Quigley`s very first rifle.

[FrankG]

Make it a muzzle loader and try waxed paper and lard for lube

[MBTcustom]

That's a darn good idea! I tried lubed bullets in a break barrel crossman last year, with miserable effects, but I'm pretty sure the lube was dieseling causing horrible accuracy problems. This is slow enough, it might be worth a try!

[MBTcustom]

Tonight I checked some BBs with a micrometer. They were not too awful round, and they measured anywhere from .1719 to .1722
I dumped out the BBs that were left in the gun and lubed them up with 45/45/10 to try tomorrow.

[HollowPoint]

I tried some liquid alox yesterday but my results weren't any different from when I was shooting just plain Copperhead BBs out of the bottle.
The dimensions on these cheaper BBs are so inconsistent that they measure anywhere from .169" to .1705".

It's been pretty warm here the last couple of days. I think my lube had softened just enough under the weight of these 5-point-something grain BBs that they couldn't maintain an even seal all the way around the BB. Kind of like a flat tire; where everything looks perfectly fine except for the flat spot on the bottom.

If my incoming BBs are slightly larger in diameter, it should go a long way toward giving me a better air seal and more consistent groups and velocities; provided I do my part while shooting.

Today around noon time I shot a pigeon that landed on one of the overhead power lines about fifteen yards from where I was standing. I hit him in the neck and the BB just bounced off.

It startled the pigeon enough to make it fly off in a small circle and then come around and land in the very same place on that power line.

That pigeon was looking around frantically as if it was wondering what the heck had just happened.

With the BBs out of this little RedRyder traveling at less than 300 fps, that pigeon must have thought that a drunken mosquito had just crashed into him.

I have a break barrel pellet pistol with a nine inch barrel that I mounted an old AR scope onto that will shoot 8.5 grain pellets at a measured 350 fps. I've made neck shots with this little pellet pistol on pigeons out to 30 yards that dropped them like a sack of potatoes.

Right now this little Diasy BB gun just doesn't have the balls to deliver kill shots at that distance. I'm hoping that the Avanti Precision Ground BBs will give me a little more velocity while I wait to upgrade the spring.

HollowPoint

[MBTcustom]

Thats strange. I killed a bird 20 yards away the other day before I put the sight on the rifle. I honestly didn't expect any different results than what you experienced, but it killed it deader than a bad bean fart.
Like I said though, I'm getting 375FPS out of this gun, and my old beater that has umpteen thousand shots through it (got it when I was 8 years old) chunks 'em at 325FPS. Very curious.
Do you mind if I ask where you are getting that upgrade kit?

[MBTcustom]

Another thing I might mention is that I looked for any kind of steel balls that are .176 in diameter and came up dry. That's got to be the oddest size on the planet. I couldn't even find gauge balls in that exact size.
Where the heck did they come up with .177 diameter projectiles in the first place?

[Longwood]

Another thing I might mention is that I looked for any kind of steel balls that are .176 in diameter and came up dry. That's got to be the oddest size on the planet. I couldn't even find gauge balls in that exact size.
Where the heck did they come up with .177 diameter projectiles in the first place?

I see that you don't work with MM much.
It is 4.5mm.

[Silver Eagle]

As for who came up with the size for BB's you would need to go back as far as the early 1900's. Daisy came up with the 0.177 inch size as the lead shot that is BB size varied too much and was causing jams in early guns. It also made them a lot of money as people could no longer use commercial lead shot in their rifles.
History of the BB: http://www.pyramydair.com/article/BB...bruary_2006/28
Try finding different brands of BB's as some are known to vary a bit in size from the different manufacturers. For a good gauge of fit, let a BB roll down the brarrel from muzzle to breech and measure how long it takes. The better fitting BB will take longer to travel the barrel.
Daisy (Avanti is Daisy's Super premium brand), Crosman and Marksman are the most common. There are a few European brands out there. Gamo and H&N also make a 0.177 Lead round ball. Note: if you do shoot lead balls, the magnetic stop on the bolt will no longer work and the round can and will roll out of the muzzle.
Take a look at Daisy's Avanti line of BB Guns for some real high accuracy BB guns. They are advertised as the "World's most accurate BB gun" and are used in a youth and older competition similar to Olympic 10 Meter Airgun.

Silver Eagle

[MBTcustom]

Good info SE! I never heard of Avanti before.
Longwood, .177 X 25.4= 4.4958. I suppose they just rounded up, but it wasn't an exact conversion, and I thought it odd that they would do 1/2mm increment.

[HollowPoint]

"Very curious. Do you mind if I ask where you are getting that upgrade kit?"

As a kid, I seem to remember my Daisy lever action BB gun at the time having alot more velocity. To the best of my knowledge, there is no upgrade kit for these Daisy Lever action BB guns; per se.

I'm having to fabricate what I need as I move forward with this modification. As of right now I have yet to fabricate anything because I have to have my new gas piston in my hands in order to get specific dimensions off of it.

Once I have those dimensions then I can design and fabricate any small parts I'll need to secure the gas piston and related components. If in the end all of this work yields no results, I'll just order a custom compression spring but, I'm holding out hope that the correct Gas Spring will give me what I'm looking for.

