Putting a little more power in a $15.00 Daisy

flightsimmer said:
So does that make the #25 the best compromise if you want a repeater?
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Well, regarding the current production 25, it isn't w/o is own baggage. I do not care for the sights- when using the peep it's not close enough to my eye and when using the notch, it's too close. The 25 resists efforts to significantly increase the MV, mainly due to the weak plunger tube. Some modest MV gains are possible but not on a scale with the Red Ryder or even the diminutive model 105 Buck.

The 25 does have marginally more MV in unmodified condition than the RR, and it's accuracy is a little better than the RR, at least on the day I tested them. In the end it boils down to which gun speaks to the person considering it.
 
IMG_0199.JPG IMG_0200.JPG IMG_0201.JPG IMG_0202.JPG IMG_0203.JPG Crossed paths with another BB gun. Kind of looks like the 105 but much older. Removable shot tube? Might have it in my hands next week. It belongs to my sister in law.

ID anyone?
 
LoonWulf said:
Glad to know those are useful, im still watching this thread, but i havent gotten my own gun to project yet so havent been able to make any real contributions lol.

Hinz shoot me your mailing address ill loan u my old chrono.
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LW, a very generous offer. I have made it a practice not to borrow anything. I really appreciate that you are willing to do this. I would appreciate advise on making a good choice to purchase one, or would consider the possibility of buying yours if you were inclined to sell it. Thx!
 
I'll guess No. 102 Model 36. Gonna need a trigger screw but it's a neat old survivor!
 
Some people reported getting too many error messages and some seem to have died an early death. Being unable to easily use the F1 indoors was another fairly common complaint. My ProChrono Digital has none of these problems (too soon to say what the longevity will be like). In fact I use it indoors with no problems using nothing more than a 150W incandescent light bulb in a frosted globe ~ 5' above the chrono. I have no hands on experience w/the F1, though- and there are plenty of people who like theirs just fine. And the F1 has a 3 year warranty, PC has 2 years.

I use Walmart online for quite a few things- they sell a lot of things the stores never carry and their airgun/AG accessories/BB and pellet selections are good. They have some decent pricing on several chronographs: https://www.walmart.com/ip/F1-Chronograph/4382668

ETA- Your new/old Daisy will likely have leather seals. They also may be dried out and in need of resuscitation. You can use 30w motor oil. Daisy always recommended non detergent. Some use ATF, you might want to research oiling leather seals. Just don't use WD40 or 3 in 1.

It most likely won't have an oil hole but you can add oil from the lever slot (gun inverted, w/muzzle down) and down the shot tube/air tube (muzzle up). Not required, but I use a wad of cloth to hold the cocking lever partly open when soaking the seals- not far enough to cock the gun, but far enough that the plunger head is away from the abutment/barrel seal a little. Then the gun can be left to sit for a day or two. Might want to alternate between muzzle up and muzzle down so both seals get soaked.
 
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Sorry to be late to the party. I have the prochrono also, as well as a Magnetospeed v3. I can recommend the prochrono, the only reason i bought the v3 is here in Hilo its cloudy and rainy ALOT.
Accuracy from the PC has been excellent and i recommend it. I dont use it but once every two years or so now when i change strings and weights on my compound.
 
The last two days has been bad weather here. Wednesday we had tornado watches off and on all day w/thunderstorms and hail. Thursday was clear, but high winds prevented me from doing any serious target shooting. I did adjust the sight well enough to hit some hanging targets 20 yards out, so today (hopefully) when I get ready to sight it in I should be on paper at least. I did notice the shot tube tends to loosen after several shots, I'm guessing from the vibration. I will try using a thin shim between the shot tube and shroud to take up the small gap there, maybe that'll better hold the barrel tight. The way it is now, the shot tube's threads bottom out before the funnel fully contacts the shroud. I don't know if this is intentional or if the shot tube should bear against the shroud, but it has always been 'loose' like that and that's how it was when I shot the 0.85" group.
 
