Crosman Phantom VS. Beeman Dual caliber Air Rifle

[parkerd]

How do I check the crown?

[gamo2hammerli]

Don't have the Beeman dual caliber, but do have the .177 Crosman G1 Extreme (Sister of the Phantom with no open sights).  Very accurate and powerful out to 40+ yards.  Started to lose accuracy due to barrel sway after 1000+ shots...turned out they put too much lubricant on the barrel pivot bolt.  And the lube got into the threads and was loosening the barrel everytime it was being cocked.  Once cleaned, Blue Loc-Tited and bolted back in nice and tight....accuracy was back on.  Seems the Phantoms and G1s have this problem....haven't read about the other Crosmans doing this (Yet).
As for the Beeman dual caliber I've read that most shooters will end up shooting one caliber.  Waste of time to keep on switching calibers/barrels: Barrel off, barrel on, Blue Loc-Tite, wait 24+ hrs. and sight in.  Much easier to just buy another rifle.

[JJ1514]

I have a .177 crosman phantom for the last 2 years and have had to problems except that the stock spring broke. It is accurate as far as I know, I can hit a quarter at 35 yards with a crappy $15 scope without a bench rest, although not every shot, like 1 in 3, but I'm not a good shot. It is powerful, I recently took a crow at 35 yards with  a heart shot, the crow was dead instantly. So far for the price I like it, but I'm not very expierenced.

[makenzie71]

If you decide to give up on your air hawk I'll trade you some wire figures for it .  I'm looking for a project .177.

[parkerd]

Haha I put it on Craigslist and I'm meetin a guy here... But when I buy the RS2 I will prolly put the barrel for sale if you want it..

[bobster]

For the RS2, if you are planning to stay with .22 caliber I would get the dedicated .22 at walmart, not the dual barrel one.  The .22 version (not dual barrel) comes with the 3x9 scope for $128.  The dual barrel one has a 4x scope.

[makenzie71]

For the RS2, if you are planning to stay with .22 caliber I would get the dedicated .22 at walmart, not the dual barrel one.  The .22 version (not dual barrel) comes with the 3x9 scope for $128.  The dual barrel one has a 4x scope.

It could be a 2~50000 X ∞ and still not be worth keeping lol...in general, anyway.  I'm sure some of them are decent but the China-Beeman scopes have been pretty lackluster in my (limited) experience.  I would buy the cheaper one just to have the few extra dollars to put toward a better scope.

Haha I put it on Craigslist and I'm meetin a guy here... But when I buy the RS2 I will prolly put the barrel for sale if you want it..

How much are you asking?  If your current arrangement falls through and you got a good askign price I may bite...

[4932msmith]

I agree with Makenzie, mine came with the Beeman 3-9x and is a pretty sorry scope. focus is not adjustable and it is fairly dim as far as 32mm scopes go. That said it does hold zero and if you don't mind leaving it on 3x or 4x it is usable.

[Kailua]

Parkerd
This is kind of late.  I was skimming through this thread. I was just wondering if you had ever cleaned the factory grease out of the barrel?
As for the barrel crown.  Take off the muzzle break.  The crown would look like some sort of countersink.  Different guns have different types of cuts when crowned.  The crown should be clean, smooth and even.

[parkerd]

No I haven't... I don't have very many tool's to do the job though... But if you could give me a simpple how to with stuff at home I might be able to... I some Hoppes NO.9 and a few rods but no cleaning patches..

[SAADE]

parkerd:  A lot of good info in this thread for you to digest but, don't go into info-overload! I made a quick summary for you below with a priority from 1 to 5 for spring gun shooting/accuracy. (IMHO)

1) Inspect, clean and lube any new spring gun, including cleaning the barrel, silcone oil on breech seals and... check all stock screws and trigger guard fasteners etc and clean and tighten as needed ( a little blue Loctite after cleaning threads of all oils)
2) Use a good mid-weight pellet, dome shape or wadcutter to start out with and for accuracy checks and consistency, at least for the first 100 or so shots. Don't use any of the so-called alloy/ultra lite pellets, they aren't accurate and worse, they will harm the gun from spring fatigue and piston slamming. Fast doesn't equal accurate.
3) The guns mentioned can both be good, the Beeman get's a lot of good comments and the Wally-world connection makes it a no brainer if you don't like it or it has quality issues. Beeman or Crosman, a break barrel may have barrel droop from day one, you can compensate for this with a very thin shim of plastic, brass or aluminum on the REAR scope mount, lower cradle. Just use a .020" or less thickness so you don't tweek your scope tube from stress. Gently tighten from rear to front and repeat until all mount screws are tight but not "death grip" tight. Use a little blue Loctite on these screws too. If your scope has plenty of vertical adjustment, then you can ignore the barrel droop issue completely, for now.
4) Trigger and "artillery hold" stuff. This could take days so I'll cut to it... The artillery hold simply means letting the gun recoil without influencing it by a heavy-handed grip on the forearm or the pistol grip area of the stock. The butt-pad should be square and vertical in your shoulder but, not held tightly like you would a 12 gage shotgun or magnum rifle. Ok, so is that a 100% rule? No! My HW97K will shoot lights-out no matter how I hold it, even on a bag or rest. You will need to experiment a little with greater and lesser grip on the gun stock until you find the sweet-spot. Likewise, trigger control is important and is not much different than a powder-burner. Your trigger finger pad is all that should touch the trigger and.. keep that finger clear of the stock or other influences at the same time. If your stock trigger is too heavy or grungy, the levers and sear can be polished and moly lubed but don't grind away any of the sear or engagement shapes, that can be dangerous.
5) Start shooting at paper at 20 yards if you have that distance available and keep at it till you are satisfied. At minimum, pellets at 20 yards should always be in a 1.0" bullseye, that's plenty good for figuring out your Hold, Pellet Type and Trigger Control. If you can plant e'm in a 1" circle at 20 yards, over and over again, move out to 30 and eventually 50.

