Hammer alignment
I have a Talon SS with an 18″ barrel that seems to have some sort of slight alignment problem with the cocking assembly and the top hat. When I close the cocking assembly after cocking, it catches on the front of the top hat and needs to be slightly jostled to close completely (or lifted up). After it is closed, when I move the cocking handle to the left, it wants to come back to the center (right is better, but not as good as my other SS). The symptoms are the same with both of my tanks. This gun has tried 3 different barrels and they all produce the same results.
Any thoughts on what I might try to remedy. There is always that option of return the gun to home base, but it shoots fine.
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Congrats..Glad it all worked out…Now go shootem up…
AirForce sent me a new barrel.
The new barrel works great! The bushings lined right up with my frame – not even a little offset requiring fiddling with the screws to get it aligned! The breech slides right over the top hat with no issues. I’m a happy camper.
Thanks for the options to check/try, it went a long way to establishing credibility with AirForce and not having to send my gun in (a big deal for us as we both work and it requires a day off to wait for UPS or Fedex to sign for a gun in person – in the middle of the woods).
SCREW IT! Aside from maybe wanting to fiddle with it (the gun) and or learn a thing, (at what expense) just send it back and get one that’s new & correct! Simple! No more time. No possible exceed of cost $$$! ➡
Will be interesting to see if things fit better with the new mounts.
Normally there isn’t much room to mess with on the frame ID but if you see a lot then that may be an issue. At one point I had messed with some teflon tape but got rid of it after messing with the mounts. Bottom grub screws are the important ones and the side screws just snug up a bit when you put the barrel in.
Issue he had was he couldn’t duplicate the issue you have. Might be that he had replaced the mounts by then. It’s nice when you have the whole working assembly to play with.
Barrel itself appears to be centerless ground so that would likely be the reference surface for the turning work which would create a center reference. The two should have a fair reference to each other. Next biggest issue is the mounts which throw quite a bit more into the mix and is the most likely spot to focus on.
Regarding QC most run a SPC and you really don’t want to check every barrel that comes in. That doesn’t make sense when you are manufacturing this assembly some of which is supplied by vendors with very good reputations. Barrel making is their specialty. Back to the bushing issue which is the likely error spot but not to discount the frame,, though that would throw me.
If they can’t see anything they may shoot it back to the vendor or hang onto it for the next time they do a review with the vendor.
Let us know how things work.
I sent my barrel in to AirForce. I talked to a very knowledgable fellow who had tried my barrel in several frames with no problem found. He said that earlier frames were just extruded, but not machined inside for consistent ID, although he could not tell me if my end of 2007, beginning of 2008 frames were “new” or not. If the problem were the frame ID, I could put a piece of tape on the side of the problem (i.e. on the top as my barrel hit the top of the top hat).
He indicated he had changed out the bushings, so there is a change that might have fixed it.
Then he told me a few things that I could try and he was talking about equipment I had assumed they had. e.g. chuck up the small end in a lathe to see if if was slightly off (I had thought they would be able to do that). If it was, slightly bend it in the direction to fix (I was hoping they had some more precise approach to do that).
He indicates that their barrel work is to receive the LW barrels and to fit and align the bushings. I figured that was what they did, but I thought they would have something in the way of QC to detect issues with incoming barrels.
Don’t yet know what I’m going to get back (old barrel with new bushings or new barrel and bushings – they were debating the easiest fix for all of us.
A decent experience, but it did burst my bubble on what I thought they could do…..
Hobby,
Glad something works 😆
Yep have seen the burr issue. If you do get them off then you want to carefully get rid of the burrs. You may need to get a piece of wood or a tube to you can knock/tap them loose. Make sure the grub screw is backed out before trying to tap them out. Likely the donuts will have to be removed burrs removed on the barrel and make sure the ID of the donuts are smooth as well.
Could be the burr is causing part of the problem in barrel alignment. You may find the grub was not centered.
You may need to turn donuts around one by one and or swap their position. Ya,, sort of a pain in the butt. 😆 At least you know where the work needs to be done. Have rebuilt some rigs with that sort of issue and it was a little tedious.
Good luck 😉
Thanks Mike, your posting made me try barrels again. Both 12″ ones worked fine (ether I have a bad memory or something changed …); even fixed the issue with the breech handle trying to center itself. I still haven’t gotten the collars on the 18″ barrel to move very much due to the indent where the set screw goes in being mushroomed out a bit. I do have them lined up in a new place and get the same effect when I tighten the rear screws. I may give this one to AirForce…
Hobby
Sorry,, slow in getting back.
Take them and swap them front to back and also try leaving each in their current positions on the barrel but turning them them around so that the face is reversed. You might try the later one at a time.
My two talons started out as SS’s – one with .177 and one with .22. They are around a year old, so I believe both barrels and frames are the latest. The frames have two sets of bottom and side barrel screws. The barrels have aluminum collars with an allen screw and two holes for the barrel screws to go through. I note these barrels work fine in the other gun.
Re repositioning the collars. I assume you are saying loosen the allen screw on the collars and rotate them on the barrel, right?
Have seen this with barrel mounts. Assume those barrels you mention have different mount sets. Sometimes you have to play with the mounts. Just using a set a different way can make a difference.
In the older SS with one grub there were two types of collars. Those that have come loose and those that are gonna. Glue those in.
Loose collar is not uncommon.
Thanks, the symptoms all align with the frame collar being slightly angled with respect to the hammer. I don’t get as far as O rings when it misaligns. I really need to clean up my workbench area before I attack this as anything dropped is gone forever! I have been risking it on tuning springers, but not that much to drop…..famous last words!
If your breech has the new orings in it it will be tight getting it to go over the tophat….
I’m not sure what you mean; and if I was, I’m not sure how to “measure”.
I got out a carpenters square (yeah, pretty big weapon…) and tried to see if I could detect any angle different than 90 for the collar to frame positioning – any difference was too small for me to tell. The bottle fits flush with the collar within those tolerances, but the hammer and the bottle/tophat is just a little off – pretty sure it is the collar attachment to the frame that needs a slight tweak.
Look at the alignment of the collar to the frame. The front of the collar should be totally flush with the frame.
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I did that shootem up thing with all my springers. They love the warmer weather and are coming around.
My Talons have been dormant too long. I did manage to get several 3 shot one hole groups with the new barrel, but it wasn’t as good as consistent as it was – need more shootem up time…..(still blew away all the springers at their best, but as they say at work, we have raised the bar…..