Thought I might share this workshop as I`ve always been very fond of anything Webley and am particularly fond of their famous Raider.
This in-depth article has been posted elsewhere and I know quite a few of my colleagues here have seen it before - Nevertheless hopefully it may be of interest to the members on here.
The Webley Raider 10
The Webley Raider 10 is a very basic but good value 10 shot PCP - It is a tried and trusted British design now manufactured under licence by European Air Gun Giant Hatsan - It is an accurate and well made rifle which lends itself well to tuning and the familiarisation of all things PCP - The rifle is of a compact `Carbine` nature and is famous for it`s incredibly reliable 10 shot reloading mechanism.
In my time I have owned four configurations of these rifles - An Original UK Raider 2 in FAC .22 - One of the last Brum made Fully Shrouded 10s in a Walnut Stock (My favorite Air Rifle of all time) - and now this Turkish made .177 the rifle you are about to see modified here now finished off with a Lothar Walther Barrel in .20 Cal.
In it`s original `Export Spec` the Raider is delivered to Australia as an FAC* Air Rifle (A UK Acronym for Fire Arm Certificate) This means that the manufacturer has put the biggest practical air port into it that they possibly could supposedly to satisfy the overseas market.
However as many experienced Air Gunners learn over time Power is NOTHING without Accuracy and the valuable advantage of inherent stealth should always be preserved whenever possible to give us the edge we need over our powder-burning counterparts.
Therefore I personally recommend `De-tuning` the Raider down to a more appropriate power level to get the best possible results out of it .
These benefits include:
1, Improved accuracy
2, A higher shot count
3, A far quieter muzzle report
There are several ways to achieve this including - Reducing the pre-load on the hammer spring - Fitting a smaller air port - (available from Matt on this forum for not very much $`s and finally installing an after-market pressure-regulator or ultimately a combination of all three methods.
Listed below is a summary of the procedures involved if you do choose to carry out any of these extremely worthwhile modifications.
Disclaimer: Please note that any modifications should be carried out by a competent individual (such as a registered gunsmith) and will invalidate any manufacturers warranty that you may have.
1, Put a clean drop-sheet down to work on so any bits don`t fly off while you`re working on the rifle
2, Check the rifles not loaded and take off the optics
3, Remove the stock (Bottom right screw and spacer)
4, Remove Thread Protector and Barrel Band - It will be tight on the band so get it reamed out while you`ve got it off - Worth doing too as in my opinion`floating` the barrel will also help to improve the guns accuracy.
5, Cock rifle and lock bolt in the rear bolt-park to gain access to the front action block mounting screw at the bottom of the mag-well - Remove the small mag-well screw
6, De-cock the rifle into the forward position (but don`t park it) - This means the rest of the strip-down can be performed with the bolt forward, hammer spring tension at minimum and leaves you free to wiggle things about a bit while you tinker (even more relevant on the rebuild).
BTW If you did`nt already know `De-Cocking` means holding back the bolt FIRMLY and then pulling the trigger - At the point of trigger release you SLOWLY ease the bolt forward until it stops.
7, Drift out the 2 trigger retaining pins (knock them out backwards from the pointed ends) and wiggle out the trigger unit.
8, To make things easier put a zip-tie round the action and cylinder to hold things together while you do the next bits
9, Remove the cylinder end-plug screw (bottom left) whilst keeping forward pressure on the cylinder end-plug. Once you have this screw out undo and remove the small rear action screw as-well (top left) gently release the pressure on the end plug - Remove the cylinder end plug and withdraw hammer spring.
10, Whilst squeezing the action together - Carefully cut the zip tie and Unroll / Lift Off the barreled action - As you do this the transfer port, port o rings, probe catch and probe catch spring will all be loose and all drop out on to your drop-sheet (you did put a drop-sheet down did`nt you?!)
Now you should have a pile of bits that looks something like this (Notice that this picture shows both the FAC and 12FPE Air Ports)
That`s about it really - You simply change the Air-Port for the reduced one and rebuild it all in reverse order.- The hardest part of the rebuild is lining everything up in the action carefully (That wish-bone / probe-catch thing can be a right fiddly bugger) and making sure the bolt-probe and hammer-assembly all line up properly - Just wiggle things about and curse a bit and you`ll be right.
The aforementioned modifications should give you the following performance differences
Massively increase shot count - From around 30 in OE spec to up-to and over 70 usable shots per air charge depending on the tune.
A noticeable reduction in muzzle report - From Sounds like a rimmie on `Quiet` CCI`s (ie Bloody Loud ) too well under 86 decibels 1m away from the muzzle.
Reduced power output From the original FAC spec of around 20FPE to a `Not Specially Dangerous` 12 FPE - and then best of all...
Vastly improved accuracy - If you down-tune to 12FPE strongly recommend using H&N Field Target Trophy as they are phenomenally accurate at these lower power-levels B) (For the out-of-the-box FAC/Export version I recommend a heavier pellet such as JSB Exact Heavy or H&N Barracuda Hunter).
Regulating your Raider
After playing around with things like Air Ports and Hammer Impact and finally getting the power where I wanted it I decided I needed to improve the consistency of the shot delivery - As is common knowledge fitting a Pressure Regulator is a great way to achieve this and so this is what I did next.
The Altaros Pressure Regulator
This is what you get in the Altaros kit - An adjustable regulator - An installation rod and a spare O`ring (not shown here)
FIRST you need to de-pressurise the air-cylinder (to do this I usually just dry-fire mine until it`s empty) - Once you`ve made sure she`s empty whip out the three retaining screws and pull out the end-plug.
