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Remington Express


bruno22rf
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Bought one of these cheapies a few weeks back from a local dealer - at £100 brand new with a scope, mounts etc I was struggling to find a reason not to buy it. Not really expecting great things from her to be honest - Chinese built guns have never been very high up my wish list and I am fortunate enough to be able to afford, pretty much, any gun that I choose so I am lucky not to have to go over board where value is concerned.

First impressions were quite pleasing - comes well packaged and reminds me somewhat of the FWB 124/7's of yesteryear so not a bad looker. Due to the suspect quality of the supplied items an old one piece mount that I had laying around was brought back into service to hold a Simmons 1.5 - 5 x 32 scope ( that I simply cannot recall where it came from) and testing, in earnest, began.

Unless Arnie is your neighbour, and is up for pulling the trigger for you, the first hurdle is the trigger. I can understand the thinking behind a trigger pull that errs on the side of safe but the express unit is ridiculous. Five minutes with a Philips screwdriver had the action out of the stock ( it's actually very well made when you see it "naked") and removing 2 washers from the sear adjusting screw resulted in a rather pleasant trigger pull - happy days.

Shooting the beast is a bit of a shock if you are used to high end PCP's - the usual quiet puff of my favourite gun is dull in comparison to the express's impression of fireworks night - various twangs, pops and clunks are accompanied by an entertaining cloud of smoke that chokes all around you for a few minutes - if you can imagine BBQ' ing 3 in 1 oil then you are pretty much there. After 20 or so shots the landscape around you begins to reappear and your vision becomes clear enough to see that, yes, the trigger really is that far forward and your hand has not, actually, shrunk. The stock/pistol grip on this gun was , most likely, designed with the expectation that Arnie really is your neighbour.

But the little blighter has actually grown on me, with the better scope/mount fitted, and using my usual AA fields (.22) she will produce a ragged 5 shot one hole group at just over 25 yards which cannot be bad for something that costs around the same as my PCP does to service - power, according to my chrono , is 11.1 ft/lb and is more than adequate for vermin.

This morning found my slumber rather rudely interrupted by a love sick pigeon coo coo'ing its head off whilst perched in the Hawthorn at the end of my garden - at 6:30 my forgiveness gland is not 100% so the express had a noisy word with said bird - at just over 40 yards the bird experienced an unfortunate meeting with 16 grains of AA's finest lead and I,m afraid that Romeo tooketh a rather nasty tumble earthwards from which moment peace was restored.

So now the express and I are on good terms and I am actually considering using her for hunting and also reconsidering my opinions on cheap Chinese guns - time will tell but , at the moment, I would be more than happy to recommend this one.

Edited by bruno22rf
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Im glad finally somebody else has picked up a remington and I've had the same trouble with the trigger but I don't have the experience of dismantling, you say you took a couple of washers off the sear adjusting screw? What's it like now?

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Trigger is 100% improved by removing the washers ASunnyD-real easy to do - remove all 4 securing Philips screws from the woodwork - the forend ones have anti shake washers so be careful not to lose them. Jiggle the action from the stock (its a really snug fit) and lay the action down on its side with the trigger facing you - at the very front of the trigger unit you will see a small screw with 3 tiny washers underneath it - unscrew it and remove 2 of them - replace the screw and refit the action to the stock - fit one screw at a time loosely before finally tightening all 4. Take it outside to test it - cock the gun and release the safety then shake the gun and bang it with the palm of your hand to make sure that the trigger is not too light - if it is then simply replace one of the removed washers but I'm pretty sure that all will be fine - enjoy your new trigger - sooooo much better :good:

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Now Bruno, let us compare this gun to one which you would recommend to someone to start shooting with, the HW95.

Cost, HW95 £295 average price for retail. Add to that you have to get a scope and mounts. Advantage is that lovely Rekord trigger. But if you decide shooting is not your bag, you have basically wasted £100 as you will sell it for a couple of hundred, maybe £20 more if you are lucky.

 

Remington Express, complete with **** scope and mounts £100, if you decide shooting is not for you you will sell it for £60-70, meaning you have lost £30 tops!

 

Now what would you rather lose £30 or £100?

 

You say that you have sorted the trigger pull out. Removing 2 washers got you a pleasant trigger. You also bagged a pigeon at 40 yards (after the usual barrel clearing shots which result in a Q branch like smoke cloud). You would be happy with a shot like that from an unsorted 95 as well! So they are accurate. Now investing a few quid in a Tinbum or Welsh Willy kit will sort the noise out a lot! Thing is for a few more quid you could buy a whole new rifle (the WW kit is basically £60). Your call if you want to get into the innards!

