Posts Tagged ‘FWB’
B.B. takes a day off!
by B.B. Pelletier
Announcement: Guy Roush is this week’s winner of Pyramyd Air’s Big Shot of the Week on their facebook page. He’ll receive a $50 Pyramyd Air gift card. Congratulations!
Guy Roush is the BSOTW — for the second time.
Today, I was supposed to show you a thrilling “fix” for a recent problem I’ve been having with an unnamed but very popular airgun. That pins it down, doesn’t it?
I won’t tell you what I’m working on because the work is not yet done. I need more time. You see, a lot of the time, I guess right about something and it turns out well, so I can report it as I fix it. That didn’t happen today. Today, it all went south and, for the life of me, I could not figure out why. Oh, I’ll figure it out in time, but I can’t report an unsuccessful project while I’m in the middle of it, because many of you get anxious for me. Then, you start giving me suggestions and before we know it, some of you are inventing alternate universes in which everything turns out fine (as long as gravity is cancelled and we all walk on our hands!).
Well, I don’t want that. I don’t want it for you, and I sure don’t want it for me!
So, today I laid down my work and took a break because I was so stressed that I couldn’t hold a quarter-sized group with a gun that can usually hit Roosevelt’s head on a dime every time. I needed to back away from the problems I’m having with this gun and allow some time to pass before I tackle it again.
So, instead of me revealing yet another mystery that’s been solved, I would like to share some of my not-so-random thoughts with you.
First thought — bent barrels
For years, I’ve been wondering about bent airgun barrels. I’ve seen them and I know what can cause a barrel to bend, but also I know that there are several airgunners who are bending their barrels purposely to avoid the trouble of shimming their scopes or using adjustable scope mounts. Let’s call that “corrective” bending.
Bent barrels are such a problem that everyone talks about them. Over the years, I’ve seen several airgun barrels that were bent. The ones I’ve seen were all bent the same way. Someone broke open a breakbarrel and fired it with the barrel broken open. The barrel snaps up violently and bends upward at the point where it enters the baseblock. Shooters who have done this have told me it was an accident, but I believe they did it intentionally — just to see what it would look like.
At any rate, the barrel always bends the same way when this happens. And I know that many airgunners would like to know how to straighten (or correctively bend) their barrels. And they want to be able to do it without disassembling their guns — naturally!
I’ve read in books that you can see a bent barrel by how the light shines through it. Mac has told me that he’s straightened many airgun barrels and that it’s always possible to see the bend in the barrel by looking through the b0re at a stro0ng light source. I have certainly seen a bent barrel from the outside, but I have never seen what one looks like when looking through it like the books describe.
What can I do about all this? Well, how about I take a picture of the inside of a breakbarrel barrel before it is bent? And how about I shoot some groups with it and note where the point of impact is, relative to the aim point?
And then how about I intentionally fire the gun with the barrel broken open, and show what happens? More photos of the inside of the barrel, just to see what a bent barrel looks like from the inside. Then I try to shoot the same gun with the same sight setting and note where the pellet now impacts. This last part may be difficult, because the barrel can be bent up so far as to render the gun impossible to aim, so we may have to take this one as it comes.
Second thought — barrel straightening (and bending) jig
I’ve designed a very simple yet (I hope) effective barrel bending jig that can be made by anyone out of common stuff found at a hardware or home improvement store. And it should be able to work on an airgun with no more disassembly than taking the action out of the stock. So, after I bend the barrel of the test rifle, how about I use the homemade jig and (hopefully) bend the barrel straight, again?
Dave Schwesinger (of Air Rifle Specialists) said he used a picnic table to straighten his barrels. Kevin uses a willow tree, so my jig isn’t up against stiff competition for elegance.
If it works, I have a follow-on experiment. I own two breakbarrel springers that both shoot higher than the sights can compensate for, even though I can see no evidence of bent barrels on either one of them. If my jig works, how about I bend their barrels slightly down to get them to the point of aim again? And then conduct an accuracy test (before and after, of course) to see if a bent barrel can be accurate.
We know that bent firearm barrels are not accurate; because as they heat from firing, they “walk” their shots. But airguns don’t heat up as they shoot. Several years, ago Feinwerkbau actually made a 10-meter target pistol with a barrel that wrapped around the CO2 cylinder as a sort of joke. The joke was that pistol is just as accurate as a regular 10-meter pistol — or so says Robert Beeman. Well, if you can do that with a barrel, I think a slight bend won’t hurt. But I’ll test it, of course.
Even twisted in a spiral like this, this FWB C20 barrel still shoots straight. Image courtesy Blue Book Publications, Inc.
Third thought — reflections on the first two
This idea about reporting on airgun barrel bending has been brewing inside me for awhile. But I have some misgivings at the same time. What I don’t want to do with this, or any unusual procedure that I report in this blog, is to start a herd of lemmings all racing to bend their airgun barrels. Maybe 99 percent of you will take what I say with the grain of salt it deserves, but there’s always that lunatic fringe that likes to seize these concepts and race over the edge of the cliff with every new and unnatural thought that comes along.
