What ball bearing rod do you recommend?Thank you sir. For what it’s worth, all of the steps except facing off the muzzle were done with inexpensive hand tools like a drill. The facing can be done other ways, it’s just quicker in the lathe.
Even the lapping setup is pretty modest. The main tools are a ball-bearing rod, small solder pot, heat gun, and a shopmade fixture. Big thanks to Mike (@thomasair) for the inspiration to get off my butt and do it.
Those purchased rods, at rifle barrel length (24"-30"), are close to $40, which is more than I want to spend.The two purchased rods I use are Pro-Shot and they are nice quality rods, but I've also made a couple using cheap generic ball bearings and they work just as well so I expect most any ball-bearing rod is suited to the task.
Mine shoots very accurate too guys for the $129.00 Crossman Christmas special. I am truly stunned that this inexpensive rifle is shooting so well. I wish I would have bought another one while they were on sale. I'm shooting the Norma pellets as well I got from Pyramid Air for $9.99 for 4 cans and getting similar accuracy at 25 yards. I wish I had the skills and a lathe to attempt cutting and crowning the barrel too. But you only get one shot at it and the barrels ruined if you do it wrong. Happy New Years!My barrel crowns looked like yours, still my 2 Crosman Icons are very accurate.
That's good since I have no idea how to cut and recrown a barrel anyways
Thanks for the tip on getting the front sight off. I couldn't find a screw to remove so just left it on. I'll try your method as it will look better without it!The barrel on my .22 Icon showed good promise so I decided to give it a little attention. First up was to remove the front sight. I was expecting it to put up a fight so I made a simple slide hammer with a scrap of wood. Before warming up the sight to soften it, I gave it a couple of moderate strikes with the slide hammer and it popped right off. Turns out it simply had a brittle adhesive holding it and a flat for indexing.
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Starting at the leade, I used a generic Cratex point and wet/dry sandpaper to break the sharp step in the rifling. Then I poured a cast lap and worked the bore. There were two tight zones at approximately 25% and 75% of the way from the breech which took a bit of work to blend out. Here's a pic of the lap after the job was done.
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Then it was time to deal with the irregular factory crown
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After cutting it back and recrowning:
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Then cleaned the bore and reinstalled the barrel and pulled some patches with Johnson's wax. Waited a bit for the solvent to evaporate from the wax, then grabbed the Norma 17.6gr domes to shoot some test groups. It seems to have responded nicely. The first 3 groups at 30 yards measured 0.22", 0.36", and 0.19". Average of 0.257" or 0.82 MoA.
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On the front sight there is no screw. You can gently wiggle it off by hand, no tools.Thanks for the tip on getting the front sight off. I couldn't find a screw to remove so just left it on. I'll try your method as it will look better without it!
Won't wiggle off. Tried the piece of wood and a hammer method you discussed and it popped free after some good whacks! Pretty good glue they used on mine. LolOn the front sight there is no screw. You can gently wiggle it off by hand, no tools.
Someone on eBay is using my pic and stl file selling on eBay now.Finally got mine yesterday, did a few mods. Redesigned and printed a barrel band and was able to use an old scope that fits well. swabbed the barrel and laser bore sighted. It's holding air so that's a plus. hopefully get time to dial it in tomorrow.
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Thank you for your barrel bands.
I like your original barrel bands and they are good enough for me.I don’t have anything licensed as non commercial so anyone can do whatever they like. Just kinda erks me they are using my pics listed there as those aren’t downloadable. I actually revised that barrel band and cleaned it up and resized pic rail as that one was slightly undersized.
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