air gun cleaning

[frnelson]

Normally, most vendors/experts warn against dry firing a springer. Given the physics, this makes some sense.

OK, I can accept this w/o doing it to see if I can cause damage!

However, in using the felt cleaning rounds -- they are so light as to like dry firing -- in fact the snap from the bbl tells me my nominal 550 fps diana 5gm is putting out something near the magic 1000fps

The question is:
Despite being sold by Beeman and RWS -- are these REALLY safe on a springer?
or should we just stick w/ the good old fashioned patch and rod schema?

Thank you for your thoughts

frn

[MapMan]

My understanding is that if you use the felt pellets on a regular basis (every 50 rounds or so) then there should be no need to use a cleaning rod. I actually was told by an older European gentleman, at the now infamous Pomona Gun Show, to use two felt pellets at the same time on the high power springers. Put a couple of sets through it. You may even put some oil on the last set of felt pellets,very sparingly, to oil the inside of the barrel. They are lighter, and move down the barrel easier than the lead pellets, but do create some back pressure on the piston which keeps it from slamming home hard enough to damage things. He sold the higher end air guns and was a competition shooter as well. That is all I have ever done on my RWS and I have put about 2000 rounds through it. (4 of the 500 round tins).

Check out the AIRGUNEXPRESS.COM web site. They have some good info on cleaning and other items as well.

[machine]

Like MapMan said.
I use 2-3 felt pellets at once. Never just one. Ouch!

I now use a kit by a Co. called Otis.
It's a cable pull, with a patch kit, just for air guns.

Most of the air gun website's will offer a good kit.