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Bill · New Member

Wanted. An Airsmith that can turn a Daisy Red Rider into a shooter that can group 5 shot dime sized groups at 10 meters. It can be done. I have confidence that it can be done. Let me give you some background.

Once upon a time (about 2 years ago) I was on the search for an air rifle that could head shoot squirrels at 30 yards and head shoot starlings at 20. After a lot of web searching I settled on the RWS 48. Why? Side cocking is more accurate than break barrel?. Whatever the final deciding factor was I chose the RWS and started to wring it out for accuracy.

Now an aside. My after retirement job is a vintage motorcycle parts web store and I happen to have my "desk" at at counter top in front of a double wide window looking across a a hillside of Missouri hardwood. Squirrels have been a pest lately and I have a fondness for squirrel, gravely, beer and home made bread. So the plan was to wack the varmints and have a meal or two while I'm at it.

After the usual search for the right pellet I found myself disappointed at the group size. Not at 30 years mind you, I'm talking about 20 yards. Heck if I could get a group to shrink down enough to head shoot a squirrel even at 20 yards.

Now another aside. I'm a center fire bench rest shooter and I'm used to shooting .250" groups at 100 yards and about double that at 200 yards. So to shoot a two inch group at 20 yards left me hanging.

What I all did wrong. First off I tried to shoot the 48 like my center fire bench rest rifles. Normal bench rest quality front and rear rest, forearm on the front rest about 3/4 of the way up the forarm. Light or no touch other than the finger on the trigger. Well folks that just bombed. I turned to this blog site and asked a simple question. Could anyone head shoot a starling with a cold barrel, first shot at 20 yards. After the usual bloviating someone came back and gave it a flat no. They could not hold that accuracy.

Now I am a benchrest shooter and I have at least two dozen wildcats in the safe. Most all are .17 and .22's but I can comfort you that I am pretty keen on tweaking with the project until the group closes up. That said the .22 RWS had me pure stumped.

Then I got a break. On a U Tube video some lad in England showed how the balance of the springers needed to be near the trigger guard. Well folks that did it. Using bench rest equipment I was able to put pellet next to pellet with a cold barrel at 20 yards. Proving this required only one shot a day over a period of a week or so. So I proved to myself that the accuracy could be met, but the requirement of bench rest style of shooting just wasn't practical. And the darn thing was just plum heavy as heck.

But the squirrel and gravy was pretty darn good. And it took me a couple months to sort out the problem so it was a good mental exercise. No regrets.

Now to the present. The problem was simpler as I only wanted to be able to wack starlings at a mere 15 yards. My grandson had a lever action and after missing a half dozen opportunities I turned to Pyramid Air for the answer.

I covered a lot of the same territory as I did during the first search and subsequent selection that led to the RWS. The same options popped up including the PCP, break barrels and CO2's. Surely the infamous PCP's with all of the rhetoric of shot inside shot repeatability was the logical way to go. Right?

But....., there's always a but isn't there. CO2; 20/30 shots before it and accuracy tapered off. And the accuracy for first shot kills with a cold barrel were good if you had a full cartridge. PCP; way too much of a bother with the need for scuba gear, hand pumps, 20 / 40 shots per charge etc etc. Just way too much trouble for what I was after. I kept thinking that air rifles are supposed to be fun. Not a mechanical engineering project.

Then I came across a combination that made sense. Through the web search I found a scope mount for a Daisy 1938 Red Rider and an adult length stock that bolted up the the same platform. And the conversion included a loop lever to replace the plastic smallish lever that came with the Daisy. The latter came from Chief AJ out of Illinois. The rifle, Hawke scope and assorted needs came from Pyramid.

So here I am with the absolute perfect plinking air rifle. Scoped, 200 - 300 bb reservoir, full length stock but.....(there is always a but isn't there) I'm shooting half dollar groups at 30 feet.

So if I can find an airsmith that can shrink the groups down to a dime on a Daisy Red Rider at 10 meters I am going to have one heck of a good time.

Trust me. It would be worth whatever the cost. A full sized scoped lever action BB gun with a 200 - 300 round reservoir that doesn't need pumping or compressed air tanks is a world of fun to play with. And the darn things weights next to zero.

Listen folks. Bench rest shooters change barrels on their 6PPC's like some folks change socks. So don't tell me that a better barrel can be had for the Daisy.

Ah, another project is born. Thanks for listening. Bill.

shawn706 · Member

Far as your BB gun issue. There is currently no bb gun avalible more accurate that the 499. Looks much like the RedRider, but muzzle feed single shot. It's predecessor, which I believe is the model 99, has accuracy very close to the 499, but with a feed system like the RedRider. For the sake of accuracy, more weight is better to a point.

Personally, I believe that just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should, and I would not select any BB gun for the purpose of pest control. Can you kill birds with it? Yes. Is it going to be an ethical kill? I think no more often than yes.

shawn706 · Member

They are great for shooting carpenter bees out of the air with.

Bill · New Member

Shawn thanks for the suggestion. In fact I would have pulled the trigger (no pun intended on the 499 minutes before posting my story. But most sites say they are out of stock and expecting delivery in mid May. The drawback for me is the single shot. BB guns are either a learning tool where one shot has to count, or they are a fun tool where you go out and pull the trigger a couple hundred times. But with the 499's accuracy and had it been available I'd of had one coming my way. But then we wouldn't be chatting.

So the repeater side of things is important to me, but if nothing else pans out the 499 would be my choice. You reminded me about the 99. In my due diligence I crossed over this and spent some time searching the web for a used one and came up empty. All things aside that would be my first choice.

Ethical kills? Realize this is a fun project and oh yes, I want to wack a couple starlings that visit the bird feeder on the deck. We have about 20 varieties of birds that we host annually at the feeders and the starlings come in and bully everyone else around. The range would be 20 feet and whatever I wind up with will be able to head shoot a starling at that distance.