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TBH Mole it does everything that I could ask of it as it is and a huge part of it's appeal is that it was so cheap - if I go spending money on it I worry that some of it's charm may be lost. I am considering taking it to my local Airgun club and letting them use it for a while to run it in a bit then I will start using it for Squirrel control when we start shooting them again in October. In the meantime I will try a selection of different pellets to see which go best in her after finding several AA fields yesterday that were "off centre" - all suggestions welcome.

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Thanks Bruno I will get that in the shed and have a look tomorrow! I picked up the thunderjet for £170 in. 22 and its a beautiful airgun, the remingtons are awesome, just don't seem to have established properly yet in the airgun market so it's hard to get the advice not being so experienced myself! Thanks bud!

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And they can be modified

Carbined to 12.5 inches & with Lynn Lewington AR silencer.

The breach seal is shimmed because the seal does not stand quite proud enough for a consistent seal. (a built in design fault common to the Remington & SMK 208 series & cost about 2 pence to fix)

Welshwilly tune kit

Maccari piston seal

Lyn Lewington brass (curved) setback trigger

The scope is a Nikko Stirling Gold Crown Airking 4x12x42 AO/IR Mildot

it goes very well on JSB Exact 5.52 and performs as good as it looks

Some might argue that spending the money on the modifications defeats the point of a cheaper rifle

However, the mod's are what makes this one mine,

 

post-9800-0-93006400-1464290765_thumb.jpg

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SteveieP - looks nice and I'm glad that you have spent time and money on your gun - there are a lot of doubters out there where Chinese guns are concerned ( and I was among them) but I think you need to actually try one before expressing any opinion - many of the reviews of the Express waxed lyrical about it being superb value at £160 - the fact that mine, new and boxed, was £60 less makes it unbelievable value. Even stranger is that my Express sits in a rack next to a S410, A S200 and a Mercury S but it's still the one I keep picking up.

Mole - first of all we need to tread carefully here - with my recent discovery of the value of the Chinese guns there is a real danger that we might actually agree on something :rolleyes: . BTW - doubt that I would recommend a HW95 as I had one for a while and, despite pulling off my longest shot ever, I never actually gelled with the thing - on NewsNow last week there was a TX200HC in Walnut going for £200 - I would opt for that.

Edited by bruno22rf
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I had one,the only reason i got shut was the trigger,if i had known the trigger could be inproved so easily would have kept it,for the money they are great guns.

Just removing 2 of the 3 washers from under the sear engagement (front) screw makes a big difference, lightens trigger pull considerably & costs zero.

if you feel the need to go still further, somewhere around £25 will get you a brass setback trigger from Lyn Lewington.

A superb piece of engineering with 2 further adjustment screws to set the trigger "just so"

The equivalent of Rowan Engineering triggers but about £10 per unit cheaper.

IMO, my conversion is no different to putting a V-mach kit & Rowan trigger into a HW except the start & finish points are £x cheaper & the end improvement is just as worthwhile

Edited by SteveieP
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Just removing 2 of the 3 washers from under the sear engagement (front) screw makes a big difference, lightens trigger pull considerably & costs zero.

if you feel the need to go still further, somewhere around £25 will get you a brass setback trigger from Lyn Lewington.

A superb piece of engineering with 2 further adjustment screws to set the trigger "just so"

The equivalent of Rowan Engineering triggers but about £10 per unit cheaper.

IMO, my conversion is no different to putting a V-mach kit & Rowan trigger into a HW except the start & finish points are £x cheaper & the end improvement is just as worthwhile

Yeah but it becomes galling when with the cost of the tuning parts, you could buy yourself another one, take two washers out and have a thoroughly acceptable spare rifle....

 

But it becomes addictive, I know, I spent many 10s of pounds on a tuning kit from T R Robb for the QB78 DL I had, I also spent hours tuning it up, then another hour tuning it back down to legal power (had to replace the Robb hammer with the original hammer to get it down to 11 ft lb from the 14 it was running at). I spent much more than the gun cost (bought secondhand for about £30).

Edited by secretagentmole
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  • 2 years later...
23 hours ago, strimmer_13 said:

Bruno22rf you still using your express? I picked mine up again the other day and forgot how good it is. 

And I ask as it's been years since this thread was started 

I think I stole it off him a while back. 

Fitted the afore mentioned Lyn Lewington setback trigger, new seal and a megapolish. Just needs a tin of pellets to settle down which I shall endeavour to accomplish tomorrow. 

Will see how it performs before investing in a tbt drop in kit. 