cobalt327 said:
The last two days has been bad weather here. Wednesday we had tornado watches off and on all day w/thunderstorms and hail. Thursday was clear, but high winds prevented me from doing any serious target shooting. I did adjust the sight well enough to hit some hanging targets 20 yards out, so today (hopefully) when I get ready to sight it in I should be on paper at least. I did notice the shot tube tends to loosen after several shots, I'm guessing from the vibration. I will try using a thin shim between the shot tube and shroud to take up the small gap there, maybe that'll better hold the barrel tight. The way it is now, the shot tube's threads bottom out before the funnel fully contacts the shroud. I don't know if this is intentional or if the shot tube should bear against the shroud, but it has always been 'loose' like that and that's how it was when I shot the 0.85" group.
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Is it possible to loosen the nut and screw the barrel into the funnel? another thread or so?
 
cobalt327 said:
I've had good service from my Competition Electronics ProChrono Digital Chronograph from Pyramyd Air, $109.99. Use discount code PYRAMYD-NRA for 10% off.

Some info on determining velocity w/o a chrono is HERE.

Good luck!
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Well, I did it. Ordered the ProChrono! Also 2 containers of the avanti bb's. should be here next week. I'm really curious about how my modifications perform. What distance should the muzzle be from the chrono when firing? Just looking for comparative consistency. Thx!
 
cobalt327 said:
Some people reported getting too many error messages and some seem to have died an early death. Being unable to easily use the F1 indoors was another fairly common complaint. My ProChrono Digital has none of these problems (too soon to say what the longevity will be like). In fact I use it indoors with no problems using nothing more than a 150W incandescent light bulb in a frosted globe ~ 5' above the chrono. I have no hands on experience w/the F1, though- and there are plenty of people who like theirs just fine. And the F1 has a 3 year warranty, PC has 2 years.

I use Walmart online for quite a few things- they sell a lot of things the stores never carry and their airgun/AG accessories/BB and pellet selections are good. They have some decent pricing on several chronographs: https://www.walmart.com/ip/F1-Chronograph/4382668

ETA- Your new/old Daisy will likely have leather seals. They also may be dried out and in need of resuscitation. You can use 30w motor oil. Daisy always recommended non detergent. Some use ATF, you might want to research oiling leather seals. Just don't use WD40 or 3 in 1.

It most likely won't have an oil hole but you can add oil from the lever slot (gun inverted, w/muzzle down) and down the shot tube/air tube (muzzle up). Not required, but I use a wad of cloth to hold the cocking lever partly open when soaking the seals- not far enough to cock the gun, but far enough that the plunger head is away from the abutment/barrel seal a little. Then the gun can be left to sit for a day or two. Might want to alternate between muzzle up and muzzle down so both seals get soaked.
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Thanks. Will do. Was considering complete disassembly before even trying it. Rust inside air chamber,possibly? Maybe lube it up good, then disassemble? Have you made new leather seals? Is there a source for them? Thx!
 
Going off topic for one question. Any input about airsoft. I ended up with a Mauruzen L-96 sniper rifle. Was thinking of selling it. Where is the appropriate/best place for that? Thx!
Back to RR topic!
 
Congrats on the chrono- I'm thinking you will come to find it's a VERY useful tool!

The 499 funnel appears to be fully tightened onto the barrel tube. There's no lock nut or set screw that helps retain it, it's just tightened down until the threads bottom. or so it would seem.

For shooting over the chrono, I set the muzzle about even w/the front of the chrono, and a couple inches above. Unlike powder or CO2 guns, there's no plume coming out of the barrel to cause issues w/errors or faulty readings from being too close. If you heavily oiled the barrel, piston or chamber at assembly (which really isn't necessary with synthetic seals in my experience), shoot it several times to rid the system of excess oil before using the chrono. You don't want oil settling on the sensor covers. And FWIW, an over-oiled barrel just slays accuracy until it shoots out or a patch or three is run through it to get rid of the excess oil! Some oil is okay- desirable, even- but don't overdo it.

On the old Daisy, don't get carried away w/cleaning it. If you sand the finish or somesuch, the collector value dies. A collector would rather have a gun w/honest, original patina than something spit shined. If you plan on keeping it, do whatever you think is right.

