What follows is the same story told from two sides.
I have written my side of the story exactly as I recollect it, and respect that the other side recollected something slightly different.
That's life, we're all different, we share some things, we even may "commune" in some selected areas of the human existence, but we are never the same.
And that is good, that is well. RESPECT for the "otherness" of the other is what is needed in this world.
Luckily, we, airgunners, have a bit more of that respect than other "strains" of humans.
​Possibly it is the fact that the  REAL adversary is the environment. We do not look to overpower the wind with huge MV's and BC's greater than 1, we strive to KNOW our gun and pellet, and to "be one" with the conditions.
I find in that a very "Zen" attitude, worthy of any Kyūdō  archer.
Having said that, I am pleased to include here the text by Tim Higgins, a very special friend that understands the harsh realities of being "slightly" different than the rest of the world. With utmost respect, I yield the floor to "Higgy"

​" We've all heard the old proverb; patience is a virtue. Well, when you are a left-handed airgunner, it can be quite a challenge to remain virtuous . . .
 
         In 1980, I was 13 years old and had the great fortune of being introduced to the world of fine German air rifles. It was a Feinwerkbau 124, purchased new by my brother in-law which sunk her claws into me, and I would never think about pellet rifles in the same light again. A new appreciation was born, and I had an immediate love for the finery of spring guns. Like most young and impetuous boys, I had more energy than money and I certainly lacked the means necessary to fund my own quality air rifle.
I would have to be content shooting the 124 when I was lucky enough to have the chance and trust me when I say it was never enough.
I remember marveling at the deluxe stock with raised Monte Carlo cheek piece and wondering about how much better I could shoot if I could just take advantage of that technology. If only that wooden pillow thing were on the other side of the stock, surely, I could outshoot my brother in-law, and everyone else for that matter.
 
It's funny what you think in your adolescence, and funny how you remember it. It did make an impression on me. The rifle was clearly made for someone that shoots differently than I did, and though I tried shooting right-handed it felt like wearing a left footed shoe on my right hand and I hated it. Though the presence and placement of the cheek piece on the 124 was probably insignificant to my accuracy, it would be a recurring theme in my equipment choices for the next 40 years.  

​       Here is the funny thing about air rifles and air rifle enthusiasts, we are a strange breed. Myself, and countless others enjoy every facet of airgunning. The hunt for rifles and parts, the rebuilding, the tweaking and tuning, and more tweaking, shooting for tight groups, the chronograph plotting, and on and on.
So it should come as no surprise to anyone that my plan was to refinish the stock, pay whatever I have to for a diopter set, front sight insert, and send the rifle to Airgunwerks for a total rebuild!
​After all, I’m in this deep so why not keep digging...
In all fairness, after handling  the HV for a while, there was no second guessing  that the rifle deserved every bit of time and effort about to go into this restoration,  all the while knowing I was working on a rifle that would never fit me well. Like the legendary Pygmalion, the project became much more about THE rifle rather than MY rifle and I would be happy to own such a work of art regardless of its dexterous affiliation. 
 
       As always, when you throw enough time and money at a job it gets completed. The 75 was rebuilt, refinished, missing parts were replaced, and it shot like a dream, especially for a right handed shooter... Yes, you guessed it, I now wanted a left-handed 75 more than ever. I had tasted the fruit and it was sweet! Just imagine if I had the advantages of that wooden pillow thing but on the other side of the stock, I could surely out-shoot my brother in-law and everybody else for that matter! 

Some things never change... 

​Now to the more serious component of my 75 story:
​
   Upon completion of this restoration, I found myself staring at my 75   more than shooting it. So much so that I made a remark in a forum post about just how purposely handed the Diana 75 really is. With its beautifully sculpted trigger hand grip with palm swell, and a butt pad that provides what I would call cast on or cast off depending on if it is a left or right-handed rifle. I mentioned that I may even sell my 75 to pursue, yet again, a left-hand version. Enter our humble host, Hector.
Mr. Medina sent me a message about an excellent left-handed rifle his lefty shooting wife used and the prospects of a possible trade for my 75HV. I was quite familiar with the rifle and though it is an outstanding Steyr ten-meter beauty, it would be a bit redundant in my collection and Man!... I really just wanted a left-handed 75.

Hector’s world travels and Diana/Germany connections were not lost on me and gave me an idea. I inquired about the possibility of Hector acquiring a left-handed stock from Germany and I would buy it or trade it for my right-handed stock. Well, Hector is a man of action more so than of words and the next message I receive from him is that he is pursuing the purchase of a true left-handed 75 in good working order from a seller in Germany! The following message I receive is that Hector, with the help of his friends in Germany, had purchased and picked up the rifle, verified its proper function, and shipped it to CCA! Hector and I made a mutual and gentlemanly agreement and both rifles found new homes. Hector went well out of his way to acquire a model 75 in full left-hand action and stock and he now owns my right-handed model 75 HV. I could not be more pleased with the outcome and now I find myself not only staring at this beautiful work of art but shooting it too. 
Pygmalion now had a Galatea!
 
       It is true that patience is a virtue, but it takes many good and moral qualities to be virtuous. Compassion, generosity, integrity, fairness, and prudence are all examples of virtues. I experienced all these qualities in just one transaction with Hector and to say that I am grateful to him is an understatement. Hector achieved in four weeks what I had been trying to do for four years.
       The airgun community is full of great people, great equipment, and great times. I suggest you avail yourself of all three. And for goodness sake, talk to people in the airgun community. Years of searching did not find my favorite rifle, but a few friendly conversations did. 
 
 With appreciation, and kind regards,
 
 Tim Higgins"

And now my notes:

Being married to a left-handed shooter, and playing golf left-handed myself, I can understand the "Angst" of being left handed and having to shoot a right handed gun.

Now, most left-handed persons have become so inured to the fact that the world is right-handed that they don't grieve too much.

When looking for the first rifle to give to my, then, girlfriend. I came across the HW95, that for some strange reason had the safety button on the "correct" (to consciously avoid the term "right") side for left-handed shooters.
The stock was reasonably ambidextrous and her "engagement rifle" (as she calls it) was a success. Furthermore, I created a monster because she was the one that would insist we go out pesting for grackles over the weekends, LOL!
When we started shooting FT competitively, and after she changed over to a DIANA 54, she beat the heck out of me more than a few times.

Then she decided to be a mother and shooting was over for a time. Hopefully, it is one of those things we can do later as a family, when the kids get to be at least 7 and 6. BTW, Sofia, my little one shows some signs of being left-handed prone already. No worries, Daddy understands.

All this to tell you how "attuned" I am to the plight of the left-handed shooter.

I know that not all manufacturers are so attuned. Many offer rifles ONLY for the right-handed shooter, and some stocks are so aggresively right-handed as to make them unusable for the lefties (just look at a Weatherby stock of the 70's with "Roll-over MonteCarlo" and you will see what I mean.

One NOTABLE exception was the 60's DIANA branded Match rifles from Mayer & Grammelspacher.

