Hit a Gun Show

A buddy and I went to the Albany Lions Club Gun Show today.

Ok, It’s not an airgun, but tell me you wouldn’t have bought it?

By Wham-o, back when toys were dangerous. Actually this is a dangerous toy as the aluminum prod could break and injure you.

Ugly.

I have no idea what the scale is for.

Powermaster.

The prod is mounted with a J bolt.

see, a J bolt.

Something nice to hang on the wall.

Catch housing.

I’ll have to take it apart and get a better look later.

An A.B.T. shooting gallery rifle.

The bolt handle doesn’t actually run a bolt, just moves the slide back.

Odd rear sight.

Another view.

Patent list.

Where the air hose connects.

I presume you load it here. This will also get taken apart later.

You never know what you’ll find at a gun show. I also got a Plainsman BB pistol thrown in with the A.B.T. but it unfortunately works. I passed on a Crosman 130 that had some extreme finish issues. But it was cheap ($25 asking price). I missed a Crosman 760 with the wood stock and metal receiver ($10!) by about 30 seconds – a guy got it before I could. Oh well.

Now to get back to the accursed Rochester.

A Spare Magazine for an Aeron B96 Part 1

Nervous about posting part one before the mag is finished. There's still so much that can go wrong--and if it all goes down in flames, I'm not likely to tackle this again until I buy a proper milling machine.

Been looking around on the usual airgun classifieds, gunbroker, ebay...looking for a spare mag for my Aeron B96. They just aren't out there. Apparently, none of the importers ever had spare mags in any kind of quantity, either. The gun came with one single-shot and one five-shot mag. Gotta tell ya, when this gun comes out to play, 5 shots lasts about 2 seconds. In a perfect world, I'd have five or six spare magazines for this gun--OK, sure, I'd probably have ten. As I have to do this manually, I'm going to attempt to make exactly one.

How precise does the mag need to be to function correctly? That's my biggest concern. If the mag body isn't square, or the holes not the exact diameter, or parallel, or the height is off... I don't know if I have five thou of leeway or none. Will it shave lead off the pellets as they jump to the breech? Will it leak CO2?

The mag holds five .177 cal pellets and fits into a carrier on the pistol. The carrier indexes the magazine for each shot. The mag is just along for the ride.

Cut a piece of scrap aluminum to approximately the same length.

Set up the milling attachment and squared the milling vise.

For a change of pace, I used a homemade fly cutter instead of an end mill .



The fly cutter holds a lathe knife at an angle and swings it through an arc. The edge just skims across the work leaving a nice, flat surface in it's wake.



All I wanted for the first step was a flat side. The fly cutter did it in one pass.

I turned the piece around and zeroed the opposite side. My hope was that the fly cut side would make for an accurate base when milling the magazine to final width. There's a 1/4" HSS blank tool bit in the vise as a parallel--needed some stand off, otherwise the surface to be cut would be recessed in the jaws.

Milled the piece to 0.273"--the width of the mag.

Rotated the piece 90 degrees fly cut the face, then milled the opposite side, making the piece 0.280" in height.

A bit of clean up on the edges and corners then the ends were milled square to a final OAL of 1.687"

I guess part one should've just been titled: "Derrick makes an aluminum rectangle". Give me a few days, I'll let you know how it goes.

Gamo V-3 from Mike

Blog reader, Mike from Indy, sent me his Gamo V-3 a couple weeks ago. Thanks Mike! He got it a few years ago, shot it for a while but couldn't get past the insanely high trigger pull.

I'd never seen one up close before. I did some quick research looking at velocity and basic operation. I also found a V-3 schematic on a Spanish site.

The V-3 weighs just over a pound. The slide is metal, while the frame and grips are plastic like many modern autoloaders. Feels light--but doesn't feel "cheap".

Installed a 12g CO2 cartridge and loaded the magazine. The first shot literally dribbled out the barrel. Wheeeee! The second shot sounded good. The next--more dribbling. The bbs made it about 12 feet. Mostly by rolling across the tile floor. Not quite every other shot was like that. The trigger pull was pretty high--seemed like it broke around 15 pounds. The gun also has fake "blowback" where the slide moves rearward during the trigger pull. But not, um, realistic.

Removed the "magazine". The mag houses the CO2 cartridge, valve and bbs. Set the mag aside-- I'll rebuild the valve in a few minutes.

The slide is removed by first pulling the trigger about half way then pulling the slide backward then upward at the rear, lifting it off the frame.