Back in the 1990s, there was a trend of cutting off springer barrels in the hopes of making them shoot faster. The Cardew book demonstrated that a short barrel is all that’s needed to achieve top velocity in a springers, and the experts went to work quickly to say that any barrel length after the optimum velocity was reached just slowed the pellet back down again. Thousands of great barrels were ruined this way, and I think this is where some of the interest in the hillbilly crown job came about. I don’t want to start another trend like that one!
I don’t want to get the following message a year after I publish my report:
“I want to purchase a Frauhocken 500 breakbarrel air rifle, but I don’t want to build a barrel-bending jig. Can you recommend someone who can bend the barrel for me? It would be nice if the gun could just be shipped to them so they can bend the barrel before I get it. Also, have you ever thought of installing a Nitro Piston made for a Walther Talon Magnum in a Bronco? It seems to me that the Nitro Piston will speed up the Bronco just enough to make it interesting; and with the Bronco’s easy cocking effort, this would be the ideal plinker! Just a thought!”
The art of collecting airguns: Part 7
by B.B. Pelletier
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
My Ballard is a factory-made special-order rifle made in 1886. It looks almost new and the bore is pristine.
Today, I’ll report on my progress in getting the Marlin Ballard to shoot. I’ll tie that back to airgunning, because the same principles that drive the accurate firearm rifle will work there, as well.
In fact, today’s something of a shocker and a screamer. The shock comes from how badly I prepared the ammunition, and the screaming came when I saw the last two targets for the first time.
Preparation
To prepare to shoot the Ballard, two things must happen. First, the rifle was cleaned as soon as it returned from the range the last time it was shot. Because the barrel is so glass-smooth, it takes only a few minutes to clean. Then, it sits on display, proudly awaiting its next outing.
The second thing that must be done is the ammo must be prepared. I have not resized the cases before reloading them. Because they are always fired in the same rifle and in the same chamber, I have filed a notch in their base so each case is always oriented in the chamber the same way. They are loaded straight into the breech with the notch at 12 o’clock.
The cases were deprimed, the primer pockets were then cleaned and Federal large rifle primers were inserted into each case. Then, I ran a belling tool into the case to open the throat to receive the new bullet. Next, all 40 cases received a fresh charge of H4198 powder. I’m using an RCBS Uniflow powder measure, and it was easy to set it at the 17 grains of powder I determined last session would be the optimum charge.
I’m still using the original Winchester cases that I determined were slightly too short for the rifle’s chamber. But, they’re all I have and they’re on their third loading right now.
The key to today’s test was to see if I could detect a difference in accuracy between the sized bullet that measures 0.379″ and the as-cast bullet that measures 0.381 inches. With everything else being the same, I figured a 10-shot group would show the difference, if there is any.
Trouble, trouble, mega trouble!
Never have I had so many difficulties loading a few straight-wall rifle cartridges. The 20 sized and lubricated bullets went together with their cartridges pretty quick and without any problems; but, when it came time for the as-cast and finger-lubed bullets, it was like juggling flasks of nitroglycerin. Some of the finger-lubed bullets got stuck in the seating die from the excess lubricant around the bullet. I had to disassemble the dies several times and drive out the stuck bullet out. I assembled the die again, and that caused variations in the overall cartridge length.
Another problem I had was that the nose punch in the seating die has the incorrect taper for the bullet I’m using. It cut a ring on every one of the 40 lead bullets I loaded. This was the worst lot of ammo I’ve ever made, and it showed.
Each of these problems has to be addressed and fixed in the future. Right now, they’re causing me to make ammo that isn’t too pretty.
Those cartridges should all be the same overall length. Having to constantly disassemble the dies to remove stuck bullets caused this. This is sloppy ammo that shouldn’t shoot well. Notice the file marks in the base of each case that are used to index the case to the chamber.
The ring below the flat nose of the bullet shouldn’t be there. It was caused by an improperly shaped nose punch in the bullet-seating die. The fix is to send several bullets to RCBS, the die maker so they can cut a nose punch that’s matched to the shape of this bullet. This is one more problem that detracts from the accuracy of this reloaded round.
Excuses, excuses!
With all of these excuses, I’m sure you expect another mediocre report. Don’t! The gun did very well in spite of all I did to derail it. The day was perfect, without a breath of air, so 100-yard shooting was very easy.
As always, the rifle was rested on an MTM rifle rest on my MTM shooting bench. The bulls are 3-7/8 inches in diameter and perfect for these sights at 100 yards. My front sight element is an aperture, so the trick is to center the bull inside it and level the bubble in the spirit level to cancel any cant.
The sized bullets were in the first group of 10. They gave me an average target.
Well, at least they’re all in the black. Ten sized bullets made this mediocre group at 100 yards.
