Goodbye Norica Quick

Yep, it sure is a Norica

A friend of ours was looking for an air rifle recently, so the wifey tells him, "Oh, his Lordship has a load of them, I'm sure he'll have one that you might want". So after a bit of Facebook chat he wants one for hunting and out of the .177 Norica Quick, the .22 BSA Meteor, and the .22 Relum Tornado, he decides on the Norica. Which is just as well as the other two need a lot more tidying up before i would let them go to a friend, and besides it's knocking out H&N field trophies at 11.5 ft/lb and there would be no way in hell i would be able to get the other two above 10 ft/lb with out short stroking the piston or some other drastic measure.

Norica looking sexy with it's new scope, and unpainted new underlever catch

In the previous blog on the Norica i told you the under lever catch was missing, it was held on by two M3 screws and had temporarily screwed a turned round of aluminium with an indent for the ball to catch. Around that was a sleeve of tubing to slide over the tip of the lever so the lever would not pop off when it was fired, i was only using one screw so it moved a bit then fell off eventually. A total bodge job if truth be told, but it was only a make shift measure. Now it has a piece of round steel held on by two screws with loctite to secure them, an indent for the ball catch, and the sleeve of round pipe to hide the screw holes. The lever holds perfectly, and i painted it black to match the dark bluing of the barrel and lever. Spare parts are impossible to find in the UK, not even Chambers Gun Spares have any thing but a decent exploded diagram, which is pretty handy for dismantling, lubing, and repairs. A spot of Locktite fixed the the split on the rubber buttpad, 'simples (squeek)'

As it used to look with no scope and the old bodged catch

It was suggested that our friend buy a scope and have it sent to me so i could mount it, add shims if needed, and sight it in. I recommended a 3-9x40 or 50 as the larger objective lense lets in more light and gives you a bigger field of view, an illuminated recticle as he would most definatly be hunting at dusk, night, and dawn, and adjustable objective would be a handy thing to have though not the end of the world with out it. I suggested Nikko Sterling, Hawke, and AGS as pretty good value scopes, and i must of mentioned the Nikko Sterling Mountmaster AO IR 3-9x50 because that's what the postman delivered a week later. An excellent winning bid on Ebay, boxed and most likely used once if at all, lucky bugger.

Nikko Sterling Mountmaster with Hawke high mounts

It tells you all you need to know in one spot, very handy indeed

The scope has mil dots and red and green adjustable IR, personally i perfer duplex crosshairs or 30 30 crosshairs but i found these mil dots a good second choice as they were very fine and didn't completely cover the bullseye at 27 yards. I did have to use four shims from an aluminium can on the rear mount to keep the vertical adjustment turret knob central, i find if any adjustment knobs are dialed most of the way out the erector tube holding the recticle can move when springer fires. The spring on the other side of the turret knob is to loose and the erector tube will move slightly on each shot and change your point of impact (POI), there is enough slaming around on each shot to make your scope slide off the rails. So those clever little Spanish airgun designers put a scope stop that screws on the rear of the piston cylinder, this is just as well as the open rear sights have a minute bit of side to side play. Which is no biggey when your shooting tin cans at 30 yards , but just don't make the grade when you want a clean kill on a bunny scratching his butt at 30 yards.

Just to show the clarity, it was not mounted so the ferrets were safe

Nice fine mil dots unlike some cheap scopes

The trigger pull is very heavy, in fact so heavy that it effects the accuracy to a degree, the trigger is a direct sear trigger which means that trigger and seal are one piece. So it looks like i will be giving it a tune and a looksee at what i can do about lightening the trigger pull, i reckon it will still be stiff but not as bad as it is now. Roll on another blog then.

A closer look at how sexy gun and scope look together

TTFN

Happy Days, Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe