something broke on my d34, please take a look

[Wild West Shooter]

I was plinking and all of a sudden it froze up, I tried to cock it but it was binding.  Ive never fully broken down an air rifle before. 

I contacted umarex and they said to ship it to them and that their smith would look at it.  I thought it had a lifetime warranty,  but the guy I talked to said "consumable parts" like springs seals and "certain other things" are only covered by an 18month warranty.   Ive had the rifle about 20 months and have only put about 1000 pellets through it, maybe less. This is the t06 model bought in late 2012 from pyramid air.

I am wondering if any of you fine people could tell me what piece there broke? Its a metal piece.  It doesn't look consumable to me? Not after 1000 pellets at least. 

I sent these pics to umarex because I don't want to pay shipping both ways and pay their smith and buy new parts, I was hoping that they could green light the warranty based on these pics but the representative said all I could do is send it in, "because it's possible a consumable part failed and caused the metal part to break."

It seems a little fishy.  Im not saying it is, but it seems like it could be, if you guys know what I mean. 

So I am hoping you guys can diagnose this part failure and give me some advice.  I am pretty handy, I do light gunsmithing on my powder burners, so blindly shipping something off with no guarantees is not really my style.

Thanks in advance to the good folks here! I haven't been around much recently and it's good to be back on the forum!

[Chako]

I dont know but some one here will know and will point you in the right direction.

[Wild West Shooter]

Yep lol

[Chako]

i was just hopeing that by adding a reply the thread would show up to more people.

[Roadworthy]

I don't knot the geography of a D34 but it looks like your tophat split.  I would not call that a consumable, though many replace them when they replace the spring.  Mike at Flying Dragon could give you a read on it unfortunately he's out of the shop helping somebody else at the moment.

[Paul68]

Tail end of the piston has cracked. Don't see how anything other than a manufacturing defect could cause it.

[Mr Sasquatch]

Your piston has cracked right behind the cocking shoe opening. The piston is not a  "consumable", and to me it sounds like Umarex is hedging their bets with some BS about a "consumable" part  failure causing this problem. Sounds like BS to me, period.

 Honestly, I do not know what option would be best for you.  You could try to buy just the piston and fix it yourself, but Umarex may not be willing to sell you that part. Also, when you open the rifle on your own you'll void the warranty. Or you could forget the warranty and send the rifle to a third party tuner who can fix it and tune it for you at the same time. Finally, you may decide to take a risk and send it to Umarex and see if they are honest and will fix it under the warranty. They should pay for the shipping, but I'd not hold my breath.

Come to think of it, the third option may still be the best- you have a better than 50/50 chance that Umarex will fix it for free.

As a side comment, I would alway advise new AR users to shoot at least 2000 or 3000 pellets through the gun in the first month ( get cheap pellets and just keep sending them down the pipe). This will expose any problems with the gun, and you can either return it or get it fixed under warranty.

[tjk]

Ditto. A piston is NOT a consumable. Now umerex will say you voided the warranty because you removed the stock from the action. Good luck.

[Bryan Heimann]

Removing the stock should not void the warranty.  Screws coming loose on breakbarrels is pretty normal, enough that if you don't put loctite on them you will more than likely have to tighten them after every shooting session, and probably during if your groups open up a little.  Just the same- I wouldn't mention it to them.  The malfunction had nothing to do with taking the action out of the stock.   I wouldn't try to do it myself on this one, either.  If you can't cock it with the barrel, trying to remove it by hand will be tough.  It will probably mar the tube up something aweful, too.  Plus new pistons for an rws 34 aint cheap.  Best course of action is to return it.  My 2cents.

[Wild West Shooter]

Umarex told m e to remove the stock to ship it, and that they only accept guns for warranty work as such.  They say that if you send them a rifle in a stock it might not come back with the stock. I haven't done anything other than that, haven't tried to disassemble it at all.

