Cricket Gauge Leaking, had to make a gauge socket.
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Cricket Gauge Leaking, had to make a gauge socket.
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Topic: Cricket Gauge Leaking, had to make a gauge socket. (Read 295 times))
USMCShooter
Shooter
Posts: 12
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Real Name: Jamie Garrison
Cricket Gauge Leaking, had to make a gauge socket.
«
on:
July 14, 2021, 11:19:27 AM »
My Go-to gun for the last 8 years, a Cricket Bullpup in .25 developed an overnight leak. It would go from full and then stop halfway into the green, on the edge of the blue...and wouldn't leak down further. After dunking it in the bathtub, I found intermittent bubbles from the gauge.
I started looking at different forums and found old posts and some of Ernest's old YouTube videos. When I bought the gun as my first "Expensive Airgun" as a gift to myself when I retired from the Marine Corps, I knew it was an easy gun to work on.
I usually do all my own airgun work, and many folks may remember me from here and the old Yellow Forum 10-12 years ago when I was still on Active Duty, on instructor duty, with time on my hands.
Fast forward and I'm working a 40+ hour week and traveling quite a bit for work. I just (thought) I didn't have time to work on this and I'm heading up home to Missouri next month for my annual squirrel hunt to catch them on the Hickory trees. I sent a few emails to several folks I know work on them but the one I was hoping for, Charlie Frear, only works on guns he sells now, and the others were booked solid and it would be weeks before I got the gun back. The guy Charlie recommended I contact, while booked, did me a solid and measured the OD of his socket and texted me the dimensions. But, with no time to get on the lathe, I let a buddy of mine take the gun to a guy that works on his guns when I don't have the time, which has definitely been the last 2 years. While I loathe anyone else working on my guns, the guy lives 1.5 hours from me and it seems he's taken pretty good care of my buddy and several of his guns, and could turn it around in a week, so I sucked it up. I've had a re-seal kit that came with the gun and I verified all the O-rings were still in good shape, so I told him to go ahead and do a re-seal.
The guy called me two days later and informed me that in attempting to get the gauge out (claims he's worked on numerous Crickets), the plastic gauge cover broke. I told him to stop right where he was and not to do ANYTHING else to the gun...whatever state of disassembly it's in, STOP, I'll come get it!
So, when I got home from travel last Friday, I drove over to his place to pick the gun up. The guy was extremely apologetic, and offered to pay for the gauge, and stated he'd removed the gauges from numerous crickets. In my research I'd learned that a special, thin-walled socket was required to remove the gauge. I asked what he was using to remove the gauges, he was using two table forks ground down where they would fit between the sleeve and the gauge and clamped with a C-clamp....which I guess had worked for him, but as proven, not a good method.
I attempted to contact several people from the old posts to have one made, but never received a return email. One individual from another forum offered to sell me his homemade gauge socket for $100 plus shipping, a socket modified with a grinder...which I'm sure would work, but I certainly wasn't paying that kind of money for something that was rough at best.
I needed to get the gun resealed, so I took a day off work, went to Harbor Freight and bought a 6-point, 27mm impact socket (the only place and type of single socket I could find without buying a set). My old (120 years) lathe hadn't been fired up on over a year, so it was a good opportunity to get to a happy place and do some machine work. Well, let me tell you, Harbor Freight's impact sockets are HARD! LOL! Tool steel literally just scratched it surface! I had to put it in the vice and heat it cherry red with the torch to remove the hardening.
With that done, I commenced taking SMALL turns out of the socket...I had to remove around .105, .003-.005 per pass....SLOW work! But, after a couple of hours, with some final polishing to reach final dimensions, I had a pretty decent product that worked flawlessly. I pulled the gun down, cleaned everything up, refreshed all of the O-rings and now All I'm waiting for now is the Gauge from Charlie to finish the job.
For those that may need to make one of these, the OD on the socket is 1.212.
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Pensacola, Florida
USMCShooter
Shooter
Posts: 12
yes
Real Name: Jamie Garrison
Re: Cricket Gauge Leaking, had to make a gauge socket.
«
Reply #1 on:
July 14, 2021, 11:20:26 AM »
another pic
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Pensacola, Florida
USMCShooter
Shooter
Posts: 12
yes
Real Name: Jamie Garrison
Re: Cricket Gauge Leaking, had to make a gauge socket.
«
Reply #2 on:
July 14, 2021, 11:21:09 AM »
The OLD lathe! She still cuts accurately though!
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Pensacola, Florida
CraigH
GTA Senior Contributor
Posts: 3540
Real Name: Craig
Re: Cricket Gauge Leaking, had to make a gauge socket.
«
Reply #3 on:
July 14, 2021, 12:23:23 PM »
Nice work by you and the old lathe. Would like to have something bigger than my LMS 5100.
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Lone Tree, Colorado
With freedom comes a terrible responsibility
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Cricket Gauge Leaking, had to make a gauge socket.