My first PCP

[nervoustrigger]

Today two packages were delivered from Mike Melick (thanks, Mike!) containing a shiny B51 and pump.  This rifle is my first PCP and let me tell you, I'm as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. 

Naturally I spent the evening mounting a scope, cleaning the barrel, pumping it up, and mounting a light and pressure pad.  It's nasty outside, raining for what seems like the last 3 weeks, so I've only fired four shots so far from my carport out to the woodline.  Can't wait to get some bench time sighting it in.

Based on some things I read, I expected it to be heavy and loud.  But in my opinion, it is neither.  With the reservoir charged fully to 3000psi, it's only slightly louder than my son's little Daisy 880 multi-pump pneumatic.  And it seems relatively lightweight for my buck fifty frame.  I'm also really liking the lack of recoil.

This is to be my new hunting rig so I'll eventually be tuning it to shoot heavy-ish pellets for higher FPE.  Though it will be tempting to jump right in, I want to take my time and learn the rifle before I go tinkering with it so I can be sure it's working well. 

I'm proud to be coming over to the dark side.  Here are a couple of pictures:   

[bigriver]

Looks very nice.  Keep us posted.

[1377x]

congrats!
very nice shooter!

[Ribbonstone]

Nice gun, you will enjoy it.

Keep shooting it from your 3K fill and you will notice it getting louder and louder.  With top pressure holding the valve closed, the valve only opens a tiny bit when fired.  As air presure drops, the vlve opens longer and longer, using more air and getting noticably louder.

[aack73]

congrats. looks nice, bet it's a shooter too

[Cathartes]

Nice. I've been pretty curious about the B50/51. Let us know how it performs.

[nervoustrigger]

Ribbonstone, okay I see what you are saying.  Yes, the 5th and 6th shots were already getting louder.

I have a good assortment of pellets so I will see what works well.  And I recently got a chronograph so I will be able to make some meaningful conclusions when I begin tuning.  I will keep you guys updated.

[Rdsail]

NT,
Congrats!   I also turned to the dark side. I got a disco .22. Added a tko, brass trigger and power adjuster. I'm loving it. Got tired of pumping real fast. So went out and bought a scuba tank.

[GarthThomas]

I got my B50 about a month ago and it's great, I have detuned to 12 ftlbs right now for indoor shooting, I only fill to about 1450psi shoot to about 900 psi. Its important to use good posture when pumping or else, keep your head up & look straight ahead, stop to look at the gauge.
I was in a bit of pain till I read a post pointing out the cause. Enjoy!

[Ribbonstone]

There is a whole “book” on the BAM 50/51, and  almost all of what you ever need to know is in it.  Do a search of the forum, where (and are) a whole lot of people who like the BAM 50/51.

PLUS SIDE:
1.Except for the seals, all wood and metal.
2.Easy to service.
3.Accurate (at least in my eample).
4.Adjustable trigger.
5.Non-automatic safety.

MINUS SIDE:
1.Heavy (this kind of goes with #1 above.  An excectionally thick air tube adds to weight)
2. Trigger is often a ping-pong match. Changing one thing should not change another, but that’s how it seems.  Stay safe enough for rough treatment.
3. Loud. Whatever that attachment to the barrel is, it’s not a real good LDC.
4. Have the reputation for occasionally eating valve stems.  Have my reasons for the following do not shoot your gun empty.  Bad things seem to happen when you dry fire an empty gun or shoot one to empty (which requires near dry fire).

Bought mine used, and the previous owner did the stock work (and did a very nice job).  Is a reqorked BAM 51 stock, with some additions, reshaping, refinishing.  Doesn’t make one bit of difference to how well it shoots.

LDC is a “booster stage” added to the factory muzzle device.  Just found that easier to do and just as effective as a whole new LDC.

[nervoustrigger]

Thanks, RD.  I looked pretty seriously at a Disco for myself.  It has a lot of good things going for it...Benjamin reliability, accuracy, lots of accessories, strong support community, etc.  I think I'm going to miss having a built-in pressure gauge but it was really my plans for a hunting rifle that swung me over to the B50 / B51.

Ribbonstone, thanks for the pointer to ChrisK's book.  Actually I was reading it starting weeks ago, though I can't really digest it yet given my unfamiliarity with parts of the gun.  I'm fairly mechanically inclined so I'll get the hang of it in due time.