The “Modell 60” (first rifle with the double piston "Giss" action) was truly ambidextrous in the sense that a break barrel with a smooth Classic Style stock can be shot from both sides easily. And a great left handed gun could be had simply exchanging stocks..
The 60 has no barrel latch, so it is easier to shoot fluidly, but I prefer to have the barrel latch.

Then came the 65, the last of the "sporter stocks" in Match rifles. This one was sort of a "metisse" in the sense that though Right-Handed guns HAD a right-handed "Wundhammer" swell, Left-Handed stocks could be had (as above), and if that was an expense the shooter didn’t want to go to, the stock was still VERY left handed friendly.
It is still my favourite "Match gun", even over my Steyrs.

Then came the 66, and that was an all-out Match gun with angular "Teutonic" stock, it was still a break barrel and so, the obtainability of left-handed stocks cured the problem for the lefties.
The wide distribution and acceptance of the Olympic Match airgun brought forth the 75. A sidelever with the "Giss" action, like its predecessors, but this time, the lever itself defined the "handedness" of the rifle.

Anything Olympic means substantial money, and so DIANA ventured not only into the airgun 10 M Match, but also into the KK (50 meters) RF match guns. They are still sought out as being among the finest "vintage" RF Match guns obtainable.

But, back to airguns. The 75 NEEDED a "mirror image" rifle to allow proper, ergonomic, operation by left handers.
Let's face it: Olympic Match is not about marksmanship; it is about ergonomics. How the gun fits the shooter is more important than how the gun shoots (within limits, of course).
Yes, it has to shoot within a specific range of precision and accuracy (2 mm’s deviation in any direction is max allowable deviation), but modern ammunition and modern barrels actually make it pretty easy to achieve "Match" quality performance from many platforms; in a vise.
Put a badly designed rifle in a top shooter's hands and it will not be "Golden" material.
Put an excellently designed rifle, even if it just barely meets the "Olympic Match" criteria, and you have a rifle that will win gold medal after gold medal.

And so, the 75 "LinksSystem" was born. An EXACT mirror image of the right-handed gun. Yes, most parts interchange and are common to both versions, but there is a fair amount of parts that are EXCLUSIVE to either handed version.
If you consider how expensive this is for everyone, including the manufacturer, you realize that it is an EXCEPTION to the rule.

Fairly recently, Steyr was the first to recognize that and start producing actions that can be converted to right or left-handed versions of themselves. In the past, actions have been either right or left-handed.

When we (DIANA) started cooperating with Snow Peak Airguns, one of the first things we noticed was that they already had the left-handed version of the gun in the pistol. Not exactly, and they are not truly interchangeable, but the basics were there.
A few Emails later and the first left-handed rifle actions in MANY years came into being, that followed by the truly ambidextrous synthetic stock created the first true opportunity for left-handed shooters to shoot in comfort form their "strong side".

From experience I know the disappointment that comes to the left-handed shooter when he/she shoulders for the first time a "wrong-handed" stock/action.

It is the moment of hope and the moment of disillusion, the moment of light and the moment of darkness, the moment of reason and the moment of terror.

So, when a well esteemed member of the "German Gate" forum decided to mention that he was willing to let go his right handed DIANA 75 RH version because he could not shoot it as well as he thought he should  be able, I decided to try to alleviate his situation.

We exchanged a few EMails; the first option offered was to exchange his DIANA 75 HV for a left-handed Steyr CO2 Match rifle in pristine condition, but he is a spring-piston shooter through and through and he denied. Second attempt was to try to obtain a truly left-handed version of the DIANA 75 for him, we could then exchange guns and, if both of us were happy, we would reach an agreement.

As luck goes ('Synchronicity' a well know writer would call it), a left-handed version popped up for sale in Germany from a very special source.
​North Germany, even, and it was for sale ONLY on a personal pick-up basis.
In normal conditions, that would have been an impossible target to shoot at BUT, "I knew a guy", LOL!

And so, started the long process of setting up an international operation that had to coordinate four people, three companies and one rifle.

On an established line of credit DIANA airguns itself took interest in the operation and set a young aide to conduct it. An offer was made on the auction site with a generous limit set.
We won the auction and the young aide picked up the gun in person. I am told that the owner was marveled at the fact that the original manufacturer had taken an interest in “his” gun and lamented that he had not contacted the company first, as the gun had some historical significance (more on that later).

In any event, the owner was happy that the gun was sufficiently appreciated to be destined to be exported to a foreign country where an article would be written about it. And he congratulated himself on taking care of a gun that, for all intent and purposes, had been declared "surplus".

So, here it is, in your honor and with our thanks, Herr Kaufmann (not the real name but in German Kaufmann means "trader/merchant"). Your gun has found a new home in "Amerika" where it will be well taken care of, shot often, loved much, and displayed as one of the pinnacles of spring-piston airgun manufacturing.

Vielen Dank!

​The gun then stayed for a while in Germany, because one of the conditions was that the gun would be tested by the in-house technicians and declared "fit for purpose". Of course, guns have no "word of honor", LOL! and a perfectly working gun can fail in a few days, or weeks, or months.  But at least we had a "looksie" by someone that knows what they are doing before starting the proverbial 10,000 miles trip.

After all the appropriate paperwork was filled and permissions obtained for the export/transport, the gun started its trip.
And then it arrived in the US.

As I notified Mr. Higgins, I could feel that he was indeed pleased with the opportunity.

Because he had to travel, he sent his RH versions straight-away, and so, I took advantage of having BOTH guns and proceeded to take a suite of pictures, which have been interspersed throughout this article.

As you can see, it is TRULY a mirror image.

And now to close the story, let's go back to those statements about "declared Surplus" and "historical significance".

If you note in the pictures, though the stock on the LH version is not the "commercial" stock, being somewhat austere, it is fully functional and has all the adjustments needed, just not as pretty.
And then there are these "BKA" markings and number, ¿What do they mean?

Well, here is the kicker:

The Bundeskriminalamt (BKA)  is the German Federal Criminal Police, something closely related in function and authority to our own FBI.

¿How would you feel if you found an airgun with "FBI" markings?

;-)

I am sure that there is no better home in this world for this specific gun than Mr. Higgins' home. His work in the RH 75 HV stock is absolutely flawless and I am very happy to have played a small part in the history of this gun.

Like Old Soldiers, glorious guns never die ... and with the participation of good airgunners, hopefully they will never fade away either.

There will be more chapters in this gun's story in the future thanks to the loving passion of a few good men, who established a chain of brotherhood across languages, continents, oceans, and years.
​And THAT is part of the magic of airguns.

Keep well and shoot straight!






HM

A Guest Blog by Stever Herr

PROLOGUE by Hector Medina (Editor)

As humanity moves along in its "progress", it is more and more clear that the only thing that is constant in the UNIVERSE, is: change.

