Airhawk detune

[Flatcar1]

Well, I took the leap into another facet of tinkering. I have been tweaking a new Blackhawk into "my rifle" by doing the internal polish and lube, which I have done many times before. I chopped the barrel, recrowned it, and turned a polished aluminum muzzle brake / cocking handle, which I have done many times before. She was looking good and had a fairly smooth cycle but just wasn't there yet. Since I wasn't going to hunt with this one, I started looking into de tuning her to make her easier to shoot, which I have not done before. There are a couple of good videos on cutting down a mainspring on the net as well as many good post here. I was going to order a softer spring anyway, so I had nothing to lose by giving it a try. I cut three coils off, heated the last coil to orange and flattened it and then tempered it in oil. I smoothed and polished the end being careful not to heat it and remove the temper. Since I wasn't looking for power, a liberal dose of tar was applied. She is now much quieter and smoother to shoot. She was shooting Superdomes at 917 before, so I will be anxious to chrono this weekend and report the change that 3 coils make. Now I have to run a couple of tins through to break her in and hopefully get that single hole plinker I have been looking for. I have realized that you just have to jump in to learn the tricks that the "masters" talk about on this forum. Luckily, us tinkerers can hang around here as well and learn from the best. Where else would you learn this kind of stuff. Thank you to all you "masters" that put their knowledge out there for us to absorbe.

[longhunter]

can't wait to see the chrono results. i hunt with my hawk and currently shoot cpum's at 760 avg. ( i lost some speed with my last lube job and new seal. it had been shooting in the low to mid 800's ). very smooth shooter. the recoil looks like a .22 rimfire through the scope. zero torque and very little movement.

[Flatcar1]

I know the rules, it aint true unless there are pictures.

[steveiep]

Here's my B25 thumbhole. Yes , I know it looks like an Airhawk Elite, but it came without a scope for a lot less £'s than the Ruger to the point I could buy a much better scope than the Ruger comes with and still have change to buy pellets.
Internally it has the Maccari Large Apex seal, and delrin guide, tophat  & washers to tweak it close to Uk legal power limit of 12 fpe. We may have silly power laws but at least i can crop the barrel to around 12.5 inches & put a sound moderator on it without any kind of licence.
It's a .22 & very accurate with JSB Exact or Crosman Ultra Mag & benchrsted it cloverleafs at 30 yds & hits spinners out to 50yds. Had it now for around 5 years

[Flatcar1]

Well you know the saying "even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then". That was me today, because my first shot through the chrony was an even 700 fps. This was exactly what I was trying for when I cut three coils off the spring. I felt that I could always add preload back if it was under powered, but luckily it was dead on the money. I put four more shots through the chrony and all were within 5 fps of each other. Then on to some target work. After some fine tuning on the scope, she put 8 shots all under a quarter at 22 yards. I shot for about two hours this afternoon without any arm stress or noise pollution. I think my "acorn" is definitely a keeper, just what I was looking for in an outdoor, 20-30 yd all day plinker.