Then, I switched to the unsized bullets. I expected a thorough trouncing of the sized bullets, but it didn’t happen. In fact, the two targets look very similar. And, I threw one shot out of the black!
The unsized bullets were slightly worse than the sized bullets.
So, what gives?
I’m sitting there wondering what I could do to improve this rather mundane performance, when it hit me. I wasn’t close enough to the rear aperture! I would have to hold my eye up close so the most light possible comes through the tiny peep hole.
Also, I could pay more attention to the bubble in the spirit level with my eye closer to the peep hole, because I could now see the bubble better. You would be surprised to see how much cant you normally put on a rifle if you haven’t got a bubble to check yourself. I found that it felt like the rifle was tilted to the left when the bubble was actually leveled. My natural inclination to hold the rifle resulted in it being tilted far to the right.
Second targets
Now that I sorted out how to shoot, it was time to shoot the second set of targets. This is where the surprise was.
Eight sized bullets went through the group in the bull. This is real progress!
Seven bullets went through the center of the bullseye! These are the unsized bullets.
Analyzing the targets
I’ll cut to the chase. I don’t think I can really tell whether the unsized bullet is more accurate or not. Seven out of the 10 bullets made a group that measures 0.835 inches between centers. However, the actual group size of that target is 2.609 inches.
The best sized bullet group measures 1.437 inches for 8 shots and 2.55 inches for all 10 shots. That’s too close to call. But since the unsized group is not that much larger than the sized group, and because my sloppy reloading can easily explain the difference, I think the larger bullet is the better one. My lubrication process has to change, because I can’t keep disassembling the bullet-seating die all the time. I need to find a way to lube the bullets so it leaves the grease in the grooves instead of all over the side of the bullet. I guess I’ll break down and try the classic “cake cutter” method, where the bullets are stood in a flat pan and melted grease is poured in the pan until it reaches the top groove. The grease is allowed to re-harden, then an old cartridge with the end cut off is used to cut each bullet out of the hardened lubricant.
Also, I need to remember to begin my sighting procedure the right way next time, with my eye close to the rear aperture. I have to remember to level the bubble for every shot.
Mac suggested that leaving the powder loose in the case might have been a contributor to fliers. The next time I reload, every case will get a Dacron wad over the powder. I use one in my .43 Spanish, and it works well.
Lasting impressions
I’d forgotten to take a spotting scope to the range on this day, so I was unaware of what the final two groups looked like until I walked up on them. Seeing a large hole in the center of the bull on a 100-yard target is thrilling, to say the least. I refer to good shots as “screamers,” and I’m darned if I didn’t do a lot of screaming when I saw those two targets.
All my life, I’ve read articles about the great marksmen of the late 19th century, and I’ve looked at the targets that accompanied their articles. To put my shooting into perspective, Harry Pope, the great barrelmaker and world champion rifle shot, once put 10 rounds into a 0.20-inch group at 200 yards. Talk about a screamer!
This group is a representation because the original was lost. This was scanned from the book, The Story of Pope’s Barrels, by Ray M. Smith, copyrighted 1960 and published by The Stackpole Company. Revised edition 1993 printed by R&R Books.
Pope shot this group with his .33-47 rifle, which was a breechloader that was also a muzzleloader. The loaded cartridge was first loaded into the breech in the normal way, then a bullet was loaded from the muzzle and rammed down to the top of the cartridge. That way the “fins” of lead resulting from the rifling were not on the base of the bullet when it exited the muzzle, and that has proven to increase accuracy. Should we be muzzle-loading pellets? I think not.
Pope shot the famous group and walked down to the 200-yard target to retrieve it. He set it on the ground and measured it with the calipers he always carried; but, since the wind had picked up, he held the target down with his knee. After measuring it, he stood up, but before he could grab the target, the wind caught it and dropped it in the nearby river.
Unlike Elmer Keith’s famous 400-yard elk kill with a .44 Magnum revolver, nobody doubts the truth of this story. Harry Pope had the reputation of being scrupulously honest in all his dealings; and, if anyone was ever going to shoot a group like that, he was the one most likely to do it.
I never expect to come close to this kind of accuracy, but it would be pleasing some day to shoot 10 shots into an inch at 200 yards. I know benchrest shooters do it all the time, but I would feel more fulfilled doing it with this 125-year-old rifle. It was good enough for target shooters in 1886, and that makes it good enough for me today.
How does this relate to airguns?
I think that’s a good question that deserves an answer. In airgunning, there are certain air rifles with a reputation for extreme accuracy. Some, like the underlever TX200, require technique to shoot this well, while others are more forgiving.
Some of these accurate airguns are even vintage and no longer made. The FWB 124 would fall into that category, as would an Air Arms Shamal PCP. We’ve discussed subjects like extreme accuracy, and many of us seem to be in pursuit of the smallest groups possible. It’s my hope that by sharing what I’ve had to go through to obtain good accuracy from my old Ballard, that you’ll be able to apply some of these same things to your airguns.