The modern world has brought a number of inconveniences (like worldwide running Flu's), a number of disasters (like Global Warming), and a lot of veritable Tragedies (The continuous State of War since the beginning of the 19th Century).
BUT, it has also brought serious marvels; some of them, undoubtedly, double edged swords that can cut either way.
Among those marvels is the Internet and the level of communication that we can have now with people we have not ever met face to face. And, yet, the commonality of passions, the willingness to suspend (or lower) the "offense" level, and the usage of a "lingua franca" (English), allows us to work; share knowledge, ideas and experiences; and grow together with people that are hundreds of miles away, or thousands, it really doesn't matter.

And that enriches our life. Yes we can cuss the internet for the amount of garbage that we receive on the EMail everyday, but we also have to be grateful for the genuine and wonderful communication opportunities it affords us.

This FOUR PART SAGA is the result of one of those opportunities. A veritable "meeting of minds" that resulted in some fantastic experimentation and some solid science being made.

And so, without further ado, I yield the floor to the Steve Herr, the Gentleman from Pennsylvania, noting that it was a privilege and a pleasure to work with such a fine mind in these experiments.

​A 56TH Gone Awry
About 7 months ago I purchased a Diana 56TH in .177.  This was my first Diana with the sliding action design and I was anxious to give it a try.  After much reading and correspondence with Hector Medina, I tore into the rifle, going over everything from top to bottom.  The sled mechanism was polished up, T06 trigger disassembled, polished, relubed and set to a mere 8.2 oz pull.  The powerplant was replaced with an AGT 22mm skirtless design from Tony Leach, and the sled tension was tuned for best groups on target.
While I was very pleased with the results, I was seeing some fliers that concerned me.  It was shooting extremely well, don't get me wrong....but the fliers weren't going away.

After much work to try and resolve this issue, I turned my attention to the factory crown.  The factory crown had been machined at a slight angle, see attached picture.  When looking at the crown you could see that it was deeper and wider in the area of 1:00 O'Çlock to about 7:00 O'Çlock. You could also see that the grooves were blocked off along the edge in the area hi-lighted in yellow with only 5 of the 8 grooves being visible. 

​I finally decided to hand lap to see if I could improve on the crown, and help with the issue of occasional fliers. Using a brass hand lapping tool from Brownells, I went to work.  After the hand lapping, I was now able to see all 8 lands.  However, the crown was still angled.  If there is a lesson to be learned here, hand lapping will not correct a crown that is not square to the bore.  In fact, it may actually make the angle worse.
Here is the crown after Hand Lapping.

​After hand lapping I returned to the target to see if there were any improvements.  At 32 yards it was quite apparent that not only was the problem unresolved, but it had actually gotten worse with groups beginning to scatter.  As the title of this article indicates, this rifle was going HAYWIRE!!

After many hours of experimentation to try and resolve, I reached out to Hector to see if he knew of anyone who could re-crown a barrel square to the bore.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this was a service that he performs in most of his builds, and that he would be willing to look into my barrel in detail. 

We also discussed the heavy factory muzzle weight, and the tendency they may have in contributing to fliers.  He suggested some options for replacing the factory muzzle weight.  The options offered were a Harmonic Reducer or a more simple design called a Harmonic Tuner.  I said that I was open to his suggestions and would go with whatever he recommended.

A short time later my rifle was completely stripped down and the bare barreled action along with the barrel shroud was on it's way to Hector.

After evaluating the rifle, Hector began the process of re-crowning.  Here are a few pictures showing the step-by-step process.    Hector continued to machine the surface until the entire internal edge was the same depth and square with the bore.    If you look closely you can see how the crown was squared up nicely.  ​

On the final step, Hector added a taper around the outer edge, the end result being a nice target crown.

Hector's next step was to verify that the barrel would shoot.  In order to do this, Hector utilized one of his own powerplants, tuned to the desired level that I would be shooting the rifle (11.4 fpe), and using the same pellets that this rifle seems to prefer...JSB Exact 8.44 (4.53).  He also installed one of his stocks and a scope for the testing.
At 35 yards in a seated position (not benched), Hector confirmed that the rifle would offer up nice uniform groups rather than the scattered groups I had been seeing previously.

It was a HUGE relief to hear that Hector was able to save the barrel on my 56, and seeing the more uniform groups returning on target was extremely encouraging!
A job well done!!!
After the recrowning, Hector moved to the next part of the project, that being a suitable replacement for the heavy factory muzzle weight.  I will cover that in another write-up.

​
Steve

There has been a lot of interest in the 430L lately.
Probably as a result of the fantastic price that it's being offered at ($150 for a high quality gun is a great deal in anybody's book).
We have been working with the little rifle for some time now, but before we can go into "making it all it can be" we need to explain a little about how the GEOMETRY of a spring affects its characteristics.

To be quite frank, I owe a debt of gratitude to a young friend that plainly and to my face told me:
"You launched a bunch of information on materials when people do not really understand how springs even work"

So, yes, my fault. I should have posted this entry first and THEN the entry on Specialty steels now available for springs (which already have two reactions from spring/gun manufacturers). I do apologize for that and should have done things more in order.

So, Recapping:
Last entry about springs, we talked about the materials and how the different inclusions of metals as additives, or as alloying agents (not the same thing), change the behaviour of the material itself, it's capacity to store energy (as opposed to deforming permanently with it), and the spring's resistance to fatigue.

In this entry, we will explore a little about the science of "resistance of materials"  and, hopefully, we will help our kind readers understand the concepts and the relationships between single characteristics/variables that make or break (pun intended) a spring in an airgun. By the end of the entry, we hope that the readers will have a fairly good understanding of what "stress" and "strain" are, what geometrical aspects of a spring define those two quantities, and how the numerical values attained by those quantities relate to the "fit for purpose" quality of the material being used for an airgun spring.

Elastic/Inelastic.- The first thing we need to understand is that ALL materials are partly elastic and partly inelastic.
By elastic we mean that: IF subject to a force, and retained in place by some resisting mechanism (otherwise the object would simply move), THEN the material will deform in a proportional relation to the force applied.
By inelastic, we mean that the material, IF subject to a force and retained in place, will deform in a manner that is NOT proportional to the force applied.

Elastic limit / Yield Limit.- We have all seen relatively stiff and hard materials (like structural steel), bent beyond any recognizable shape, whether in a car crash, an explosion, or a building collapse due to some human error (the New Orleans Hard Rock Cafe Hotel being the most recent that comes to mind), but this tells us that even a metal that is DESIGNED to be stiff and resilient, turns from elastic to inelastic when the force becomes too much to bear. Materials Science aims to understand WHY and HOW, so that materials can be improved over time.

Stress and Strain.-
Stress is what we, airgunners, understand in HPA (High Pressure Air), as "Pressure". When applied to "solids" it cannot distribute evenly all across the material, as it does in gases or liquids, but it is the same concept: A FORCE (vector) applied over a surface, its units are pressure units.
Strain is the deformation of the material when subject to a stress (note that we now do not need to establish that there is retaining mechanism because the actual presence of an INTERNAL "pressure" in the material actually tells us that the material is being restricted and is accumulating that pressure inside the material components). It does not have units, as it is a proportion of whatever dimension the material had before being stressed to the dimension of the material when subjected to said stress.

