Posts Tagged ‘repeater’
Walther P38 CO2 BB pistol: Part 3
by Tom Gaylord, a.k.a. B.B. Pelletier
Walther P38 CO2 BB pistol.
I put this report of the Walther P38 CO2 BB pistol ahead of some others because one of our readers did a bad thing and got himself into trouble with his gun. I want to address that today before I get to the accuracy test.
I mentioned in Part 2 that while it’s possible to remove the slide from this pistol, it isn’t recommended. Well, blog reader Gregory did so anyway, and now he can’t get his pistol back together. I tried to help him by taking my slide off, and I lost the spring that powers the slide altogether.
Umarex USA couldn’t help
Since Gregory lives outside the U.S., I called Umarex USA for him so they could advise me how the spring goes back in the gun. Gregory has his spring, so all he needs to know is how to get it back in the gun. But Andrew at Umarex USA told me they do not support this gun, aside from exchanging it. So, they have no parts on hand, nor do they have any technical data relating to it. And, if you take the slide off, that’s not authorized, and they will not fix it under warranty.
Pyramyd Air steps in
Next, I called Pyramyd Air because this will become their problem sooner or later. I spoke with Gene Salvino, the service manager, who is also a firearms gunsmith and familiar with the disassembly of the firearm P38. I walked him through the problem and, sure enough, the spring popped out when he removed the slide. But he didn’t give up. Several guns later, he was able to reinstall the spring and get the gun working again.
Gene says he’ll try to get Umarex USA to stock the spring because, like me, he sees it as something people are going to need. He went through four guns before he was able to get a good spring back in and get the gun working again, so this is definitely a design problem.
Assembling the gun
Now we know beyond a doubt that you should not attempt to take the slide off the frame of this gun. But for Gregory’s sake, I want to show where the spring goes. I’m doing this without having seen the spring — just the place where it goes. But Gene confirmed that I was right about that.
The slide has been taken off this gun. That long slot in the right side of the frame is where the slide return spring goes. It’s held in the gun by the fit of the slide to the frame. You can see two cutouts at the top of the long slot in this photo. When the spring is installed, it must be compressed enough to allow the slide projection to enter the frame through the rear slot (the one on the left).
The slide is slipped over the front of the frame and pulled to the rear. A projection on the inside of the slide passes through a slot cut in the frame for this purpose. The long spring has to be compressed behind (to the left of) the place where the projection enters the frame.
The slide has a projection on the right side that slips through a cutout in the frame when assembling the gun. Getting the slide back on is simple once you understand how it fits. First, the front of the slide is put over the front of the frame, where it aligns very easily. Then, pull the slide all the way to the rear of the frame as far as it will go. At that point, the projection on the inside of the slide is aligned with the cutout in the frame, so it’s ready to be installed. You just push down on the top of the slide to get the hammer out of the way, while pushing the slide forward and it goes back into position very smoothly. After that, the barrel inserts into the front of the slide and the barrel latch is swung closed, locking the gun together.
The trick
The trick in all of this is to insert the spring into the slot on the right side of the frame, and to compress it so it’s behind the slide projection once it slips into the frame. You’ll need a thin tool for this; and, according to Gene, it’s a skill that takes some time to master. I don’t have a spring to show you, but I’m presently working on finding or making a replacement.
What the spring does
The spring really isn’t that powerful. Think of a long ballpoint pen spring that is also very thin. It holds the slide in the forward position.
You can use the gun without the spring, which is what I’m going to do today. You just have to keep the muzzle pointed slightly down when shooting and you have to make certain that the slide is all the way forward before you pull the trigger. The slide moves extremely easily on the frame when the spring isn’t installed, and you can operate the pistol without it if you just pay attention to the slide’s position.
I function-fired the pistol many times, and the pistol operates as it should without the spring. Even the blowback works perfectly, as long as there’s a slight downward angle to the gun. Sometimes, the slide will not go all the way forward, so you have to push it the last quarter-inch; but you can do that with the thumb of your shooting hand. It isn’t a perfect solution by any means, but it beats cursing the darkness and being without your gun!
Loading revisited
I mentioned in Part 2 that you load the magazine one BB at a time. I said it wasn’t a problem as long as you kept the magazine oriented up so the BB could fall down inside after it entered the mag. Well, during this test I encountered one additional thing. You should hold your finger on the opposite side of the mag when loading; if you don’t, some BBs will pass straight through the top of the mag and fall out the other side.
Keep your finger over the hole on the opposite side of the magazine if you don’t want to lose BBs while loading.
Shooting for accuracy
The P38 is a blowback BB pistol — not traditionally the most accurate of air pistols. Where those pistols without blowback can have closer tolerances and a tighter barrel, these blowbacks have to leave a little room for the reliable operation of the slide and for the BBs that get blown into the barrel. So, they’re more for the shooting experience and less for precision.
Knowing that, I stepped off 12 feet from the Winchester Airgun Target Cube that I now use as a backstop and trap for all BB-gun tests. Of course, I had the cube positioned lower than my hand so the gun could be positioned downward. For targets, I decided to use Shoot-N-C bullseyes that were just applied to the front of the Target Cube. That made changing targets fast and easy.
I want to comment on the trigger-pull now. You never appreciate it until shooting for accuracy, and I was able to evaluate this one very well in today’s test. As I said earlier, the P38 has a trigger-pull that feels like a light double-action pull. That became very evident when I was shooting for accuracy. But the trigger also stacks at the end of the pull, just like a vintage Colt. The pull weight increases exponentially right before the gun fires, and that lets you control this trigger with precision. It takes some getting used to, but I’ve shot enough vintage Colts that I recognized it right away.
The Shoot-N-C target bulls were just applied to the front of the Winchester Airgun Target Cube. Very quick to change targets! This is a two-inch bull.
The first target revealed two things. First, the sights were hard to see against the target. I was using a center hold, and the black sights of the gun disappeared against the black bull. Second, the gun shoots a little low. I confirmed that with the second target and was able to raise the rounds by holding more of the front sight up above the rear sight.
The first target showed the pistol was shooting low, though it was hard to see the sights. I guess this 10-shot group measures just over one inch.
The second target was lit better, which allowed me to see the sights. This looks like another one-inch group.
Overall evaluation
The Walther P38 CO2 BB pistol is a realistic action pistol that delivers on performance. It should not be disassembled, as I have explained here; but if you just want a realistic action shooter, I think this is a gun to consider.
Walther P38 CO2 BB pistol: Part 2
by Tom Gaylord, a.k.a. B.B. Pelletier
Walther P38 CO2 BB pistol.
Falke stock restoration update
Before we begin looking at the Walther P38 CO2 BB pistol, I have an announcement. I feel like a kid who knows he is about to get his first BB gun! Doug Phillips, the man who is restoring the stock of my Falke 90 rifle (which I’m in the middle of testing), has been updating me weekly on the status of the project. He had to completely rebuild the section of the stock where the trigger is located, which on this gun is a very thin and complex wooden shelf that has holes for the front and rear triggerguard bolts, plus an enlarged hole for the trigger. Because this shelf was more than half missing, he had to completely redo it, including redrilling all the holes. It took him three attempts to get things in the right place, but he now tells me that they’re finally right.
But the real news is something that he didn’t tell me, but he showed me in a very small photo. The initials in the checkering on the left forearm panel are now gone. I was unable to tell they’d ever been there, though I’ll need to see the gun close up to know that for sure. And the grain in the walnut now stands out instead of being hidden by a cheap-looking layer of shellac.
All of the dents and scratches are gone as well. I’ll be writing a blog about this work when I get the gun back, but I wanted to share the progress with you now. I’m so grateful to blog reader Kevin for recommending Doug in the first place. I took plenty of before pictures, and Doug has taken pictures all through the restoration process, so you’ll get to see the project from start to finish. But, now, let’s get to today’s report.
Walther P38 CO2 BB pistol
One question that blog reader John asked after the first report: Can the gun be disassembled in the same way as the P38 firearm? The answer is a qualified “yes.” I should have showed that in Part 1, but since I didn’t, we’ll look at it now. There’s another lever on the left side of the gun that I didn’t mention last time. It’s at the forward edge of the frame, above and in front of the triggerguard. It’s the disassembly lever or what the owner’s manual calls the barrel catch lever. To disassemble the gun, rotate the rear of the catch down and forward until it stops. The barrel can then be pulled straight off the frame. As I recall, that’s exactly how the firearm came apart, as well.
To remove the barrel, swing the barrel catch lever down and forward until it stops. Then the barrel assembly slides straight out of the frame like this.
It’s possible to also take the slide off the gun, but it doesn’t serve any useful purpose, so I recommend against it. The barrel comes off to clear a jammed BB, but removing the slide doesn’t give you access to anything that you need on the gun.
Firing behavior
This gun has blowback! Although the slide is a smaller mass than on other pistols, it still comes back with a jolt — creating the simulation of recoil. The impulse is quick and sharp, unlike some other blowback guns that have bulkier slides.
The trigger is two-stage (non-adjustable). Stage one has more resistance than usual, making it almost feel like a single-stage trigger, but you’ll feel the start of the second stage if you persist. Stage one takes almost exactly 3 lbs. of pull and stage two breaks at between 7 lbs., 5 oz. and 8 lbs., 5 oz. I know that sounds heavy; but since this trigger feels more like a double-action pull than a single-action pull, it doesn’t seem that bad. Very few double-action guns have an 8-lb. trigger pull.
Loading
The stick magazine is set up to receive just one BB at a time. Once the BB enters the mag, the mag must be oriented nearly straight up and down or the BB will stay at the top of the mag and block other BBs from being loaded. That makes this a more troublesome magazine to load than the average stick mag.
However, the BBs do go into the mag opening easily enough. As I mentioned in Part 1, the place the BBs enter the magazine is funnel-shaped, plus there’s a small groove that leads to it. If you hold the mag nearly vertical, each BB that enters will fall to the bottom, making room for the next. The way this magazine is designed, I don’t think it will be possible to fit it to a speedloader.
Velocity
I tested the velocity with Daisy zinc-plated BBs, which have proven themselves to be the best general-purpose BB on the market. The velocity of the test gun averaged 385 f.p.s. with a fresh CO2 cartridge. At the average velocity, this pistol generates 1.68 foot-pounds of energy at the muzzle. The range was from 374 to 404 f.p.s., so the total variation was 30 f.p.s. I did notice the gun cools down a lot as it’s shot, so waiting longer between shots gives you higher velocity.
There are between 50 and 60 shots in one CO2 cartridge. All 60 won’t be powerful, but they should all shoot out of the gun. So plan on shooting three full magazines before changing cartridges.
Thus far, the Walther P38 seems to be everything they advertised. Let’s hope it’s also reasonably accurate; and if it is, this will be one very authentic and nice BB pistol!
Walther P38 CO2 BB pistol: Part 1
by Tom Gaylord, a.k.a. B.B. Pelletier
Walther P38 CO2 BB pistol.
Am I a gun collector? Not in the strictest sense. I do have a lot of guns, but I run through them fast — getting rid of the ones I’m no longer interested in and getting others that I’ve never had before. A couple guns, like the M1 Carbine, do fascinate me to the point that I’m attracted to every one of them. Even with that model, I’ve pared down the number I own to just one.
And I’ve always been this way. If you met me 40 years ago, I would just be a younger version of myself, and the guns I owned then were different from those I have today. I’m sentimental to a point, but my curiosity overcomes nostalgia when it comes to owning guns. And, because I have limited means, I have to own them sequentially rather than all at once.
Back in the salad years, I was questing after the guns that everyone wants — the Lugers, Colt SAAs and Winchester lever actions. And among all those wonderful guns I once owned, there was a Walther P38. The P38, which is short for Pistole (19)38 was designed in 1938 to use modern (at the time) production methods to build a sidearm that replaced the more complex and manufacturing-intensive P08 (Luger). The P38 was adopted by the German army in 9×19mm caliber, which is more commonly called the 9mm Luger.
I knew when I bought the gun that it wasn’t built the same as a Luger (which I would have to wait a few more years to acquire), and the actual pistol I could afford at the time had lots of wear on it. The accuracy wasn’t the absolute best — and that was at a time when I was shooting handguns all the time, so accuracy mattered a lot.
My impressions of the gun were that it was made differently than I’d expected. It was made of stamped parts, and the tolerances were on the loose side. Of course, my well-used gun was probably even looser than the norm, but I do remember being surprised at the rattle it made when shaken.
At the time, it was one of a very few semiautomatic pistols that were both single-action and double-action. So, you could carry it with a round in the chamber and just pull the trigger to start shooting. The Browning High Power (P35) was another one, but in those days I couldn’t come close to affording one of those. Over the years, they’ve come down in price as my purchasing power has risen, but I’ve still never owned one!
I was prepared for a horrible double-action trigger-pull from my weary P38, but even that well-worn example surprised me by being light and smooth. And the single-action pull was reasonable, if just a bit creepy. After all, this was a wartime sidearm that had seen a lifetime of field use and it was in about the same operating condition as any arms-room M1911A1, so a creepy trigger is to be expected.
This was my very first 9mm handgun, and the light recoil really came as a shock. After a childhood spent listening to stories of Lugers that shot through several people with a single bullet, I was expecting a real cannon; but as anyone who has shot the round knows, that simply is not the case. It has very little recoil for the power and is absolutely delightful to shoot.
The other thing that surprised me was how natural this pistol felt. It was replacing the Luger, which is the poster-child for an ergonomic handgun, yet the P38 did not disappoint when I brought it up to shoot.
The Walther P38 BB pistol
Now that I’ve told you my own backstory of P38 experience, let’s look at this Walther P38 CO2 BB pistol! For starters, this one is finished beautifully! Umarex has really gotten the finish of these replica guns down to a fine science, and this one is darkly blued. The metal is smooth and shiny and so good-looking that only the owner will know it isn’t a firearm.
