Revisiting Benelli Kite Service

[B Lafferty]

I much appreciate the replies. I'm quite reluctant to attempt this repair myself.

Out of curiosity, do any of the airgun manufacturers make modular regulator units that can simply be removed and replaced? That would seem to be a much better design alternative.

[Gwhite]

I think the Steyr regulator can be replaced as an assembly.

[Rover]

I'm pretty sure I remember that Pilk would do a regulator exchange (do it yourself) for about $70.

[brent375hh]

Yes, the Steyr regulator comes out as a unit. I bought a spare to have, and fixed my own by simply taking it apart and lubing the o-rings. Our host will rebuild yours for $75.
After taking it apart, and cleaning the firing valve too, I can sure appreciate the simplicity of the Steyr, even though I never liked the square looks of them.

[B Lafferty]

Yes, the Steyr regulator comes out as a unit. I bought a spare to have, and fixed my own by simply taking it apart and lubing the o-rings. Our host will rebuild yours for $75.
After taking it apart, and cleaning the firing valve too, I can sure appreciate the simplicity of the Steyr, even though I never liked the square looks of them.

You have someone who can rebuild my Kite's regulator for $75?? Am I reading that correctly?

[Gwhite]

Only applies to Steyrs.

[motorcycle_dan]

A Benelli Kite I bought from the first batch Larry brought in, has returned home. Went through several people at a youth & adult air pistol league then a Friend bought it from me. Several years later it died and friend bought a new Walther LP500 after realizing no one works on or can get parts for the Kite. So it was a static display he offered it to me very cheap. Both cylinders out of date. But it is winter in Ohio and I have nothing to loose. Another shooter (thank you Chris) has had this gun apart previously when it wouldn't work. I worked out a time to bring it to him and tear it apart. Initially it would not shoot. Would cock but not shoot. Apparently something shook loose and it worked. Well poo hard to fix when it isn't acting up. About 20 shots in it started doing it again. Yay, It was infact not going all way back to cock it. Item 104Z firing pin, was not coming all way back. Disassembly attempts and it would not come out. Found a tiny sliver of spring 037Z broken off and jaming up the works. Removed, got rid of a bunch of excess lube and re-assembled. Slow speed on the pellets and found one Barrel o-ring seal 348Z broken. Measured them. So barrel seal part 348Z is a pair of o-rings 10mm ID x 1mm CS x 12mm OD. Available on Amazon for <$10 bag of 50. Replaced them and all seems well until next time. My reason for posting is several college teams have the Kites in service. As they break down and need seals/parts PLEASE post here with the measured domensions and part numbers.
I live near Cardinal where Larry's (RIP) inventory landed. Went to look at what they had left for parts. I had heard there were two pistol and a couple broken kites and a box of parts. Considered becoming "the Kite guy" No they don't have any kite pistols new or broken. No they don't have a Benelli Kite box of parts. They did have about half a dozen cylinders some even have a couple years left 2028 was the newest one I saw. So much for becoming the Kite guy. Mine is working but the trigger needs some adjusting. If you have the dimensions of other seals PLEASE post here.
Thanks Dan /¦\

[Gwhite]

I have pretty complete repair info on Kites. Red Feather DOES have some parts, but they are buried some place. I have photographs of at least one bin of parts I helped Jim Henderson identify before he left. I communicated with Brian Gildea at one point, and I think he said all the air gun stuff was offsite in a storage area. If you are local, maybe you can lean on them to find the parts. They have some of the firing valve seals, which are not a standard O-ring. I'll PM you with a picture & info.

I've been developing a repair manual, and designing & building special tools. The one tool that is tricky is a special wrench to adjust the velocity. Fortunately, if you are starting with a working pistol, you don't absolutely need to mess with that. If anyone has specific repair questions, I can help out, but the "manual" still needs a lot of work. I only just learned how to rebuild the firing valve system last month, and I'm still refining my tools & procedures.

A lot of the failures are O-rings that have fossilized. They are Nitrile material, which has a finite shelf life. Most are used in static "gasket" applications, where the material isn't critical. Viton is slightly more expensive, but will last indefinitely. Here is a spreadsheet that has dimensions & cross references to the various O-rings:

Benelli Kite Substitute O-rings.pdf

(65.41 KiB) Downloaded 137 times

Benelli used a very special polyurethane for the piston seals and valve, and they are impossible to get from normal O-ring sources. I asked for quotes, and they are about $500 minimum purchase. A hard Nitrile substitute should work, but may not last as long.

[motorcycle_dan]

I spent several hours out at Redfeather with Brian looking for "that Benelli box" We found only parts for the MP-90 & 95. The only Kite items we located were a few air cylinders (several of the short light weight) He does have a LOT of Rink grips for the Kite. Because the stock grip was pretty good most did not feel like spending the extra on a Rink. Jim had mentioned they were looking to source the piston seal & valve. Any of your team speak Italian? Might be worth a call to Benelli and see what the factory can offer. There has to be a source somewhere. Could it be turned from Delrin? I know there are some vintage airgun guys that make small batch seals.

[Gwhite]

The piston & valve seal are standard sized O-rings, it's just the material that is an issue. They are available commercially, but they are special order and the minimum quantity pricing is prohibitive.

It took all sorts of finagling, but after 5 years of trying, I managed to get in touch with a sympathetic guy at Benelli USA. All previous attempts had failed because Benelli USA never dealt with any of Benelli's pistols. Their first line support people just threw up their hands when I asked for help. In large part because it's for a college team with 16 Kites, they agreed to let me make a huge (> $7K) one-time buy of in-date cylinders & parts. That took about a year to pull off. My contact at Benelli USA has since left, and I suspect they aren't interested in supporting individuals with further small orders. If somebody wants to set up as a repair center, they might be able to convince Benelli USA to do another large order.

Once you know how and have the tools, it's not a big deal to replace the regulator O-rings. I suspect Nitrile O-rings in a hardness of 90 will last a good long time, just not as long as the fancy polyurethane ones. In fact, the piston O-ring they used in the older Kites (around S/N 500) are a different size, and aren't available from the factory. I've rebuilt two of those Kites with Nitrile O-rings, and they work fine. The only issue is for how long....

Unfortunately, other than our team's collection, the number of Kites out there is small. What few remain are probably all dead, and are collecting dust in a basement if they haven't been pitched. I scored one for a "parts gun" before the Benelli deal went through. The previous owner had attempted to repair it, and it was in sad shape. I got a replacement part from Red Feather, and managed to rebuild it.

The big issue for a lot of people will be cylinders. One possible trick is that they are very nearly identical to Morini cylinders. In fact, you can use Morini & Benelli fill adapters pretty much interchangeably. The catch is that the front pin in the Kites is about 1/2 mm longer than on a Morini to open the cylinder valve. It should be possible to reverse engineer the brass fitting the Kite cylinder fits on to work with Morini cylinders. That fitting is also the housing for the regulator valve, and it would take a good CNC machinist to make economical replacements that could be used with Morini cylinders.

There is also another possible source for Benelli parts. There is a guy in Denmark who deals with Benelli, and especially because air gun parts aren't restricted in any way, he could ship them to the US. I was talking to him about getting cylinders when I finally connected with the guy at Benelli USA.