Example: Let's think of a rubber band. Simple office/household/workshop/sports device. It can be the rubber bands obtained from old inner tubes you used when you were a kid to build your slingshot, or it can be the rubber band that holds the deeds, wills, contracts, and other important documents in your house fireproof safe.
We know that, if you apply a force to extend it, while retaining the other end, the band's LENGTH grows. We may also have noticed that the band's width and thickness were REDUCED by the extension of the length.
We surely will have noticed that if you pulled too hard on your slingshot, sometimes the subsequent shots came out "weak", or that if there are too many documents in the sheaf, then the rubber band seems to not hold them as well.
It means we have exceeded the elastic limit of the rubber band. That is, the point where stress and strain stop being proportional.
Using our new words, we can say that the stress induced in the rubber band by our pulling exceeded the allowable strain (yield point) for the rubber used in the band.
Savy slingshot builders will know from experience that there are many ways to build a better slingshot, but probably the easiest is to use surgical tubing instead of rubber bands made of cut inner tubes.
By improving on the material used, we built a better product.

Interesting so far, but, if you stop to think: ¿Can you compress a rubber band?
Hmmmm.- not really so, ¿how come we can compress steel springs, but not rubber bands?

Of course the answer lies in the geometry, but also in the way the molecules/atoms of materials stick to each other.

Some materials form crystals, some create amorphous structures. A Crystal is just a material where the molecules of the material are arranged in a geometric pattern, and therefore they resist pretty well any force that tries to tear them apart (operative word here is TEAR).
An amorphous material is a material where there is no geometric pattern, but still the molecules bind to each other by electromagnetic forces and therefore resist forces in a less "stiff' way, but they do resist deformations.

That sounds logical? Hope so, it still does not answer why we can compress steel springs, but not rubber bands.

Are there any examples of pure crystalline materials? Almost. Jewels are a good example, they are not perfect because even the most perfect diamond will have inclusions and flaws. It is THESE that the experienced cutter uses to split a large chunk into smaller pieces that can then be sold as the engagement ring stones that start most couples in the long road to family bliss.

IF the rough diamonds were perfect, there would be no way of cutting one in an orderly fashion and the huge gem would most likely explode if someone tried to cut it. It would have to be eroded/ground away little by little and a huge "rock" would be the result, like the British Crown Jewels.

Is there a perfectly amorphous material? Play Doh comes to mind. It does have SOME spring to it, but very little, so that little hands can create things out of it.

Between these two extremes, everything else in the world finds a place.

Now, ¿why steel?

We use steel because it is a fairly abundant mineral (Iron/Fe), therefore cheap. And we have been doing research and development on it for about 3,200 years.

HEY! Someone will say: We still do not know why we can compress steel springs and not rubber bands!

Yes, I know, we're getting to that, Patience and Perseverance, my young Padawan.

So, Iron, in its relatively wild state, is an amorphous material (Iron Oxide for the most part). and even when reduced in a kiln and rendered into ingots, the amount of carbon inclusions present as a result of the smelting process will make the "pig iron" fairly brittle. ¿Is it brittle because it is crystalline, or because there are lots of impurities and inclusions? Actually both.

PURE iron would be a crystal (actually there are two types of iron crystals, both cubes), albeit unstable ones (but that would be getting into Quantum Physics and that is beyond the scope of this entry), and so it would be brittle. It is also brittle because the casting process creates stresses along lines of non-homogeneity (impurities and inclusions), and because SOME forms of steel in the iron would actually act like a "wedge" in the material and make the stress fractures grow  rapidly and uncontrollably.
Assuming a very high degree of purity in the iron, then it would bend easily. Not much stronger, stiffer, nor resilient than the best Bronzes.

So, we refine and change the pig iron into steel by including and diffusing the carbon content (reduction process of the oxide, and then purposely oxidizing the excess carbon by blowing air into the molten metal), and then increase the content of other metals, and non-metals, to increase other characteristics (hardness; stiffness; resistance to fatigue, to high or low temperatures, to oxidation, etc); from Molybdenum and Vanadium, to Copper, Silicon, Manganese, Chromium, Nickel, and Cobalt.

Now, the elements above mentioned, whether added as alloying agents, or as additives, diffuse themselves into the crystalline lattices that iron forms. And when temperature is changed dramatically (quickly) either in a quenching, tempering, drawing or other thermal process, then further compounds form: Carbides and Silicates being the prevalent ones.  More important than the compounds is how the crystalline structure in the steel changes with heat treatments.

When we said that Iron creates two types of crystals, we were referring to a Body-Centered Cube (2 Iron atoms) that is called Ferrite, and Face-Centered Cube (4 Iron atoms), called Austenite.
When the Austenite cools down abruptly, it shears the cubes into two tetrahedrons, where the carbon is diffused into a much more compact space, and therefore the crystal itself exhibits very high "strength". Problem is that it also become brittle. These tetrahedrons structures are called Martensites and they are the ones most responsible for the hardness in steel.
Since the crystalline structure change is forced by thermal processes, it is mostly, and controllably, reversible. So, for every quenching, there must be a tempering and a drawing, in order to create a material that is "balanced" between hardness, stiffness and resistance to breakage.

Now that we have explained how the physical properties of steel change due to the change in the crystalline structures, we can say it:

We CANNOT destroy any material by "pure compression" . We can compress materials but compression by itself does not induce neither stress nor strain.

If you remember, when we stretched the rubber band, we observed the thickness and the width of the band to decrease. THIS is what WE call "compression", but in reality is the RESULT of a stretching.
The PROPORTION between the elongation in the direction of the stress that is being applied and the contraction in the perpendicular direction is the Poisson Ratio for that material.

In the same fashion, if we were to have a perfect cube of steel that we put it in a press and then apply force on it, it will fail not because we are compressing the material, but because the material that we are compressing is placing a STRETCHING force sideways into the surrounding, unsupported, material, and that is what tears the material apart (¿remember I told you that the operative word was TEAR?).
​
If I am not making too much sense, consider the same case, but in a hydraulic environment, where we apply a force to the fluid, and the fluid itself applies evenly and in all directions, a pressure to the steel cube.
¿Do you think it will fail?
.
.
.
Nope!

Let's conduct a "thought experiment":
Think of a material as a collection of "leaves", formally called lattices, and then let's think about how important is the directional connection of the internal structures of the material.
Imagine a sheaf of paper. While it is packed and in the wrapper, it can be incredibly strong and behave almost a like a solid brick.  You can stand it upright and you can stack a bunch of them one on top of the other.
BUT, if we remove the wrapper and try to stand a single one on its own, it will collapse.
While on the wrapper, we cannot bend a whole ream, but out of the wrapper, the whole ream can be bent and fanned, and "aired", as we used to do with the feedstock of old copying machines.

IF we apply enough force to a wrapped ream of paper, it will BREAK the wrapper, if we apply a little force, and then place it on a table it will return to is prismatic shape out of its own weight.
In one case we have exceeded the yield strength of the material, in the other we have not.

