Well, more Shucks, Darns, Gee Whizzes, and maybe a Poopers!
Got my little Green Gas Extender gizzie tonight. Filled (sorta) the pressure chamber (where the magazine tube is on a regular rifle. Gas and whatever lube effluvia is mixed in with the gas leaked past the can's nozzle & extender combo in a spray that shot out & got all over me, the rifle, and probably my neighbor's goats. I'm going to make a trip to my local Ace hardware and buy some tiny O-rings to stack on the extender in an effort to slow the escaping spray, unless someone knows of a better idea. Teflon tape didn't work. And after use, the extender falls off, and you have to hunt it down. Glad I ordered 2 of those!
Anyway,
some amount of gas did make it to the mag tube chamber. So I loaded some airsoft pellets into the gun with the provided speedloader. Not a bad way to load, and you can stuff 20-25 pellets in with this speedoader gizzie. It is a 2-part setup ( the loader a "pusher stick"), and there seems to be no extra spare loaders available. A pusher stick would be easy to duplicate, but the loader, if lost or damaged, wouldn't be easy to engineer up a DIY replacement. Wish they'd make spares available......
And then I racked the action to load a round. I had the barrel pointed slightly downwards as I did this; probably at a 45 deg. angle from horizontal or less. And before I could get the rifle barrel up to take aim, the pellet simply dribbled out the end of the muzzle. Hmm. So, I racked another one in, with the barrel still pointed a bit less downward, same result. "Geez Louise, this don't seem right......", I thought. After two or more tries with the same results, I started keeping the barrel level or slightly upwards when I wanted to work the lever to load a pellet. This was actually better, as I could see the pellet get lifted and somehow work it's way into a chamber. But if the target was very low, I still couldn't get a shot off before the pellet would trickle out. Are all airsoft pellet rifles like this?
I can't imagine that they are.
Anyway, I eventually moved and elevated a target to where the muzzle satyed more or less horizontal, and began knocking over a couple of empty spray paint cans. The trick to be able to shoot
this particular rifle, as it is, was to rack a pellet in while the muzzle is pointed upwards, then slowly bring your sights/sight picture into alignment as you let the barrel settle downward, and "semi-hurriedly" squeeze off a shot. With the trigger as it is (seems heavy to me; I haven't checked it with my trigger pull scale yet), this rifle doesn't seem real conducive to good marksmanship practices. The perceived need to "hurry up and shoot before the stinkin' pellet falls out" sorta leads to jerkin' the trigger. Might be different shootin' off a bench or rest, but the purpose of the gun was to be able to shoot off hand, for my wife, my adult nieces, and myself. I'm kinda afraid all the weird little idiosyncracies of this rifle might make it a bit frustrating and not fun to shoot for all of us.
On a trip to the hardware store in Sandy, I happened to ask the manager if they carried BBs and Co2 cartridges. And they do! Personally, I like it when I can drive just a few miles away and buy stuff like that which I need. Not thrilled about ordering stuff like Green Gas and the airsoft pellets because nobody nearby stocks them, and then the wait for the stuff to arrive. I guess I'm patient, but maybe only to a point. Need to work on that.......
Soooo, I now have a Umarex Legends Cowboy rifle coming via Amazon probably by Tuesday. From all the videos about this rifle, it just seems like it will be much easier to deal with than how this AK/Matrix brand 1892 is. I really wish I'd done my homework better before I pulled the trigger on this one from AK. I'm thinkin' & hopin' that the Umarex will be a bit easier to live with. Co2 and ammo is readily available locally, and the cartridges you load the ammo into would seem to end the issues with pellets slow rolling outta the barrel. As long as it ejects and feed the next round, that's should give a better shooting session than this AK is giving me.
Again, if anyone has stuck with me this far, is this typical of airsoft pellet rifles for the pellets to roll outta the barrel when pointed downwards before firing? I know there's no "rim" on airsoft pellets like a regular .30-30 round would have to keep a it in the chamber until you fire. I'm trying to visualize what exactly keeps the pellets in the chamber? Is there even a chamber on airsoft rifles similar to what cartridge firing firearms have? Maybe the issue is all possibly with ME for knot knowing stuff like this......
:oops
Edited to fix a lotta spelling and puctuation mistakes........