun that was used by thousands of people.

Fitted.

The wood broke out as I was drilling – from this side…some days I can’t win. But again, nobody will see it. Except you guys.

Some air fittings.

A long drill bit, paper and glue.

Makes a tube.

I decided to try regular .170” BBs first.

In the loading trough.

Plink.

Airgun dork.

This is at 15’

I then tried .177 lead balls. I loaded them directly in the trough without a tube. Which worked fine, FYI.

And 3/16” ball bearings, which are I believe the ammunition the rifle is supposed to use. These were all at 80psi from my crappy compressor – I wonder if more pressure was warranted. I’ll bring it over a friend’s shop sometime and see how it does with more air pressure.

Making a tube for 3/16 ball bearings.

Exciting as watching glue dry.

Glue drying…So that's pretty much it. A nice piece of Carnival history. Now I just need to find a complete shooting gallery and I can have a nice summer job.

A.B.T. Shooting Gallery Rifle Disassembly, Part 4

Almost done…

Oh, the second socket head setscrew.

Removed.

It retains the hammer/trigger assembly.

The trigger is riveted, so I won’t remove it. The pin could be pressed out to remove the hammer and spring but I’ll leave it for now.

You can see the spring and hammer.

Pushing it in.

That leaves the valve.

A screwdriver should work as the valve stem can be pushed past the screw slot.

Removed. No seal on it, although most of the air should just go out through the barrel. Maybe I’ll use some teflot tape although it’s a pretty tight thread.

The valve stem wouldn’t come out. So I pressed against it through the air supply hole with a bamboo chopstick.

Valve stem and seal. It’s fairly soft rubber and appears to be in good shape.

Another view.

This is what it would look like assembled. I notice there’s no spring to keep the valve seated on the seal, which is curious. I wonder if there’s supposed to be one?

My bench after the disassembly. I’ll clean it all up and reassemble. I'll spend some time trying to understand better how the mechanism works. Then it’s a question of finding the proper ammo, making a cardboard tube for the ammo, and hooking up an air line.

If you have any useful information, especially a manual for the rifle, original cardboard tubes and ammo, etc. I'd love to hear from you. UPDATE: See here for a source for original ammo.

A.B.T. Shooting Gallery Rifle Disassembly, Part 3

On I go…

A small setscrew, there are only two socket head fasteners on the rifle.

Removed and the barrel slides out of the block. The magazine tube is pressed or soldered in as far as I can tell.

The shuttle.

Slides right out.

The lower bar keeps the bbs from falling into the valve, the upper has something to do with the cardboard tube of bb-s that is fed into the gun. Haven’t figured that out yet.

A screw retains the feed ramp.

Removed.

A screw retains that spring.

Removed.

The leaf spring that allows the feed ramp to spring up.

Removed.

Two springs on the trigger mechanism.

One removed.

I left the other one in place, for now at least.

Large head screw.

Removed and the feed cam comes off.

I don’t know what to call these parts yet, and I’m leaving them in place.

The hammer & valve assembly is exposed.

More to come…