My springer won't fire

[seetrout]

I have an original Ruger air hawk .177.
I was shooting it today and after a few rounds the trigger doesn't trip the sear.
I took it apart as far as it looks like I can and I don't see anything wrong.
I even tried to trip the sear with the trigger removed with a screwdriver and it won't fire.
Any advise? I like the gun. It's accurate with Crossman premier hollowpoints. I even managed to kill a (young) groundhog with it last summer.
on the other hand it was $150 new and the current generation sells for $99 at Wally World.

[HollowPoint]

Does your Air Hawk give you any resistance when you cock it? I'm not familiar with this type of break barrel but the ones I am familiar with, when they fail to fire it generally means one of two things.

(1) The Gas-Spring has failed and there is really no spring pressure for the sear to latch onto in order to hold back the Gas or metal spring until the trigger is pulled to fire the gun.

(2) One of the cross pins that the sear or one of the other trigger components pivots on may have drifted out of position. I've seen this happen when the cross pin that the safety lever pivots on has somehow drifted out of place.

The only Ruger air rifles I've worked on are the Ruger Yukon and the Ruger Yukon Magnum. It has a slightly different bunch of trigger components. My comment is based on this type of break barrel. It's basically a clone of the Umarex Octane line of air rifles. They utilize the same trigger group.

If your gun won't fire, are you saying that it's in the cocked position and it won't fire or are you saying that you are unable to get it into the cocked position to fire the gun?

HollowPoint

[TNsailorman]

Give Ruger a call. They may have a solution for you.

[seetrout]

The gas spring seems to be fine. I had fired 20 or so pellets before it all of a sudden wouldn't fire.
There only seems to be 3 cross pins that I see. The only one that I could move is the one that holds the trigger itself in place.
Apparently it's a copy of the RWS 34.

[HollowPoint]

I'm still not quite clear on if your air gun in the cocked position won't fire or if you can't get the sear to engage and lock back the gas spring in order to fire the gun.

I did try to look up a schematic of your trigger components but the two images I was able to bring up were so small that I couldn't make out any details. I'm afraid that my opinions or suggestions are based on a slightly different trigger group. Even still, it would seem that many of the same principles would apply. That is; the gas spring is compressed rearward until the trigger sear engages some slot in the gas spring's rear-most end to lock it back. To fire the gun, when you pull the trigger it causes that sear to release the gas spring which fires the shot.

If you can find nothing wrong with any of the trigger components perhaps the problem has something to do with the safety mechanism. I noticed that the safety on your particular air rifle is set up much different than on my air guns but some of the failure to fire problems I've encountered in our air gun group nearly always centered around the safety mechanism or as I mentioned before, the gas spring had gone bad.

It's really hard to tell without having the air rifle in front of me. It may be that TNsailorman's suggestion to give Ruger a call may yield some answers. Our Umarex Octane shooters group has some solutions for that particular air rifle. If there is an air rifle forum or group for your specific air gun and you haven't already done so, maybe someone in such a group can point you in the right direction.

HollowPoint

[MT Chambers]

These things are made in China for Ruger to put it's name on and most claim that they are a ***, so toss it and buy a good air gun, like the TX200 on the other thread.

[seetrout]

HP. It seems that the gas spring is cocked and the automatic safety reset, but for some reason the trigger is not reset so when you try to fire it feels like an uncocked gun.
I will see if I can take it apart myself and fix it, cuase I kinda like my Chicom Ruger ***.
If i break it for real or can't figure it out or put it back together then I'm thinking a Maurader .25 may be in my near future.

Hmmmm. How long can you leave a PCP charged up waiting on varmint control?

[clodhopper]

My 25 maurader seems to hold air well, no noticeable loss for weeks at a time.

[NyFirefighter357]

I've had my Beeman imported .177 Webley Omega for over 30yrs, I have been thinking of getting a .25cal as well. Your air hawk is a UMAREX. Try watching this video and reading this thread. https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA...?topic=22446.0

[seetrout]

Whatever it is, it says made in China on it.

Sooo, anyway. I sat down at the dining room table with my gunsmithing pad and some tools. I didn't really find anything at first, but the spring let go and it seemed like I had maybe torqued the mechanism causing it to bind. I made about 10 shots out the back door when it wouldn't work again. Time to dig deeper. I removed the trigger, unhooked the cocking assembly. removed the trigger sear. Drifted out the two big pins in receiver. Tapped on the piece they were holding in place, once....twice....thrHOLY****! Found a piece by the back door. Found another piece in the living room. Pretty sure I'm still missing some pieces. My chronograph (in the box) took a pretty good hit, but I think it will be OK. Better the chronograph than the wife's dining room chair that it so valiantly sacrificed itself to protect.

From my reading it's hard to beat a Chicom knockoff springer for sheer power, but I'm having a hard time with the idea of another one, even in .22 cal this time, no matter how cheap. I am truly in love with the idea of a .25 PCP. My wife wants me to get an air rifle that she can shoot. She can't cock a .177 springer let alone a .22 Magnum. She also wants a repeater. So the Benjamin Marauder .25 package with pump and scope all in is $750 from Pyramid Air. The hard part is that I can get another Ruger in .22 from Wally World for $139 and a local gun shop has a Remington 141 in .35 Rem listed for $600 and I am sure I can talk him down at least $75.

On the other hand I don't need another powder rifle, no matter how good a potential collectible investment I think it might be, but I do need a pest control device that's legal inside the borough. Or maybe I could cheat and delve into the realm of suppressors.

[Finster101]

A .22 suppressed with subsonic ammo is as quiet if not quieter than a lot of air rifles.

[seetrout]

A .22 suppressed with subsonic ammo is as quiet if not quieter than a lot of air rifles.

Aguilla Sniper Sub Sonic. 60gr at approx 900fps.

[NyFirefighter357]

Keep the air rifles below supersonic with heavy pellets to keep them quiet. My .177 800fps Omega has more kills and bigger kills than my 22lr.

[NyFirefighter357]

Aguilla Sniper Sub Sonic. 60gr at approx 900fps.

They key hole in most standard barrels. I tried them in 3-4 different rifles.

[HollowPoint]

If you're considering a PCP there are some accurate budget friendly ones on the market now. I bought a Umarex Gauntlet last year and it's quiet and accurate but I've heard good things about the Marauder you mentioned as well. These are both guns that anyone can shoot easily, if you don't mind pumping them up to pressure.

I pump mine up once every two weeks. It regulated so my shots stay pretty consistent even on a low tank. When I'm not working I shoot it more than my break barrels. I think I could go three weeks without topping off the air bottle but I don't like to let the air pressure drop below a certain point because then the pumping becomes a drudgery. It holds 3000 psi but I fill it back up when the pressure gets to about 2000 or a bit less. It only takes about 75 pumps to top it off again. It beats having to fill it from completely empty or even with a thousand PSI still in the tank.

HollowPoint

[clodhopper]

The marauder is for your wife?
The bolt (at least the bolt on mine) takes a pretty good pull to get cocked, the rifle has pleasing dimensions to me, but I'm 6'2", that might be a little unwieldly for your wife.

If she likes it, then she's a real trooper.

On the plus side, good trigger, good power, pretty quiet, I get 16 shots from about 2900 psi down to 2000 psi. Lower than 2000 psi, the impacts get noticeably lower. And like HollowPoint says, pumping becomes drudgery.