And is it practical to spend a couple hundred dollars on a $40 kids bb gun just to shoot dime size groups instead of half dollar? Heck no. But that's not why I am going to do it. The rifle just feels perfect in my hands and in my youth, I probably put 10's of thousands of BB's through a like air gun while I was raised on the farm. And after building, tuning and loading for centerfire accuracy for over 40 years this is just another challenge to have fun with.

So if there is anyone out there that has a 99 or if they know of an airsmith that wants to take my money to improve the accuracy of what I've started, please let me know. Thanks for your patience.

shawn706 · Member

Check with your County Extension office. If they have a 4-H BB team you may can get them to order you one. They may even sell you one if they have extra. It's not surprising that they are backordered this time of year, but established teams will get preferential treatment when it comes time to ship. Other groups that host teams would be, VFW's, BSA, and Jaycee's. There may be a few more, but none come to mind. Knowing what they're available to clubs for, a fair offer if you find a team willing to work with you would be $120 new, $90 used in good working order. Not a lot less than what you'd pay at a retailer, but why not help them out. Then again who knows, they may let you get one at cost.

shawn706 · Member

I'd also point out, that trying to get more fps out if a bb gun is a dead end after about 250 - 260 fps. Coaches complained to Daisy about wanting faster springs to reduce loc time, and Daisy hardened the springs. Unfortunately the extra pressure destabilized the bb going down the shot tube. They have since gone back to the lighter spring.
The type of BB's you use will greatly affect your accuracy as well. If you're using copper heads or any other walmart level BB's you may as well be shooting rocks, cause you're not gonna hit anything smaller than a can with them. We shoot Avanti precision ground shot at most competitions. Ball bearings at major competitions that allow them. Gamo makes a graphite coated competition bb as well, but I myself have never tried them.

shawn706 · Member

Talked with one of our more seasoned coaches about your issue. He recommended polishing your shot tube. Use a .17 cotton type boar cleaner with some rubbing compound. He said he did this with the cleaning rod hooked in a drill, and keep the muzzle pointed down so you don't get too much dust in the plunger sleeve. This and good ammo should greatly improve your RR accuracy.

Slavia · Moderator

I think a BB gun would be marginally powerful enough for starlings, but shot placement for an ethical kill is the issue. A dime-sized group at 10m is a tall order. Before you write me off as a naysayer, let me say for the record that I don't believe in impossible. Impractical is in the eyes of the beholder - this from a guy that has a bayonet on a B3.

There are a couple of issues at play. Daisy BB guns have smooth bore barrels, and BB's are undersized so they will move through a stamped repeater mechanism. (I believe the Red Ryder is gravity fed, and the Model 99 is spring fed.) I have a Beeman catalog that says ".177" steel BB's are manufactured to tolerances between 0.162" and 0.175". That means the BB goes bouncing down the barrel, and who knows what direction it will take when it leaves the gun.

There are full 0.177" lead BB's designed to obturate in a rifled bore, but they won't feed reliably in a repeater. The Avanti (Daisy) 499 uses a precise bore and ground (not stamped from wire) BB's that fit more closely, but then it's a muzzle-loading single shot. I read somewhere that 4H coaches were returning their Model 99 shot tubes to Daisy in hopes of getting a better fit, and Daisy's response was the "4H 99," or Model 499.

The Red Ryders and Model 99 also have a probe connected to the piston. Shawn706 might know if the 499 has it also. That probe directs compressed air right to the BB, and also whacks the BB loose from its retaining spring. Those guns are therefore part airgun and part catapult. It's like a pool cue, except it's hard to predict what kind of "English" will be imparted to the BB, and where your little steel curve ball is going to break. I think this would be more an issue if you extend the normal BB competition range of 5m out to 10m.

Like I said, forget "impossible" and "impractical," but there are some hurdles along the path to where you want to go.

shawn706 · Member

The 499 has a abutment plug with a magnet, slightly offset from the air hole. The plunger head does not contact the bb. The abutment plug is staked in place making replacment real pain. As long as you don't dry fire it without the shot tube in place, the chances of throwing a magnet, which would be the only reason to replace it, is low.

Robw · Veteran Member

A PCP shooting pellets or solids would be the way to go. CO² and BBs are
for kids and magnum springers are just way too hard to be accurate with for
pest control.

Robw · Veteran Member

A pumper would be as accurate without the PCP cost.

Robw · Veteran Member

I do pest control for a living. I used to use a British Webley patriot. It had
the power and accuracy shooting it right handed if you held it exactly
the same each time. The only problem that I had with it was that if the
situation called for a left handed shot or holding the rifle a little different
accuracy went down hill fast.

Now I mainly use an AF Condor which is not hold sensitive at all. You can
hold it ANY way and the projectile will always hit the POA.

AirGunEric · Site Admin

Slavia · Moderator

Another option would be the Daisy Grizzly. It is the same price as the Red Ryder ($40.00), and shoots at the same velocity (350 FPS). Capacity is 650 for the Red Ryder and 350 for the Grizzly. The Grizzly comes with a 3/8" dovetail. It's a single stroke pneumatic, so no probe whacking the BB and no spring vibration or recoil. It is a gravity fed BB repeater with a magnetic bolt, and pellets can be loaded singly.

It's still a cheap smoothbore, but it might be a better starting point.

Whichever way you go, consider a Marksman BB speed loader. It costs about $5.00 and makes loading really easy. If only I had owned one as a 10 year old...

humb · New Member

i got new rws 48 in .22 it's great rifle

you can shoot up to 100yards 3'' x 3'' target if you have skill
for now i can shoot only cca 30yards 2''x2'' but it's new rifle and i sux so : ))