New Shadow innards...

[vinceb]

I just pulled apart the late model Shadow on which I recently mounted the .22 barrel, and found some things different from other Gamo's I've worked on recently...

1) The trigger assembly doesn't have an ear that is secured by the "stud/bolt" that goes into the rear of the receiver. There's a separate ear that comes off with the bolt - it looks like it just functions as a "stop" to keep the trigger from trying to slide back. There is also some sort of plastic block that fits between the trigger and the bolt.

2) The rear spring guide is actually cut DOWN from the normal Gamo guide diameter. It's around .480 where it fits inside the spring, needless to say - this leads to an incredibly loose fit. Far worse than we're used to.

3) The top hat is much lighter, because the large end is a lot thinner. They seem to make up for the spring spacing with nylon spacer that goes between it and the piston.

Sounds like Gamo is cutting some corners....bad news for us....but good news for people like Rich (from Mich) who make those quality aftermarket spring guide kits.  Sounds like he and the others will be getting a lot more business in the future.

Yes I have seen both types of triggers, and the cut down rear spring post.

It migt be the post they use for the 12 fpe rifles that are made for europe I am pretty sure they  have a smaller diameter spring.

I have the stuff to fix the spring problems.

http://home.comcast.net/~peterdragin/index.html/

[CharlieDaTuna]

coming through both ways for about the last 18 months or so but almost all of the late ones are coming through that way now. I've probably had between 75 and 100 of them like that come in and almost all of them in the Shadow series. That includes the light wt tophat, the nylon spacer, the two piece trigger mount  stud and trigger lock and also the spring guides. I have a bunch of spring guides and tophats laying around here. Actually, Gamo uses four different tophats and different combinations. They use two different spring blocks also.

[vinceb]

It appears that the nylon spacer and scrawny tophat give about the same spacing as the solid one, although it's not gonna have as much weight. I'm assuming that the heavier weight is preferable.

[CharlieDaTuna]

Not necessarily. In fact, Gamo had a couple of pretty good reasons for using that "scrawny" tophat and spacer I believe. Depending on the tune, for the past several years, I have often replaced the heavy tophat with a lighter one and then pushed the spring. I think they figured out what I (and I think a couple of other pro-tuners)  was doing....lol... and why and the difference it made in some applications. Believe it or not, they do watch what goes on with interest in given areas. In fact, Gamo USA has contacted me a couple times  in the past couple of years about some things that they had an interest in.  

Anyhow, a lot of guys out there believe that by using a heavy tophat that the power/velocity is increased and in many cases it might be so but at the same time, at the expense of efficiency. Most pro-tuners machine their own custom fitted tophats and depending on the weight and spacing  that they want for a particular spring application. The ones that I custom make I either drill them out or machine the difference in height or weight or both to accomplish the end result that I want for a particular gun. There have been times that I have eliminated the weight entirely and made a tophat out of Delrin for certain applications.