bb shooting from a Ben 397?

[desertplinker]

I don't have a 397, but was wondering what your experiences with shooting one two or three bbs out of a Benjamin 397. Somewhere I saw one for sale that had a magnet shrink wrapped to the probe, said converted to bbs. Most likely on flea bay. Just curious.

[Robert 5mm]

Never shot steel - but have shot .20 lead Perfect Rounds out of my Blue Streak - not as accurate as a pellet

[avator]

I have some .22 lead round balls. Yeah, just not very accurate.

[ER00z]

Having a brass barrel I have no doubts about quickly wearing down the rifling using steel bb's, but I'm sure you'd get high velocities. If you happen to find lead bb/round balls (gamo?) you might get a feel to the accuracy that can be had before trying to convert to shooting steel. I believe there once was a smooth bore Benjamin in 177, but don't recall the model. If wearing out the rifling is of little concern to you, I think the 397 is an excellent platform and shoot whatever you want from it. Especially if it's a newer synthetic 397S, I don't think you'd ruffle too many feathers doing so.

[Blowpipe Sam]

IMO the 397 is kinda expensive for a BB gun.  The brass barrel would suffer from steel BB’s.  It wouldn’t be terribly easy to load. It would still be hard to pump.  There’s at least a half dozen cheaper repeaters.

Now if you had a 397 with a bad barrel why not?  Let it rip!

[avator]

If a gun has a bad barrel and won't hit a beer can at 10 yards, why even bother? That would just frustrate me.

[desertplinker]

only reason I wondered about it was because I saw a for sale used 397 ad says converted to bbs. I had to read the details and it was just a magnet shrink wrapped to the probe.

 I have always wondered just how many steel bbs it would take to wear a rifled barrel, brass or steel? call me skeptical, need empirical proof. still I agree, too expensive to experiment,

 Daisy model 35 multi pump way better, even with smooth bore barrel.

[bantam5s]

Having a brass barrel I have no doubts about quickly wearing down the rifling using steel bb's, but I'm sure you'd get high velocities. If you happen to find lead bb/round balls (gamo?) you might get a feel to the accuracy that can be had before trying to convert to shooting steel. I believe there once was a smooth bore Benjamin in 177, but don't recall the model. If wearing out the rifling is of little concern to you, I think the 397 is an excellent platform and shoot whatever you want from it. Especially if it's a newer synthetic 397S, I don't think you'd ruffle too many feathers doing so.

They had many BB shooters, but for pumpers that would be the 310 and the 340.
Both being smooth bore counterparts to the 317 and 347 respectively.

[lillysdad621]

They had many BB shooters, but for pumpers that would be the 310 and the 340.
Both being smooth bore counterparts to the 317 and 347 respectively.

+1
but the 397, even if "converted", for a good price i would try it. start using pellets again (try soft pellets, daisy wadcutters, rws hobbies or anything rws, or maybe some jsbs. even if some of the rifling is worn, soft pellets will still be spun by light rifling and you may still have an accurate gun.
As far as a multi BB gun, i made a short barrel 760 which is my "shotgun". 3 bbs stay on the magnet, and at 5 to 10 yards they all hit a can. fun plinker. I even took the front barrel band and epoxied a BB on the top, and it works as a bead sight (line up the split of the receiver with the BB, and Voila! BB is sent somewhat accurately.

[oldnamvet]

I have shot BBs from my 392PA by loading them with a tight cloth patch around them just as with a muzzleloader. Takes a few minutes to do but they shot very well at 10 yds.

[tennx]

No thanks……good luck

[Iguana15]

I probably wouldn’t shoot steel bbs out of a brass barrel

[oldnamvet]

The only thing contacting the barrel is a linen cloth patch around the BB.

[Blowpipe Sam]

The only thing contacting the barrel is a linen cloth patch around the BB.

I've shot BB's from an old B-3 that way.  I had to load them from the muzzle with a brass cleaning rod for a ram rod.  It improved the accuracy but not enough to interest me as a practical method.  Did you load them from the breech?

[oldnamvet]

Nope. Loaded them from the front with a brass cleaning rod. Accurate but not practical. Takes too long to get things ready. I am much faster with my black powder rifles.