The only real faff stripping these is the safety mechanism and once you've sussed that it's easy. 

Edited by Mr.C
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Yes I fettled with mine, and its the xp with that 'silencer' on, but it's my favourite out of all my guns. Plus its a long gun, and I'm a tall person so the stock fits me well. 

I hated it to start, put about 300 shots in to bed it and didn't work, so tbt and a basic bit of polishing and its super smooth. Better than and other spring gun I've owned, but saying that I've never had to fettle any other gun. 

 

 

IMG_20190309_095743-1488x1984.jpg

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hello, i have a Hammerli 800 thats a bit rough, was thinking to cut the barrel shorter to get that plastic thing off, re do the crown as i bought some brass screws and valve paste,  fit a silencer and see if i can get a tune kit, anyone worked on these, i could not see a kit on tinbum web site, 

Edited by oldypigeonpopper
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1 hour ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

hello, i have a Hammerli 800 thats a bit rough, was thinking to cut the barrel shorter to get that plastic thing off, re do the crown as i bought some brass screws and valve paste,  fit a silencer and see if i can get a tune kit, anyone worked on these, i could not see a kit on tinbum web site, 

My brother had a 800 black force or some such, i remember the silencer running nearly the length of the barrel. It was metal (or tin) and I found it a pleasant gun to shoot tbh and never fettled it. 

Ive just had a look, it seems to be based on a smk synsg which i believe the express is based on. Bull ****. The smk synsg was a bag of carp out the box, in fact it produced 4ftlb, times I'm not joking I had to rod a pellet out of the barrel. But when it did fire (bearing in mind it was low ftlb), I could single hole group at 15-20 yards but othrtworst 90 quid my brother spent. I'm aware the express is also based on the synsg I believe. Anyway I'd phone tbt and see what he says, on airgun bbs not long ago he opened a new unit up, and i believe as youve used his kits, he can/will mill you the parts needed. 

I know it sounds like I slag smk off, I don't, in fact I've nearly had every 'older' model they ever done, and if anybody has a b45-3 in .22 (full power) pm me and I'll buy it. 

 

Edited by strimmer_13
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On 05/05/2019 at 00:55, strimmer_13 said:

My brother had a 800 black force or some such, i remember the silencer running nearly the length of the barrel. It was metal (or tin) and I found it a pleasant gun to shoot tbh and never fettled it. 

Ive just had a look, it seems to be based on a smk synsg which i believe the express is based on. Bull ****. The smk synsg was a bag of carp out the box, in fact it produced 4ftlb, times I'm not joking I had to rod a pellet out of the barrel. But when it did fire (bearing in mind it was low ftlb), I could single hole group at 15-20 yards but othrtworst 90 quid my brother spent. I'm aware the express is also based on the synsg I believe. Anyway I'd phone tbt and see what he says, on airgun bbs not long ago he opened a new unit up, and i believe as youve used his kits, he can/will mill you the parts needed. 

I know it sounds like I slag smk off, I don't, in fact I've nearly had every 'older' model they ever done, and if anybody has a b45-3 in .22 (full power) pm me and I'll buy it. 

 

hello, mine is the standard 800, i shall cut the barrel down to 10 inches and fit a silencer that a kind PW member gave me, i checked on the TBTs kit and your right the SMK SYN SG will fit but i will see how it shoots first, i also filled the plastic stock, i cannot find a strip down guide,  

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5 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

hello, mine is the standard 800, i shall cut the barrel down to 10 inches and fit a silencer that a kind PW member gave me, i checked on the TBTs kit and your right the SMK SYN SG will fit but i will see how it shoots first, i also filled the plastic stock, i cannot find a strip down guide,  

hello, i took the stock off ready to cut barrel and looks like a tune kits been fitted, 

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7 hours ago, strimmer_13 said:

Had a look this evening, I'm sure I read somewhere yours is based on a rws/Diana 34. 

hello, thanks for that, i read that the 800 had a metal top hat but looking at the spring the original owner must have replaced with a delrin, should get the silencer today 

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  • 2 years later...

I appreciate this is an old topic but I have just picked up a Remington Express XP.

I have a few question which I hope some of you may be able to help with.

1   With the standard 3-9 x 32 scope the target is a little blurred at about 15metres. Is there any adjustment to improve this.

2   The sound moderator appears a little in the scope , is this normal.

3   The scope has no manufacturers logo/name , any idea who makes it.

4.   The scope has a reticule focus adjustment which does not seem to do anything , reticule is sharp image no matter how the adjustment is set.

thanks in advance 

 

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