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So you think you can tune a BSA superstar?


rovercoupe
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More lockdown fun, bought this superstar quite some time ago and not really done much with it and finally shot it the other day and to be fair it was ok but something did not sit right with the firing cycle on it. It was "chooned" by the last owner including a nice black spray paint finish and though there might be a ok bit of metal under it so took a punt on it and thought it would make a good project.

So onto stripping it down, tons and tons of moly grease everywhere and a nice square spring of doom which once out showed the true extent of the problem, a nice hacked cut down job there are even marks on the Spring where the cutters have marked it. Bet it went with a bang when the Spring finally snapped! It's marked up the Spring guide so might make up a new one and the paint is being stripped off right now so hopefully it's not a rusted wreck under the paint.

 

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31 minutes ago, Dougy said:

The super powerful Ox spring that you just had to put in, im sure that had the opposite of the advertised effect, looks like the previous owner thought the grease was fuel. 

All springs like that do is to put other parts of the gun under excess strain, as far as I am aware it’s the volume of air and not how strong the spring is that make the gun more powerful, I would think there is a sweet spot for the correct spring.

Be interesting to have a range of springs from very weak to very strong, then put each one in the gun from the weakest working up to the strongest, then Chronographs each spring using the same pellets and see what the results are.

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Shots hundreds of pests with one of those, my mate still has it after he bought it brand new in the 90s. 

I remember (so does he 😐) that we were shooting rats in the pig sty and i leaned it up against the stone wall, and it slid, and bounced across the floor. To this day, the dents and scratches are very visible on the stock and the golden antler scope. It was only 2-3 weeks old at the time.... Tbf he took it well, i would of lost my **** completely 

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1 hour ago, old'un said:

All springs like that do is to put other parts of the gun under excess strain, as far as I am aware it’s the volume of air and not how strong the spring is that make the gun more powerful, I would think there is a sweet spot for the correct spring.

Be interesting to have a range of springs from very weak to very strong, then put each one in the gun from the weakest working up to the strongest, then Chronographs each spring using the same pellets and see what the results are.

Im sure they did a test on that years ago in Airgun world. 

You still hear it today about how powerful my air rifle is because it recoils like a kick from a mule. 

When in fact the majority of times it has the opposite effect. 

 

Was it Fred Carter that was the big chap ? 

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I do have a standard spring I have stolen from a super sport so I’m going to try that first, it has lots of compression and the piston seal looks perfect so with a new spring and possibly a bit of Delrin in there it should not need much more doing to the internals. I have started oiling the stock as it looked stained and then just left so it is a bit flat looking but not too bad and is coming up nice already.

the action is now stripped and looking pretty good, a few hours shining it up before giving it a dip and it should be back to original.

 

EA2861AE-0920-4870-B8A8-7A24BF7E1C30.jpeg

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54 minutes ago, rovercoupe said:

I do have a standard spring I have stolen from a super sport so I’m going to try that first, it has lots of compression and the piston seal looks perfect so with a new spring and possibly a bit of Delrin in there it should not need much more doing to the internals. I have started oiling the stock as it looked stained and then just left so it is a bit flat looking but not too bad and is coming up nice already.

the action is now stripped and looking pretty good, a few hours shining it up before giving it a dip and it should be back to original.

 

EA2861AE-0920-4870-B8A8-7A24BF7E1C30.jpeg

I presume that’s for the blacking, what are you dipping it in?

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Well it did not quite go as planned, first dip nothing happened at all, so swapped out the mix and made 2l with the dregs of chemicals I had left and dropped the lever in and nothing for ages and was about to give up and suddenly it started to work so put the action in and it took ages but it has mostly worked, it’s a bit blotchy in places which I think is down to not re finishing the metal between dips but it will do for a old gun. The parts are currently covered in oil but here is a little taster of the result. 

 

0E61E956-2891-4A76-89BC-063AA3121FC7.jpeg

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So it’s back together, used the super sport spring which was in pretty good condition and added a tin can guide to to piston as there was still a small amount of play in there. Wiped down and test fired, 560 fps with super domes av so should settle down quite nicely after a tin or two of pellets and the gun shoots so much better and nearly as good as the gold star so job done apart from oiling the stock for the next few weeks!

the other result is the bluing looks pretty good and the only patchy bits are on the underlever underside.

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Last pic of it assembled and looking nice. 
2208-A734-2-C9-A-4-B47-BEBC-4245072-F1-E

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It’s a sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate mix and caustic soda to bring the temp up. It normally works first time and produces really nice results so don’t know why the first dip didn’t take but the end result is good. 

shame the fun police have put a stop to easily being able to get the chemicals. 
if this lockdown continues much longer I will run out of projects......

still got a re barrel on a dan Wesson to sort out I want to do a .22 conversion but that’s for another day.

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