Air Gun Home :: View topic

Slavia · Moderator

I have had this Crosman 1008 pistol for about ten years now. It is a copy of the Smith & Wesson Model 1006:

The gun is an 8-shot pellet repeater, actually a revolver with a rotating magazine. The action is similar to the current Model 1088 and C40. The "revolver" parts are all plastic - it never did work all that well, and got worse with wear. (There's even a plastic spring in there.) On double-action rapid fire the magazine would rotate past being aligned with the bore, and on carefully aimed single-action fire it wouldn't advance far enough. Besides that, it's the trigger that works all the repeater parts. On a burner revolver, it's the hammer that advances the cylinder. When you cock it for single-action fire all the trigger has to do is release the hammer. Not so here - and all those gadgets make the trigger horrendous.

Even though it's worn out and I haven't shot it for years, it seemed too good to be thrown out. So - the plan is to convert it into a single-shot CO2 break-barrel pistol carbine. Mostly it's an exercise in using up spare parts. My goal is to get at least 500 FPS and accuracy down to "minute of pop can" at 25 yards.

If you're old enough to remember "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," it will be kind of like Napoleon Solo's gun:

Slavia · Moderator

I had a rifled soda straw barrel in .177 (Daisy, I believe). It had such thin walls that I worried about bending, especially with the weight of a brake. To stiffen it and reinforce the joint where it leaves the original gun, I added a shroud. The shroud is made from the seatstay of a junked bicycle, along with reducers/adapters made from spent burner brass soldered in place. The brake was also in my junk box, the result of an aborted attempt in the past:

I'm using a rubber "O" ring between the shroud and brake that is just elastic enough to put the barrel under tension and the shroud under compression:

Roy · Veteran Member

Slavia, looks like another interesting project. What's wrong with plastic parts? Aren't they just as strong and durable as steel? (Other note: check your private messages)

Slavia · Moderator

First off - with the repeater parts removed the trigger is much more manageable. Now you can actually feel the point where the trigger link contacts the single-action sear, and it breaks a short distance after that. Almost like the feel of a two-stage trigger.

Even when new this thing bled pressure like crazy. On a damp day you could see water vapor jetting out around the breech area. The original design had two plastic/metal joints and two plastic/plastic joints to accomodate the movement of the magazine:

As a single shot all I need is one breech seal. Did you know a Sheridan seal fits neatly in the base of a .44 Magnum shell? That base was soldered to a short stub of the original barrel:

That assembly was sealed against the plastic valve end with a faucet washer, and a tightly fitted split collar (from the .44 shell) keeps it in the valve body when the breech is open for loading:

Here's how it looks in place. A couple of other details - the flange on the breech end of the barrel engages (what was formerly) the magazine axle. The front sight will be mounted on the brake, and I don't want the barrel twisting. Also, the two barrel housing clamshells were held together just by the clamping action of the main clamshells around them. I added a spacer made from two .17HMR shells and made a "threaded rivet" from a flathead screw and a "T" nut for extra strength:

It seals fine. The only problem is that when I threw it together for testing the exhaust valve leaked - but the entire contents of the capsule came blasting out the muzzle:

Slavia · Moderator

Chuck at Crosman was very helpful, and the parts are on their way. While I'm waiting, I decided to tackle some of the exterior details.

First, I identified the "key" lines of the pistol:

And then paralleled those lines to define the rest of the gun. I borrowed design elements from the Browning Buckmark carbine, the IZH60/61, and the Beretta Neos carbine:

So this is where I'm headed:

Some of the pieces have been roughed out:

So, back to the Dremel.

lampy · Veteran Member

Very cool! EyesWideOpen

I can't wait to see how this one turns out.

Alstone · Moderator & Site Supporter

Looking good Mr Solo!

Al Thumb Up!

Big Ern · Veteran Member

Awesome project and workmanship Slavia! I simply love these kind of projects. Very good job so far!

Slavia · Moderator

Back at it. Keep in mind that I'm still in the "make it fit" stage - "make it pretty" comes later. Especially since I haven't had to use any stationary power tools yet - not even the drill press.

The sights and stock parts all work together ergonomically. Luckily, the Slavia front sight globe gives a nice sight picture in the Daisy rear aperture. I had planned on using spacers to elevate the cheekpiece (comb), but it turned out to be too high already. So, I had to elevate the rear sight instead. Which meant elevating the front sight. Everything ties together.

At first I had planned to make everything adjustable, but from previous experience I will probably put things in one position and never touch them again. The one exception is the front sight height, which depends on ballistics and not my body measurements. Later I can experiment with the two cylindrical spacers to get it right.

The stock pieces, B3 buttpad, and pancake griddle spacer were all shaped just enough to use my body to determine their placement. Wood was joined to metal with machine screws and brass anchors:

The Slavia front sight fits a 6mm dovetail, which is too small for screws. I hand-fit the dovetail and then soldered it on to a larger plate that could be drilled for mounting screws:

The gun does have a 3/8" plastic dovetail above the barrel housing, but I wanted to move the aperture sight closer to my eye than that. I used the same 1"X1/8" steel strap that will form the stock, and screwed it to an internal backing plate:

I chose to keep the bar the full 1" wide around the cutout for the barrel release (for strength). I also cut out and soldered a small reinforcement for the 3/8" dovetail portion of the bar:

Big Ern · Veteran Member

Very, very clever ideas going on here. I love what you did with the stock and use of the wood as a cheek rest and buttpad. I did a similar stock out of 1" aluminun stock for my C31 a while back, but yours is much, much better!