About dry firing, Mike wrote on the box to not fire unless charged to at least 1000 psi.  Do you think that's related to the valve stem issue you described?  I don't remember seeing that in my reading, and in fact on a few occasions read that dry firing a PCP is okay, at least generally speaking.  I understand the reasons it's bad for spring and gas piston guns.   And not that I plan to do that, but shortly after pulling the rifle from the box I pulled back the bolt, closed it and set the safety while I mounted the scope.  Then somewhere along the way of mounting the scope I disengaged the safety and bumped the trigger.  Ugh, stupid, stupid.  There was no pressure in the reservoir.  Hopefully I didn't hurt it. 

Your rifle looks really nice, by the way.   Also, I never thought about putting a one-piece mount behind the loading port.

[amb5500c]

Very cool gun. And I agree about the unrelenting rain. I've had more than enough.
Richard

[wsgts]

Nice!!!

[Ribbonstone]

Did the one piece mount simply becasue it was the only 30mm mount I had that would raise the scope to meet my eye when shouldering the gun (high cheek piece).  Certainly don't think a "recoiless"gun needs that kind of mount clamping.

Have no solid proof of dry fire/low pressure dry fire being the main cause of valve seal damage (nor do i have a bunch of issue valve stems to experiment with), but suspect it to be one way.  Without the closing pressure or air pressure, the valve stem tends to be driven in much father and harder and they tend to break at the back end (where it is reduced in size for the return spring).

Are going to accidently dry fire them every so often...but banging away all the times it takes to get them completely empty is probably abusive.

[nervoustrigger]

For the first time this week it wasn't raining when I got home from work so I excitedly took the B51 out to see how it shoots. 

Aack73, you called it:

congrats. looks nice, bet it's a shooter too

Yes sir, it is.

With only 20 pellets down the barrel, I'm not sure it's even seasoned yet but I just squeezed off this 5-shot group at 25 yards with H&N FTT 5.53mm pellets.  I'm speechless.  The ridiculous thing is, I think I pulled the last shot low.

I think I'm going like this whole darkside thing.

[Ribbonstone]

Might be a help.

I don't buy a lot of brand new airguns, but recently did buy one.

For about 400-500 rounds (one tin of 500 pellets), I didn't do JACK but shoot it and clean the barrel every 50-75 rounds. Was mostly working on setting the gun, getting shot counts and power levels.

Gun averaged about 20-25% better at the end of that, without doing a thing but shooting it. Can think of it as break-in, shooting in, or just lapping by use.  Whatever...shooting it wore off the rough spots and cleaning it removed the gunk.

So shoot it...clean the barrel..and shoot it some more.

[aack73]

congrats. the darkside is powerful. it will consume you lol

[Sqrl Klr]

Great group even with the pull Jason. Congrats.

[nervoustrigger]

Fantastic!  It's Saturday and I couldn't wait to get outside to punch paper and try a few different pellets.  I start out with the H&N FTT 5.53's that shoot so well in the XS46U gas ram, and am promptly rewarded with the satisfaction of punching ragged holes at 25 yards with relative ease. 

I have two mostly full 500-count tins of JSB Exacts in 13.4gr and 15.9gr on the shelf that shoot like absolute poo in my other two rifles.  I figure what the heck, I'll pull them out and confirm what others have been saying about JSB quality control and the undersized heads lately.  The 13.4gr pellets shoot about a 1" group, which is about 3" better than with the other two rifles.  So I move on the 15.9gr and proceed to make about a 1/2" group.  Now at this point I'm just rolling off a few quick groups to get a sense of whether it's worth taking my time.  Well, it is.

They're hitting just a smidge to the left of where I'd set the scope for the H&N's.  So three clicks to the right and I take a few careful shots on the 3/4" bullseye and soon find there's not much sport in that.  So I proceed to target random letters scattered around the paper...the "R" in RIFLE, the "G" in TARGET.  The first 3 are hits.  Then I put my eye on the brightly-colored thumbtack in the upper right corner that's holding the paper to the backer board.  Bam!  Where'd that tack go?

I'm in disbelief.  I peer back through the scope to confirm what I think I saw.  Yep, no tack.  Out comes an evil villan laugh...I can't help myself. 

So here are the two lessons I learned today:

1.  Don't throw out that crummy tin of pellets that sprays all over the place.  The next rifle might love them.  And you know deep down there is always a "next rifle".
2.  Mike is some sort of airgun sorcerer.

By the way, I haven't touched the trigger adjustments.  It's light and smooth as butter.

Lastly, I want to put in a plug for ten.ring's novel moisture filter described here:
http://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=39174.0
Put one together last night and I'm as pleased as punch with it.  If anyone is interested, I'll share a few pointers about how I made it work with the Xisico pump.

Thanks for reading.  Sorry it was so long but it's as long as I am happy.

[1377x]

i always see these b50/51's used at a local store
never gave them much thought until now
might add one to the stable one day
nice shooting!