Bionic .25 cal Webley Patriot/Beeman Kodiak

I wanted the original barrel to work, but it had an ugly bore, with deep reamer marks on the lands, and a tight spot above where the pivot screw was. When they bored the block and barrel for that hole there was a scant .027" (.7mm) remaining wall thickness between that pivot hole and the barrel bore, and I suspect the pre-reaming pilot drill was too large, dull or both based on the deformed bore above that cross hole. The breech end of the barrel where the seal sits was turned to .375" dia, yet the oem seal's id's vary from .410" to .421" out of the box, which meant the seals would literally fall out of the gun, and air would escape around the seal (even new ones). Also the breech block's barrel fitment id was somehow factory reamed with a taper from .566" to .571" (bigger towards muzzle), yet he barrel tenon was turned to .559", and you could actually see the barrel wobble inside the decaying factory loctite. It was very disappointing. The conical pivot shim was digging into the compression tube fork, which was worsened by any attempt to snug the pivot screw in order to diminish side play at lock-up. The pivot hole in the compression tube fork was .252" diameter id, but the pivot screw was .249" So based on the cumulative net effect of all the above issues I felt it was time to gut it and go for broke.

As for the gas ram, I'm hoping it will work out. I suspect the transfer port size might play a functional role in tweaking any bad manners or accuracy issues... knock on wood.

It will hook on the lower piston surface same place the factory trigger does. The gas rams' rod will pass over the trigger. There is room for it to all fit and work as designed, and still fit up high enough to look perfectly normal with the stock I have in mind, which is a bit deeper than the factory stock. It actually surprised me how the geometries fell into place.

Am taking pictures along the way. This is my second Rekord transplant. The other one can be seen HERE;

Getting a lot done. Much will need to wait until after the holidays though. Here's a few few posts and pics of some of the progress I've made since starting the thread;

Prepping the new ram for its new home;

Did away with the washers, and trued the other end for a press fit nylon top-hat to keep the ram centered in the piston.

Sanded the burs away (deep inside at the front end of the inside of the piston) where the nylon top hat will rest. The new Vortek Vac seal piston has since been fitted, along with 4 Torlon buttons at the rear, and modified slots to allow for the estimated 120mm of travel;

Started shaping the titanium end-cap thingy that will replace the aluminum one. It's the piece where everything loads into the rear of the compression tube.

Much of the material you see here is extra on the backside (in the chuck), and the new Rekord safety hole and cavity aren't milled yet.

The dovetail was arched, so it got recut, and a matching cut on the underside of a piece of steel picatinny rail for permanent mounting. The new rail will also be pinned and loctited in place. Here you see the taped off compression tube and underside of the rail sandblasted for a good etch that the loctite can grip.

Cutting a piece of steel for the new barrel block;

Prepping 12-3/4" long LW .25 cal barrel, with chromoly shroud to fit new block.

Notice a portion of the shroud will be knurled and fit inside the lengthened barrel block. I feel like that will lessen the strain in the area of the barrel that is largely unsupported by the original barrel block.

Turning portion that goes into block (below);



Scuffed and ready to be loctited inside the shroud tube (below);





Fitted to shroud and knurled/scuffed for block (below)



Hex drive shroud cap. The tubular inner extension imo helps delay the escaping air long enough to further dampen the report.



Loctited in block (below)

The block is now being fit to the compression tube forks. Notice the gaudy looking extra material remaining where the shroud is inside the barrel block. Have decided to nick-name this gun "Hammerhead" as a result.

Also note the enlarged shim slots. Going to use fitted 1" diameter leaded tin bronze washers for increased stability. Have already lapped the forks for parallelism. The washers are now big enough to capture a dowel pin to replace the roll-pin that use to retain the lock plunger.

DIY lead slugs for lead lapping the bore. Drilled and tapped (8-32) .30 cal pellets and placed them on an an improvised mandrel that also fits a cleaning rod after 2-stage forming is completed in a smooth swage, followed by forming rifling in the unused portion of the barrel to match the rifling being lapped on the gun.



drilled...(below)



tapped... (below)



ready to swage... (below)



Swaged and ready to impress rifling (below)





Made nylon bore guide that fits where breech seal goes... (below)



tapped (notice collet squeeze)... then swaged (not shown) then rifled slug for lapping... (below)



The pellet skirt holds lapping compound pretty well. I like it !!

Swaged pellet before the rifling stage. I swage them to a smidge over .257"



Dirty work...

Found an uninletted Boyd's stock that seems to be a great all around candidate for this project, to include the added depth to accommodate the Rekord trigger

Speaking of the trigger...

...once the cutting began, no looking back...





Have to take more pictures, but NONE of the original housing remains.

The original cocking arm was fixtured, cut in half, and fashioned into a two-piece arrangement identical to how the Beeman RX2 is set up;







A two piece cocking arm allows for a much shorter cut in the underside of the stock, but requires a guide to keep it from inverting at the beginning of the cocking stroke. Some airguns rely on the bare wood, of a screw against the rear segment of the cocking arm. Others, like the RX2 have a weldament that keeps everything headed the right direction. I decided to make a removable cocking arm guide, using the original stock screw holes as a mounting point, and adding supplemental holes to mount the stock.

Here's a few pics of the arrangement as it was taking shape ;

Discarded bits;