This of course is a good opportunity to check the condition of you air-chamber for corrosion and to give it a nice clean out - I just used a small rag dampened with SILICON oil and a cleaning rod. then screw the rod on to the reg
The reg itself just screws onto the installation rod and then pushes in the way it`s shown - when you come to do it it`s all pretty obvious
Once the reg is pushed all the way home (ie to the exhaust-valve end of the chamber) you simply unscrew the installation-rod and remove it.
My advice is to watch a few of the Altaros videos first to get the general jist of what`s-what before you start http://www.altaros.cz/regulators/webley-raider-10/
That`s about it really - Now you just bung it all back together - Just make sure any O`rings are clean and lubed with SILICON grease and Robert is your Mother`s Brother.
Before and After results of Regulator Installation
Before
Standard Raider - (Australian issue) in .177 Cal using JSB Exact Heavy (10.34 Grains)
Start Pressure = 200 BAR
Fps
835
839
843
845
850
855
860
860
860
862
865
865
863
865
865
865
865
865 - PEAK
865
865
862
860
855
850
849
847
842
840
840
835
830
827
821
815
805
800 - 80 BAR Stop-Test
Usable shots = 36
Curve type = Rainbow
Approx Average Power Output = 16 FPE
Pretty good for a PCP carbine.
After
Compared with my Raider fitted with the OEM Air-Port - a 2 mm decrease in hammer screw length - and the Altoras Regulator set at 105 BAR.
Using RWS Super-domes (8.40 Grains)
Start Pressure = 200-BAR
Fps
779
792
800
787
797
790
796
789
790
787
791
796
789
792
793
789
789
792
795
791
788
796
802
794
790
790
788
791
790
790
781
800
796
796
799
796
796
794
796
793
789
790
785
786
790
791
792
788
800
791
790
801
805
802
798
794
798
802
802
800
OFF-REG = 60 Shots
768
780
808
806
810
812
813
815
816 - PEAK
814
809
801
789
778
771 - 80 BAR - Stop-Test
Total usable shots = 75
Curve type = Flat as a pancake for the first 60 Shots - Then Climb-and-Crash.
Average Power Output = 12FPE
The Left Hand Conversion
The main reason for this project is because I shoot left-handed and find the right-handed bolt on the Webley rather inconvenient - Therefore I decided to convert the rifle to Left-Hand Operation (A World-First to my knowledge) then design and make a Skele-Stock both to suit the new action and to lighten things up a bit.
The left hand conversion mods were done under my instruction by my local gunsmith - We did these 3 pertinent mods for which he only charged me $100.(an hour of his time).
1, Mill a new bolt-slot in the left-hand side of the action
2, Drill a new bolt-hole and tap a new thread in the slider
3, Mill out the cocking recess in the slider as required to line up with the bolt mechanism.
Custom Skele-Stock Project
Please bear in mind I`m by no means a carpenter and used mainly DIY tools for the job.
Hopefully some of you may be interested in this project and who knows maybe it will inspire a few of you to have a crack at making a custom stock of your very own.
Stage 1 - Find a bit of wood. Draw out the shape you want and cut it out with a jigsaw - For this stock I have chosen to trace around the original rifle stock fore end (in front of the grip) and make a Skele-Butt with an extra high cheek piece.
Stage 2 - Take the rough edges off with a mini-sander to boost the moral before the real hard work begins.
Stage 3 - Plane off the top of the in-letting flat (Burn-marks are optional) Then mark out the in-letting by direct transfer using any penetrations as datum points.
4, Rough-route-out the air cylinder inlet
5, Sand down somewhere near with mini-sander
6, Set in the trigger guard (Route and Dremel)
7, Bit more sanding & routing and now we`re farming.
8, These are some hand-sanding tools I made up to make things a fair bit easier - Nothing special but they do the job - One is made of 3/4" copper pipe and is packed out to the cylinder diameter with gaffer tape - The other is a bit of 1/2" copper pipe covered in pipe lagging which is really good for getting into all the nooks a crannies.
9, Time to fill any small imperfections and I just use a cheap water based filler for this job.
10, And lastly getting round to the easy job of fine-sanding, wire-wooling, staining and polishing.
Finally the finished article.
Summary
Webley Raider 10 available in .177, .20 and .22 Cal - Made under licence by Hatsan.
Personally if I could only keep ONE of my Air Rifles this is the one I would choose.
Reasons being: For what you get for your money it`s a very reasonably priced PCP that`s easy to maintain and responds well to tuning - Has a simple and sturdy no-nonsense design making it the ultimate do-it-all air rifle for the common-man.
Mods:
ALTAROS Pressure Regulator
Shortened Hammer Screw (- 3 mm)
V-MATT 12FPE Air Port
Sprung hammer-screw lock (Patent pending).
Floating barrel support band
V-MATT MK2 Air Stripper
DIY Left-hand bolt conversion
V-MATT Knurled Brass Bolt
Homemade Skele-Stock
Accessories:
Hawke Airmax 4-12x40-AO-MAP
Sportsmatch mounts
Front and rear sling swivels
6" Bipod
Favorite Ammo
H&N Field-Target-Trophy @ 12FPE or (JSB Exact-Heavies @ 20FPE)
Thank you for reading and hopefully someone may have found this thread useful.
Good luck and shoot safe.
Druid 66