Important here is to stress that, when out of the wrapper, if we bend the ream one way, there will be one end that becomes "longer", if we bend it the other way, then it's the other end the one that becomes "longer".
In the middle, there will be one sheet that keeps its apparent length, and we will call that the "Neutral Fiber"

So, back to steel airgun springs: ¿What on earth are we doing when we compress the spring?

Savy airgunners and specially those tinkerers that turn their own spring guides know that springs will increase in Outside Diameter (D) when compressed.
If you think about it, a length of metal can only increase its length if it is being STRETCHED. So, when we compress a steel spring, in reality we are stretching each and every coil.
This stretching is what induces the stress and the strain, and it is the reason why we must pay special attention to the SURFACE of the spring. Any imperfection or point of stress concentration will start a micro-fracture that, in the end, will break the spring.
Reason why good quality springs are shot peened and / or covered with some material that prevents the formation of micro-cracks.
Usually, when we receive a spring from a manufacturer, it is longer than expected, unless we specify that we want our springs to  be shipped "set". In this case, the spring manufacturer will compress the spring to solid and then ship it to us. By compressing to solid, the yield / elastic limit is reached and the spring is reduced to the shortest possible length. No further compression cycles can exceed the yield limit of the new conditions (length and diameter), and therefore all further usage will happen within the elastic limit of the material in question.

Can we make springs out of other materials? Yes, and we do. Beryllium bronze is used in explosion proof applications, copper is used in some other -mainly electrical- applications, even aluminum can be used but it's very limited; hopefully, once we master the creation of crystalline aluminum ("Transparent Aluminum" of Start-Trek fame), we will have a fantastic material, specially for scope building. That, though, is several years into the future.

One last thought experiment: If you drop a steel ball bearing into an anvil, it will re-bound. But, it will not rebound to the same height it was dropped from. Even in vacuum.
And if we measured the temperature of the steel ball, we would see that after many re-bounds the temperature has gone up slightly. ¿What is happening?
What is happening is that even the hardest of steels that can absorb huge forces and not yield, still cannot return 100% of the received energy.
SOME energy is lost in the INTERNAL FRICTION of lattices and molecules that bend and suffer recoverable internal displacements.
The SUM of all these INTERNAL energy losses is called Hysteresis

Now, putting it all together:
A material can receive a stress, accumulate it as a strain, AND RETURN IT as a force, only when the elastic yield limit has not been reached.
It will not return ALL the energy, some portion of it is inevitably lost to hysteresis.
The Elastic Yield Limit will be determined by the structure of the material as much as by the chemical and crystalline arrangement that is controlled by post material manufacture heat treatments.

So, now that we understand how springs work; how materials work, and fail; and how we need to look at the limits of the material to select a "fit for purpose" material for our springs, we can go into the GEOMETRY.

Let's dive off the deep end and go directly into an equation:

Frightening, ¿Isn't it?

And yet, this equation says nothing more scientific than if I would assert: "The moon is a huge, spherical, rock that goes around the earth in ever increasing ellipses governed by Newtonian physics"

Both, the equation and my assessment, are true and consistent with the human experience of thousands of years. Both give humans a good frame of reference to study the object of interest, whether it is the moon, or the coil spring. Both can yield good insights into what the effects of changes can be. 
And yet there is a degree of empiricism into both, they are not "pure science".

The reason is simple:  since the formation of the moon from the proto-earth to the present, there have been many phenomena that have taken place that we can neither prove, nor disprove. So we can only establish theories of HOW the moon came to be, WHY it is going away, and WHAT happened in the past that cannot happen in the future because the distance to the moon is only increasing.

In the same way, the complication of a coiled wire that changes apparent cross-section with each millimeter  of compression, that is subject to microscopic heterogeneity and that can have vastly different characteristics, while at the same time having vastly different histories, is very hard to pin-point.
BUT
The experience of the last 162 years (since the machine to economically make coil springs was invented), has shown that it is "Close enough".

And, so, let's take element by element in the equation into analysis and consideration:

"k"

k is the constant of the spring. In other words, how much force it can store for a given length of compression. You can think of it as lbs(force)/in, or Newtons/m, or kgs/m, or oz/in, or . . .
In the end, you will have a rifle with a power stroke of length "X" and you will want a spring that can develop "Y" force, so that the piston can be accelerated and pushed into the compression chamber that will make the air inside go through the transfer port and push in its turn the pellet out of the barrel, ¿no?

So, given an ARCHITECTURE of a gun (power stroke, bore, swept volume, piston's mass, and transfer port length) we can estimate how much force we will need, and therefore, what characteristics of the spring we need to achieve.

OR, assuming an average efficiency of the basic airgun architecture, we can also start from desired energy yield at the muzzle and go back all the way to the force required and therefore the "k" we need to achieve within the constraints of both the gun and the spring material.

So, let's simplify, clarify, and amplify (SC&A):
"k" just means how strong the spring will be, given a length of compression, it comes from Hooke's  Law that states that  'F=kX' where F stands in for Force, k is itself, and X is the power stroke.

"G" 

Is the "Shear Modulus". It means how rigid a material is, how much stress is required  to create the necessary  amount of strain that will tear the material apart.

It CAN be calculated using the Elasticity/Young's Modulus (the tangent of the angle of the line that describes the stress-strain behaviour of a material in the linear -elastic- zone; also called the slope of the curve in this first section -before the yield point-) and the Poisson Ratio (the relation between a stress applied in a direction with the strain created in a perpendicular direction).

Now, BOTH the elastic modulus and the yield point, as well as the Poisson ratio are determined experimentally for specific materials, again, this is empiricism. So, there are tables that tell us what are TYPICAL Shear Modulus values for different kinds of steels and other materials just for the sake of comparison:

As you can see, the range of "G" for economically viable materials is pretty narrow: between 76 (GPa) for "Nickel Steel" (basically stainless), and 79 for "Structural Steel".

I am including other materials just for the sake of comparison, and if we go to serious spring makers' websites, some of them list the characteristics of the materials they use.
Still, a pretty much uniform value for G is around 79.3 GPa for ALL steels that are of viable use, whether they are labelled as "valve" or "specialty" steels.

​So, SC&A: G is, for all intents and purposes, an empirically derived value that for airgun use should be taken as the constant 79.3 GPa/11.5 Million PSI

"d", "D", and "na".-

"d"  Is the diameter of the wire used. Using a fairly standard diagram:

"D" is the mean diameter of the spring, or the diameter between the neutral fibers of the steel used in making the spring, which just means that we need to subtract one wire diameter from the Outer Diameter.
A little like calculating a center to center group size: You measure the two farthest edges of the two extreme shots and deduct a caliber. Same process, same principle, same arithmetic.

"na"  is the number of active coils, which for most purposes (except Vortex's PG-3), would mean the number of coils that are ACTIVE, therefore the two end coils do NOT count.

SO;  By now we have almost everything we need to start playing with the numbers and understanding how one variable affects the possible outcomes.

As usual, since the advent of computers and the internet, there are online calculators that do the number crunching, this is one of them:
https://www.acxesspring.com/spring-calculator.html
and it is fairly easy to use.