The grips are brown plastic, designed to resemble wood, but they don’t quite make it. They are a little too reflective, though an effort has been made to dull them.
This is a BB pistol with a 20-shot drop-free stick magazine. It’s released by a lever located at the bottom rear of the grip frame, and the mag must be removed to pop off the left grip panel so you can install a CO2 cartridge. The tensioning screw for the cartridge is completely hidden within the grip so the gun’s profile is entirely authentic. In fact, there’s even a cleat at the bottom of the left grip panel for a lanyard hook — just like on the firearm!
The safety is a switch on the upper left rear of the slide. Up makes the gun ready to fire and down makes it safe, but you need to push the lever all the way down until a click is felt. If you don’t, the gun is not on safe and will fire when the trigger is pulled. The safety looks like the kind that also de-cocks the hammer, but this one doesn’t do that.
The one thing I wish was different is that this P38 doesn’t have a double-action trigger. The hammer must be manually cocked to prepare the gun for firing the first shot. After that, blowback cocks the hammer for each successive shot, so you have a true semiautomatic pistol. The blowback is brisk, though the mass of the slide is low, and you can definitely feel the shot going off. After the last BB has left the muzzle, the slide stays back so you know it’s time to reload.
The slide is held in place by the slide release, which is a working lever on the left side of the gun, just above the trigger. Reload the magazine, slip it back in the gun and push the lever down to let the slide go forward.
When the last BB’s fired, the slide stays open like this, alerting the shooter that the pistol needs to be reloaded. The slide release is a lever just above the trigger that’s pushed down to release the slide.
The magazine could be easier to load. To load it, you retract the spring-loaded follower and lock it in position, then feed each BB through the same hole they are fired from at the top of the magazine. Most stick magazines have a enlarged cutout in the follower channel that assists the loading of BBs, but this one doesn’t have that.
On the other hand, there is a loading groove where the BBs enter the mag, and the hole they drop into is slightly funnel-shaped. I guess I should reserve my comments on loading until after I’ve done it a few times.
The sights are fixed, both front and rear. They’re sharp and easy to see, and we’ll learn how close the gun shoots to the point of aim in the accuracy test.
The test pistol weighs 2 lbs. with a CO2 cartridge installed but no BBs in the magazine. That’s slightly heavier than the most common P38 firearm that has an aluminum frame and even heavier than the steel-frame early gun. But it isn’t a heavy handgun. It feels just right to me. The grip is neither too wide nor too narrow for me. Since the firearm has a single-stack 8-round mag, the width of the grip can be controlled by the thickness of the grip panels.
This will be a fun test for us. I just hope it’s as accurate as it looks!
Benjamin Rogue ePCP: Part 5
by Tom Gaylord, a.k.a. B.B. Pelletier
The new Rogue is simpler, more tractable.
Think of this report as a bonus. I thought I was finished with the Rogue after Part 4, but then Seth Rowland — the man who organizes the Malvern, AR, airgun show and also provides big bore airgunners with swaged and cast lead bullets — contacted me, saying that he had been following the series. He told me he had a couple different bullet designs, some that he swages and can control the weight and length of the bullet. He wondered if I wanted to test the rifle with some more bullets — this time from a source other than Crosman/Benjamin. He had no idea whether any of the bullets would work in the rifle, but he did know they were large enough to fit the bore well.
I thought, what the heck — let’s give them a try. I contacted Crosman to get an extension to the loan of the new Rogue. Since this gives me one more day at the range with the rifle, who am I to complain?
Seth sent me 5 bullets in all. They range from 89 grains to 137 grain, so the spectrum is covered pretty well. You may remember that I found the Rogue to shoot best with lighter-weight bullets, which is why Seth sent me these particular ones.
From the left, we have an 89-grain swaged bullet, 119-grain swaged bullet, 128-grain cast bullet, 130-grain cast bullet and a 137-grain swaged bullet.
At the range
The day was perfect. The wind was a light breeze that caused no problems at the 50-yard range. I took each bullet in succession, starting with the lightest weight and progressing to the heaviest. Each bullet shot a 5-shot group at 50 yards. The electronic valve setting was on Light for the bullet and Medium for the power. I figured that if any bullets showed promise, I could return and test them on High power later.
The 89-grain bullet had only fair accuracy and strung its shots vertically in a group measuring just under 4 inches. It was too early in the test to know very much, so I moved on to the 119-grain swaged bullet. It opened up to just over 5 inches, telling me this also was not a bullet for the Rogue. Since it was also swaged, I wondered if that was causing some kind of problem.
The next bullet was the 128-grain cast bullet. Five of those landed in 1.483 inches, looking very nice, indeed. That’s certainly minute-of-coyote or fox at 50 yards…and on out to, perhaps, 75 yards. The cast bullet looks like a design for either a black powder cartridge or a pistol. It was the best group I got so far.
