bought an old Mk5 Meteor from another member of an air rifle forum I belong to in March 2010. Got it and wished I hadn't bothered. From the pellet jammed 3/4 along the barrel that had obviously been there a good while, to the 1" side-to-side play at the end of the barrel, through to the ox spring jammed in (don't even think it was the right spring for the gun) and the total lack of sear release. Oh dear. Nice wood though, and the enamel in the barrel & cylinder are ok-ish Isn't it funny how none of this had been mentioned in the ad for the gun .. either the seller was blind, clueless or greedy. Buyer beware I suppose, although there is such a thing as lying by omission.
Took ten minutes to calm down. Big deep breath. Stripped the gun without even attempting to fire it. I though it safer not to try without further investigations.
Tapped out the pellet from the barrel with a cleaning rod, ran a brush through the barrel and then ran a .22 boresnake through with some bore cleaner. Came up bright & shiny - rifling is perfect and no sign of rot. Barrel seal was cheese & was cleaned out with the blunt end of a 2mm drill and a pin.
Took the cylinder/action apart ... spring compressor actually ran out of room which leads me to think the square section ox (?) spring someone had hoiked in there was wrong for all sorts of reasons. Piston ok, inside of the cylinder ok too, just a bit dirty. Piston head a bit battered but servicable when polished, O ring ok too, but buffer washer a bit beyond help.
Ordered some new bits from T C Chambers .. their usual prompt service was up to scratch and the parts arrived this morning. While waiting over the past couple of days I spent a bit of time tidying up the cosmetics, and had a gentle go at sorting out the barrel wobble. It's better but not resolved and I don't think it ever will be totally sorted. Cleaned & degreased everything, rebuilt the trigger set and took 3 turns off the spring just to see if it would help. Fitted a thin sleeve in the piston (made out of a 'Relentless' energy drink can bought for the purpose .. don't think I'd ever drink that crap, but nice to know the cans have a use ... ). Smoother, but I don't think that square section springs are good for anything in particular. Have ordered a standard spring from Chambers, don't mind the reduced power at all. Better to hit what I aim at than have an unpredicatable gun.
Put the new seals in and rebuilt the gun. Trigger in the gun is a nightmare to set up from scratch .. initially the sear would not release, even with a fair amount of adjustment it was still locked up. Bit more adjustment and it wouldn't stay cocked .. got it working now, but maybe the new standard spring I have on order may improve matters, but I actually think that I'll need to polish the sears a bit and fanny about a bit with the trigger set up. It's all about the fine tuning I suppose. Don't really want to replace the trigger throughout as well.
Gun now fires fine and seems pretty tight. Clearly well below 12 ft/lbs but it's a Meteor I think I'll need to source some open sights as this particular part of Birmingham's history is never (in a month of sunday's) going to zero with a scope .. not with the ongoing barrel wobble. Still be useful & fun gun to use for vermin in barns and back garden plinking I think.
LATER ...
well, I fitted the new spring from Chambers (MS024) having lubed & set up the internals properly, re-tapped the front mounting holes for the stock in order to rebuild with black M5 allen bolts as the original screws were long gone having been replaced with some crap M5 machine screws that had been forced in and that were too short anyway. Reset the trigger release put it all back in the woodwork and set up a rough sight on the front & rear using electrical tape. I've now managed to secure a full set of sights from an Airsporter Mk6 for free (same sights as Mk5 Meteor had as standard at new), so I'll try it out properly when the sights arrive and the world thaws out.
Test fired 20 pellets at 10 yards into a target/steel pellet trap using Bisley Long Range Golds. Raggy hole in the paper, and judging by the state of the flattened pellets in the trap I roughly reckon it's doing between 8-9 ft/lbs which would be right for the gun. I appreciate as a test it's not that exact, but my Scorpion pistol damages the same pellets less at 10 yards and that chrono's at 5.72 ft/lbs, Webley Longbow SE vaporises them and that does 11.89 ft/lbs with the same LRGs. Meteor is much smoother with the round section spring fitted, acceptable recoil and not too lumpy on the trigger. . Should settle down a little bit more too I reckon.
