I bought it "reconditioned" for $50. I put reconditioned in quotes, because the tech (at Crosman) obviously didn't notice that it varied high and low pretty badly. I noticed!
I kind of like the design of the NP, but as with so many licensed imports, the design is hamstrung by poor execution at manufacturing.
The main problem of course, was that the barrel return mechanism was not securely holding the barrel in place. I checked out a forum where a guy fixed this by replacing the return spring with a stronger one. I did this by finding a 7/32" OD/ 0.030" wire spring at the hardware store longer than I needed and cut it longer than the stock spring by 2 or 3 coils. I also did my best to polish both the return pin and the mating hole while I was at it.
Still, there was some play at the breech with the pistol closed. I just about gave up on the project until it dawned on me. The return pin is not extending out far enough! The rear face of the square notch on the return pin has too much material where it contacts the retaining pin thereby stopping the chisel from contacting the frame rod. I simply filed away approx. .02"-.03" from this face and deburred the adjacent edges. Now the breech closes without any play because the chisel contacts with the frame rod before the notch hits the retaining pin.
I also sanded down the breech seal to shorten it because the gun was shooting consistently low to the point where my rear sight elevation was almost out of adjustment. Thousandths of an inch matter here, so I decided to go too thin and made some mylar washers to get just the right fit. You can make the gun shoot lower or higher by adding or removing shims.
Now it's a pretty decent indoor plinker, grouping around 3/4" at 25 ft.
Funny, lots of ads for cheap guns say "fun to shoot". No gun is fun to shoot if it doesn't repeat. Fix it!
I kind of like the design of the NP, but as with so many licensed imports, the design is hamstrung by poor execution at manufacturing.
The main problem of course, was that the barrel return mechanism was not securely holding the barrel in place. I checked out a forum where a guy fixed this by replacing the return spring with a stronger one. I did this by finding a 7/32" OD/ 0.030" wire spring at the hardware store longer than I needed and cut it longer than the stock spring by 2 or 3 coils. I also did my best to polish both the return pin and the mating hole while I was at it.
Still, there was some play at the breech with the pistol closed. I just about gave up on the project until it dawned on me. The return pin is not extending out far enough! The rear face of the square notch on the return pin has too much material where it contacts the retaining pin thereby stopping the chisel from contacting the frame rod. I simply filed away approx. .02"-.03" from this face and deburred the adjacent edges. Now the breech closes without any play because the chisel contacts with the frame rod before the notch hits the retaining pin.
I also sanded down the breech seal to shorten it because the gun was shooting consistently low to the point where my rear sight elevation was almost out of adjustment. Thousandths of an inch matter here, so I decided to go too thin and made some mylar washers to get just the right fit. You can make the gun shoot lower or higher by adding or removing shims.
Now it's a pretty decent indoor plinker, grouping around 3/4" at 25 ft.
Funny, lots of ads for cheap guns say "fun to shoot". No gun is fun to shoot if it doesn't repeat. Fix it!
