Hey guys, thought I'd take the holiday weekend to share a bit of my journey restoring a Diana Model 48. I picked this rifle up at an auction for $18, with commission $20 out the door. Probably the best deal I've ever landed on an air gun, thanks to poor label and a grainy picture that showed a beat up pellet gun, but one who's profile I was able to recognize and that was enough to take a shot at it.
Here it was as advertised:
And here's how it arrived (after I removed the chewed up Bushnell scope)
Underneath the duct tape cladding was a solid Model 48 T01 that aside from some cosmetic blemishes was perfectly functional and nearly complete. This was clearly someone's workhorse AG and carried with it a "been-there-done-that" look that I loved. Because the rifle shot fine, I decided to leave the internals alone and focus on cleaning up the exterior. I immediately got to work removing the duct tape and residue with WD40. The damaged pull rod was replaced. I didn't particularly care for the placement of the sling swivel studs as it made for an unbalanced shouldering of the gun when slung over the back. Because of my poor skills with wood (I'd mess up a popsicle stick if I could) I sent off the stock to someone more knowledgeable which was a buddy who was all too happy to help out. He plugged the old holes and installed a set of new studs with attached swivels at better locations. Can't thank him enough for his excellent work. While that was getting done, I worked on replacing the shattered barrel shroud "cone," or whatever the technical name is for the sloped plastic piece that sits where the compression tube meets the barrel/barrel shroud.
This proved challenging because I wasn't sure how to go about removing it. First I tried tapping it out from the access point beneath the tube where the legs of the bear trap spring sits. But the piece didn't budge. It was only after removing the whole front sight assembly and the barrel shroud that the cone slipped out, this is because of the way the shrouds nests into a recess in the cone, keeping in place. After that, it was easy popping in the replacement piece sourced from Ebay and then reinstalling the barrel and sight assembly.
Last were the sights. I like my irons, so I found a front sight and decided to get creative with the rear which was missing. I opted for a Tech Sights aperture that another airgunner had turned me onto a while back. The results is a Model 48 that may not win any beauty contests but certainly has a special place in my collection for all the fun it has already provided as a labor-of-love project
Here it was as advertised:
And here's how it arrived (after I removed the chewed up Bushnell scope)
Underneath the duct tape cladding was a solid Model 48 T01 that aside from some cosmetic blemishes was perfectly functional and nearly complete. This was clearly someone's workhorse AG and carried with it a "been-there-done-that" look that I loved. Because the rifle shot fine, I decided to leave the internals alone and focus on cleaning up the exterior. I immediately got to work removing the duct tape and residue with WD40. The damaged pull rod was replaced. I didn't particularly care for the placement of the sling swivel studs as it made for an unbalanced shouldering of the gun when slung over the back. Because of my poor skills with wood (I'd mess up a popsicle stick if I could) I sent off the stock to someone more knowledgeable which was a buddy who was all too happy to help out. He plugged the old holes and installed a set of new studs with attached swivels at better locations. Can't thank him enough for his excellent work. While that was getting done, I worked on replacing the shattered barrel shroud "cone," or whatever the technical name is for the sloped plastic piece that sits where the compression tube meets the barrel/barrel shroud.
This proved challenging because I wasn't sure how to go about removing it. First I tried tapping it out from the access point beneath the tube where the legs of the bear trap spring sits. But the piece didn't budge. It was only after removing the whole front sight assembly and the barrel shroud that the cone slipped out, this is because of the way the shrouds nests into a recess in the cone, keeping in place. After that, it was easy popping in the replacement piece sourced from Ebay and then reinstalling the barrel and sight assembly.
Last were the sights. I like my irons, so I found a front sight and decided to get creative with the rear which was missing. I opted for a Tech Sights aperture that another airgunner had turned me onto a while back. The results is a Model 48 that may not win any beauty contests but certainly has a special place in my collection for all the fun it has already provided as a labor-of-love project
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