Five shots with the 128-grain cast bullet on Medium power produced this group, which is under 1.5 inches.
Next came the 130-grain cast lead bullet, and it didn’t even land on the target paper. Since I back my targets with a 2-foot by 4-foot target paper to catch strays like this, and since I failed to catch this bullet anywhere, I stopped trying after three shots. Let’s call the 130-grain bullet a non-starter for the Rogue.
The last bullet was a 137-grain swaged design that also failed to make a hole on the large backer paper after 3 shots. It was out, as well.
So far
To this point, it looks like the 128-grain cast lead bullet is the one to spend time with. I chronographed it and found it averaged 699 f.p.s. on Medium power (138.91 foot-pounds) and 731 f.p.s. on High power (151.91 foot-pounds). On Medium power with a fresh 3,000 psi fill, the gun’s status panel tells me there are 11 shots at the beginning. But the status panel number of shots that remain decreases faster than the actual number of shots. Although it says there are 11 shots, there are really 6 or 7 shots before it’s time to fill again.
On High power, the gun starts out with 3 shots on the panel — but I found that I got only 2 shots before the gun wanted to be refilled. A third shot was possible, and I took one just to see where the bullet went. It stayed within the group, though on High power the group is larger than on Medium.
Five 128-grain bullets on High power opened up to 2.847 inches. The shot at the right is after a refill of air.
What do we know?
First, we know that cast bullets with grease grooves seem to shoot better in our Rogue than swaged bullets. At least, there’s an inclination in that direction.
Next, we know that the 128-grain bullet did best in this rifle. If further testing was to be done, that’s the bullet I would concentrate on. I went back and reviewed the performance with all the other bullets that were tested in the past, and this one looks quite similar to the Benjamin Pursuit 127-grain flat-nosed bullet. What that means is that it’s possible to cast your own bullets or to buy them from a source that casts them, as they’re going to perform similarly to the best bullets in this rifle. Both these bullets out-shot the 145-grain Nosler Ballistic Tips that are also good in the Rogue.
We also know that shooting on Medium power conserves air longer than High power, and the slight loss of velocity is inconsequential. Of course, I’d like to play with this bullet even more, shooting it with the control panel set to Heavy weight and shooting it on Discharge, as well as directly controlling the valve dwell time. From just what we have seen in today’s test, I would say this is a bullet to beat.
Remember — this was a test of unknown bullets to see if any were worth testing further. If I owned a Rogue, I would stock up on this 128-grain bullet and play with it more because I think this may be the best overall design for the rifle.
Thanks to Seth Rowland (sethrowland@att.net) for providing these bullets to test. He makes other calibers and will work with you to find the best bullet for your rifle.
Bottom line for the Rogue
The Rogue has its detractors — those who feel that it’s to advanced and expensive to be practical in the field. But those people disregard the fact that this rifle shoots as well as almost all other big bores of quality.
All I’ve done in this 5-part test is show you how it performs. The rest is up to you.
Mac tests a steel IZH 61 with metal clips: Part 2
by Tom Gaylord, a.k.a. B.B. Pelletier
Photos and report by Earl “Mac” McDonald
This is the final report about Mac’s vintage steel-breech IZH 61. We are only doing two reports — partly because the rifle performs just like the one that’s being sold today, but mostly because Mac sold this rifle at the Roanoke airgun show this past weekend. He also bought one just like it that was like new in the box because he got a super price at the same show. That one will be given to some fortunate youngster, as part of Mac’s “Arm the Children” program!
Today, we’ll look at the accuracy Mac got from his rifle. Then you can compare it to what I was able to do with the IZH 60 I recently tested for you.
Trigger
As I reported in Part 1, this vintage rifle has a truly adjustable two-stage trigger, instead of just being able to reposition the trigger blade like on the current gun. Mac had it set to release at 27 oz., and he says it was crisp.
Someone wanted me to post a photo of the entire vintage rifle, but there isn’t that much difference between it and the current one. I didn’t think it was worth showing. Yes, if you’re a fanatic collector, there are some small differences; but I spent the weekend with the vintage gun before it sold, and it’s pretty much the same as what they sell now except for having a steel breech and metal clips.
Metal clips
On the subject of the metal clips, Mac says he has had some plastic clips that got worn to the point that they would no longer stay in the gun as they should. They’re supposed to advance one pellet each time the sidelever is pulled out to cock the rifle, but he said some of his would shoot out the side of the rifle because they’re under spring tension.