I haven’t even mentioned sorting my bullets by weight to this point, but that’s coming. Now that I have a good load (equate that to finding a good pellet and the right power setting) and have learned the importance of good shooting technique like sighting and cant reduction (equate that to the artillery hold and also using a bubble level on your airgun), I’m ready to take this quest to a whole new level.
I admit that I do enjoy shooting this firearm a lot, which is the main reason I do it. Kevin has just shown that my rifle might be worth over $12,000, but I’m darned if that will make me get rid of it. Sure, it’s beautiful to look at, but seeing those tight 10-shot groups at 100 yards is more beautiful to me. Townsend Whelen said it all when he said, “Only accurate rifles are interesting.” Well, this one fascinates me. But it is just as easy to be fascinated by a Weihrauch HW50S that cannot seem to shoot multiple pellets anywhere but to the same place.
The art of collecting airguns – Part 7
by B.B. Pelletier
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
This blog has done a lot to stimulate my own airgun hobby. I told you about the lucky accident that got me a 19th century crank-wound shooting gallery dart gun for Christmas, now it’s time for an update.
Like many of you, I cannot get out to as many flea markets, garage sales and auctions as I would like. In fact, I get to almost none of them! Instead, I have to look for alternative means of finding airguns for my collection. One of the best ways, and I have documented it already in this series, is watching the airgun classified ads and the other buying and selling websites on the internet.
We’ve discussed the dangers of dealing with people you don’t know. I told you about how I came in possession of my Walther LGV Olympia target rifle for only $425. It was a rifle advertised on the Yellow Forum classified ads website, but I already knew the seller was an honorable man. So, there was no risk dealing with him.
Well, two weeks ago, I did it again, only this time I scored a double! Allow me to tell you the tale.
One place I watch for buys is a website called Texas Gun Trader. It’s mostly a firearm website that gun owners in Texas use to buy, sell and trade guns. Because it’s all in-state and because this is Texas and therefore free from restrictive state legislation, this practice is still legal. There are thousands of entries on this site, but I seldom find anything that I want, because its mostly new guns, black rifles and plastic pistols. But, by watching i, I do catch the few good buys that come along — most of the time.
As an airgunner, I know and love the Sheridan company. Did you know that back in the 1950s, they also made a firearm? They made just over 15,000 single-shot .22 rimfire pistols that were low cost ($17.95) and originally meant to be thrown into tackle boxes and under truck seats. Remember, those were the 1950s, and freedoms abounded back then.
Anyway, the Sheridan Knocabout, as it was called, was never a star in its day. But today, an airgun collector may have an interest in owning a firearm made by one of the best-recognized airgun companies in America. I certainly do. It’s just the reverse of wanting to own a “Winchester” model 427 spring rifle, even though you know it was made in Germany by Diana.
A couple weeks ago, I saw that I’d just missed a Knocabout pistol posted a few hours ago on Texas Gun Trader. It was up only a few hours before it sold, and the selling price was $185 — a good price if the gun’s in good shape, which this one was. Better than that, it also came with a genuine Sheridan leather holster marked with the Knocabout name. That’s much harder to find and probably adds considerable value to the package. But I’d missed it — darn!
So, I went over to to the firearm auction website, gunbroker.com and searched on the name Knocabout. To my utter astonishment, there was one listed! I’ve done this numerous times before and always came up empty-handed, but this time I struck gold. The listing was for a gun in excellent condition, the original box with the owner’s instructions and another pamphlet about shooting. And, beside that, it also came with a leather holster!
The Sheridan Knocabout is a single-shot .22 rimfire pistol from the 1950s. This one is in excellent condition.
The small stud through the front of the triggerguard is pressed down to open the action for loading. The action opens via a spring, and the cartridge is ejected automatically.
Slightly over 15,000 pistols were produced. This is an early one.
The box is the only place that has the name. It cannot be found on the pistol. Note the unusual spelling that led to my good fortune.
The holster is made to fit the pistol. It’s much more scarce than the pistol, as not many of the $18 utility-grade pistols had $3 holsters bought for them.
Boring to anyone but a collector, the markings on the holster positively identify it.
The starting bid for this gun on the auction site was $250, which is high for a gun alone in excellent condition, but only perhaps slightly over half of what a boxed gun with a holster is worth. Then I looked at the number of times the listing had been viewed. It was less than 50! Nobody was looking at this gun! Want to know why?
It was hidden from view because the name Knocabout is a misspelling of the word knockabout! The second “K” is missing. Just on a whim, I did a search on the term Sheridan Knockabout and I found another gun in excellent condition listed on the same website, but there were already 12 bids on it. The gun I wanted to buy had nobody looking at it, while the same gun, minus the box, instructions and holster, had lots of interest.
This is a search strategy I’ve written about before, and it’s so powerful that you really should try it. Search for Daisys all day long, then search for Daiseys. You’ll find them. There are almost as many Crossman airguns as there are genuine Crosmans. Internet search engine optimizers know that misspellings are so common they must be incorporated into addresses, so you should learn to use this powerful tool, too.