Barrel and spring slide out. Whoops, the barrel is upside down in my pic. The rectangular positioning lug should have the long side facing down.

Pushed out the cross pin holding the rear of the trigger group. It's a friction fit.

Removed the small screw on the underside of the front lug.

Entire trigger pack lifts right out.

Trigger felt absolutely fine so I didn't take it apart any further. I cleaned the gummy factory grease out of the unit...

And relubed it with Buzzy's Slick Honey.

Reinstalled.

Back to the magazine. There's a small catch at the heel that opens the floor plate. Inside the floor plate is a thumbscrew for the CO2 cartridge. I emptied the cartridge and removed it.

Pushed out the cross pin the floor plate hinges on. Slid right out.



Then removed the three tiny phillips head screws...

And the magazine halves separate. The center piece is a spring loaded cover that pops up and covers the CO2 valve pin when the mag is removed from the gun. I assume this is so you can't drop the mag on a hard surface and fire a bb right out the front of the mag.

Valve and strap assembly lift out.

These pull right off the valve unit.

Like so. Looks exactly like the valve Nick repaired on that PT-80 fiasco.

Nick would notch a strip of steel. I've got a Campagnolo chainring nut tool. Just unscrew the brass valve cap. Total bicycle dork notes: Only the Campy tool will fit. The similar looking Shimano, Sugino, and Park tools all have a peg in the middle of the tool to center on the chainring bolt. I don't know if the VAR will fit. Doesn't matter. The VAR tool is probably 30 years old anyway and will fetch collector prices. So, notch that steel, Nick. You're on the right track.

Cleaned up and ready to go back together. Nothing really unusual in the valve to account for the weak shots--just a small amount of grunge. There's a third steel washer not shown in the pic. And, wow, that valve spring seems awfully stiff.

Put it all back together in reverse. No real tricks to the reassembly, except to note that all the parts fit into the right side of the magazine body--and don't forget to align the bb follower like I did the first go round.

One nice aspect is the mag can be gassed up outside the gun. Makes it much faster to spot a leak and pinpoint the exact location.

Barrel slid into place and the long end of the lug is in the correct spot.

Goes back on in reverse. Fit the muzzle end first and pull the slide back compressing the barrel spring, then hook the back of the slide over the rear frame rails.

Like so, then press the slide forward and it's done. Note the slide lock safety.

The magazine loaded. Fifteen bb's--or .177 cal lead balls--can be used. Almost forgot--this gun has a rifled barrel. In theory, that means better accuracy but the heavy trigger pull and fake blowback movement effectively kill whatever accuracy could've been gained.

Anyway, I slapped the magazine home and just like that--the gun worked fine. So what fixed it? Pffffffttt? I've absolutely no idea. Perhaps one of the internal components was slightly out of position and the tear down and cleaning was all it took?

I thought it was a bit too plain Jane, so I filled in the lettering on the gun with white enamel.
There's a mark about the size of a dime on the left grip near the top. I think it's superglue from a pressure switch. Guessing that Mike had a small laser or light mounted on the accessory rail on the bottom of the slide.

A bit of acetone took the glue off. Can't tell it was ever there. I did finally manage to check the trigger pull with a gauge. It varies quite a bit and breaks between 11 and 13 pounds. Lighter than I thought!

I think this gun has a bad rap judging by the reviews that I've read. Forget about it as an airgun. It's not "target" accurate enough for most of us due to that trigger. The trigger pull is too high for most kids, too, so it's not really for them, either. So, I finally figured out what to do with it. It looks like a great practice tool if you carry a concealed handgun--especially if your primary carry gun is DAO. In that scenario, the trigger pull isn't a big hurdle. I've shot several of the various Kahr K/P series guns and don't think there's much trigger difference compared to this gun. Same goes for the Glocks fitted with New York triggers. And the trigger pull would certainly be safe(r) when practicing drawing from a concealed holster and putting rounds downrange. The gun's modern shape especially lends itself to fit a ton of different concealment holsters, as I found out.

I rummaged through the holster pile and came up with a few good candidates to practice with. Fits really well in a size #16 Uncle Mike's Super Belt Slide model.


Perfect fit in a very early model Galco SOB.

This one carries horizontally in the small of the back.

And it worked fine in a minimalist Yaqui slide style.

I think this is a first generation Yaqui model from Galco. What can I say? I like options.

Thanks again, Mike. Awfully kind of you to send off your old airgun to a guy you've never met.

More stuff soon.