Let's try an example:

We take the 640 T spring from ARH's website:
https://www.airrifleheadquarters.com/catalog/item/251488/8128905.htm

Just because it is new and it provides an interesting contrast with most other springs offered. It is a WIDE spring : 0.640" ID, with a relatively thin wire: 0.120", 35 coils and an OAL of 13.25" (unset).

The 0.640" ID would mean a 0.880" OD and a "D" of 0.760" or 19.3 mm's

So, what would the calculator predict?

And so, we have the force that the spring can store: 20.564 #/in with those design parameters.

But, what would happen if we increase the Wire diameter (for the purpose of this numerical simulation, we will change ONE thing at a time.

Let's go to 0.130" wire:

We've gone from a k of 20.564 to a k of 29.47, this is a HUGE increment for a mere 0.010" in diameter of the wire.
But then, remember the equation? In the equation, the d is raised to the 4th power, so a 9% increase in wire diameter would imply over 40% increase in k.

What would happen if we had REDUCED the mean diameter of the spring?

Let's go back to our 0.120" wire and reduce the OD to 0.774" that would imply a D of 0.654:

Now we have a k of 32.272 #/in.
Why that value? because that value gives an ID of 0.534" that is a tight fit into the OEM DIANA spring guides.
What would the equation have predicted?
A reduction of 14% gets raised to the power of 3 in the divisor, so the net effect is an increase of 57%
For a base case of 20.564, a raise of 57% would mean 32.27 #/in, so we now have a feel of how changing one aspect affect the outcome.

The last variable we can play with is the number of active coils, but that is an inverse relation, so it is not too complicated to imagine what effect reducing, or increasing the number of active coils will have in the result.

Ideally, we should choose the biggest OD that will yield the power we are looking for.
We can increase the d, within limits, and every gun will achieve a "plateau" where more force will not increase muzzle energy because the swept volume has been completely used.

The biggest possible OD will yield the least stress in the spring, therefore, this will guarantee the longest and most stable life possible.

For most calculations, the springs we use in airguns are doomed to failure because calculations cannot take into account the effect of a guided spring (fore and aft). SOME calculators do, but you need to pay for them and it is not in the intent of this blog to make you pay for information.

Most spring makers would balk at the duty cycle we submit our springs to. But then they are concerned mostly with industrial applications where millions of operations are desired before you need to shut down the plant for maintenance. Maintenance, for some of us, is part of the hobby.

In the next blog entry, we will deal with what can be done to the DIANA 430L, short of changing the cocking lever arrangement, because that will be looked into in another blog entry that will deal with efficiency of powerplants.

Hope you have enjoyed this trip into the rarefied world of the airgun designer.

I apologize for the length of the entry and thank you all for staying with the thread of ideas. It is a complicated aspect to explain and I hope I have not confused everyone even more.

;-)

Keep well, shoot straight, and if I don't get the time to write the entry for the 430L before the holidays come tumbling down on us, like the walls of Jericho, I wish you all, the best of peaceful, contented, filled with family and friends, holidays!






​HM

Nothing exposes the frailty and temporary condition of Human Nature as those events that are clear watersheds; those events of which you can say: "Before . . . ", and "After . . . "

But, definitely, for quite a number of Field Target shooters in the Eastern USA, and some around the World; the last match of the EFTCC hosted by Hans and Ray Apelles at the Dutchess County Pistol Association (DCPA) marks the end of an era.

If I may recall some history from the purely personal point of view, I would go back to 1999 when I returned to "Adult Airguns" through the purchase in Media, Pennsylvania, of a certain Diana 52. The seller was Mr. John Tripier, who operated an airgun shop in the back of his auto parts shop, the rifle in question was equipped with a Vortek Gas Spring (1st Gen). He was one of the few persons alive that actually knew how to restore "Franklin" cars (external, three cylindered engines), and he was quite a character.
I spent two hours at his shop and learned a LOT about airguns in those two hours.

When I bought the gun, he mentioned something about the Airgun Letter.

For someone living in México, at that time, it sounded almost like science fiction.

But I decided to investigate.

Navigating the "Old Yellow" and searching for information, I found AAFTA, and together with a group of friends we decided to incorporate the Mexican Pneumatic Shooting Club. (Club Mexicano de Tiro Pneumatico).

We became members of AAFTA, paid our dues, and started receiving the Newsletters. And it was there that I saw something that called my attention: a target placed in an overturned 50 gal drum. Darned good idea!

The B&W pictures, the terse commentary needed because the articles needed to be kept short, and the comments of the shooters in the forum about the shoots were always a magnet for my attention.
I even bought a Career 901 Carbine in 0.20" cal and ordered a regulator for it from Ray.
He dutifully sent it to Mexico and with the L-W barrel I installed, that carbine was one of the most accurate long guns I have ever had.

Back then, with a young child and working on my own, I had to sell that gun to fund the next purchase, but I kept the DIANA 52.The gas spring failed and I converted that gun to steel spring, but that is another story. 

Years passed. The Air Gun Letter forum disappeared, James Kitching's forum appeared and the conversation continued.

Even more years passed, and then, almost suddenly, I found myself living in the USA.

Because of business reasons, we established ourselves in Connecticut, and therefore going to the Matches at DCPA in Wappingers Falls was, in reality, going to our "local" club, it was our "home turf". Hans and Ray always made us feel at home and we established a good friendship. Veronika started shooting (and beating me) and life acquired a sense of stability, continuity, and balance.

More years passed and we found ourselves moving to Maryland, and starting a family with two little ones.

Life has now a different "texture". Gone are the senses of balance and equilibrium, peace is non-existent, and everything is an exercise in controlling chaos, LOL! Life goes on.

Being at more than 5 hours drive from Wappingers Falls, it was not easy to go to the matches there, and we missed it. Every time I saw the reports I said to myself: "You have to make the time to go", but as it's often the case in life, little lives entrusted to us take precedence over most things.
We still met at the World's and the Nationals, and Crosman, and Pyramyd Air. But  . . . 

DCPA was not anymore our "Home Turf".

So, when Ray announced that this was EFTCC's last (LAST) Match, I decided to MAKE the time to go.

Obtained permission, booked a hotel, planned the trip, packed the bags, and agreed to meet Sean McDaniel and Eric Brewer for dinner the night before.
Mike Harris and Al Otter joined in and it was a good dinner, but we were all overshadowed by the fact that we knew it was a very specific occasion what had brought us together there.

Next morning, continuing an old tradition, we met at Perkins and the proceedings started.

After eggs, pancakes and some coffees, we all adjourned to DCPA.

After registration, sighting in, all the normal BS'ing and banter, with the appearance of some old faces, and a lot of new ones, the proceedings augured well. 
Ray had told everyone that it would be an easy match and that he expected someone to clean it. (Hah!)

As you can see, it was a COLD morning.
Shooter's Meeting was called and because we had a group of youngsters, special care was taken with all safety directions.

And then the Match started

Everybody got to their positions, range was declared "hot" and shooting commenced.

