wolfmangreg
HAM Ranger
Got her earlier this month, & what a peach she is. Shot close to a thousand pellets since then, & did some over the chronograph yesterday morning. Speed was down from when I first got it, and more erratic (still stacking pellets though). Bought a reseal kit shortly after acquiring; 600s aren't rare & are fairly well supported, but as with any discontinued rifle, no guarantees for the future. While probably not necessary quite yet, decided to go ahead with a full reseal & lube.
The kit included a new piston. Apparently the piston changed sometime during the 600/601 runs, & knew this one had the old style- could see the sintered steel bushings. New design uses synthetic bushings that are a bit thicker, and accommodated by deeper grooves. As best I can tell, the sintered steel bushings are no longer available anywhere. New one also rides on a pin that is held in place with an e-clip on each side, rather than a regular pin that is staked to prevent sliding out. Removing the staked pin & old piston added some time to the task, but was still finished in well under an hour.
A good portion of that was cleaning old grease & such off of all the parts, including the inside of the piston cylinder. Wasn't in a rush, used the opportunity to study how everything works & identify all areas that would need to be lubed.
Speaking of lube, used the Feinwerkbau "special grease" that they recommend for everything on the rifle, inside & out. Still don't know what's in that grease, but it certainly appears to be high quality. Definitely not silicone, but not hydrocarbon based either since it's all over inside the high pressure area. Balked a little at the price of that little tube, till the job was finished & realized it's enough to do this two or three more times.
Had a ~20 shot plinking session to settle all the seals & get any excess grease out of the way, then back to the chronograph. Back to the same speed & consistency she was at when received. 20 shots averaged 540 fps, low 535 & high 542. This with RWS R10 heavy, 8.2 grain.
Design of this rifle is not only very effective, but simple & easy to maintain. If I had to do another one today, & weren't so meticulous about getting everything spotless, think it could be resealed/lubed & ready for action in 20 minutes. Had to be a coach/club armorer's dream back in the day. Nothing is hard to get at, and with the exception of one valve seal & an e-clip that holds a spring in place, everything is easy to handle. Tension on the valve spring is released as you remove the screws on it's housing, so no chance of little bits being launched into the nether during disassembly. Spring that opens the loading gate during cocking (this one has the aforementioned e-clip) is also relaxed during the process, so easy for even the ham handed (me) to work with.
The only disappointing thing about the process is that I couldn't identify exactly which seal was causing the issue. While they didn't look brand new, none of them looked very bad either. Valve & transfer port seals were a little stiff, but nothing was crumbling or clearly damaged.
Not likely to need it for years, but immediately ordered another seal kit without the piston (much cheaper!)... plentiful & easy to get now, who knows in a decade, may be unobtainium. With one exception, the seals aren't regular o-rings that can be easily sourced.
The kit included a new piston. Apparently the piston changed sometime during the 600/601 runs, & knew this one had the old style- could see the sintered steel bushings. New design uses synthetic bushings that are a bit thicker, and accommodated by deeper grooves. As best I can tell, the sintered steel bushings are no longer available anywhere. New one also rides on a pin that is held in place with an e-clip on each side, rather than a regular pin that is staked to prevent sliding out. Removing the staked pin & old piston added some time to the task, but was still finished in well under an hour.
A good portion of that was cleaning old grease & such off of all the parts, including the inside of the piston cylinder. Wasn't in a rush, used the opportunity to study how everything works & identify all areas that would need to be lubed.
Speaking of lube, used the Feinwerkbau "special grease" that they recommend for everything on the rifle, inside & out. Still don't know what's in that grease, but it certainly appears to be high quality. Definitely not silicone, but not hydrocarbon based either since it's all over inside the high pressure area. Balked a little at the price of that little tube, till the job was finished & realized it's enough to do this two or three more times.
Had a ~20 shot plinking session to settle all the seals & get any excess grease out of the way, then back to the chronograph. Back to the same speed & consistency she was at when received. 20 shots averaged 540 fps, low 535 & high 542. This with RWS R10 heavy, 8.2 grain.
Design of this rifle is not only very effective, but simple & easy to maintain. If I had to do another one today, & weren't so meticulous about getting everything spotless, think it could be resealed/lubed & ready for action in 20 minutes. Had to be a coach/club armorer's dream back in the day. Nothing is hard to get at, and with the exception of one valve seal & an e-clip that holds a spring in place, everything is easy to handle. Tension on the valve spring is released as you remove the screws on it's housing, so no chance of little bits being launched into the nether during disassembly. Spring that opens the loading gate during cocking (this one has the aforementioned e-clip) is also relaxed during the process, so easy for even the ham handed (me) to work with.
The only disappointing thing about the process is that I couldn't identify exactly which seal was causing the issue. While they didn't look brand new, none of them looked very bad either. Valve & transfer port seals were a little stiff, but nothing was crumbling or clearly damaged.
Not likely to need it for years, but immediately ordered another seal kit without the piston (much cheaper!)... plentiful & easy to get now, who knows in a decade, may be unobtainium. With one exception, the seals aren't regular o-rings that can be easily sourced.
