My 3rd and favorite airgun in my 20s was a FWB 124 MAGNUM in 22. cal. That Magnum designation really caught my attention, most people I knew then only had .177s or maybe a .20 Sheridan, so this .22 was big medicine. Finally put it over a chrony a few years later at only about 11fpe, a new super spring got it up to ~13fpe. Loved that gun, accurate enough for pesting maybe 35 yards, nice wood stock. Finally sold it maybe 30 years later because it was large and too much exercise for the low power. Especially compared to the fleet of newer 25+fpe PCP and even gas and spring guns these days.
I didn't expect to buy another break barrel after that ... until I saw the Gamo Swarm break barrel repeater a few years ago. There are times in life when something just shows up unexpectedly. Something so obvious and yet decades overdue, like a multi-shot magazine on a break barrel air rifle. The multi shot capability changes the shooters relationship with a break barrel rifle. Sort of like the difference I feel when shifting between a manual side-lever action and a semi-auto action.
Some of the current break barrel guns are so long 45+inch and heavy and difficult to cock that I couldn't manage them anymore. To help cock the Swarm I got a ~2" ID piece of PVC about a foot long and lined it with thin dense foam. Screw it into a tree or basement pillar at an angle so the barrel of the gun can be inserted barrel down, and then the butt of the gun (mostly using the weight of the gun itself) is just swung down by hand until it's cocked. Don't need a PVC tube, just 2 or 3 large bolts covered with something soft, 2 or 3 short sections of 2x4 to position and to hold the barrel while the gun is cocked works fine. It worked so well that I pulled then end cap off the Swarm's barrel shroud, cut about 5 inches from the useless hollow end of the shroud, and then glued the end cap back in. It looks the same as before just 5 inches shorter and a bit harder to cock from being shorter. But it makes the Swarm easier to manage.
Which bring me around to my question. Most of my hunting crossbows have use ratcheting mechanisms to cock the bows. An anti-bear claw safety on a break barrel is easy enough to manufacture. What I don't understand is why there aren't at least a few short, very powerful gas piston break barrels which could ratchet the cocking arm, say 4 times, compressing the spring by an additional 25% each time. With some design work it could be incorporated as a power level selector which loads the hammer by different amounts depending on how far back you cock it.
I don't want a 30 cal 30fpe break barrel which takes 60lbs of effort to cock and is 48 inches long and 9+lbs or whatever. But a 38" long 30 cal 45fpe break barrel, with a 4 -level ratchet for cocking (~15lbs of effort for each swing of the barrel) and 4 levels of power 12/24/35/45fpe sort of thing. I'd buy something like that because it just makes sense, like the multi-pellet magazine on the Gamo Swarm. Maybe it already exists, not everything shows up in these searches.
JP
I didn't expect to buy another break barrel after that ... until I saw the Gamo Swarm break barrel repeater a few years ago. There are times in life when something just shows up unexpectedly. Something so obvious and yet decades overdue, like a multi-shot magazine on a break barrel air rifle. The multi shot capability changes the shooters relationship with a break barrel rifle. Sort of like the difference I feel when shifting between a manual side-lever action and a semi-auto action.
Some of the current break barrel guns are so long 45+inch and heavy and difficult to cock that I couldn't manage them anymore. To help cock the Swarm I got a ~2" ID piece of PVC about a foot long and lined it with thin dense foam. Screw it into a tree or basement pillar at an angle so the barrel of the gun can be inserted barrel down, and then the butt of the gun (mostly using the weight of the gun itself) is just swung down by hand until it's cocked. Don't need a PVC tube, just 2 or 3 large bolts covered with something soft, 2 or 3 short sections of 2x4 to position and to hold the barrel while the gun is cocked works fine. It worked so well that I pulled then end cap off the Swarm's barrel shroud, cut about 5 inches from the useless hollow end of the shroud, and then glued the end cap back in. It looks the same as before just 5 inches shorter and a bit harder to cock from being shorter. But it makes the Swarm easier to manage.
Which bring me around to my question. Most of my hunting crossbows have use ratcheting mechanisms to cock the bows. An anti-bear claw safety on a break barrel is easy enough to manufacture. What I don't understand is why there aren't at least a few short, very powerful gas piston break barrels which could ratchet the cocking arm, say 4 times, compressing the spring by an additional 25% each time. With some design work it could be incorporated as a power level selector which loads the hammer by different amounts depending on how far back you cock it.
I don't want a 30 cal 30fpe break barrel which takes 60lbs of effort to cock and is 48 inches long and 9+lbs or whatever. But a 38" long 30 cal 45fpe break barrel, with a 4 -level ratchet for cocking (~15lbs of effort for each swing of the barrel) and 4 levels of power 12/24/35/45fpe sort of thing. I'd buy something like that because it just makes sense, like the multi-pellet magazine on the Gamo Swarm. Maybe it already exists, not everything shows up in these searches.
JP