Sights
I showed the sights on this rifle in Part 1, but Mac tried both the peep sight that comes with the rifle and also a Tasco Pro Point dot sight with a 4 MOA dot. At the 10 meter distance he shot, the dot covered about 0.35 inches He e got equal accuracy with both types of sights, but all the groups seen in this report were shot with the Tasco.
He rested the forearm of the rifle on the palm of his hand and shot off a bag rest at 10 meters. We wanted to keep the results equivalent with those I recently got with the new rifle. And he also shot at 10-meter rifle targets, which is why he elected to use the dot sight. The hole in the factory peep sight is so large that there’s a loss of precision when using the smaller 10-meter rifle bulls. They get lost in the hole (meaning you can’t tell when they’re exactly centered). He could have used pistol targets that have a much larger bull, but he wanted his test to look just like mine.
Mac shot 5-shots groups instead of 10-shot groups. Things got confused in our talks, so we didn’t shoot the same number of shots per target. Still, I think you will see some interesting things as we go.
JSB 8.4-grain Exacts
The first pellet tested was the JSB Exact that weighs 8.4 grains. Five shots at 10 meters produced a group measuring 0.95 inches between centers. That’s pretty big for just 10 meters!
Five JSB Exact 8.4-grain domes at 10 meters made this 0.95-inch group. One pellet looks like it went through the paper sideways!
There are some indications of tumbling with the JSB, so it’s possible the rifle wasn’t stabilizing it. That would account for the large group.
RWS Hobbys
Next he tried RWS Hobby pellets. These are often among the most accurate in a low-powered rifle, but not this time. Five Hobbys made a 0.90-inch group.
The only nice thing I can say about the Hobbys is they did cut larger holes. They’re obviously not the right pellet for this rifle.
H&N Finale Match
Next up were H&N Finale Match Pistol pellets. Five of them made a group that measured 0.80-inches, but notice that one is apart from the other four. If there was something wrong with that pellet, it could explain why it’s apart. This might be the right pellet for the rifle, and it’s a good example of why one 10-shot group tells you more about accuracy potential than three 5-shot groups.
Five H&N Finale Match Target Pistol pellets made a group measuring 0.80 inches.
Eley Wasps
The next pellet Mac tried was one you can’t buy anymore. The Eley Wasp has left the stage, at least in the version Mac was shooting. It was an oversized pellet that sometimes cured accuracy problems for rifles with larger bores. In this rifle, 5 shots made a group that measures 0.70 inches. You’ll also notice that there don’t seem to be any signs of tumbling like there were with the JSBs.
Five Eley Wasp domes made a group measuring 0.70-inches. This group also has a single stray pellet, which means it might also have more potential than seen here.
RWS R10 Pistol pellet
The last pellet Mac shot was the RWS R10 Pistol pellet. These grouped best, with 5 of them making a 0.50-inch group. While that looks good in comparison with the other groups, it doesn’t begin to equal the groups I got with the new IZH 61 shooting 10 shot groups! That means is we have to revise our thinking about the old steel-breech/metal clip guns, don’t you think?
Five RWS R10 Pistol pellets made a half-inch group at 10 meters. It’s good only in comparison with the other groups, but doesn’t begin to equal the groups from the new rifle.
Our conclusions
Mac and I discussed these results at length, and we believe that the steel breech IZH 60/61 has perhaps become more accurate through the long lens of memory. Just as a walk to school was always 10 miles uphill in both directions when we were young, so it’s possible that these rifles were as variable back then as the new ones are now. From the results, we have to say that it looks like the current version of the gun is at least as accurate as the old one, if not more so.
We think that there were probably some very accurate rifles with steel breeches, and then the rest — which our test rifle seems to be — were only good plinkers. I know this test was hardly exhaustive, nor was it entirely without bias. Even so, I think we must admit that the new rifle beat the old one in this case.
What do you think?
Mac tests a steel IZH 61 with metal clips: Part 1
by Tom Gaylord, a.k.a. B.B. Pelletier
Photos and report by Earl “Mac” McDonald
This report was promised back when I tested the IZH 60 Target Pro several weeks ago. If you’re not familiar with the discussions about the IZH 60 and IZH 61, both from Baikal, there was a major design change several years ago and the Russian pellet guns that had formerly been made of steel now sport plastic receivers. In the case of the repeating IZH 61 — plastic pellet clips. Knowing that there was controversy over which was more accurate — the old design or the new — Mac promised to test his steel-receiver IZH 61 and report the results to us. It’s a good thing we caught him at this time, because he’s selling his rifle at the Roanoke airgun show this Friday and Saturday.
We won’t go through the traditional three-part report because the new and old rifles are so alike, except for the materials. So instead this report focuses on the differences.
Sights
We’ll begin with the sights. All references will be for both rifles, unless stated otherwise. The only difference is the 5-shot repeating mechanism on the 61, and Mac shows that in detail. The sights on the older models allowed standard inserts in the from globe, and each rifle was shipped with one post and one aperture insert.
