Hello All
I'm just an old county guy with old junk.
I have 2 air rifles that need help.
One is a Daisy Red Rider and the other a Benjamin Franklin.
The Daisy is all wood with a magazine tube. I don't really suspect it to be terribly old. If I am reading the signs right, it has a spot welded front stock ring and marked 1838 so I assume its the reproduction model?c The Red Ryder stamp is on the left side of the stock.
It will only shoot if I glop in about a gallon of oil and operate the action a dozen or more times. Then it shoots fine and true until I put it away when I have to go through the whole ordeal again.
I really wouldn't even mind this so much, except I need the thing for practical purposes.
I love the little birds and feed them off my back porch when the weather is bad. I only feed them when I figure they must be hungry as I don't want them to become dependent and forget how to forage! Besides I can't afford endless bird seed even if I do shop the cheapest places.
But when times are tough they are safe here. I get about 10 different kinds of birds coming in. Had the quail this morning! They aren't really interested in such slim pickings but they drop by anyway just to look around, since its a "bird place" here. Irridescent bowling balls with feet is what they look like this time of year.
Some of the smallest birds are 2inches tall all in, stretched up on their tiptoes for a looksee. They are so small they can fly full speed through the openings in a chain link fence without even slowing down.
Sometimes the predator birds come in after the easy pickings. The big hawks don't come around much but huge ravens and sometimes big owls come shopping for groceries. Namely my little peeps!
Well, I have no great desire to injure the predator birds, merely encourage them to find better places to hang out. A well placed bb doesn't even come close to killing, but I imagine it hurts like hell and they give me a really dirty look and don't come back.
I also get deer coming after my garden. I don't keep the fanciest of gardens but I'm sure it looks like candy on a plate, to a deer.
Deer are dumb as doorstops in case you never hung out with them in close proximity.
It takes at least 8 or 10 pops on the butt from the Red Ryuder to send them packing. I am yelling and waving my arms and they stand there dumbstruck and pretty soon they are making little hops and wondering what is biting their ass.. looking at me, back to inspecting their butt.... and finally finally, they figure out it's me that is stinging them, and start to move along.
This is my cue to high tail it after and pop them a few more times on the run so they see they have to actually book it out of dodge if they want to get away. Otherwise they'll meander a little ways and then come right back.
The Benjamin I do suspect to be old. It is all brass with what appears to be black walnut stock and forearm. It has very tired seals though and 11 pumps barely moves the pellet out the end of the barrel.
I need inexpensive rebuild parts for both these. Well, Ok I don't really need the Benjamin much at all, but I do need that Daisy to be able to shoot in quicktime, parked near the backdoor ready for action on short notice.
I never took one apart but I am kind of an old jackleg mechanic that has worked on everything from pocket watches to 40 ton cranes so if I can get a couple pieces of advise from you guys I am sure I can figure it out from there.
Uhhhh help??
yours Scott
PS don't worry I'll be checking back. Of that you may be sure
It's nice to see an articulate narrative on the Internet!
Unfortunately, I'm not a Daisy specialist, but likely one will reply shortly.
For the Benjamin I suggest you contact Alan Schweitzer's website abairgun.com Alan is a great guy, will sell you rebuild parts or service your gun very reasonably. You'll need an odd special tool to remove the Benji valve - it has a non-standard thread to extract the valve body (if Alan doesn't offer the tool, it can be bought from Ron Sauls at bryanandac.com ...he may have seals too). There should be a model number on the rear main tube plug of your Benji (310, 317, or 322 is likely what you have).