Okay this little rifle has been mothballed since December of last year. It arrived with damage to the rifling at the muzzle:
So I reached out to Mike to see about exchanging it. He agreed but then I got to thinking about it and decided I'd just hang onto it and try chopping and recrowning it. Well, as the six month mark came creeping up, it occurred to me:
So I dug it out a couple of weekends ago and took the hacksaw to it. Then over to the drill press to square up the end with a dremel, then a little cleanup and finally a few minutes with a brass screw and some J-B paste and it was looking pretty good:
The plan for this rifle is to be a lightweight practice gun for my boys. Velocity takes a back seat to shot count so I put a couple of -113 O-rings in front of the valve and added a few shims until the velocity dropped a bit. Shot count more than doubled from about 25 to 54. Velocity is a leisurely 570fps with 8.6gr H&N FTT, or about 6fpe.
Well, it surprised me how well it was doing with the dinky non-AO 3-9 scope so last night I decided to put a better scope on it to see what it will do. This evening after work I got to try it out. A couple of 5 shot groups at 25 yards were flirting with MoA:
So I thought what the heck, let's see what it will do heaving them at the target at 43 yards. I guessed at the holdover on the first shot and got lucky that it at least landed in the 1" square. The next 3 landed pretty close to the bull's eye, and the last 3 landed in the bull.
So that was 3 shots in a row lobbed like a mortar shell that would have hit an aspirin at 43 yards. You've got to be kidding me. Glad I hung onto that barrel.
Since the SPA rifles seem to have some fans on the forum, I wanted to let you guys know that adding a spring plunger:
to the trigger frame is a really easy way to make the trigger break completely predictable. Here it is on a Plinkster:
M4 plungers (~1lb initial force) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06VWBK92S
M5 plungers (~2lbs initial force) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S4YXX8A
Since this is a rifle that will be used by the kids, I wanted a nice solid wall before the trigger breaks so I went with the larger M5 plunger. I suspect the M4 would be about ideal for my tastes but even at the heavier pull, it makes the break so predictable that it's a very nice improvement.
On this one, I had already done the "bushing on the lower trigger pin" mod to remove about 3/4 of the insanely long trigger pull but if you haven't done it to yours, the improvement would be even more noticeable because the spring plunger lets you blow through the long pull and gives you a stop just before it fires.
I hope this helps!
...On this one, I had already done the "bushing on the lower trigger pin" mod to remove about 3/4 of the insanely long trigger pull...
Question: Instead of reducing trigger travel with an added bushing, why not just use the adjustment screw that's already built into the trigger? That's exactly what it's for, but with the advantage of being adjustable!
The grub screw was installed with a high strength threadlocker, and even after hitting it with a torch I barely got it out so by that point I wanted nothing to do with it 🙂
Ouch. I guess I lucked out with the screws in my Plinkster and Dfly. Both adjusted easily.
But in fact, your misfortune is the first I've heard of anyone having difficulty, and since my SuperSear kit relies on that screw and quite a few are in use, I think I would have.
Yeah, it hasn't come up a lot in the topics I've read but I'm not the only one who has encountered it. A member on the old yellow forum wrote:
The trigger set screw is doused w/RED Loctite and that's why you're having a tough time removing it. I should have mentioned it in my original post. So it definitely will take heat- mine did- and I used the exact same method you mentioned, a soldering gun in my case.
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/yellow/cp1-pistol-trigger-pull-t445299.html#p2723821
Yeah, it hasn't come up a lot in the topics I've read but I'm not the only one who has encountered it. A member on the old yellow forum wrote:
The trigger set screw is doused w/RED Loctite and that's why you're having a tough time removing it. I should have mentioned it in my original post. So it definitely will take heat- mine did- and I used the exact same method you mentioned, a soldering gun in my case.
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/yellow/cp1-pistol-trigger-pull-t445299.html#p2723821
Clearly not everyone's experience.
How it adjusts...
Jim G. Sun 1/21, 9:32 AM
I put the spring on the center bump, then tested. I liked the pull weight, but stage 2 was a little gritty. I turned the setscrew in so it was flush, and voila. About 15 minutes, start to finish.
Maybe the factory made a change sometime in the past year?
Excessive feed on the parting tool often deforms the muzzle, maybe they were just trying to restore ID? :p
It always amazes me that these guns, I mean random cheapos, are better than the cheap scope, or sometimes cheap shooter! 😉
The crown looks very nice, and saddly enough, recrowning has almost become an essential skill for shooters. 🙁
I printed your motivational poster.
Yeah, about crowning being an essential skill, I've pretty much accepted that anything under the $400 mark is likely to benefit from at least some touchup. I don't mind that...I don't see it as being much different than the myriad of deburring and polishing that benefits other parts like the hammer and trigger group.
It's the damaged rifling that really goads me. It leaves the realm of burrs being a natural byproduct of metal fabrication. It's negligent damage. Unfortunately some companies have made it a habit to jam a rigid pilot down the muzzle and smear the rifling in the most important part of the barrel. Thankfully it doesn't seem to be common with SPA and hopefully it will stay that way.
I've been shooting the 4.52mm H&N FTT and I noticed last week that the 4.51mm were $11 on Amazon so I ordered a tin. The Plinkster seems to like them even better. This is my best 25 yard group yet:
That's one of the pellets in the hole. Based on the gray marks left by the pellets on the paper, the group is right at 0.125" so it's larger than would appear from the photo, but considering I'm shooting off a table with the rifle shouldered, not sandbagged, I'm really happy with that.
This little rifle is a lot of fun for backyard plinking!