Air Gun Home :: View topic

cliffspot · Veteran Member

Finally put on the 22 cal barrel on my R1! This is a circa 1992 that I bought used in 1998. Zig set me up with a deal! Finally got it to Miami from Hawaii after 7 years of not shooting! Last year I put in a JM seal and his spring kit. Buttoned the piston and smoothed everything inside. Tuned it for power as this is a hunting gun, got 980 fps with CPLs. Little over 16.5 ft-lbs. Shot cycle was ....exuberant! A big BAMFFF with a louder than stock sound. Unusual as I tuned a friend's R1 for power (hunter) and his gun shot CPLs at 990 fps....but with a quieter and lower pitched muzzle report.

Anyway, put the barrel on this evening. Went in smooth. Barrel had the cocking arm installed so all I had to do was take off the endcap to release pressure on the spring,take out the pivot bolt, cleaned up the forks of old lube. Hooked the cocking arm into the foot (The wathcmahuzit that rides the slot under the piston),slid in the new barrel with new washers (LUBED!), popped in the bolt. Set the barrel pivot tension and put on the endcap.

While the trigger unit was out, I polished up the contact points on the new gold trigger I ordered and put that in with a gold trigger weight screw. Set up the engagement and release pressure and reinstalled the trigger unit. I tested the trigger out of the stock....I won't go into details as it is really dangerous but the trigger settings out of the gun are just ballpark...feels different under load. Wiped her down with a silicon cloth and put her back in the stock.
The first shot was wonderful! I put about 1 1/2 tins thru this gun after the tune so I was well versed with this gun and it was pretty much broken in.....tuned guns "break in" faster. The report was HALF as loud as before, the shot cycle was a solid snap...much less violent and dead at the end. MUCH BETTER!!

Got dark by the time I was ready to start sighting in and testing for groups.....but when I was testing it without the scope, I hit the steel chicken at 20 yds looking down the barrel! This barrel was ordered from The Barrelbender and he installed the cocking arm for the 'quick' caliber change. I installed a sight cover plate from AOA and a brake from JM (they pop up on his "Specials" now and then). There is no difference in port size between the calibers and the JM kit is shorter than the stock spring so I don't use a spring press because there's almost no preload putting on the endcap. Swapping barrels is easy with an R1!