Need help with B26-2

[snookman]

Well Brothers and Sisters, I am at my wits end.

My B26-2 shot fairly well at 10 yards with only a couple hundred pellets through it, but now that it has about 600 pellets shot it is not shooting very well. It will only shoot 2-3 in. groups at 20 yards with fliers that completely miss the paper! It is still smoking after every shot. I have tightened the stock screws, and scope mount screws. I have tried every hold variation that I can think of. I am going to put another scope on it today, but I don't think that is the problem, the one that I have on it is a Leupold VXII 3-9x32 EFR AO rated for heavy recoil. I am going to put a Bushnell Elite 3200 on just to check.

The breach seal is mashed almost flat, and there is an indentation on the breach block on the face of the step down under the seal ,I don't think the metal is machined down enough, and it is hitting against the lockup post, but I don't know if this is varying the lockup each time or not. I checked the seal of the breach with tissue paper and I saw no air bypass. Opinions please, snookman

[speedturtle]

Check the barrel pivot bolt screws. They may have loosen a little bit. Don't worry, the B26 is a little better than the Crosman's on the design of the pivot bolt locking mechanism so it won't break easily. Tighten them up in such a way that if you have cocked the gun and move the barrel perpendicular to the stock it should hold its place properly. If the barrel falls down easily then the pivot bolt is still a little bit loose.

Seeing what happened to your breech seal you might have an issue with the compression spring on your alive jam mechanism. Shimming it with a 1/32" to a 1/16" steel washer that can fit inside the slot would work. If you can do these things and give us a feedback we can further help you out. Springers are an enigmatic machine but workable so you're fine. Besides, you have a lot of very knowledgeable members here at GTA that will chime in to help you out. HTH.

[snookman]

Thanks for the response Willie. The barrel pivot screws are tight , no side to side play at all.

 I don't know how to access the spring in the jam mechanism, I have never worked on a springer before, I have only been into airguns for less than a year and this is only my second springer, the first one is a Gamo shadow1000 and have never had a problem. Maybe I should send it back to Mike at best airguns, but after the trouble with UPS I had sending back the first one they damaged, I really don't want to go through that again. Snookman

[speedturtle]

If you can work with simple machine tools you can work with any springer.

First, you have to take out the pin of the cocking lever. Just pin it out using a flattened 3" common wire nail or a steel dowel if you have one. Then loosen the barrel pivot bolt screws and lock. Once you have done this the whole barrel assembly can be taken out of the stock. Just be cautious not to lose those very thin washers for the barrel pivot bolts! that helps on the alignment of the breech block and also aid in the cocking mechanism. Set them aside. Now, you will see a small pin just right below the pivot bolt hole, that is the one that holds the alive jam mechanism in place. What you do is to push this small pin out using a small nail or a small steel dowel (again if you have one). If your pushing pin is longer than the original pin it will replace the pin itself and you still can't take out the alive jam and the spring. What you do now is to push the alive jam on top of a table until you can easily slide the nail out of the slot and you're done. If you want you can debur this slot a little bit using a 220 then 400 grit but don't sand it too much. If you make the slot bigger it can create accuracy problems later for you. Put some moly on the spring and the alive jam once you assemble them back.

Don't worry, I've done it numerous times and my B26 still shoots 1/4" groupings at 10 yards. Hope this can give you some boost that you can actually do it, too and not mess it up. If in doubt post your concern and I'm sure a lot of members here will help you out.

[snookman]

How long will this gun keep smoking, my El cheapo Gamo stopped after 200 pellets. I think I will post pics of what 20 blows with a 15 pound sledge hammer will do to a Chinese POS airgun. German Air rifle next. snookman

[shady816]

sorry to hear your have problems with the b26...i received mine the next day after you got yours and I have the same issue it started coming around at 300 or so pellets and thought we had it the break in whipped then the next day it would not hold it's groups again and the pellet it liked yesterday is now it's worst. at the end if my whit's so I have ordered everything to give mine a good tune and spend some time under her hood to get to know her. the weird thing is just today I sat down for a session with her and the first 10 shots all went sonic with 7.9 and this has never happened before with it so leads me to believe something not wright in there may be a lube issue there was allot of dieseling going on during this event. as well my barrel and stock screw have came loose once and the barrel lock nut fell off on the shooting bench as well...I know the gun has the potential for it has shot a 30 yard bench rest with very good groups on at least one occasion so I feel the guns fps deviates to much and is the problem. get lucky some times and spit 5 into almost one hole then the next 30-40 nearly misses the target .this is the same behavior with three different scopes.

[Graham]

It sounds to me to be completely overlubed, hence diesling like mad, which will give very inconsistant power, and shots going all over the place. Clean out out ALL old lube, and relube correctly.

[DMikeM]

While that would probably fix his troubles with this gun, he should not have to do this. The gun should be shipped in it's finished state so that it is usable out of the box. The end user should not be required to build a spring compressor, buy specialized lubricants, purchase new seals and be made to tune his new purchase. I like my BAM guns, both shot well. The .177 (B26) never gave me any trouble but I went ahead and tuned it up anyways just to get a smoother ride from it. My .22 (B26-2) has been a mess from the start, broken stock, then broken spring, screws for the muzzle brake stripping out due to soft metals, then replacement stock cracking in the same spot as the original stock did. I am just wondering if the B26-2 model has a QC problem that was not present with the original B26.

Graham - 4/5/2010  3:49 AM

It sounds to me to be completely overlubed, hence diesling like mad, which will give very inconsistant power, and shots going all over the place. Clean out out ALL old lube, and relube correctly.