I waited out the bid cycle and won the gun, submitting the only bid it received. I then made arrangements to pay and have the gun shipped to my local Texas FFL dealer. Because the gun was coming from another state, I had to register it through a licensed dealer in my state. That’s the law. The gun that was listed on the Texas Gun Trader was located in Dallas and would not have had to be registered because it was being sold between residents of the same state. That’s the way the federal law is written, and only a few states have created additional laws on top of it. Not Texas.
Okay, so now I go to my gun dealer to arrange the transfer of the gun. I pay them a $30 transfer fee and they arrange to receive the gun and register it to me. While I’m talking to the salesman there, I mention I’m into airguns, and he tells me about an airgun he’s had for years, but it no longer works. His father bought it many years before, and they’ve had some wonderful times shooting it together. I tell him that I will help him get it running again, and asked him to bring it into the shop so I can look at it. He said he would because he’s been looking for someone who knows something about airguns. I assured him that one way or another we’ll get his rifle fixed.
While we talked, I tried to guess what kind of gun he had. It was a breakbarrel for sure, but he couldn’t remember the brand or model. He thought it was from Germany. When I got home, I told Edith about my encounter and about the breakbarrel spring gun that stopped working (wouldn’t shoot a pellet out the barrel) and simultaneously we guessed that it might be an FWB 124. That would make perfect sense with the gun suddenly stopping like that, because the 124 had a bad formula for the piston seal and eventually all failed.
So, last week I went back to the shop to register my new pistol that had just arrived. After everything was finished, he showed me his late model Beeman FWB 124. It was the final model model that has no palm swell, has the aluminum trigger blade and the serial number is above 40,000. Oh, boy! According to Jim Maccari, this is a gun that will respond quite well to one of his tuneup kits. I told the guy that and I told him what his rifle was worth. I figured he would be delighted to have this cherished old favorite back in operation. Then, IT happened. You know what I mean. He asked me if I knew of anybody who might be interested in buying his rifle.
This 124 just snuck up on me at a gun store. And, yes, the scope is all wrong but I’m going to try it anyway.
I’d assumed that since it was his father’s rifle there was a lot of emotional attachment, and I would just be happy to get it running for them again. I never imagined he might want to sell it. So, I offered a fair price that was about a tuneup kit’s value less than the price I had told him it was worth. Long story short, I bought the rifle. That’s what I meant by this tale being about a double score. Not only did I get the great Sheridan Knocabout pistol, I also got an FWB 124 that I can now tune for you and share as part 14 to the FWB 124 series. I never planned this or even thought about it, but you can bet I moved plenty fast when the opportunity presented itself.
I also told the seller to watch this blog; and if he had regrets or second thoughts, I would sell his rifle back for what I paid. I usually do that if there’s a possibility of any emotional attachment.
So, this was a great find on two nice collectible guns: one is a firearm with an airgun connection, and the other is a fine vintage air rifle that has a lot of potential to be a nice shooter after I fix it.
All of which leads me to the rest of this report. Here I have some things for you if you’re a collector. All the time the story of the Knocabout and 124 was happening to me privately, another story of airgun acquisition has been unfolding right on this blog in front of you! I’m talking about the Whiscombe JW 75 serial No. 5 that was up for sale that I announced in the comments section. That rifle, which as of today has not been sold, has had the interest of two of our active readers. Maybe it will sell and maybe not, but it’s a story of acquisition that’s happening right now.
The rifle has a Tyrolean stock and is the same breakbarrel/underlever design as my own Whiscombe. The owner of this .22 caliber rifle wasn’t satisfied with the accuracy he was getting at 50 yards, so he did some experimental work that lead to the gun being returned to Whiscombe for another barrel. There’s more to it than that, but those are the highlights. Since Whiscombes don’t come on the market that often, I wanted to make sure all of you knew about this one. Contact me and I’ll put you in touch with the seller if you’re seriously interested.
There’s also the cased air cane made by Reilly of London that has all the tools, plus the pump and everything is in the original wooden case with maker’s label. That gun is another costly collectible that has been in play since last November. And, it’s still available the last time I checked.
In the collectible airgun world, it doesn’t get much better than a 19th century cased air cane from London…with all the tools.
And, now for a new prize that hasn’t been seen for almost a decade. Do you remember the article Steel Dreams, about the attempt to build a spring rifle in .22 caliber that would exceed the speed of sound? Well, that rifle is now available. Read the article and see if this is something you’re interested in, because it isn’t a rifle to shoot a lot. If you are serious, email me, and I’ll forward your message to the seller.
It’s a bruiser! One of two handmade guns designed to take .22 caliber pellets through the sound barrier.
Since this report is about collectible airguns, I want to make sure you all know about the best finds that come to my attention. You can do your own searching, as I’ve outlined above and good luck to you, but sometimes there are special things that are directed to me, alone. When I see them, I try to get the word out. If you’re a serious airgun collector, keep an eye on this blog and neat things will pop up from time to time.
