What to do when your airgun quits???

My son has been shooting my HW 97 at the last few Field Target Matches.  He shot the local match in Huntsville and The Good Ole Boy’s Match with it.  Normally he is a very good shot, but his shooting just went to pot with the HW 97.  I took it out and shot it and found that I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with it either.  So, I shot it through a chronograph and found that the velocity had dropped from 910 fps to 760 fps.  It was shooting verticle groups that looked more like a shotgun than a rifle. 

After finding that the velocity had dropped greatly, I decided to talk with David Slade about the HW 97.  He said that he could check it out for me so I sent it off with him.  David now lives about 45 minutes from me, so he is very conveniently located.  I just hate boxing up a gun and dealing with UPS to ship it…  After a couple of weeks, David gave me a call and told me that the rifle was ready.  Well, that was great! 

However, I had also noticed a problem with my Daystate CR-X.  When wiping my CR-X down after a match, I noticed that the “free floating” barrel moved.  No, it moved a lot!  I could put slight pressure on the end of the barrel and it would move about 3/8″ inch.  I spoke with David about it and he told me that the barrel was threaded in and that it should be properly aligned and loctited in.  So, David agreed to also take a look at it.

Obviously the barrel moving 3/8” or greater by gently touching it could pose a major problem holding decent groups at 55 yards.  I could not understand how it was possible for the barrel to be so loose, yet shoot fairly consistent.  I had just shot a Field Target Match in Huntsville, Alabama where I shot 50 on a 60 shot course with the CR-X.  I did notice that the barrel had a significant amount of droop at the end compared with other CR-X’s that I had looked at over the past year or so.   
Anyway, Matthew and I went up to David Slades place in Minor Hill, Tn  to pick up his HW 97.  When we arrived, David went right to work on my CR-X.  It was only a matter of minutes before David had the rifle apart and the barrel off.  The barrel was threaded into the receiver and has an air port that must line up on the bottom with the lower part of the receiver.  Otherwise, the rifle would loose power or possibly not shoot at all.  David cleaned everything up inside and reinstalled the barrel with the port properly aligned.  Then he added some blue Loctite to hold the barrel in place.  Once that was done he replaced a grub screw in my muzzle break that someone before me had over tightened.  David reassembled the rifle and we gave her a shot or two through the chronograph.  It was interesting to see the velocity increase from 935 fps to 969 fps with JSB 8.4 grain pellets. 

After finishing with the CR-X we had a very nice visit with David Slade.  He let us check out some of the great new rifles that are in his stock from Theoben.  In case you didn’t know, David Slade is the importer for Theoben rifles for the USA.  He is also a great tuner and repairer of most major brands of airguns.  When you have time, check out his web site at http://hometown.aol.com/airgunwerk/index.html

When I got back home I did not have time to set up my rifle and check it out for a few days.  When I finally did, I found that the scope had to be shimmed quite a bit from the old set up.  The rifle did not seem to have the barrel droop that it once had anymore.  It was visibly evident when looking at the rifle from the side.  Once the scope was set up I took it out and shot for a bit.  With the higher velocity I decided to try some JSB 10.2 heavy pellets.  I benched the rifle and found that they were slightly more accurate than the JSB 8.4’s that I had been shooting.  At 25 yards benched, the rifle would shoot very tight one hole groups with the JSB heavies.  So, I proceeded to set everything up for the heavier pellets.  I normally use a computer program named Simple Trajectory Program by Brad Troyer.  If you don’t have it you can down load it for free from Brad’s site www.airguns.net.  The STP program is great because all you have to do is add in the data and the program will print out a chart for your particular pellet.  So, once my rifle was fixed, I printed another chart that I used to get in a little practice. 

So far, it looks like the rifle is shooting better than ever.  However, I still have not taken time to do much shooting at the longer distances (50-60 yards.)  I guess I’ll get around to some of that soon.  As a matter of fact, it seems like a good time to do it now!  So, I’ve got to get going… I’ve got a CR-X that needs shooting!!

Harold
North Alabama