The old-style IZH 60/61 front globe accepted standard inserts, like any other target-style globe front sight.
Mac reports that the front aperture in his rifle sight is on the large side — too large for good precision on a 10-meter bull at 10 meters. He toyed with using a 10-meter pistol bull, which is three times the size of the rifle bull. In the end, he mounted a dot sight that gives approximately the same precision as the peep sights.
The rear sight on the old rifles was a value-added affair. It came as a notch that was mounted far forward for good resolution, but there was also a disk that could be attached in place of the notch. The rear sight was then repositioned to the far back of the receiver, where it was closer to the sighting eye. The disk was an inexpensive part, but it conveyed to shooters the fact that Baikal cared how their little sidelever performed.
The old-style IZH 60/61 rear sight had a disk that replaced the notch. As you can see in this picture, the disk can be moved from side to side and the sight’s normal elevation still works, as well.
It’s a small detail, but the disk works so well on the IZH 60/61 because the rifle’s designers made room for it to be mounted both forward and at the rear — depending on how the sight was being used.
Trigger
The old-style trigger was adjustable for pull length as well as engagement area, effectively giving the rifle a lighter trigger-pull. Contrast that with the new trigger, whose blade can be moved — but nothing else.
The old-style trigger adjusted for the length of stage one as well as the sear contact area.
Magazine feed mechanism and the metal magazines
The metal magazine is shaped differently than the plastic one — possibly because the plastic needed more material to offset wear. As with the modern gun, the mag inserts from the left side of the receiver and is pushed to the right as far as it will go.
Metal magazines work like the plastic ones, but they’re thinner. Note that this rifle was imported by EAA many years ago.
Another view of the magazine on the left side.
On the right side of the receiver, the silver button is pushed forward at the top, causing it to spring back and retract the bolt. Now, the magazine can be pushed into the receiver from the left side. It comes through the end of the hole seen at the extreme right center of the picture.
To load a magazine, a silver button on the right side is pushed forward at the top. A spring then pushes both the bolt and button to the rear, clearing the magazine channel for the insertion of the loaded mag.
Those are the major differences between the older-style rifles and the guns being sold today. In Part 2, we’ll look at the results on target from 10 meters.
Benjamin Rogue ePCP: Part 4
by Tom Gaylord, a.k.a. B.B. Pelletier
The new Rogue is simpler, more tractable.
After the last report, I spoke to Dennis Quackenbush about how the new Rogue I was testing. I explained that while it shot well with Benjamin bullets, it didn’t seem to group with cast bullets obtained from other sources. He first suggested that I try the old .38-caliber 200-grain lead bullet that we know as a police round here in the U.S.; but in the UK it was their substitute for the old .455 round. When they downsized their WWI service revolver to reduce the recoil, they substituted the 200-grain .38-cal. bullet for the much larger .455-caliber man-stopper they had in WWI. Unfortunately, they also knocked about 9 oz. off the weight of the revolver at the same time, with the result that the new cartridge and revolver kicked just about the same as the one it replaced. It was easier to carry, of course, and that’s always a consideration, but it wasn’t the man-stopper the older bullet had been.
I told Dennis that the heavier I went, the more the Rogue didn’t like the bullet, so he then came up with a different idea. He suggested I try a bullet with a different balance. He asked me if I had tried the rifle with a 148-grain .357-caliber wadcutter, which of course I hadn’t. Some wadcutter bullets have a hollow base that obturates when the cartridge explodes, thus filling the bore and sealing all gasses behind.
The .357 wadcutter bullet weighs 148 grains and has a hollow base similar to a diabolo pellet. That pushes the weight forward and helps stabilize the bullet in flight. This lead isn’t oxidizing. That white powder is the dry lubricant that has been applied to the bullet after casting or swaging. Notice the lack of conventional grease grooves.
The wadcutters were the first non-Benjamin bullets to perform well in the Rogue. They fed well, and they also shot to the same point of aim as both of the Benjamin bullets. This proves that a Rogue owner can cast his own bullets for the rifle and save a lot of money. In fact, with a Shoebox Compressor and casting your own bullets, the Rogue would be cheaper to shoot than a smallbore pellet rifle!
Low on air: What can I do?
When I shot the wadcutter bullets for accuracy, I knew my carbon fiber tank was running low. I still had to chronograph all the bullets at both power settings and wanted to save some air for that, so I decided to try something different during this group. Five bullets were fired with the rifle set to heavy bullets and medium power. That ran the gun out of a charge of air. The display panel said there were no shots remaining at that setting. I changed the power setting to discharge, which holds the valve open twice as long as normal. I then fired two more shots on the discharge setting just to see what would happen. I labeled each hole on the target, so you can see where every shot went.
