Well, i had some extra time this Saturday and decided to detune my BSA Lonestar. From the factory she was pushing .22/21.1 gr Kodiaks at 990 FPS with a 10 fps drop in velocity after each shot. So.....990-980-970-960-950 and so on. I did not like that particular shot string so i opened her up to see what made her tick. After taking her slightly apart i then just decided to see what i would get if i just turned the power adjustment knob down as far as i could. But to do this, i would have to remove the adjustment screw CAP and drill a hole through it dead center to allow the adjustment screw to come out all the way. If i did not, i would never get the velocity below 960 FPS! So i drilled a hole dead center and backed out the grub screw as much as possible. That adjustment still gave me about 930+ FPS. All that worked out fine. The groups were more than acceptable. I mean at 55 yrds, 10+ kodiaks could be covered by a nickel. That was very good but i [b]longed[/b] for more. The gun made plenty of power but, i already had 2 guns (condor and rapid .25) that made plenty of power. I did not need a 3rd.
After all my hunting expeditions with Darryl12 and his AA410C i begun to realize i did not need so much power....AT LEAST WITH THE BSA. Darryl has always been very successful with his low powered AA410C. Besides, i have a condor and a rapid for that. D12's AA410C is only shooting about 830 FPS with 16 gr JSB's and it does it very well. So well indeed that i decided to really go through my BSA and detune it to about 900-915 FPS with 16 gr JSB's and 16 gr JSB Predators. Those will be my primary pellets in all my .22 AIRGUNS. They are 2 of the best .22 skirted pellets on the market. The kodiaks are VERY GOOD but i just don't need the weight and i don't need to use that much air to push those heavy pellets.
Now, down to the nitty gritty. Here are problems with the gun and my goals:
Problem(s):
1. Small airtube/18.5" barrel.....air coservation. Gun uses too much air.
Solution(s):
1. Lower velocites and use lighter pellets. [b]Change out springs[/b].
Problem(s):
2. Trigger is.......well......not too my liking.
Solution(s):
2. Lighten trigger pull. File, polish, and adjust all trigger components.
Problem(s):
3. Upon opening loading port/bolt probe, i noticed the probe orings rolled.
Solution(s):
3. Strip gun down and relube all orings and moving parts.
Problem(s):
4. Get more consistent velocities. More than the factory 10 fps/per shot.
Solution(s):
4. Replace factory HEAVY SPRINGS with lighter ones for better shot consitency.
Problem(s):
5. Check for any factory defect throghout entire gun.
Solution(s):
5. [b]CHECK[/b]
Problem(s):
6. Slow air leak in gun somewhere.
Solution(s):
6. [b]FIND IT[/b]
Problem(s):
7. Check for burs in the port hole in the barrel.
Solution(s):
7. [b]CHECK[/b]
Now......the strip down:
After figuring out how to strip the gun down (the fun part), i realized that BSA put waaaaaaay too many parts into this gun. But, once you strip her down, it all makes sense:
Once apart, the 1st thing i noticed is.......the main airtube was 2 finger loose. If you don't know what that means.......that means that all it took was my thumb and my index finger to unscrew the airtube. Unscrewing that airtube was the same as how easy a RED HOT BUTTERKNIFE would go through butter:
That just might have been the problem with my leaking air. OK, "loose airtube" was now entered into the memory bank for now. Just remember to tighten it once the gun goes back together.....GOT IT!!
Now the very next thing i noticed from all the parts was this......SUPER DRY ORINGS straight from the factory. I mean bone dry. So you guys now what i did. Here is a pic of the DIVERS SILICON that i use exclusively on my orings. Notice how dry them orings are:
After i removed the barrel from the action, then i shined a light down the bore to give her a looksie. The bore looked very clean but, i gave her a thorough bore scrub which proved to be needed cause in MY opinion..she was dirty. Next, i grabbed a Q-TIP and inserted it into the breech over the port hole to see if any burs would strips away any of the cotton off the Q-TIP. There was not cotton slivers in the breech so that meant that the port hole was drilled and deburred thoroughly. Very nice BSA...GONE WITH YO BAD SELF!!
Next, i decided to go through the trigger and lighten it up a bit. Factory settings were kinda rough and unprecitable. Especially after shooting my RAPID which has its trigger set at 11 ounces. UUUHHHHUMMM!! sorry, no rapid talk in this thread. Sorry. Now, for all you BSA techstar or Lonestar owners, b careful when making adjustments to this trigger assembly cause it is 1 thing to get it to fire with the stock off then to get it to fire with the stock on. My findings were that even though i could get the trigger to break ULTRA smooth with the stock off, once i put the stock on, it limited movement of the trigger assembly and would not fire. It was hit and miss until i got it to work just right. Final adjustment.........i got it down to 15.2 ounces. About 3 lbs from the factory. Watch out Rapid and Daystate..............he he:
I then took a look at the valve stem and the valve stem return spring to see if ERNIE could better it.....he he he he...of course he can. Wait till he reads this part. All was fine as is with the stock parts. Stock return spring was heavy as heck:
Now...let look at the main spring. VERY HEAVY INDEAD...moreso than the rapids. Stock spring on right and aftermarket lighter 1 on left:
After going through gun and parts to lube, clean, and check for quality, i personally think BSA did a EXTRAORDINARY JOB. The guns stock is very heavy which lets me know it is real wood and not BALSA....he he. The bluing is deep and they actually use a steel airtube which helps with the 232 bar fill. The only true complaint is that they did not epoxy or screw down the airtube firmly therefore causing leaks and they sent the gun out with BONE DRY o-rings. In my opinion of course. Will check in 2 days to verify that pressure still remains. I put in exactly 3000 psi in it, so we will see.
Gun was shooting JSB's and Predators at roughly 1030-1050 fps on [b]LOW POWER[/b] before major detune/relube. I only had time for a few shots with a 3000 psi fill and here is what i got:
16 gr JSB Predators:
897.4 Fps
897.1
898.5
899.4
909.3
910.1
That was all for now as i have been working on her ALL day and my wife was mad. So i had to stop. More results to come. OH YEAH, forgot, i shot some 17 grain TM2's and the velocity went up and up till the 40th shot. That is a drastic improvement over original setting.