Next job is to restore the wood - strip old varnish, light stain and oiled finish I think. Looks like there might be some nice figure in the wood on the forend. When it's all done I'll post a photo - should have taken some as I went along. Never mind.
Serial number is TH50866. Places it as a Mk5 from about 1980? Might just see another 30 years now! Should be a nice light rifle for bimbling through the woods this summer - bit quieter than my .410 shottie anyway .
LATER AGAIN ...
Finally got the Meteor to a place where I'm happy to shoot it. I did refinish the stock, but tried to give it a patina that was sympathetic to the gun's age and overall condition rather than trying to make it like new again. Used a darker stain than normal and applied 6 coats of Danish oil. Finish is good & durable and I think it matches the gun. The gun now looks like a 30 year old gun that's been cared for with a couple of updates to strengthen things up. Wouldn't make sense to me to try to make it mint.
Full list of work done;
- Cleared blocked barrel, full internal clean of bore
- Strip and full clean, inside & out
- Renewed all internal/barrel seals
- Re-blued rusted/worn external areas on barrel and cylinder, and other visible bits as required (eg. hinge pin ends, etc.)
- Polished all internal parts as required
- Fitted new main spring to original spec & re-tooled original spring guide end to produce a thinner double layered bearing to stop spring grinding on cocking.
- Fitted thin tin sleeve inside piston to reduce friction/noise
- Relubed internals as required,
- Polished piston head face and fitted new buffer washer
- Light polish on sears and reset trigger to usable breaking point
- Re-tapped front mounting holes to take new M5 machine screws .. also fitted countersunk brass collets into the mounting holes on the stock to take the strain off the woodwork.
- Fitted over long bolts and filed to length in situ so they fill the available thread.
- Cleaned and re-blued.
- Re-tapped rear mounting bolt hole to take M5 cap head bolt replacing original screwhead (badly chewed)
- Rubbed down & re-blued trigger guard
- Refinished stock to my liking.
- Obtained a set of original die-cast Airsporter sights for free ( ), stripped, cleaned & rebuilt them.
- Resprayed front sight in matt black to aid sighting.
- Used better screw to mount front sights as original was mashed.
Gun is now all set for the future. It's all as tight as a duck's chuff, shoots nicely and hits consistently on the open sights at 25 yards - good enough for what I'll use it for. Cost to me has been £54 in total, but only because I got the sights for free. It won't win the 'most original Mk5 in show' but it will hold together and get a lot of use.
latest ..
cured the barrel wobble by fitting a slightly oversize hinge pin made from the shank of a drill found in my 'crap' box. Won't bore you with the details, suffice to say that I found out again how hard drill bits are to push a junior hacksaw through,
Barrel is now rock solid. Go figure!
The saga continues ... having sorted the barrel wobble and had a bit of fun with the open sights, I just bought (off the 'bay for £17) and fitted a good condition BSA 4x20 sight that's contemporary with the gun. I'll have a go at zeroing it later this eve. Funny, it now looks like the gun I always wanted when I was a kid. Just put the gun through the chrono after 100 pellets. It's doing 8.9ft/lbs with a spread of less than 10 ft/sec. Not too shabby.
UPDATE if anyone's interested ...
gun has now settled down to just a shade under 10fpe, I put an old BSA 4x20 scope on, and zeroed for 22 yards .. seems to shoot flat out to about 30 yards, bit surprised but these things sometimes make no sense. Seems to like any pellets, but shoots best with SuperDomes. I took it to an informal field target shoot two weeks ago and it actually held it's own against my AA410 and several other rifles. Velocity spread is +/- 8 fps over 10 shots earlier today. Trigger is ok, but I've gotten soft through too much time with the AA410. There is definitely life in the old dog ..
GUN IS NOW FOR SALE MINUS THE OPEN SIGHTS
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