Looking back at the FWB C-20 pistol – Part 3
by B.B. Pelletier
Today, guest blogger Pete Zimmerman gives us his third and final report on the C-20 pistol…performance!
If you’d like to write a guest post for this blog, please email us.
Bloggers must be proficient in simple html, know how to take clear photos and size them for the internet (if their post requires them), and they must use proper English. We’ll edit each submission, but we won’t work on any submission that contains gross misspellings and/or grammatical errors.
by Pete Zimmerman
FWB C-20
A C-20 costs well over $1,000 when I got mine, and its descendant, the P44, is close to twice the price today. For that money, you ought to get a gun that out-shoots your own skills but also one that makes it easy to shoot the best you can. Using a top match pistol, the shooter can’t complain that misses are the gun’s fault. The first few targets shot with such a gun provide a crash course in no-excuse humility.
The pistol promises that the pellet will go through the X-ring in the middle of the 10-ring if you deliver the perfect shot. Time after time. Of course, some guns prefer one brand, product line, weight or pellet head diameter better than others. And, some pellets are inconsistent in weight and balance coming out of the tin, so getting to Nirvana, where misses are only the fault of the shooter, may take a little effort.
To point out one thing, the 9 and 10 rings on an NRA or ISSF air pistol target are really quite forgiving. Any decent match pistol using any match pellet should result in a group smaller than the 10 ring from a bench or in the hands of a good marksman. Scott Pilkington, the moderator of the Target Talk forum says that it isn’t worth your time to test. I found out that it is.
For this article, I set up a portable Workmate tool kit and vise combination on top of my shooting table. I opened the vise jaws a bit and anchored the gun by putting the gas tank in the vise grooves. I protected the tank with a bit of old foam rubber. The pistol can still rotates around the long axis of the CO2 tank but can’t move up and down. Small rotations of the gun change the cant angle and the impact point, so I put a small spirit level across the action to check position. I made no attempt to aim the rig to line up the sights on the bull. The point was to shoot groups that hit a piece of target paper…somewhere. I moved the target, not the rig, when I changed the type of pellet.
For test rounds, I had a grab bag of miscellaneous pellets sitting around from three manufacturers: RWS, H&N, and Crosman.
Start with the top performer, and another one not so good:
A 5-round group using RWS R-10 pellets, and another with H&N Match 4.49mm pellets sold under the Pilkington house brand.
The heavy RWS R-10 Rifle pellets (0.53 grams) delivered not only a one-hole 5-shot group, but a near zero-jitter group extraordinarily close to the target sample delivered with the pistol. The hole was small enough that a pellet won’t fall through the hole. It’s almost exactly as good as the proof target that came with the gun. The 4.49mm-diameter H&N Match pellets were significantly worse, resulting in a fairly open one-hole group that looks like a two-hole-with-flier because I bumped the Workmate after the first shot and took 5 more shots at the new aim point. Forget the “flier”; the group is still far too large for this pistol.
Meisterkugeln rifle pellets tested against 4.50mm H&N Match Pellets. Victory to the RWS brand.
The R-10’s less expensive stable mate, the Meisterkugeln Rifle pellet, also delivered a single-hole group, almost as perfect as the R-10s. On the other hand, the Haendler and Nattermann Match pistol pellet with a 4.50mm diameter head resulted in a ragged single-hole group, indicating that the C-20 might just not like H&N ammunition in its barrel. Not shown is a test of R-10 pistol pellets, which were almost as good as the heavier R-10s. In the C-20, heavier is better.
I gave the H&N 4.49s a second try, and then got the day’s surprise when I shot some cheapie Crossman Copperheads.
I decided to give the 4.49mm H&Ns another try. After all, they shoot extremely well from my IZH-46M. No joy. A very ragged single-hole group, with a diameter fully 3x that of a pellet diameter. Then, I noticed in the bottom of my pellet drawer a plastic box with a hundred or so Crosman Copperhead pellets, picked up a year or two ago over a weekend when I was otherwise out of ammunition.
The five shots landed in a single-hole group no larger than 1.5x the diameter of a pellet. I’m impressed and surprised.
I don’t contend that another batch of those cheapie pellets would shoot the same as the few that I tested for this post. But what the heck, it’s a better 5-shot group than either size of H&N pellets delivered.
This round of testing is enough to convince me that with current production pellets, the C-20 likes the RWS brand a lot more than the competition, and that it prefers a heavy pellet to a lighter one. I’ll probably save some money by using Meisterkugeln for practice and R-10s for when I finally enter some matches.
One thing’s clear: my C-20 will out shoot me and might still be suitable for international-level competition as long as the temperature remains constant on the range. All those world-beating CO2 pistols? They didn’t turn into trash when the first PCP guns hit the market. Quite probably only the top few hundred shooters in the world will ever need a better weapon, even in competition.