By the end of the Match, we had a shoot-off between Matt Sawyer and myself.
Eric Brewer set us onto a 30'ish yards target that we both got sitting, then kneeling and then standing. So we moved to another target that was at around 55 yards up in a tree.
I missed it and Matt took 2nd place. Well done, Matt!

After the shoot-off, we all helped bring in the "field" and the place returned to its slumber, this time for who knows how long.

We adjourned to the Club-House and after a great meal prepared by Dianne (Ray's Fiancee) of pork and chicken and salad and cake, the awards ceremony proceeded. Tried to take pictures of the youngsters, but you know how they are, they don't stay put, so we settled on a group picture:

All the attendants presented Hans and Ray with a Certificate of Recognition for 20 years of service to the Field Target community.

It was a well deserved standing ovation.

As you surely have surmised by now, the problem with the pictures was not the subjects but the photographer, that forgot to open the flash unit. (Big DUHHHH!  to myself)

For those that like to study the technical details, this is the layout:

Yes it was windy, but even with the wind, it was an unusually "Easy" course for EFTCC, still . . . nobody cleaned it.
Finally, to make this an official AAFTA Match report, we need to put all the scores, and for those that like the tech details, I am enclosing shooters equipment (when available):

Thanks to everyone that made this last shoot such a memorable event.

We all owe a debt of gratitude to Hans and Ray Apelles.
Their dedication to the sport has been unwavering (though sorely tested at times) through all these 20 years and more.

Their pioneering work in gun accurizing, PCP regulating, scope setting, pellet performance analyzing, and the generosity with which they have been sharing their results is among the best in what is already a bunch of really excellent characters.

They leave DCPA with a well-stocked shed of targets, strings, clip-boards and a bunch of other stuff, the bases will remain in the field as well as in the trees. The only "Elevator" in the USA will stay there. The overturned 50 gal drum will become silent.
​
Let's hope that someone in the area can bring them all out of their sleep sometime in the future.

Till we meet again, keep well and shoot straight!







HM

DISCLAIMER.-
PLEASE note that the opinions expressed here are my own personal opinions.
Also, that what is written here applies to ONE rifle, other specimens may behave better, or worse.
Extra care was put in NOT voding the warranty of the gun for the reasons that will be obvious once you read the article, so this entry is somewhat atypical for this blog in the sense that no alteration to the gun was made, or even tried.
Having said that, let's get on with the write-up.

About four and a half years ago, word went around in the industry that Sig-Sauer was looking to improve their line of air guns. Some licensing was being done for AirSoft, but pellet guns were not abundant in the Sig-Sauer stable. Some CO2's mainly marketed as "training substitutes" , but not a whole line.
As a matter of fact, Sig Sauer hired a headhunter to look for a technical person to take charge of the airgun side, don't ask me how I know  ;-) .
Now, Sig-Sauer is part of L&O group (Luke & Orteiler), which is a powerful group within the German industry. With two basic "branches": non-woven textiles and weapons.
We have already discussed a little of this in a previous entry, so I won't repeat it again.
A few months before, L&O group had decided to purchase DIANA through the majority owned subsidiary GSG, so, the ASP20 project took a special turn.
It was important for the Sig-Sauer management to make the ASP20 a totally American project. And so, everything was designed from scratch.
As such, it is the first American designed piston airgun in MANY years.
Some may remember the failed Sterling venture, but that design was a joint English-American design and the idea was to produce the airguns on both countries. When Sterling Armament (UK) folded, the whole project was moved to Wisconsin, USA. Some airguns were built, but not a lot, and the project failed altogether.
The current Sterling Armament company tried another airgun design a few years ago, but it failed again.

All above is to illustrate how complicated and difficult it is to bring a new piston airgun to the market.
PCP's are easy, it's only high level plumbing. And you can realize how true that statement is when you note that 15 years ago you could count with the fingers of one hand the serious, solid, industrially made PCP brands and, of those, the majority were dedicated to Olympic Match airguns.
Now a days, you don't have enough fingers/toes in your body to count the number of companies making PCP's.

A lot has to do with the market: "We the people" like things that are not that complicated. So, there is a preference for PCP's; that drives the demand, that drives the creation of new models, companies and brands.

The ASP20 was announced almost three years ago, I saw the first prototype (part of the "run of 10's") at 2018 IWA (8th picture down from top on the above referenced entry). At first sight it was a completely foreign object to a traditional airgunner. 
The stock didn't make sense, the scope rail was a picatinny not a dovetail, the gun was LONG, even longer than the DIANA 350 (and THAT is saying something!), after a few years of coming out with short, light, special production airguns, to  ME, it was a trainwreck waiting to happen.
So, we waited for a year, but no production models were available.
Reviews went out as a result of the invitation to the official unveiling in NH in April 2018, of those reviews, the most informative is Stephen Archer's
And another year passed, and still only first specimens from the "run of 100's" went around to established writers/reviewers/u-tubers/press.
We started seeing articles in HAM, Websites, u-tube, and the Fora.  I am only linking those I think are really useful, original, and truthful.
The HAM one is particularly interesting to me because the tester was my friend Eric Brewer. And I know he can shoot.  ;-) He is a regular placer and oftentimes winner in his Division of FT (Hunter) and he has the same passion as I do for piston airguns.

I will not repeat all the descriptions and detailed analyses that these fine gentlemen have done for you, so, please read and/or watch them. 

Now, where did the ASP20 that is being tested here came from?
It was a prize.
No gift from the manufacturer to a writer, in order to elicit good press.
No "perk" to a writer to get a review.

I placed 3rd at the Pyramyd Air Cup and when my time came to choose, I chose the ASP20
In here I have to thank Pyramyd for the whole Cup, an Sig-Sauer for supporting that effort; THANKS!

Life has kept me busy since the PAC, but now I can share a few insights with you all.

Rifle came in a well padded and hard cardboard box, almost a case, wrapped in a plastic bag, I removed the bag for the picture.
​
As you can see, out of the bag and with the Whiskey scope, the rig weighs in at 9# 13oz

Being a "Zero Miles" gun, if you really want to get the best the gun has to offer in the long run, you'ld better dedicate some serious time to the "running in" process.
If you want a detailed description of the running in process I have settled in after almost 20 years of airgunsmithing, you can read it here. It is important to mention in a gun of this power, to ALWAYS start the running in with the heaviest pellet you can find that will not overstress the rifle. That will prevent dieseling, carbon deposits from forming in the mechanism and barrel, and will prevent undue wear and tear in the parts before they have had the time to "mate into each other". You do not need to do this in piston airguns of around 12 ft-lbs, but for high power airguns, this is a must.

As you can see, for the power level, it is surprisingly accurate with the JSB Exact Jumbo heavy (18 grs).