It's possible for there to be rust inside the gun? Yes. Most times, the front half where the shot tube resides will have rust if the previous owner used the "put a wad of BBs in your mouth, then blow them into the loading port" method of loading the gun- this was an uber popular thing among my crew when we were kids. And w/o knowing how the gun was maintained and stored, rust could be inside the compression chamber as well. All that said, it wouldn't hurt to start the process of soaking the seals before disassembling the gun. Heck, you might find it shoots fine! A lot depends on how it was cared for. Disassembly for inspection and maintenance wouldn't be a bad idea, IMHO. But I'd probable oil it real good and give it a try before going into it further.

What you may also find is a spring that has distorted badly (example below). I have several vintage plunger assemblies that I bought in search of the 'holy grail' heavy duty plunger tube, and one of them even has the old style rigid air tube and leather seal. On all of them, the springs are distorted to some degree. And a couple of them are so bad that I have no doubt the deformation would have caused the gun to shoot very poorly. The springs can most likely be replaced w/a new production Red Ryder-type spring but a few of the old guns had springs w/considerably more spring rate than the RR spring, so performance might be subpar- but the gun would at least be useable. These guns are notorious for breaking off their air tubes. That was one of the reasons for the switch to pinned on air tubes and synthetic plunger heads (US Pat No 2,758,586 w/publication date of Aug. 14, 1956 (filed Aug. 18 1953) is for buna seals and pinned air tube.

Spring from a Model 95
DAISY_MOD_95_SPRING_X_3_VIEWS.jpg

I've never made seals but there's info online. I believe JG Airguns sells leather seals and there are other vendors that I don't recall the names of.

Looking forward to seeing what you have!

.
 
The expression "That's why you have to run the race" (or play the game, etc.) is sometimes used when the actual results differ significantly from what seems should be the obvious results.

First column of numbers are the MVs of the Daisy model 499/RR spring hybrid with the 1/2" preload spacer. The second column in boldface is without the spacer, all else is the same:
  • High 417.......430
  • Low 407........419
  • Avg 412........421
  • ES 10............11
  • SD 3..............4
I found the preload spacer had caused the 'legs' of the plunger tube to bow outwards, causing significant contact with the ID of the spring. I hadn't realized the 499 plunger tube was more prone to bending than the Red Ryder part- mainly because they look so similar to one another. And as we already know- heavy contact between the spring and plunger tube is death to MV with these BB guns. And accuracy too, as it turns out.

I also swapped out the rear sight for an adjustable open sight, possibly from a TF41 (thanks LoonWulf):

499_W-TF41_rear_sight.jpg


But what surprised me even more, the gun is back to shooting accurately again! Just now it did 5 shots into 0.90" @ 10m- using Walmart zinc plated Daisy BBs, not the good Avanti BBs. The last time I shot a target with the unmodded 499 at 10m, it did 0.85" using Avanti BBs (please know that the gun is capable of better groups than this w/a competent shooter). But today I ran out of the Avanti's I had on me, so I used what was nearby. Honestly I didn't think it mattered because I didn't expect the gun to shoot any better than it had before removing the preload spacer.

So it turns out, you really DO have to "run the race"!
 
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It's a shame the buy-in for a 499 is as high as it is- retailers get somewhere around $140 plus S&H. I do see used 499s on GB and other auction sites or classifieds. And there's the option of building one from a pile of parts.

I tried a pellet in the 499 hybrid today. MV for one shot using Crosman Wadcutter 4.5 grain was 337 fps. I tend to doubt the pellet is sealing to the shot tube as it should. Energy for an Avanti BB @ ~425 fps is ~2.1 ft-lb, the 4.5 gr pellet is 1.14 ft-lb. No idea if the skirt was too undersized because I rolled it between my thumb and index finger to ‘size’ the skirt so I could load it. I’m going to be trying a few ideas for muzzle loading the pellets as well as finding what pellet works best.
 
