Safety Flags

[JamesH]

Good grief.

I am looking forward to seeing this rule applied on the shotgun line.

Don't hold your breath, shotgun has different rules.

Rob.

Furthermore, I suggest the javelin throwers fit a large cork to the end of their spear between throws.

I can see the reasoning behind the strimmer line thing but surely there has to be a less stupid way?
If its on the bench, the action is open and its pointed downrange I don't see any need beyond that.

[RobStubbs]

Furthermore, I suggest the javelin throwers fit a large cork to the end of their spear between throws.

I can see the reasoning behind the strimmer line thing but surely there has to be a less stupid way?
If its on the bench, the action is open and its pointed downrange I don't see any need beyond that.

I agree in that it's safe and can't do anything nasty. The ISSF want us to prove it's unloaded as well.

Interesting that in prone rifle you don't need to do that. And in a number of cases a breech flag can be inserted whilst a round is still in place. You would only be able to tell by a much closer inspection.

Rob.

[ColinC]

I may have missed something but how are you supposed to threat a safety flag from the breech and out the barel with a Rohm AP?
Our club has 2 of these as club guns and a couple of members own them too. The pellet is inserted in a holder which pops out of the lefthand side of the pistol and then has to be pushed back in before cocking. There is no access to the barrel with the holder in either position.
Any ideas?

[David Levene]

I may have missed something but how are you supposed to threat a safety flag from the breech and out the barel with a Rohm AP?

Put it in from the muzzle?

That's the easiest way with many pistols, including the Morini 162.

[RobStubbs]

I may have missed something but how are you supposed to threat a safety flag from the breech and out the barel with a Rohm AP?

Put it in from the muzzle?

That's the easiest way with many pistols, including the Morini 162.

I think Colins point is that it can't go all the way through the gun no matter where you thread it from.

Common sense advice is to do what you can but mention it to the RO or Jury just to make them aware. The same is true for the MG1, which loads the pellet via a rotating slot, and again you can never access the barrel from the breach end. In that case advise is to use a flag in the barrel as far up as you can and a separate flag in the loading port.

Rob.

[brucef]

We just had a comp in Sydney with the Safety Flags - seemed to work quite well. Some shooters had a little trouble if the 'flag' (whipper snipper cord) was too bent when it got stuck at the end of the muzzle if the pistol had a muzzle break or porting. But, with a little twist of the cord - most of the time it was fine. (Otherwise, the shooter inserted it from the muzzle end.)

I must say, it did make checking that the pistols were safe very easy - you could see they were ok from 10 or more bays away. A quick glance down the line and any pistol without a flag really stood out as being different.

Using the long flags in 50m pistols and Rapid fire guns was also very easy.
Yes, some might be a bit tricky(Matchgun MG2s for example) but I am sure it will be worked out without much problem.

My club will be trying to implement the flags right away, mainly so it just becomes part of the routine for everyone.
Thanks Bruce.

[David Levene]

I may have missed something but how are you supposed to threat a safety flag from the breech and out the barel with a Rohm AP?

Put it in from the muzzle?

That's the easiest way with many pistols, including the Morini 162.

I think Colins point is that it can't go all the way through the gun no matter where you thread it from.

There is also a problem with guns like the LP5/50.

At the British Pistol Club we have incorporated the following into our "standing rules":-

Safety flags shall be inserted, as below, before personnel go forward of the firing points, whenever competitors leave the firing point and before casing the pistol at the end of the match. For cartridge pistols the safety flag shall be inserted in the breech. For single-shot air pistols the safety flag shall run through the barrel and be clearly visible at both ends. For 5-shot air pistols the safety flag shall run through the magazine port perpendicular to the barrel, clearly visible at both ends of the port, except before casing the pistol at the end of the match when it shall run through the barrel and be clearly visible protruding from the muzzle and in the magazine port (not necessarily external to the pistol). If the design of a pistol makes it impossible to comply with these safety flag rules then the range procedure for that individual pistol is to be agreed by, and marked on the Equipment Control sheet, by the EC Jury.