I've scoured the internet looking for information on how to modify a Daisy lever action. Other than some trigger-job info and some you-tube videos of a few kids doing superficial mods, not to many folks have actually succeeded at getting any substantial gains out of their Daisy RedRyders.

I'd be happy just to get the velocity up around 500 fps but I'm hoping for slightly better than that. The problem is that if I add a Gas spring to replace the factory coil spring, then I have to fabricate a way to secure that Gas Spring in place because I can't re-use the factory spring components.

Because the Gas Spring will require a greater amount of cocking force, I may have to make another cocking lever to give me a little more leverage; and if I have to make another cocking lever that means I'll have to make another rear stock to accommodate the new cocking handle. And on and on it goes.

Every little upgrade requires another modification to accommodate the previous upgrade. In my mind it's still doable. It just takes a little patience and ingenuity.

I've been taking photos as I go along. When I'm done I'll post a write-up on this project.

HollowPoint

[Silver Eagle]

A few points to note (if you have not already) pertaining to upgrading this to a gas spring or a stronger spring:
1) Since this gun is designed for a youth market there may be built in designs to keep the velocity down. It may be possible to clean them up and or modify them to gain some performance (Seal, piston, cylinder walls, tranfer tube and similar).
2) There are a lot of plastic and pot metal parts that my not take well to the higher forces of the upgrade (Sear, cocking arm, general receiver internals).
3) A lot of the velocity potential in an airgun is not in the spring itself. It is also in the amount of air that is compressed. This is known as the "swept volume". It is the total volume of the air cylinder form the front of the seal until the end of the cylinder. There are calculations that can detrmine the performance of an airgun based upon this info and the spring power. It is a rather close balance that need to be ultimately achieved to get better performance.

I would highly suggest doing some research on both the Yellow forum at Network54 and the Gateway to Airguns Forum. One link I found is below:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/79537...little+tuning-

Silver Eagle

[edsmith]

just a tip I remember from 60 years ago, don't shoot it with the cocking lever down.

[Longwood]

just a tip I remember from 60 years ago, don't shoot it with the cocking lever down.

I bet they fixed that marvelous feature.

The pump models were more powerful but they were hard to cock.
I got one cheap because of the kid that had it was too little to cock it.
They had the finger biter feature also, but with sharper edges.

[MBTcustom]

I bet they fixed that marvelous feature.

They did and its one safety feature that I highly approve of. The new ones have a ratchet built into the handle so that it can't snap shut halfway closed, it doesn't allow a BB into the chamber until the thing is fully cocked, and I don't know but I believe that the trigger cannot be pulled when the lever is open. All in all, I am impressed with the quality and design. Its a lot of BB gun for $30.

[WILCO]

Its a lot of BB gun for $30.

That it is! I've had mine for than 12 years and it's never failed me around the house. Used it for indoor plinking, whacked a few mice in the garage, sniped some yellow jackets and rolled one or two queen bees to boot! Not to mention pop cans, eggs and balloons.

[Longwood]

They did and its one safety feature that I highly approve of. The new ones have a ratchet built into the handle so that it can't snap shut halfway closed, it doesn't allow a BB into the chamber until the thing is fully cocked, and I don't know but I believe that the trigger cannot be pulled when the lever is open. All in all, I am impressed with the quality and design. Its a lot of BB gun for $30.

I loved my Daisy until I discovered how much more accurate and powerful the HiScore pellet rifle was.
Never looked back at the horrible accuracy of puny BB guns.
I have a Daisy 777 that I did a trigger job on and I can shoot it as well as my Fienwerkbau Model ll that cost nearly ten times as much.
I think it will shoot the inaccurate BB's, but why would I bother to find out.

[Longwood]

By the way,,,
If you use dry media to polish your brass, try putting ten bucks worth of BB's in the tumbler with your normally used media.
I did,, and I see a big improvement in speed of tumbling my brass.

[bruce drake]

By the way,,,
If you use dry media to polish your brass, try putting ten bucks worth of BB's in the tumbler with your normally used media.
I did,, and I see a big improvement in speed of tumbling my brass.

Hmm, This might be a worthwhile tip. I'll have to give it a try next month after I unpack the house from the move.

Bruce

[MBTcustom]

Thanks Longwood, but for me, this is not about accuracy per-say; its about getting back to the roots and reacquainting myself with the first gun I ever had, and seeing how much differently I approach the use of it given the knowledge that I have gathered over the last two and a half decades. When I was a kid, it was cool just to lob projectiles at a distant object. Now after demanding 1/2 minute of angle accuracy at 200 yards, it is interesting to see what can be done with the old Daisy. I want to see if my knowledge of trigger control, breathing and all the other disciplines makes any difference with this gun.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to learn that, in fact, it does make a huge difference.
If I wanted accuracy and power, there is a .22 right beside the Daisy that could give me all that easily. This is merely an attempt to take a closer look at a gun that I took totally for granted but got more trigger time than any other I have owned since. By virtue of that fact, I feel it deserves it.

[nelsonted1]

You need to invent a "hop-up" kit like some air soft guns have.