Rear Sight for the Slavia ZVP

Well, I finally finished the Slavia ZVP...

This was my first attempt at making a rear sight. Apparently tempered blue shim steel does not like bending.

I printed up a sticky label with the sight laid out on it and sawed the shape.

Sawn out.

I centerpunched the hole locations.

Bent easily as it was annealed stock. Not sure what alloy as it was from my pile of random steel. I refined the shape with files.

Looks like a sight.

Finding the edge of the dovetail piece.

Drilling.

Milling to thickness.

Felt tip marker applied to the edge.

Milling the dovetail. The angle seemed imprecise on the pistol...

I filed it to be a sliding fit.

Not full dovetail contact though, someone peened the slot earlier, most likely to avoid having the original sight slide out and become lost. They failed.

Tapping #2-64.

The parts attached with #2-64 screws. I wasn't going to spot weld it. I can live with it not being a perfect reproduction.

Turning the height adjustment screw.

Using the tailstock chuck jaws to align the die stock. I need to make a die holder for the South Bend...

Knurling.

All done. I heated it up cherry red and quenched, then tempered it for springiness. Then I cleaned it, cold blued all the parts and assembled.

Here's a shot of the Slavia ZVP with my Diana Modell 5. Neither of them are particularly accurate and the Diana gave me a surprise that I'll discuss later on...

Reassembling the Crosman 707 Rifle, Part 2

Well, not really reassembly as that was finished last post but here's how I put a new sight on.

The old sight, left, had broken. I was going to modify the sight on the right (found it in my box of parts) until I remembered the pile of Williams sights I bought on Ebay...

I retapped the holes #4-40 using a form tap.

Finding the one hole I'll reuse with a center finder.

Moved over by the sight hole spacing, drilling the screw hole.

The hole countersunk enough that the screw head is below the sight surface.

You can see the new hole.

Because of the band clamp the sight is backwards, if that matters? Note that with the existing blade height I had to have it adjusted all the way down.

Milling the sight slot deeper.

The sight milled down.

Relieving the sight with a ball mill, purely for aesthetic reasons.

The mounted sight. The base of the sight fit the 707 tube radius perfectly, so no need for shims.

Reassembling the Crosman 707 Rifle, Part 1

Now to get all the bits back together...

The piercing assembly with new o-rings.

This is where the small o-ring goes to seal the piercing pin. 600-85 is screwed into the body to retain the o-ring.

The barrel is slid back into the tube.

Screw 700-31 holds the barrel in place, bushing 700-18 pressed in. I held the new ball (I have a nice collection of bearing balls) on the spring with a dab of grease.

The tap loading parts are reassembled.

The bolt 700-15 is inserted into the tube from the back.

The bolt handle is screwed in. There's a small setscrew inside the bolt handle that locks it in place once screwed in.

The valve is inserted. The screw slots on the end can be used for rotary alignment.

The bolt is cocked, allowing the valve to be inserted into place fully.

The valve in place ready to be attached with screw 700-10.

The band clamp and piercing assembly are replaced.

Just a little more to do...

Disassembling the Crosman 707 Rifle, Part 2

On to the valves...

You can see the o-ring split when I tried to remove it. A good hint that the o-ring has seen better days.

The cir-clip was removed.

The valve guts.

The valve "stem" 700-39. The seal face looked ok, so I decided to try reusing it. There was no obvious way to remove the steel button, so I would likely have had to drill out the back of the stem and press the button out. If I have to, I will, but if it holds gas then no need.

The piercing assembly.

The roll pin was punched out.

The components.

The o-ring also split when removed.

The tool I made to work on the 38T valve fit the slots in the piercing assembly as well!

Once removed I fished out the small o-ring that seals the piercing pin. It too will be replaced.

The sear. Notice the complex cutouts in the stock. There is no trigger safety on this rifle, instead you can lock the bolt when cocked, against firing.

One of the ugliest stocks ever. Why Crosman went with this plank-like look is beyond me.

Disassembling the Crosman 707 Rifle, Part 1

Merry Christmas! What better present to myself than some time in the shop? I decided to take apart and reseal the Crosman 707 rifle I recently acquired. You can download a manual and exploded drawing from the Crosman archive. The 707 is the .177 caliber version of the .22 caliber 700, which should be the same mechanically.

I removed the two screws holding the action to the stock.

The action.

The CO2 piercing assembly was unscrewed, and the rear band clamp slid off.

Now what to remove?

Screw 700-10 was removed.

The bolt knob 700-16 was unscrewed.

The tap loading knob was unscrewed and the tap removed.

It appears someone else had visited the gun previously as the spring bushing 700-18 was a bit chewed up and the detent ball was missing.

The bushing was pulled out with pliers.

Screw 700-31 was removed.

At this point the barrel is free and was pulled out.

A somewhat swiss cheese looking breech.

The "bolt" 700-15 and spring then fall out the front as well.

I pushed the valve assembly out the back leaving an empty tube.

More to come...

Snowy Ramble...

I still haven't found time to work on airguns, due to both work and our crazy weather here in the Northwest. I hope to get back to having fun as soon as the holiday rush is over!

Anyway, for more diversions. Popular Mechanics and Popular Science have put many back issues up on Google Books for free.
Typing in: Crosman Popular Mechanics yields this result.
Clicking on the first link and you get this. with those words you seek highlighted in yellow.
Then (I haven't found a way around this, but there may be something simpler) remove the highlighting by removing "&dq=crosman+popular+mechanics" from the URL which yields this.

There are old ads, articles and all sorts of wonderful stuff to waste your time. I particularly loved finding this...

You can also go to the advanced search page to make sure you only yield results within those magazines...there are all sorts of tricks I'll have to figure out. Anyway, you get the idea.

I also thought this picture was pretty cool (via one of the UK forums)