Sorry for the long-winded response but, why go crazy over your spring gun when guys like me (and others here) have already done it for you!?

PS you can check the Crown of the barrel by taking a q-tip and gently rub it around the end of the rifling where it meets the face or crown of the barrel. If it snags or the surface pulls any of the fibers away, you probably need a Crowning. That's a whole other subject but, it can be done with simple tools and a hand drill.

[Muzzzy]

You can make yourself with any of these springers. Like it was suggested earlier. Do a lot research on GTA about hold's, tune's, trigger, and pellets. I believe with the effort and practice you can get just about any them to perform. Trigger and pellet choice seem to be the fastest and easiest way to get them close. ( under and inch @ 20 yds) the tunes and specifice holds will dial you in from there.
 You can order pellet samplers from PA and get several styles and weights for the cost on one tin and try them. You'll be amazed at what different pellets do. ( Diet sensitive can be an understatement )

[Kailua]

If you have a question on any subject go to a gate and on the top right there is a search window.  For cleaning a barrel on a airgun being the barrel is a softer metal than a PB (powder burning) gun it is not recommended to use cleaning rods.  There are different opinions on cleaning but a lot of people use Goo Gone should be easy to find.  Get some weed eater line melt one end of it and make a nub at one end to keep patches from slipping off and a sharp point on the other end.  You need to get some patches.  Clean the barrel with the Goo Gone till clean then with a dry patch till dry.  You may need to shoot a tin of pellet to season the barrel for accuracy to get better.  If accuracy improves do not clean the barrel till accuracy starts to fail again.  Some like clean their barrel every few hundred shots. Lots of different opinions on this. 
What Saade suggest is good info.  If you get into a lot of shooting you need to learn to tear down your gun and learn minor lube tuning.  Most air guns at your price range need cleaning even where the spring and seal are in the commpression tube.  In my opinion the air gun should be torn down and cleaned and inspected before shooting.
Check the China Gate if you haven't yet.  There is a post on a Tuned Ruger Air Hawk

[parkerd]

To Lube do I just take it apart and rub all the oils from the screws and such!? I'm still quite a novice to AG's...

[SAADE]

Clean threads with rubbing alcohol or windex unitl no black stuff shows up on rag, do the screws and the holes they went into on the gun.

As for other cleaning and lubing, there is a ton o' info in our Library and on the web, waay to much for here but, just remember the 3 primary rules of lubing spring guns...

1) Never put any flammable oils or liquids into the piston/chamber (the little hole that emits air into the barrel) one drop of PURE silcone oil is ok now and then but that's all.

2) Use silcone oil on your breech seals to wipe them clean (the small o-ring shaped seal on the barrel/breech where the pellet goes) Harsh detergent oils will eat up most o-rings, don't use automotive oils.

3) A light coat of moly grease on your trigger parts will help but.. if you are not ready to tear into that trigger just yet, then just flush out the trigger housing with spray WD-40 or LP type lube and then clean & dry as best as possible.

Read up on how to clean and lube your mainspring, it is not easy to do without a tear down of the gun so be careful. If you can see most of the spring thru a slot, then work on cleaning with q-tip or chopsticks and rags etc, don't leave q-tip stuff and rags in there, and do the same after cleaning with a heavy tar-like grease, not moly or lightweight greases.

[Kailua]

There are some videos on Youtube it may give you some basics.  Different spring guns may have a different procedure usually at the trigger location.  Pyramid air has a ton of written information on different subjects on airguns and airgun reviews. Even has a series called Airgun Academy.

[parkerd]

Thanks guys!! Saade I did the mainspring part I don't have any Silicone oil that I could find but man that mainspring had a bunch of junk in it went through about 15 Q-Tips and everyone except the last was coated in black.. Can this effect the gun?

[SAADE]

Thanks guys!! Saade I did the mainspring part I don't have any Silicone oil that I could find but man that mainspring had a bunch of junk in it went through about 15 Q-Tips and everyone except the last was coated in black.. Can this effect the gun?

OK, you did good, now lube the spring coils as best you can with a very heavy grease, almost like tar. Just take your time and your "chopstick" and get a film onto as much of the coils as you can, not heaping gobs o' grease, just a good solid film. All the grease does is dampen some of the vibration, so keep it out of the trigger parts and the piston area (front of spring nearest to the breech). This won't be a perfect lube job on the spring but that's ok, some of the grease will migrate across the coils anyway. Everything else is hinge pins or cocking linkage and friction areas so just use a good, clean gun oil and keep it out of the chamber/piston area for those areas.

[parkerd]

Could you give me a brand or anything? I mean I do have tar! haha What about WD-40? OR is that a big no no?

[Kailua]

You need some molly based grease in the piston chamber.  Just because the there will be a lot of heat generated and cause detonation of the grease.  Some use moly grease used on Honda motorcycles for the main spring.  There is moly grease in any automotive store.  The best to use would be moly grease and spring tar grease from Air Rifle Headquaters (online store).  The spring tar will smooth out firing cycle and get rid of spring twang.  The piston chamber must cleaned out really clean.  When adding moly grease to piston seal and a little on the rear of piston just a little (less the better).  When putting piston back in the cylinder be careful not to damaged the piston seal.  It would better to file all sharp edges on what ever  slots in the cylinder before cleaning. 
WD-40 is more like a cleaning solvent base not as good lubricant.