Lost Power.

[Spring]

I recently bought an old rusty second-hand spring break-barrel.22 cal. air rifle. Tested it for the power on the Yellow Pages. It was about 250 pages. Then I decided to clean the gun thoroughly with the intention to increase its power a little.

 

I carefully took the gun to pieces, washed off all grease from inside and the rust from the outside, lubricated and put all the parts together. Then I tested it again anticipating that it would shoot through about 300 pages this time.

 

However the results were disastrous. Now the pellet punched only 65 pages.

 

Since then I dismantled the rifle a few more times trying to figure out what might the problem be. I tried to put both more and almost no lubricant on the spring and the piston but the power was still the same – 63 to 67 yellow pages. In my opinion the seals are quite alright (they aren’t new but they did produce the 250 page shots in my first test).

 

Does anybody know what might be the reason for such a significant loss of power after the dismantling and/or cleaning of the rifle? Any advise how to rectify the problem?

[huntercarbine]

were there any washers at either end of the spring(back of piston/back of spring) that you didnt put back? Is the spring knackered? if so the power will increase/decrease between shots regardless whether youve stripped it or not. Is the gun dieseling(smoke out barrel)? this means youve got grease in the air chamber which knackers the seals. good luck with it mate anyway, i'm sure someone on here who's proper clued up can give you advice. Make and model of gun will help as well.

[Dougy]

did you remove the breach seal???

 

If its lost that much power i would say its not dieseling as that would increase the power if anything, did you replace the piston correctly, not put a kink in or split it ?

Have you checked that the chamber and breach have a good tight fit ?