I’ve always thought that the current Red Ryder sights were pretty good except for the lack of windage adjustment. So I converted one of my Red Ryders to have a fully adjustable rear sight. As mentioned earlier, all this takes is the blade and screw from a donor and a little fitting of the parts. I robbed the sight blade from a Daisy 74 that uses a red dot (I’ll replace it next Daisy order I make). The top edge of the original RR sight was ground down even with the bottom of the sight notch, then I used an auto center punch to locate the hole, then it was drilled and tapped for a 4-40 machine screw.

About the only downside is adjusting the windage requires a screwdriver. But once it was dialed in, elevation changes were all I needed to keep on target today.

RR-1_DRILLED_FOR_ADJ_WINDAGE.jpg
RR-1_TAPPED_FOR_ADJ_WINDAGE.jpg


RR-1ADJ_WINDAGE.jpg
 
Well... I received the BB gun from my sister in law. It's a 102 500 shot gun. It was stored barrel down in a milk house near Corn, Oklahoma for about 40 years. Very rusty, some heavy pitting. Almost all nickel gone. There were paint splatters all over it. I dissolved the paint with lacquer thinner. Under those spot was surviving nickel. I had asked my brother to soak it with atf from both ends. Should have had him remove the stock first. The stock was cracked from the front about 6". The atf soaked in there as well.... I removed the stock and washed it with soap and water repeatedly, to attempt to remove the atf. It worked quite well. Dried it out, then wedged it open and used a syringe to inject glue, clamped it up and moved on. The rest of the gun came apart easily. Atf every where! Gently cleaned the rest with 0000 steel wool and oil. Found some replacement screws and nuts appropriate to the age of the gun. The shot tube was rusted and filled with dirt. Soaked it and pushed wire through to open a path, more soaking cleaning until a bb could be pushed through. Stay tuned for more. FedEx says my ProChrono may arrive today! How do you disassemble the air tube/leather to replace the leather? Thanks! IMG_0215.JPG IMG_0216.JPG IMG_0217.JPG IMG_0218.JPG
 
That's a good job of cleaning that 102 Model 36 up! That any nickel shows up at all is a plus. Your stock repair should be as good as new.

I've never replaced a leather seal, but it might not need replacing- from what I can see it looks to be whole, so I'd first try soaking it to let it swell, then I'd try it. What does the seal against the abutment look like? It may be pretty well stuck in place, and if so I'd leave it there because if you remove it, it may be damaged too much to reuse.

Be sure the compression chamber is still sealed. You can use a small flashlight in a dark room, aim the light inside the receiver to see if light shows through the seam of the chamber area.The gap in the outer shroud/receiver doesn't necessarily mean the gap extended all the way into the chamber as IIRC there's a separate sleeve inside for the chamber.

You're already ahead of the game by the air tube not being broken off; that's a common problem. Another common problem I mentioned earlier that you unfortunately did not dodge is the distorted spring. It may shoot using it, but the MV will never be what it should be w/that much distortion. A Red Ryder type spring won't have the same spring rate as the old one but it should work in it's place if you plan to actually shoot it.
 
cobalt327 said:
That's a good job of cleaning that 102 Model 36 up! That any nickel shows up at all is a plus. Your stock repair should be as good as new.

I've never replaced a leather seal, but it might not need replacing- from what I can see it looks to be whole, so I'd first try soaking it to let it swell, then I'd try it. What does the seal against the abutment look like? It may be pretty well stuck in place, and if so I'd leave it there because if you remove it, it may be damaged too much to reuse.

Be sure the compression chamber is still sealed. You can use a small flashlight in a dark room, aim the light inside the receiver to see if light shows through the seam of the chamber area.The gap in the outer shroud/receiver doesn't necessarily mean the gap extended all the way into the chamber as IIRC there's a separate sleeve inside for the chamber.

You're already ahead of the game by the air tube not being broken off; that's a common problem. Another common problem I mentioned earlier that you unfortunately did not dodge is the distorted spring. It may shoot using it, but the MV will never be what it should be w/that much distortion. A Red Ryder type spring won't have the same spring rate as the old one but it should work in it's place if you plan to actually shoot it.
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