Slavia · Moderator

Got a little bit more done. Back when the thing was working as a pistol I replaced all the wood screws with machine screws and "T" nuts cut into a kind of "screw nut" with a slot for a screwdriver. Working two screwdrivers against each other is a real pain, so this time around I just epoxied the nuts in place. It sure makes a difference when you have to assemble and disassemble multiple times:

I also grooved the plastic trigger face. I did this by dragging a tap sideways. the vise grips clamped on the tap act as an edge guide:

Got a little bit of a thumb shelf started on the LH grip:

To mate the metal buttstock to the plastic frame I needed some "hard points" that would take some stress. I did this by trimming "T" nuts and embedding them by flooding the recesses with epoxy:

That makes six 6-32 screws holding the buttstock on the gun - I'm satisfied with the stiffness:

The two frontmost screws also hold the heel rest on the gun:

So it's taking shape, and hasn't deviated too much from the original concept drawing:

The plan is to get it into shooting condition and then let performance determine how compulsive I want to be with the polishing/finishing process.

Slavia · Moderator

Only got a little done this week. I got sidetracked by cedar raised garden beds for She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed and the daughter's car breaking down in another city. By the way, there's a state trooper out there that should get a raise, or at least be nominated for sainthood. He did a fantastic job with a crying girl who was late for the second week of a new job because she had a 65 m.p.h. blowout in the middle of a bridge in Monday morning rush hour traffic. (She's safe and the car is fixed.)

I figured out the profile for the comb:

I didn't feel like spending the money for factory-made sling mounts, so I made my own. (More sheet metal from the bicycle frame that made my B3.) They work, and with blueing shouldn't be so much of an eyesore:

The location of the front mount was more challenging. Obviously a real semi-auto pistol would never have anything mounted on the slide, but this was a compromise between the utility of a sling and aesthetics. Besides, the whole gun design is Frankenstein-ish, so who cares about the equivalent of electrodes growing out of his neck:

The front mount screws into a backing plate, which also stiffens the plastic clamshell. For the stock forearm I scribed the straight lines with a knife and freehanded the inletting with a Dremel and 1/2" drum sander. Like the butt frame, it attaches via "T" nuts bedded in JB Weld. Eventually all the vacant cavities will get JB Weld for stiffness:

Since the exposed hammer is directly under the rear sight, I made extensions by drilling and tapping for two 10-32 black alloy socket head cap screws. I had a spare level vial, so I sanded with a drill bit and sandpaper and super-glued the vial to the original rear sight. It's not adjustable like some of my other designs, but will work by simpling putting the bubble in the same position for each shot (even though that may not be with the bubble centered):

More later.

Big Ern · Veteran Member

This thing is crazy cool Slavia! Loving it so far.

Slavia · Moderator

Some more little details are done.

The little thumb screw that presses the CO2 capsule into place obviously wouldn't fit with the extra junk I've added. A hole big enough to clear would have been bigger than the metal strap is wide, so that wasn't an option:

I bought a socket head cap screw with enough shaft to fit over the clamping screw's shaft. I don't have a lathe, so to keep the hole centered I spun both the screw and the bit in two different drills and in opposite directions (the screw head had a nice little dimple in the head to start the drill):

The original screw's thumb grip was held on with a pin (actually a rivet, since it was flattened on both ends). I drifted that out and soldered on my hollow socket head:

So now I have another piece of equipment that needs to stay with the gun, but it was a compromise with ease of construction. At least the hex key fits in my pocket, and did not itself require any modification or fabrication:

The final shape for the palm shelf was dictated by several concerns. Besides fitting my hand, I wanted it flat on the bottom to act as a stand (the center of mass is in the grip area):

In playing with the fit of the forearm I discovered that resting my wrist against the palm shelf gives a little more stability, so I made the shelf protrude a little more than I had planned:

Slavia · Moderator

I had a luggage strap of unknown origin that I had been saving. What kept me from using it as a sling was that it is too wide for standard QD sling swivels. Then I remembered a collapsible cleaning rod that I made from 1/8" rod and heat-shrink tubing. A great idea, but a couple of hot days shrunk the tubing down too small to connect the pieces. It was still in my airgun box, and the right gauge for making wider loops:

I bent the rods using water pump plier jaws to measure the sides, and letting the open ends overlap:

The holes in the swivels don't go all the way through. There's a little chunk in the center that keeps the loop centered. It's only about 0.050" thick, about the same as a Dremel abrasive cutoff wheel. All I needed to do was find the center and slice through:

Bend the ends out enough to get the web in and to start in the holes:

Squeeze it together with the pliers, get out the cold blue, and it's done: