Crosman Quest 1000 Overhaul

Joe D, one of my new co-workers, heard a couple of us talking about various scopes the other day in the shop.  He asked if one of us could sight in his airgun.   He said "airgun"?   Oddly, I was immediately nominated.   Joe brought it in a couple days later and left it in my care.   Before taking it home, I asked if I could also go through the gun mechanically if necessary.  Joe green-lighted the request.














A Crosman Quest 1000 with a Crosman branded 4X scope. 

It's a .177 caliber spring piston rifle.  Safe to assume the "Quest 1000" name relates to velocity expectations.

Overall, the gun didn't look too bad cosmetically.  Joe bought the gun to deal with pests on his property.  Chipmunks, squirrels...  There were some minor marks on the stock.  Wasn't scratched so much as marked by something else.

The phillips head stock screws have got to go.   I'll replace these with button head allen screws.

Very thin surface rust covered much of the metalwork.  

As I started to cock the gun, I felt the action shift very slightly in the stock.   That sort of brought the sight-in project to full stop.

Kinda knew going into it that this would involve a full tear down.   Started by removing the forward stock screws and the trigger guard.  Fasteners were barely finger tight.  The gun was essentially rattling itself apart from the firing vibration.

With the stock off, the white marks were buffed out with bronze wool.






 













Bronze wool is much softer than steel wool and left the wood finish looking untouched.



















The white marks simply vanished.

Set the wood aside and removed the stock lug brace from the link pin. 

Removed the oddly named "stock link pin".  Note:  This is the nomenclature that Crosman uses for the part (B18-00-9) on their EVP drawings.

This e-clip,

the anti-bear trap lever, and spring were next.  






 













 Removed the barrel pivot bolt.

Pulled the barrel and breech block assembly from the compression tube.

Didn't know how much preload was on the mainspring.  Set it up in my spring compressor and drove out the cross pin with a brass drift. 

Turns out, the mainspring preload was minimal.  Only about an inch of compression was on the spring.  This gun doesn't need a compressor to repair.

Plastic end cap, the steel cross pin, mainspring and spring guide. 

The entire trigger unit is pushed backward and out of the compression tube.




















Finally, the piston can be removed from the tube.

Piston seal is damaged on the edge.  This often happens during initial assembly as the piston is inserted into a compression tube that was never deburred along the cocking lever slot. 

Used a Flex Hone from Brush Research to cross hatch the forward (inside) end of the compression tube.  This leaves very fine scratches that trap and hold lubricant.  After flex honing, the tube was cleaned and dried.  Then a very thin layer of a 60% moly grease was burnished into the tube.

All the exterior metal was cleaned and rubbed down with Boeshield T-9 oil.  That would be rust on the rag.  Most all of the rust came off the gun with little damage to the bluing.

While it was apart, I deburred everything.  Polished the rear of the piston body.

Removed the spring-loaded breech lockup detent.  Buffed it then reassembled with moly grease.  The barrel pivot bushing was also cleaned and greased.





 













Went though my seals and found a handful.  Got these from Crosman a while back. This is a really common seal and at about $1.50 each, it's painless to have a few set aside.   The seal is Crosman part number B18-04-1A.

Installed.  I burnished the sides with a really small amount of moly before installation.

Mainspring got a thin coat of copper anti-seize.

Greased the sear contact faces of the trigger before reassembly.  Gun went back together easily without the spring compressor.   The only trick was getting the uppermost front tab of the trigger unit in position.  The piston assembly must go into the compression tube first (and don't forget to line up the sear notch in the piston body with the cocking lever slot )--then the trigger unit can be installed.  It's necessary to use something like a dental pick to pull that front tab downward as the trigger is slid into place otherwise, it won't seat properly to the compression tube.  (It'll be obvious)   After that, install the spring, plastic endcap  and the cross pin.  It's a straightforward reversal of the disassembly.  


















After a quick sight-in at 10M.  10 shots off-hand with Crosman Premier Hollowpoints.   Since he isn't a crazy dyed-in-the-wool airgunner, it made sense (well, to me at least) to zero the rifle with a pellet he can readily find in the local mega stores.

Joe knew that he'd have to fine tune the scope adjustments to accommodate subtle differences in how he holds the rifle.  Also gave him a couple tips on the artillery hold.  While Joe was amazed at the change in firing behavior after the lube/tune,  I was impressed with the accuracy. 

Not sure what's on deck for next time, but thank you for reading and please check back soon.

Findlay Airgun Show Finds

This is a follow up post to the Findlay, Ohio airgun show held last week.

Didn't bring home much this year.   There weren't any airguns on my want list as there were in previous years.   That can be a dangerous way to go to the show, as anything and everything becomes a possibility.  Still, I managed a modicum of financial restraint.