The five bullets fired on medium power grouped in about 2-3/4 inches at 50 yards. Each shot is numbered. Then the two discharge shots hit lower and to the left. Interesting that you can actually get more shots on a fill than the status panel indicates!
Velocity
Now, it was time to test the velocity of all the bullets that were accurate in the Rogue. This exercise used up the remaining air in my tank, thus ending the day at the range.
Nosler 145-grain Ballistic Tip
The first bullet we’ll test is the 145-grain Nosler Ballistic Tip bullet that’s the best general bullet for the Rogue. On high power, the bullet averaged 774 f.p.s., with a range from 766 to 781 f.p.s. At the average velocity, the rifle generated 192.92 foot-pounds of muzzle energy.
On medium power, this bullet averaged 751 f.p.s. and ranged from 741 to 760 f.p.s. At the average velocity, the bullet generates 181.64 foot-pounds of energy. That’s pretty remarkable, because that’s also a good place to keep the power for the extra shots it provides.
Benjamin Pursuit 158-grain bullet
The Benjamin Pursuit 158-grain round nose bullet was tested next. It was tested in the last accuracy test and proved to be acceptable at 50 yards. On high power, this bullet averaged 741 f.p.s., with a velocity spread that ranged from 735 to 752 f.p.s. At the average velocity, it generates 192.69 foot-pounds of muzzle energy. The Nosler Ballistic Tip reigns supreme for power in the Rogue by a razor-thin margin.
On medium power, this bullet averaged 711 f.p.s. and ranged from 704 to 714 f.p.s. At the average velocity, it’s pumping out 177.4 foot-pounds of ebergy.
Benjamin Pursuit 127-grain flat-nosed bullet
The Benjamin Pursuit 127-grain flat nose bullet was the speed champ in the Rogue. On high power, it launched that accurate little bullet at an average 796 f.p.s., with a spread from 786 to 809 f.p.s. At the average velocity, this little pill produces 178.73 foot-pounds at the muzzle.
It’s the medium power setting that I’m interested in for this bullet, however, because I believe I would have a bullet mold made to cast this bullet if I owned a Rogue. At this setting, the bullet averaged 747 f.p.s., with a spread from 740 to 751 f.p.s. That’s 157.4 foot-pounds of muzzle energy, on average. That’s more muzzle energy than you get from a 40-grain high-speed .22 long rifle cartridge; and, of course, the larger .357-caliber bullet does far more damage. At that power level, the Rogue would be a good fox and coyote gun out to about 100 yards.
148-grain wadcutter
Finally, I did test the 148-grain wadcutters that Dennis Quackenbush sent me. I had only a total of 10 on hand, so I tested just one shot at each setting. On high power, the bullet went 757 f.p.s., which translates to 188.37 foot-pounds. On medium power, it went 732 f.p.s., which is 176.13 foot-pounds. It might interest you to know that the Rogue is propelling this bullet at very close to the same velocity that a .38 Special midrange wadcutter cartridge produces. If you turn the bullet around when you load it — so the hollow base faces forward — you’ve created a monster hollowpoint bullet. At close range, such a bullet has few equals for destructive capability.
General observations on the new Benjamin Rogue
In case you aren’t aware, I played a small part in the Rogue’s developement, so some will think I’m biased in favor of the gun. I assure you I’m not. But this test surprised me in a number of ways. The first was the velocity stablity the Crosman engineers have been able to build into the gun. No other big bore airgun comes anywhere close to what the Rogue can do, as far as maintaining velocity with a specific bullet.
The magazine feeding problem is now gone. As long as the bullet is sized to enter the bore, it will feed fluidly through the redesigned magazine.
Accuracy has been improved. The 145-grain Nosler Ballistic Tip is still the best bullet overall, but the 127-grain Benjamin Pursuit is more accurate and more fun to shoot. If you own a Rogue, you might think about having a bullet mold made up to cast this bullet in soft lead. I hear that Mr. Hollowpoint also has some bullets that do well in the Rogue. After testing some in my .308 Quackenbush, I believe it.
The trigger is greatly improved. That was the part that Lloyd Sykes and I were worried about with the original Rogue. Well, Crosman has done it right, and I know hunters will like this one.
As far as worrying about whether a new Rogue you buy is a real new one or just one that’s left over I will say this. Crosman went to extreme lengths to remove all unsold Rogues from their dealers long before they released this new model. I’m sure those guns were reworked to the new standard. So, unless you’re buying from a hobby dealer (someone who isn’t really doing it as a business) or out the back of a car trunk, I would say you’re going to get the newer design.
I would like to thank the Crosman Corporation for providing the new Rogue for this extensive test.