The H&N Baracuda Hunter, and the Baracuda Hunter Extreme proved to be "inefficient" in the barrel , as they required 5 mrads of additional holdover as opposed to the JSB's.
The Sniper Magnum and the Sniper Lilght proved to be more efficient, but the grouping is not as good, DO NOTE that there MIGHT be a chance that, with the right lubrication, the Sniper Lights might make an excellent pellet (different from the prospective buyer instructions), but in the interim of getting the prize and running these tests, the rifle had been spoken for, and the objective of the new prospective owner was not an FT gun, but a Metallic Silhouette gun. Under those conditions, it is far wiser to use the heaviest pellet that shoots well, as hitting the  1/10th scale rams at 50 meters (Mexican Rules) shoting offhand with no jacket, nor other aids, is hard in the wind.
For the sake of illustration, I shot a silhouette card with results that are as good as with my match guns, meaning that if I did not make any mistakes, the rifle can shoot a perfect score in ideal conditions.

The gun itself is not suitable for FT, even under AAFTA rules, it is too powerful and the strategy of the manufacturer has been to concentrate on the market they know best: firearms enthusiasts.

What makes the ASP20 an airgun for powderburners?

IMHO, two things:

a) Emphasis is placed on energy delivered, not on accuracy.- Not saying the guns are not accurate, they can be, but, as an airgunner, apart from searching the "magic pellet", you cannot do anything about it.
The gun you get either is, or it isn't.

b) Self-Service is not an option.- In the world of firearm shooters, there are relatively few (in comparison with the overall number of firearm owners) with the wherewithal to tackle a problem in the accuracy department of a powderburning rifle. You can load your own ammo, and tailor the ammo to the gun, but very few can embark on a rebarreling job, a bolt blue-printing, a refacing of the bolt, a re-chambering of the barrel, the installation of a harmonics tuner, or any other major accuracy-related surgery.

IMHO, this is the single GREAT insight of the Volquartsen/Ruger 10/22 combination. 

Because of these two reasons I believe the ASP20 is dedicated to Powderburners.

No parts are, nor will be, available.

No diagrams, exploded drawings, or explanations of function.

The gun is what it is.  It has a great warranty for the first 5 years/original owner. If you are not satisfied, you can return the gun and get it serviced/replaced/changed, but Sig Sauer has decided that ANYTHING beyond adjusting the trigger as outlined in the owners manual, voids the warranty.

Not many airgunners are done with an airgun at year 5, ¿And then?

Airgunners are different from Powderburners. We want to be able to get inside our airguns and change springs; add, or remove top-hats and sleeves; cut coils, add spacers; and try different lubricants and seals; and of course, we know that we need to find the "magic pellet" that will shoot tiny groups at whatever distance interests us.

Experienced airgunners know that a well taken care of airgun will last many DECADES. It's part of the appeal.

Dedicated Airgunners shoot tens of thousands of pellets a year, and TRULY DEVOTED piston airgunners will do that through a SINGLE GUN.
¿Why? because if you want to be truly proficient with a piston gun you need to adapt to it. You need to "become one with the gun".
Piston guns are quasi-organic entities that have their own personality and soul. You either learn to live with, and love it, or you're better off getting a PCP.

Firearms shooters like to have a special rifle for every occasion. Otherwise, ¿How can you explain the "rift" between the 6.5/0.264, the 0.270" and the 7 mm's shooters?
Beyond all the hype of "Creedmoor" and "PRC", the ballistics of those cartridges are as old as the 6.5X57 Vom-Hoffe, or the 6.5X68 Schuler/RWS (1930's)
And we do have to admit that there is an element of marketing in all the distinctions made in the press.
These feuds are "surreal" because the difference is 0.006" - 0.007" in the calber, AND they are not working at the lowest energy level possible, like airguns.

BUT, this is the market that Sig-Sauer knows, the market where the "latest and greatest" commands a premium.
Want to buy a top-notch German bolt-action rifle? the SAME gun will cost between 15% and 30% MORE chambered in 6.5 PRC than in 6.5X68, and the 6.5X68 is a much more capable (meaning that you can upload and download it to a wider range of performances) cartridge.
​
So, Sig-Sauer is aiming (pun intended) directly at this market.

On the good side, the ASP20's dedication to the powderburners has also brought a rifle that is easier to use than traditional spring-piston airguns.
It benches well, and it accepts (even flourishes), with a relatively tight hold. It swings well and comes to aim in a natural way.

The ASP20 is designed to be "maintenance free" within the usage expected of this market, maybe a few hundred, up to a thousand, rounds a year.
Sig-Sauer's highly touted tests (read above quoted Stephen Archer's review) run up to 20,000 operations of the breechblock/fork assembly.
For me, that is less than a year's worth of shots.

On the aesthetic side, its stock replicates, as much as possible the firearm version, just compare them:

​The version shown of the SSG 3000 is what some call the "Patrol" modeI, as there is another one that is more "chassis"-like.

I had a good Email exchange with the two persons that would be most interested in increasing the appeal of the gun: The PR person in charge of all press releases/media and, therefore, the one that gets most of the feedback from shooters/testers/writers; and the head of Engineering.
We had a good, open and frank discussion, I've known both for some time and respect deeply their knowledge base and their human qualities, but they are tied to the overall strategy and when I asked if they would be interested in creating a "variant" for  AAFTA FT (875 fps with good, 0.177" pellets), the response was a resounding and deafening silence.
As it is generally put in the press: "Sig-Sauer has not returned a comment up to this time"

;-)

I'll come across them at IWA 2020 and we'll have a good exchange again, let's see how the sales numbers do, if they do well, then it's logical that they will keep to the strategy, if they don't then we'll have a chance to press the point again.

Overall, I do wish Sig-Sauer a GREAT success with the strategy and the market aims.
¿Why?
IF they are successful (again I really wish they will be), it will mean a lot more airgunners in the world.

With more and more states and counties opening some hunting to airguns (apart from pesting), the advent of the ASP20 should open the eyes of some firearms owners that an "adult airgun" is not a toy, it is a highly specialized and useful tool in the modern day and age when urban sprawl is encroaching on everything, but the "ecosystem", as a whole, is adapting to human presence VERY WELL.

We now have cities with established coyote populations and soon we will have black bears, for sure.
In my own sub-urban sprawl we have fox, raccoon, badger, deer, woodchuck, squirrel, crow and a lot of other animals, not always of the desirable inclination.

The ASP20 is a hunting-accurate rifle for small and medium size game (no deer, nor bears, LOL!), no doubt.
In a few months, we'll know if it is also a silhouette-usable rifle, and we'll also have some detailed harmonics measurements to discuss.

¿Would I buy one?

Not really, on a personal level I would prefer a properly set-up D-54.

With the right components, the D54 is capable of almost the same ME with 18 grs. pellets (22.8 ft-lbs of the 54, vs. 23.6 ft-lbs in the ASP20) and the level of precision/accuracy is just a little bit better.
What makes the difference is that the 54 is a much more SHOOTABLE gun.

BUT, that is just me. YMMV.

And the plastic trigger?

Well, let's just say that with judicious adjustments, I got the trigger down to 1#13 oz., a far cry from the "factory" 2# 8 oz.

Hope you have enjoyed this writeup, it was a very different POV for me, when I was tied to not having any spare parts nor diagrams but, in the end, I think the ASP 20 can be a very positive contribution to the sport.

Keep well and shoot straight!






​HM