I should be up front about this:  I don't need to buy any more pellets.  Not today, not tomorrow, probably not even in the next decade.  But I'm weak....very weak.   And show organizer, Dan Lerma, had several huge plastic tubs of "scratch and dent" pellets from Pyramyd Air.  Dan's prices were too good to pass up, so I had to buy just a couple. 

The Chinese pellets, I'd never heard of, while others are favorites of various guns.  Steve Joseph handed me the Serbian wadcutters as I was heading out. They're enablers, plain and simple.

















Also from Steve Joseph (one of those aforementioned "enablers") was this fine IZH 46.  It's an early gun, as it's not the current 46M version which has a longer compression tube and eeks out a bit more velocity.  But it has walnut grips.  The small wooden handle on the cocking lever appears to be a lighter colored wood such as maple or birch, so neither Steve or I knew if the walnut grips are original to the gun or someone's nicely done handwork.

I traded Steve an early Sheridan rocker safety and some $$$ to make this happen.  As always, he was more than good to me on the deal and I sincerely hope he enjoys the Sheridan.

 












Here's one I bought for Nick from Mike Reams.  He's usually set up next to Don Raitzer at the show and they often team up and help me find my wallet. I believe I've bought six or seven guns from them over the last couple years.    Kinda rolled the dice on the HW as it wasn't something on Nick's list, but it was too inexpensive to pass up.  It's a Weihrauch 50S with the San Rafael,  Beeman stamp.  The gun is pre-safety and in rough cosmetic shape.  I was drawn to it because of the Rekord trigger and the clean rifling in the bore.  Nick is always looking for solid "project" guns and this has tremendous potential.

I'm still puzzled as to how the wood was gnawed away here.  ???

Needs wood work, metal work, a new spring, seals, sights....   It'll keep him busy.


Worked on a Crosman Quest 1000 for a co-worker recently.  Should have a post up in a couple days covering the rebuild.

Findlay, Ohio Toys that Shoot Airgun Show

The 8th Annual Toys that Shoot Airgun Show was held today in Findlay, Ohio at the Lighthouse Banquet Facility.  Despite the flooded parking lots and forty degree weather, the show was absolutely packed.  When I left, the attendance was around 300 and there were still a couple hours to go.  From my vantage point, the sellers were busier than ever and the prices on most items were outstanding.   I didn't get as many dealer pictures today as I have in the past, largely because so many of them were busy with multiple customers at a time.  We (my wife and I) took a lot of pictures and I wanted to make them available as quickly as possible.  I'll probably come back in the next few days and caption a few.  There's no particular order to the pics, it's just a hasty post. 

I had a great time.   I'll have another post in a couple days and share a few of the items I came home with. 

Click any picture to make it larger.
















There were tables along the inside perimeter as well as two more rows down the center.  The room was at full vendor capacity.











































































































Frequent Yellow Forum poster, Steve Joseph and his son. 

I traded a clean rocker-safety Sheridan and some $$$ to Steve for this early IZH 46 with walnut grips.

Ken Reeves on the left.

My wife wanted me to buy this FEG from the Sawmillers.  I'm Hungarian, it's Hungarian...  Nice price, perfect condition, but the wallet has other expenses this month.

Anschutz LG-380.

Great Walther collection.  The bottom middle gun was gone after I made a loop of the show.




























QB1 CO2 rifle.

Theodore Summers brings an unsurpassed collection of small parts.  Dunno where he finds it, let alone so much of it.

Dennis Quackenbush had this beautifully stocked QB 78 on his table.  It's a steal at this price given the grade of walnut.

I wanted this Feinwerkbau Model 65 10 meter pistol.

And this Walther CP2 10 meter pistol.



















And this Crosman Skanakar...See a theme here?

DAQ pistols. 

These are interchangeable barrels in various calibers for the ball flask pistol above.  Incredibly cool.  I believe these were handmade by Don Raitzer.

Mike Reams had a rack or two of vintage guns at almost give-away prices. 

I'm sending this old HW50S to Nick.



















Pair of Hammerli pistols.

Invar Alm had some serious gear at his table.

There were only 20 of these Piper mini-guns made.  CO2 bottle in the center and an electric motor drives the barrels.  It was incredibly bad-ass.  Yeah, it even has a laser sight.  Because it does.

Just a Steyr 10-meter rifle hanging out in the rack.  There were so many amazing guns like this tucked into every corner of the show.

Saw two or three bugelspanners.

Probably the best walnut I've ever seen on a Silver Streak.





























This was on Groenwald's table.  Gorgeous.

BSF S20. 

The custom stock on this QB was fantastic.  My pic doesn't do it justice.  Looked like a classically stocked 30-06.

Even a Rochester made an appearance. 

Greg Lundy had a table with some of his various Integrabases.  They allow you to easily mount scopes or various sights on Benjamin/Sheridan pump guns. 

Here's Greg showing off his Benjamin/M14 National Match set up.