I don't see how they could try to say this wasn't a manufacturers defect, but if they do, they charge smithing hourly plus parts... and I bet for that I could put a vortex kit in or something for the same price. 

I think they should at least pay shipping to check it out, the rifle is practically brand new. 

[Charles Outdoors]

It's not uncommon for you to pay shipping for a warranty repair. They should tell you before making any repair not covered under warranty.

[mtsheron70]

Piston split.  Weird because these things are built like battleships!  Must have been a hairline stress there that gave way.  Will need to be replaced but it is a easy fix.

Not sure you want to go through Umarex or just do yourself quite honestly.  Buy a piston from gunspares.com and just install.  Umarex and having to send back paying shipping will cost just as much as just getting it yourself and doing.

[airgunrebel]

If you think you have a little tech skills, I would not pay shipping and put the money to a Vortek Kit. You will appreciate the rifle even more after a good tune.

[1216bandit]

I would be willing to bet that the cost of a piston is going to take a big bite out of $100 bill.  Even if the cost is half of that it would still be far cheaper for you to pay shipping one way.  The piston is not a consumable item.

[Mr Sasquatch]

The more I think about your situation, the more convinced I become that you should send your rifle to Umarex. All other options will be slow (think about building your own spring compressor) and will cost you money, a lot of money for custom tuning.  With Umarex, at least you stand a good chance of only paying for one way shipping, and the repair being free. BTW if you remove the stock you can reduce the shipping charges.

There is another benefit of sending it back. This failure will have to be recorded in their records and eventually it should show as a negative statistic on some executive's spreadsheet.  Maybe I'm naïve, but if enough such repairs are reported they may want to take a look at their production process, suppliers, etc. Otherwise, your rifle will show in their records as a perfect product.  I should've sent my D34 back two years ago when the spring broke after only 1000 shots rather than fixing it myself; now they think my rifle was also perfect, which it wasn't.

[chet]

 Something is out of tolerance on that gun, the problem looks to be that the crack eventually came from firing the gun, the piston was hitting the foot of the cocking arm ect, i am thinking it was a defective out of tolerance piston, by the looks of the pic the gap between the slot in the piston and the body of the compression chamber is small, another possibility is the depth of the bore in the body of the gun where the piston seats after the shot is a little too deep, and this will crack the rear of the piston as shown in the pic, personally send the gun to umarex and hopefully they will inspect the tolerances and do it right rather than just slap a piston in and return it.

    Chet

[chet]

 After thinking a bit more it could be THAT you are possibly over cocking and applying too much pressure, once you pull back on the barrel to cock it, the spring is forced into the piston and the the rear of the flanged spring guide contacts the front of the trigger assembly at that point the trigger is latched to the piston rod,  no need to use the Arnold Swarzenagger effect LOL, the more i think about it, this can be your case,

 also you can visually check that when you gun is in the fired mode, there should be a gap (with a new piston) but check yours between the cocking arm and the rear of the piston slot so when fired there is no contact there

 Chet

[Nod]

Are we sure that's the piston ?  It looks like plastic to me . Like the end of the spring guide broke off and is around the spring itself. Isn't there a part of the spring on each side of the broken piece ? Or are my old eyes going ?

[ReturnTrip]

Your piston is cracked. There is something else wrong also...cocking arm might be bent or maybe defective from the factory.

I would send that puppy back, big problems.

[mtsheron70]

Just so the GTA community will know these pistons can come from the factory with unnoticed hairlines.  This is a customers rifle piston from a D34 he had only a few weeks when he wanted me to do a full tune.  After breaking the rifle down to disassemble and wipe down the moly and tar here is what I found on the piston side toward the piston seal..............

So they can split or begin to.  I truly believe this just to be a faulty part that somehow got through QC because the rifle was functioning fine at at the proper velocity.  So yes, the rear of the piston can or could have had a hairline and eventually gave to pressures thata they are under with the force of the spring release.