Bought a 124 from an auction, it was clearly advertised as not working and wouldn't fire a pellet. So I had no expectations of what I would receive, but I did order up a piston seal and a new breech seal, knowing those would be definite needs.
Well, it showed up yesterday and externally in fairly good order for a 40 year old rifle. I pulled the action and that's where things were not looking so chipper. There was sludgy moly lube, rock hard oil varnish and it looked like parmesan cheese crumbs everywhere.
I noticed the pivot pin end where the lock screw goes, had a small section of the edge cracked off. The bolt/lug that holds the trigger didn't look seated. That would turn out to be from cross threading and being partially stripped out.
When I pulled out the piston, everything was sticky and crunchy. Some of the varnish was so hard to remove that I used acetone and a stainless steel brush and resorted to scraping some areas. The piston cup was unrecognizable. The mainspring had a kink in it, but it straightened with minimal flexing. I scraped and scrubbed the piston tube, but I was lazy and didn't run a ball hone in it. I would regret that later....
Got things lubed up, ran a tap into the damaged threads to clean them up and put it back together. Fired a couple of shots and it seemed to have a normal amount of resistance cocking, but velocity seemed moderate. After about 10 shots, I pulled the trigger and the piston released and slowly went home. I monkeyed with it, kept testing and it seems that there is still crap in the tube, so I'll be taking it apart again. I'll get another spring ordered and I'm going to weld up the damaged threads and re-tap it.
Oh well, I was hoping for a minimal refresh, but it looks like I'll have to give it some extra loving to put it right. The downside is I'm going on travel and this will have to wait until I get back. Such is life.
Mark
Well, it showed up yesterday and externally in fairly good order for a 40 year old rifle. I pulled the action and that's where things were not looking so chipper. There was sludgy moly lube, rock hard oil varnish and it looked like parmesan cheese crumbs everywhere.
I noticed the pivot pin end where the lock screw goes, had a small section of the edge cracked off. The bolt/lug that holds the trigger didn't look seated. That would turn out to be from cross threading and being partially stripped out.
When I pulled out the piston, everything was sticky and crunchy. Some of the varnish was so hard to remove that I used acetone and a stainless steel brush and resorted to scraping some areas. The piston cup was unrecognizable. The mainspring had a kink in it, but it straightened with minimal flexing. I scraped and scrubbed the piston tube, but I was lazy and didn't run a ball hone in it. I would regret that later....
Got things lubed up, ran a tap into the damaged threads to clean them up and put it back together. Fired a couple of shots and it seemed to have a normal amount of resistance cocking, but velocity seemed moderate. After about 10 shots, I pulled the trigger and the piston released and slowly went home. I monkeyed with it, kept testing and it seems that there is still crap in the tube, so I'll be taking it apart again. I'll get another spring ordered and I'm going to weld up the damaged threads and re-tap it.
Oh well, I was hoping for a minimal refresh, but it looks like I'll have to give it some extra loving to put it right. The downside is I'm going on travel and this will have to wait until I get back. Such is life.
Mark