Crosman 500 Modified to Shoot Pellets?

[egillman]

Pellets load fine from the magazine to the barrel - while it is apart on the bench.  As soon as I put the trigger/hammer assembly back in, put the receiver back together, and put in a CO2 cartridge - pellets don't load.  I noticed that the trigger is not returning all the way forward after firing, which makes me think the plastic shuttle is also not returning to the position in line with the pellet magazine.  More testing will be done tomorrow.

[egillman]

Exciting news - the 500P shot its first magazine of 10 pellets!  In case you haven't been following this thread, I modified a Crosman 500 semi-auto bb rifle to be a semi-auto pellet rifle.  I swapped out the smooth barrel for a 1077 rifled barrel, and modified the plastic bb loader shuttle to fit pellets.  It's not truly "semi-auto" yet, as I have to nudge the pellets in the magazine along with a piece of aluminum tubing that I push into the muzzle end.  The spring-loaded thingy that is used for bb's doesn't seem to work for pellets. My first impression of accuracy is "very good" as it should be with the 1077 barrel.  I will add pics to my next update.

[aack73]

that sounds like good progress.

[egillman]

I finally got back to this project after a few weeks off.  What I have created is a Crosman 500 bb repeater that has been modified to shoot pellets.  This includes a new in-line pellet magazine to replace the bb magazine, and a 1077 rifled barrel to replace the stock smooth barrel.  The gun loads and shoots just fine if only one pellet is sent down the magazine, but "hangs up" when I try to pre-load more than one.  The accuracy is very good, as expected with the rifled barrel.  I think I am going to give up on the "repeater" idea and just be happy with a Crosman single-shot 500 pellet rifle. I will clean it up and post some pics soon.

[egillman]

Here is the finished Crosman "500P" (modified to shoot pellets, top) and a standard 500 bb rifle (bottom).  The 500P has a rifled barrel from a Crosman 1077, which is a few inches shorter.  Currently, it is a single-shot since loading more than one pellet into the in-line magazine often results in jamming.  It is quite accurate, plus I think it looks pretty cool!

[egillman]

One good mod deserves another, so I decided to fit a 9 oz. CO2 paintball tank to my Crosman 500P pellet rifle.  I decided to remove about half of the forestock and mount a 3.5 oz tank under the barrel.  I finally got it all together tonight, the seals were tight, and I was able to dry fire it.  Tomorrow I will try it out with pellets.  Pictures to follow.

[egillman]

Here are the photos of the Crosman 500P bulk fill pellet rifle.  I will be replacing the 9 oz CO2 tank with a 3.5 oz tank, and the long "looped" hose with a shorter one.

[egillman]

Here's the finished product.  It has a 3.5 oz. CO2 tank, rifled barrel, and shoots .177 pellets very accurately at 400 fps.

[aack73]

Very nice Erik. you put a lot of time into that one.

[egillman]

Sometimes you have to cut your losses and move on.  After trying for numerous hours to get this modified Crosman 500 to reliably load pellets (instead of bb's) I officially gave up on it tonight.  I saved all the bulk-fill and other reuseable parts for another project, and the rest went in the trash.  The good news is that I now have an empty slot in my gun rack, just waiting for a new vintage airgun to fill it!