[j-team]

So, am I reading this correctly in that you expect the flag to be in the pistol while the pistol is boxed?

In most cases (air pistols) they don't fit in the box with the loading lever raised.

[David Levene]

So, am I reading this correctly in that you expect the flag to be in the pistol while the pistol is boxed?

No, "before casing the pistol".

The pistol must not be cased until the RO has seen the safety flag, proving that there is no pellet in the barrel.

[Beevo]

Any links to commercially produced flags suitable for .22 RF.?

[Gwhite]

Any links to commercially produced flags suitable for .22 RF.?

I would assume that these would be OK:

http://www.shopzilla.com/kleen-bore-22- ... 23/compare

Tapco makes very nice yellow flags, complete with a molded in screw driver for sights, but the pistol version is too long to fit into any of 5 flavors of .22 rim fire pistol I've tried it in. I'm working with them now to come up with a version suitable for .22 target pistols, and with luck it will also serve as a dry fire plug for Benellis & Pardini SP's.

[jhmartin]

We use the Gehmann ones in our rifles
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gehmann-Breach- ... 0462200124

Like them as they also seal the breech

[Gerard]

I doubt those Gehmann flags would work under the new air pistol and air rifle safety flag rule. Unlike a bullet casing which has a flared brass rim and cannot therefore be force forward of the breech, a pellet can easily be forced so as to compress the skirt slightly and slide to any point up the barrel. A through-flag is necessary if this flag rule is to be effective for range safety, otherwise a pellet could be lodged somewhere in the barrel and be accidentally fired after withdrawing the safety flag and closing the breech to put the gun away. Unlikely, but it seems a short flag plug thing like that Gehmann isn't in the spirit of the new rules.

[jhmartin]

I doubt those Gehmann flags would work under the new air pistol and air rifle safety flag rule. Unlike a bullet casing which has a flared brass rim and cannot therefore be force forward of the breech, a pellet can easily be forced so as to compress the skirt slightly and slide to any point up the barrel. A through-flag is necessary if this flag rule is to be effective for range safety, otherwise a pellet could be lodged somewhere in the barrel and be accidentally fired after withdrawing the safety flag and closing the breech to put the gun away. Unlikely, but it seems a short flag plug thing like that Gehmann isn't in the spirit of the new rules.

You are correct ... these would only be for smallbore (22). Full length+ flags are required for any airgun.
I was responding to Beevo's request for links for .22 RF. Sorry for the confusion

I got a bunch of these thru an NRA grant ... I think the NRA store still has them

[Beevo]

I doubt those Gehmann flags would work under the new air pistol and air rifle safety flag rule. Unlike a bullet casing which has a flared brass rim and cannot therefore be force forward of the breech, a pellet can easily be forced so as to compress the skirt slightly and slide to any point up the barrel. A through-flag is necessary if this flag rule is to be effective for range safety, otherwise a pellet could be lodged somewhere in the barrel and be accidentally fired after withdrawing the safety flag and closing the breech to put the gun away. Unlikely, but it seems a short flag plug thing like that Gehmann isn't in the spirit of the new rules.

Yes... different for air I know and feasible potential accident...

Brandon Lee was killed on film set by a bullet left lodged in the barrel of a gun... subsequently pushed out by a blank cartridge and into his chest. Interesting and tragic accident.

[Gwhite]

I've got my weedwhacker line oven working reasonably well. It will do a nice job of straightening a 24" line in about 15 minutes running between 350 and 400F. I can set it up, and let it cook while I do other stuff. I took some pictures, but I haven't had time to fish them off the camera & upload them for viewing.

I've been using the heavy round orange line from Home Depot. It's 0.095" in diameter, "Rino Tuff" brand. I think I need to use something thinner. It's so stiff that it's hard to get it to bend around the tight areas in the actions of many pistols if you feed the line in from the muzzle. One catch is that trimmer line appears to be vaguely color coded. Orange is almost exclusively used for the 0.095" diameter string. The 0.080" line I'd like to try is typically green, which won't work well from a visibility standpoint. There do appear to be a few flavors of 0.080" in orange, but they are scarce & mostly in 3 or 5 pound spools.

