TargetTalk

This is my second year as a 4H coach and my first as the lead coach. We went from one shooter at the Georgia State Match last year to a full team this year with six of the shooters posting qualifying individual scores at the district meet. We did fairly well at State finishing pretty much dead center in the middle of the pack. We did have two shooters that had gun problems that cropped up at the match. One young lady's gun prduced an almost cartoonish "sproiiiiiiiingggg" sound and I noted a somewhat decreased velocity on her shots (I could see her bb's in flight better than the others). We were able to dial in sight adjustments fairly well and she shot just a shade below normal, but obviously I want to get her gun fixed right. Her gun is two years old.

Then we had trouble dialing my son's gun in (5899 sight) during standing(prone seemed fine) as the maximum adjustment was putting him low at about the 6 or 7 ring. He aimed high and still shot about average for him. I noted after standing that the sight was loose and tightened it back up, but when we went back for sitting, same problem. Still, he adjusted on the fly and shot okay. After sitting, I removed the sight entirely and put it back on to make sure it was mounted okay, but still could not get it sighted in as we hit the max adjustment and were still hitting low.

I am going to try putting a new site on my son's gun and I think that will likely correct his issue. Any thoughts on either of these issues?

Also, what about regular maintenance on the guns. I don't think there has been any real maintenance on the guns over the past two years. Most of our shooters guns are 2 years old as they bought one when they joined the program.

Thanks in advance for any help.

I feel your pain as I was at the match at Rock Eagle as well, I coach the Tift County Team. Without seeing the guns, I think they both have the same problem, the plunger assembly which controls the speed of the gun. The plunger head is made of plastic and as it wears small chuncks of the plastic break off causing the gun to shoot at a lower velocity. We tried adjusting the sight higher but as more pieces come off the velocity continues to drop. We just replace the entire assembly, not just the plunger head, as the assembly includes the spring. I believe the entire assembly is $5.00 and then you are back up to the specs for the gun which is around 250 feet per second.

I've had some of the plunger last several years others I have replaced in less than one season. Daisy changed the plunger assembly a year ago with the new ones having a smaller guage of spring wire and the coils are further apart and this slowed the gun to around 250fps. Chronographing our old plunger assemblies I found some of our guns close to 300fps so the new plungers have a much softer sound. I have shot guns with each off of a rest and I have not noticed any difference in the accuracy.

If you want I can e-mail you the Dasiy slide show on how to take down, repair and reassemble the gun.

David Haire
Tift County 4-H Coach

Thanks for the input. I do have the power point on breaking the 499 down. We are planning on having a gun maintenance day to work on the guns. Besides checking the plunger assemblys, is there anything else we should be doing maintenance/cleaning wise?

We were a few positions down from ya'll at state. We had a team of 5th and 6th graders last year and 6th and 7th this year. We finished 3rd at our district meet this year behind Carrollton's #1 team and Coweta's #1 team. Hoping to be able to build on this next year and get a little closer to them.

While I got you, any suggestion on improving standing scores? We shoot that more than any other positon, and have several shooting about the same, but seems like we are stuck in the mid to upper 70's with an occasional 80 thrown in. I've really been working on getting them over their feet as opposed to bending or locking out the knees and getting that front arm tucked and still, but we just don't have the consistency to post better scores.

Thanks for your time.

Patrick Harris
Harris County BB Coach

Hi Patrick,

There's not a lot of maintaence really on the guns as far as prevenative stuff. We've had a lot of problems with the small trigger spring coming out but I now use jell super glue and glue the spring into the slot on the plastic trigger blade. I think I fixed guns for 5 counties at the state match and thankfully we had no gun break. I cannot remember finishing a state match without at least one coming apart. We brought 4 spare guns and they stayed in the rack.

The single biggest thing that has helped our kids in standing was to weigh the guns, our first team averaged 90. That's always my goal but it does not always happen. Everyone of our guns has weight in the forearm and in the stock. On the smaller kids guns we used #9 shotgun shot, mixed it with glue and put it both in the stock and the forearm. For the larger kids we melted lead and put it in both the stock and forearm getting the guns to almost 6 pounds making sure that the balance point was near the front of the trigger guard. Our 4-H program owns all of the guns, we have 33 working at the moment, so once we add the weight we are set and each season we mix and match stocks and forearms. We have about 50 stocks cut to all lengths.

I would also try using different front apertures, some of the kids really improved simply by finding an aperture that works with their ability to hold and their eyesight.

David Haire
Tift County 4-H

A few notes on 499B accuracy work.
1) The shot tube assembly must have consistent tension when screwed into the barrel. Turning the shot tube a quarter of a turn tighter can change impact point by 3 rings. Do not over tighten! It is very common for the black plastic cone to crack and that will cause havoc with accuracy. A good accurate shot tube is treasure, some of the others will respond to lapping or polishing. Some need to be shortened about .015 to fit properly.
2) Plunger compression chamber inside the barrel assembly. Constant velocity is achieved by a combination of a good shot tube, quality BB’s, a polished compression chamber, a good spring and a good seal on the plunger head. Some of the guns have burrs in the barrel assembly that tear at the plunger seal when it is installed. The burrs must be removed or the new seal will always be damaged as it is inserted. Daisy has improved this with the new guns I saw this year, but there are some 2010 era guns that needed a lot of work.
Polishing the inside of the compression area is an art. Start with 600 grit and progress to 1200 or 1500 grit. The tunnel that you have to pass through to get to the compression area (the last 2 inches) is where the burrs are. I use a small engine hone in that area being careful never to get that hone in the compression chamber.
3) Grease in the compression chamber. Only use a small amount, just enough to seal the bare polished metal and prevent rust. Slick 50 is worth a try. Any excess grease that gets into the shot tube will cause amazing loss of accuracy. I have seen oil from the compression chamber cause a fine shooting gun to completely miss the scoring rings when shot from sandbags. Never oil the shot tube or compression chamber.

4) Abutment Plug/seal. The abutment plug is what the shot tube screws into and the compression tube pushes against and it is not very secure. It can be dislodged by over tightening the shot tube. Repairs are difficult and the best thing is to never over tighten the shot tube. If the shot tube does not screw in all the way and fit properly, fix the shot tube assembly. It is just too long and is bottoming out against the abutment plug.