I have concluded that my worst problem is that the C-20s grip doesn’t fit my hand well and allows the gun to shift right as it’s fired. A lot of putty didn’t cure it. I’ll be in Germany soon and will have Thomas Rink of Rink Formgriffe make me an absolutely custom grip from a casting of my hand. If I have the bread, I might let that be the butter on a new Steyr LP-10 Compact, which weighs almost 250gm less than the C-20. A savings of almost half a pound! That will be an advantage for my medically damaged right arm and shoulder muscles.
Looking back at the FWB C-20 pistol – Part 2
by B.B. Pelletier
Today, guest blogger Pete Zimmerman continues his report on the C-20 pistol, as he shows us the technical side of his target gun.
If you’d like to write a guest post for this blog, please email us.
Bloggers must be proficient in simple html, know how to take clear photos and size them for the internet (if their post requires them), and they must use proper English. We’ll edit each submission, but we won’t work on any submission that contains gross misspellings and/or grammatical errors.
by Pete Zimmerman
FWB C-20
Overall impression
The C-20 is a good sized gun. By catalog specs, it’s 16.5 inches (419.1mm) long, and weighs in at 2.5 lbs. (1150 grams). The grip looks much like a Morini competition grip, but old FWB parts lists say that it is not (at least not technically) from the Morini factory.
The palm shelf is held by two small Allen-head screws and is readily adjustable. Unfortunately, it’s not easily fixed precisely in place unless you have three hands — one to grip the pistol, one to hold the palm shelf in place against the gripping hand and a third to wield the wrench to tighten the Allen screws. (Thomas Rink’s custom grips have a patented palm shelf that can be adjusted with only one hand!)
Apparently, the C-20 was the first FWB pistol in which the angle of the grip is also adjustable. The two Allen screws that hold the grip together can be loosened to permit the grip angle to be changed through about a 10-deg. arc. This is a major improvement; without it my scores would suffer!
The inside of the C-20’s grip. Allen bolts through the two slots let the grip rotate approximately 10 deg. forward and backward to help the shooter get to a good rake angle. It’s crude, but it works.
The loading system is extremely easy. The shooter pulls up the charging cover until it reaches full stop. The breech is now open, the bolt retracted, the gas system charged and the trigger cocked. Between breech and bolt is a small channel — pellet-sized. The shooter simply puts a pellet in the channel and closes the cover. The bolt moves forward, and a small o-ring seals it in the breech. The gun is ready to fire. Remember…competition arms have no safety, so the weapon is live! There’s one other problem. You cannot see the pellet once it enters the breech, so it’s too easy to lose focus, load a second pellet, and then shoot both. This is not a good idea. I know from experience.
We’re looking at a pellet in the loading tray with the bolt behind it; the charging gate is open. The black o-ring on the bolt is the only seal that’s failed in the 16 or 17 years I’ve owned the gun. They’re not cheap but are readily available in the US. I got mine from Pilkington Competition.
Dry-firing is extremely easy to set up. After opening the breech and charging the system, simply push on the tab extending out from the left side of the action. The trigger can be pulled completely as if you were shooting a live round, but all that happens is a click when the sear disengages. To return to live fire, open the breech, cock the gun, push the tab in the other direction and close the breech. You can shift from live to dry firing while there’s a pellet in the bore!
Sights
The rear sight is fully adjustable for windage and elevation with click stops marked in the conventional European way. To move a shot that lands right of the target, turn the windage knob toward R (right or rechts). The rule of thumb is to turn the knob “into” the error. “Up” and “down” are marked as “H” and “T” for hoch and tief in German. The width of the notch on the rear sight is adjusted by putting a small Allen wrench through a whole in a shaft and then turning it until the desired size is reached. I haven’t been able to check how much backlash there is in the crucial micrometer screws, but I think it’s about one click.
A good look at the very adjustable rear sight. The only adjustment not readily available is the depth of the notch.
The pistol is packaged with several front sight inserts of varying widths. For the first time on the C-20, FWB also milled in grooves on the barrel so the sight radius can be adjusted. Shortening the sight radius theoretically ought to reduce the precision of your aim, but it also tends to reduce small “adjustments” (lets call them correctly, the shakes!) in your hold, so for the moment I’ve moved the front sight to the shortest possible radius. The standard ISSF AP target is so big that the small reduction in aiming precision is negligible compared to the large improvement in apparent steadiness! I then chose a sight insert which appears from my shooting eye to be about the same width as the diameter of the bull. I then adjusted the notch width to have an apparent size twice that of the front sight. When I focus and concentrate, this consistently gets me 10-shot string scores between 82 and 90, mostly around 85. Your mileage, like mine, may differ.
The front sight has been moved backwards from its “standard” position near the front of the barrel. I might move it even farther back.
Trigger
Ah, the beautiful FWB trigger. It breaks with a snap as sharp as breaking the thin stem on a fine crystal wine glass. There is no sense of motion as the shooter applies pressure to the blade, until the gun fires. And, if it’s properly adjusted, the blade instantly hits the trigger stop, so that there’s no motion afterwards, either.
