Airgunning

     Diana 48/RWS 48 stripdown & installation Venom kit     

Disclaimer: if and when you decide to follow these instruction, please be aware that I cannot be held responsible for any physical or mechanical damage that might occur.

- First remove the screw at the front underneath the stock.

- remove the screw at the trigger guard, front ...

... and rear.

- remove the action from the stock.

- remove the sidelever: first remove the clip securing the pin that holds the sidelever to the action...

- next remove the clip securing the pin that holds the sidelever to the rod attached to the compression tube...

- remove the pins and next remove the sidelever.

- remove the pins which hold the trigger unit with a drift,  spring compressor comes in handy. When you're very familiar with working on springers, you can push the gun to a soft surface, remove the pins and gently let the spring decompress.

- when the pins are removed, the trigger unit comes out of the action.

- the preload on the spring is not too bad ;-).

- the gun had no spring twang before the tune and now becomes clear why. With many guns the spring twang disappears after some usage.  Most shooters think this is a good thing because the guns has ran in .  However often the spring twang disappears because the spring gets bended; the bended spring touches the metal of the piston which dampens the twang.  This is not what we would call an ideal situation ;-).

- the piston can be removed from the compression tube.  Note the spring end at the rear spring guide !

- it's broken !  In none tuned springer, one can often find this kind of spring failure (last coil breaks).  Nevertheless the gun still shot acceptable well.

- if you want to remove the compression tube, remove the rod which attaches the compression tube to the sidelever.

- There's no need to strip the gun further down. In the picture below, the broken spring is already replaced by a venom spring and sping guide.

- the original 48 spring (lower spring) and the venom FAC spring (upper spring).

- Unseat the old seal, a flat screwdriver comes in handy.

- time to give everything the appropriate lubes and to treat the spring with Maccari heavy tar. Put everything back together.

- this should be the result ;-).

Some data:

- before the  tune (with broken spring): 715 fps met AA Fields 5.52 or 18.2 fpe.  About the same as reported in the "our take" section of Straightshooters.  The gun shot without any twang and very civilised ... for a Diana ;-).

- after the tune:

     - 787 fps with AA Fields 5.52 or 22.0 fpe

     - 810 fps with H&N FTT's (Beeman FTS) or 21.2 fpe

     - 925 fps with RWS Hobby's or 22.6 fpe

The gun shoots very nicely, there's no twang at all.  The lock time is very short, as one would expect from a venom spring but the recoil is still very noticeable. But with 22 fpe, this is not very surprising.

December 7, 2004 by Mario Severi