How to do it yourself and where to start

[raterminator]

I have a confession to make. All this time I happily shot and been proud of my gun without even knowing that tuning, even if it isn’t a must, would dramatically improve velocity, accuracy and life of the gun itself. All I always did on air gun is: lubing the pivots, cleaning the barrel and exterior. Now, when my new 440, .22arrived, I suspiciously walk around the box and feverishly think: what should I do? Take it out and shoot or tune it first?

Undressing it and cleaning from the factory grease, that’s the part I can do, but what’s next? Different lubes for each part, with different opinions on best and worse ones, grease or molly ….etc. As you know, wrong lubrication can cause damage to the gun and to your pocket.

I want to take proper care of it from the beginning and will really appreciate some professional advice from you guys, especially from you Charlie. It may become a new, good topic, which a lot of this site members would like to see. How to do it yourself and where to start.

[vinceb]

First of all, since a fairly decent gun like a Gamo doesn't tend to come with detonation-prone lubricants in it (unlike some Chinese guns) you probably oughta just shoot it first before playing with it. There's a few good reasons for this:

1) If there is a serious mechanical problem with the gun (unlikely), you'll find out before voiding your warranty.

2) You'll start breaking it in, and various parts that rub together will get an opportunity to "mate" with each other. This might not happen quite so easily if everything has moly on it.

3) You'll get a good baseline for how the gun feels and functions before you try to improve it.

Also, get realistic about your expectations. Unless there's a significant factory defect, I don't think you're going to dramatically improve much about that rifle - with the exception of smoothness. That seems to be Gamo's bug-a-boo: the so-so trigger, the twangy firing cycle, and (sometimes) a rough cocking cycle. Make no mistake about it, that'll make the gun a LOT more enjoyable to shoot, but I doubt you'll see it's objective performance improve that much.

[raterminator]

That makes sense. Thanks, Vince.

vince has some good points.When you take a gun that's been shot some, apart,you see"witness marks,"places where  parts have been rubbing against each other.leaving traces of that contact.Those are valueable clues at to where you should polish and lube with moly.A shrink tune with teflon heatshrink will do wonders for the feel of your gamo,but that can wait...

[vinceb]

on the guide?

[CharlieDaTuna]

tune does for you is that it greatly improves the firing cycle by eliminating almost all  of the torque and spring vibration, easier and smoother cocking, improves both seal and spring life and in turn, usually because most of the above, increases accuracy. You may want to look here.

       http://charliedatuna.com/MKIIGTXTrigger.htm

This page referrs to the GTX but a great part of it is about the tune and what it does also.

However, with that being said. the gun after shooting over a period of time, say 1000 shots ot so will improve somewhat on it's own. Most people will tell you though that there is nothing that will improve a springer like a  a  good "Pro-Tune".

[CharlieDaTuna]

that you clean the guide real well with acetone or something similar then put an adhesive such as Kodak picture adhesive or something similar on it, cut the heatshrink to fit and stick in in an oven at about 300-350 degrees for about 20 minutes or so.

The problem is, I have seen a few where the shrink has come off and wadded up into the bottom. That may have been due to poor prep and installation. The other thing is that in some cases, once the process is done, you can't get the stock spring back on without damaging the shrink although you can if using some after market springs. If done correctly using the right material it can last a very long time. It certainly does not equal a fitted Delrin guide by any means but can help.

[IJL]

Hi Charlie, Would you recommend self adhesive heat shrink or non adhesive type?
Thanks

IJL

Its probably gonna differ with different gun models, and even within the same models.  I had a insistant  twanger r9 but as I understand others dont.

Most of the self adhesive shrink is to big after it is installed.