The trigger on the C-20 is very highly evolved from the ones on the C-2 and C-10. There are more adjustments, including first-stage length and weight, ratio between first and second stages, firing point and trigger stop. You can also loosen the large screw on the trigger shaft to rotate the trigger blade to any angle, left or right around the shaft, and can move the entire shaft to the right or left, forward and backward. Well, actually, if there’s anything on the entire pistol I really don’t like it’s the adjustment that allows the trigger blade to rotate on its shaft. It seems to me that I can never get it locked down so the blade angle doesn’t shift over 50 or 100 shots. It’s a constant battle between me, the trigger and the little multi-tool with screwdriver that comes with the gun.
I haven’t fired a C-2 or C-10, but the instruction manuals for both pistols are available online at the FWB site. The diagrams of the older generation triggers show simpler mechanisms with fewer adjustments. This may be a good thing, as making too many adjustments is a fast way for a shooter new to the weapon or the sport to get into really big trouble.
The manuals for any FWB gun ever made along with exploded parts diagrams and complete parts lists are readily available on the FWB site, which has both English and German versions. Choose on the home page.
Looking back at the FWB C-20 pistol – Part 1
by B.B. Pelletier
Pete Zimmerman has been both a reader and contributor to this blog and many of you know that his interest lies with 10-meter shooting. Today, he’s going to begin telling us about his special target pistol.
If you’d like to write a guest post for this blog, please email us.
Bloggers must be proficient in simple html, know how to take clear photos and size them for the internet (if their post requires them), and they must use proper English. We’ll edit each submission, but we won’t work on any submission that contains gross misspellings and/or grammatical errors.
by Pete Zimmerman
FWB C-20
First, some history
The first air pistol that I owned I inherited from my father-in-law, who gave me his ancient Diana 5-series pistol. By the time I got the old breakbarrel gun, its barrel had been chewed to pieces by 20 years of summer afternoons when my wife’s family shot darts at a target. But it was fun to shoot with pellets until it finally died. Then, I bought a Diana 6-series semi-match pistol when I visited Hamburg. That was a great gun to learn on because it had a recoil-compensating system, so the slap-smash recoil pattern of the old five-series pistol was gone. Even so, it was too heavy, and took too much effort in the cocking.
That problem of the double recoil from airguns had to be solved if really high accuracy in a match was ever to be achieved. Two post-World War II German companies found ways to make an air pistol almost recoilless. The Dianawerk used two opposed pistons, one going forward, and the other backward, in what was called the Giss system — after its inventor. If both pistons could be timed identically, then the major part of the spring recoil would be equalized out. Feinwerkbau took a different approach. It decided to mount the entire action on rails so the recoil energy would be coupled into a heavy, freely sliding sledge that recoiled smoothly so the gun didn’t bounce. For FWB, this was an adaptation of a match rifle action of the highly successful 300 series. From its introduction in 1965 until the late 1980s, the FWB-65 ruled international competition; in 1992, shooters using FWB guns took all the airgun medals at the Olympics. Only well into the 1990s was the FWB-65 definitively surpassed — by guns from the same company.
Despite mechanical compensation, my old Diana match pistol still had a noticeable kick, and even the FWB-65 was not perfectly still. So, how to make a better match pistol? The obvious idea was to get rid of the piston and the spring; the first advance was high-quality, single-stroke pneumatic power, but those guns still had the disadvantage of having to be cocked shot-by-shot. Easy enough for a short time, but over the length of a match it can be fatiguing and distracting.
Could cocking be eliminated entirely? It wasn’t a new idea. Carbon dioxide had been used to shoot pellets for decades; usually, the gas came packaged in the standard 12-gram capsules, much like those used to make seltzer water. But there’s a problem: it takes 85 shots to complete a men’s match: 15 sighters and 60 shots for score. If you’re successful, a further 10 for the finals. To be certain that gas pressure doesn’t drop at the end, just when the competitive pressure is at its peak, a shooter would like to have at least 10 more shots in reserve for a total of 95 shots to complete a match in comfort. The problem was that those little 12 gram capsules were just too small. The solution was bulk-fill CO2 in a tank under the barrel of the pistol — a system patented by Austrians Emil Senfter and Viktor Idl. Their partnership foundered, and Senfter took the basic design first to Walther and later to Steyr-Mannlicher, resulting in the world-beating Walther CP-1 and Steyr LP-1. Idl approached FWB, which then produced the C-2. Much of this information comes directly from some e-mails I had with Frauke Umdasch of Steyr, where Herr Senfter remains on the payroll.
The FWB Model 2 and the Walther and Steyr pistols look almost like triplets as a result.
Enough history! On to the pistol…in tomorrow’s blog.
Note the barely visible rocker just under the charging cover. That’s used to set the gun for dry firing or live fire.