I measured a couple of pistols, and both the Morini 162's and the Benelli Kite barrels are about 29 cm long. With 10 cm sticking out on both ends, you basically need a 50 cm string, which is ~ 20 inches. That pretty much uses up a whole piece of line that fits in my oven, without enough left over for a .22.

The other problem with the heavy line is that it is so curly to start that I haven't tried putting more than one piece in at a time. I'm afraid they will just get tangled up. I'm hoping that the thinner line will hang straighter from the start, and that I can at least double up on the line.

I made up 6 nice straight lines this afternoon while puttering on other stuff in the shop. All in all, I'm pretty happy with the result.

[ColinC]

What about tying a weight on a 60cm length of plastic line so that it hangs down straight and then heating it with a paint stripper gun?
Might have to experiment on how long you run the stripper up and down the line but I think it would work.

[Gerard]

That's more or less what I've done with some of the orange weed-whacker string. Held a few lengths in a clamp, hung a pair of sheet metal Vise-grips from the other ends as the weight, then blasted with a heat gun for a few minutes from all sides and tried to avoid burning it. Made a couple of tiny white areas where the heat got too high but the lines were still smooth so I'll use those.

Before the main straightening I heated the ends of each until they were bendy and tied a half-knot in each one, re-heated a bit to make them very flexible, then pulled those knots tight. No need for a big loopy thing. After the straightening I trimmed the non-knotted end such that the total length was 200mm longer than my pistol barrels and sharpened a blunt point onto each. They insert easily into my Baikal 46m and Pardini K10. With the K10 there was a slight tendency to stick on the 3 barrel holes before bending unless I turned the line downwards a bit, but straightened and sharpened there's no problem.

[Gwhite]

The "hang a weight on it & hit it with a heat gun" approach works fine if all you need is one, but it's tedious. I've done a number that way, but coaching a team with as many as 30 air pistol shooters, I wanted a system that was less labor intensive. They will also get lost, damaged or grubby over time, and we'll need a good stock for the future. Hence the "oven".

[Gwhite]

I finally had time to get some photos of my trimmer line "oven" uploaded.

Here is a picture of the line before & after cooking:

Line_Before_n_After.jpg (26.22 KiB) Viewed 1761 times

The pieces I'm making now are actually considerably straighter. The weights I used are clamp on electrical connectors.

Here's a picture of the oven:

Oven_sm.jpg (47.85 KiB) Viewed 1761 times

Inside the insulation jacket, there is a 24" piece of 4" stove pipe, with a 4" to 3" reducing section at the bottom. The pipe is attached to two horizontal rods through a pair of teflon insulating spacers to cut down on heat loss. The support rod & clamps are chemistry ring stand hardware. The heat gun is variable, and I've been running it at the 950F setting. Due to room air sucked in around the bottom, it's nowhere near that hot inside. I have a thermocouple temperature sensor that I use to measure the internal temperature.

Here's a photo of a line loaded in the oven, and one of the "baffles" I have to put on the top to get the temperature up to about 400F. The black wire near the top of the 1st photo is the thermocouple cable.

Baffles_sm.jpg (32.85 KiB) Viewed 1761 times

It takes just a minute to cut a piece of line & load it into the oven. Cooked for about 15 minutes, they come out nice & straight, with no discoloration or bubbles from overheating. The longest time is waiting until the oven cools off enough to handle the baffles & remove the line.

The next step is to come up with a better clamping arrangement & baffles so I can try to do a couple lines at once. It would also be nice to come up with a system so I can safely swap lines in & out while the oven & hardware are hot.

I'm currently using Home Depot 0.095" diameter line, which is very stiff. It's not very easy to snake in & out of the action of many air pistols. I'm investigating a couple vendors who make 0.080" diameter round line in orange. It's still winter here, so the stores aren't exactly stocked up with weed whacker line, and I'll probably have to order it. In addition to being easier to use in the pistols, it should cook considerably quicker.