My new Vulcan project

[brettguise]

Purchased this the other day and it was waiting for me today after work. First impressions after not holding a Vulcan before is it felt rather chunky and heavy, fairly well balanced in the middle and the build quality seemed good.

Decided to let a shot or two off with a pellet in towards the floor in the garden as it was dark to plink. Cocking was smooth and easy a little to easy on returning the barrel when the pellet was loaded. Squoze the trigger to a massive twang and crack, didnt sound good! Looks like some work needs to be done cosmetically its ok barrels pitted / slightly rusty. Dont know how deep it is I think some wire wool may bring it up ok but not sure if I will need to restore the barrel. I may spray it if anyone can recommend a spray that looks decent. First thing first is to take it for a chrono and see what shes doing.

Few pics for you, can already tell that stock will look smashing after a rub down and re oil.

Photo 31-01-2012 22 03 15.jpgPhoto 31-01-2012 22 03 56.jpgPhoto 31-01-2012 22 03 23.jpgPhoto 31-01-2012 22 03 32.jpg

[weebster]

looks like a mk2 vulcan,mk 2 had the white line spacers and plastic pistol grip cap,also had more power than the mk1 iirc due to a change in piston washer......could be wrong on that last bit.
the mk1 did'nt look much different than the hawk mk3 which is where the vulcan series came from.
lovely stock markings on yours.

[CJB]

The stock looks fantastic! Nicer than my brother's Venom Vulcan!

Try T-cut on the barrel too

[Whiskey500]

Nice, Always love a vulcan! anyway just wanted to share some experience with theese rifles with you:

Pitting, Yep they are well known for it and it does seem to effect alot of vulcans along the barrel, Would defo say that yours is a mk2 yet that stock looks in very good condition? maybe it has been re-worked at some point in its life. I wouldnt suggest T-Cut to remove your rust build up because when its drying and time to buff it cloggs the pitting and will be hards to work out, also it will react with the small amounts of rust and produce an orange brown gue that you be spreading and buffing off (or trying to) what you'll be doing is spreading out a thinner active layer of rust realy. I would suggest minneral oil and a very fine wire wool but dont be to harsh otherwise youll start removing more and more blueing. Mine however was to far gone back in the day so I cured it by removing all blueing with a high speed buffer and then highly polishing and treating the mirror finish steel. Inside its gunbag, out in the damp, and even in humidity it has never produced rust or encouraged any more pitting. if your interested in a sneeky peak at how this 9 Month long project is looking ill post a few pics.

Cheers and good luck.

[theobencarbine88]

thats a nice rifle! i'd be happy with that stock as it is lol

[brettguise]

Nice, Always love a vulcan! anyway just wanted to share some experience with theese rifles with you:

Pitting, Yep they are well known for it and it does seem to effect alot of vulcans along the barrel, Would defo say that yours is a mk2 yet that stock looks in very good condition? maybe it has been re-worked at some point in its life. I wouldnt suggest T-Cut to remove your rust build up because when its drying and time to buff it cloggs the pitting and will be hards to work out, also it will react with the small amounts of rust and produce an orange brown gue that you be spreading and buffing off (or trying to) what you'll be doing is spreading out a thinner active layer of rust realy. I would suggest minneral oil and a very fine wire wool but dont be to harsh otherwise youll start removing more and more blueing. Mine however was to far gone back in the day so I cured it by removing all blueing with a high speed buffer and then highly polishing and treating the mirror finish steel. Inside its gunbag, out in the damp, and even in humidity it has never produced rust or encouraged any more pitting. if your interested in a sneeky peak at how this 9 Month long project is looking ill post a few pics.

Cheers and good luck.

I thought it was an mk3 :/ how can you tell? I'd love some pics as well I'f you can send a few

Im going to update this topic today with yesterday's progress.

[brettguise]

So thought id update the progress with a picture or two. Bare in mind I don't know a thing about internals until my first strip of my SMK so go easy on me if I have done this completely wrong or if anything I have put on here is not allowed, I also apologise for any wrong part names

First things first I took the gun into my local RFD to get it chronod. It was producing 13.5ft/lbs not a good start, feeling like id broken the law I rushed home to strip it. My shed is the typical shed that women like to throw things in to hide. I shoved all the stuff out, plugged a nice heater in and got to work.

Firstly I removed the nicely grained stock. It doesn't show on the picture but towards the but the wood has dried out. the stock is slightly worn and has a few marks so I will strip the lacquer and work at refinishing the stock. I don't exactly know the best way but ill probably lightly sand out the marks and rub some clear oil into it once a day for two weeks.

Photo 01-02-2012 11 37 05.jpg

I removed the spring without a compressor (don't try this at home) by holding it into a bale of straw and tapping the pin out. There wasn't a lot of preload and the spring popped out. By the looks of the spring it was a new one and it was more square than rounded if that makes sense? Don't know the make of spring it is. I didnt manage to take a picture of the piston as once id removed it my fingers were black and I didn't want to ruin my iphone However I will get one up after a light polish. The piston washer seems to be in good shape to.

Photo 01-02-2012 12 03 54.jpg

I tapped the pins out that holds all the trigger pieces and removed them, taking various pictures along the way to help with assembly later. I can already tell ill be effing and blinding at that part of the assembly. The pin that holds the barrel to the breach was hard to get out but after a bit of trouble the barrel was removed. I then degreased all the internals with a rag attached to a garden cane soaked in Meths and degreased the spring and piston etc with a rag and Meths.

Photo 01-02-2012 13 29 08.jpg

I rubbed the barrel down with a wire wool lightly to remove some of the rust pitting. I am unsure how to do this on a budget. I may spray the barrel or just leave it as it is. Its not worth paying for a reblue. The top of the chamber looks in good condition its mainly the barrel. It has a Webley pro system silencer which has seen better days so I may look at an alternative silencer for it.

To lower the power I heated the spring until red and compressed it against a wall taking out a good two of the coils. I didn't have a blow torch for this so the cooker was my only option.

Photo 01-02-2012 12 36 43.jpg

After I had done that the spring looked ok. I was pleased with my effort. I then dipped it in cold water to harden the spring again. Not sure if this is the best way but I'm sure it will work.

Photo 01-02-2012 12 52 50.jpg

Next on my list is to polish the ends of the spring to a mirror finish, polish the piston and look at the possibility of fitting a piston sleeve to remove any twang the rifle has. I was also looking at getting a custom top hat to dampen the spring noise as the Vulcan doesn't have one as standard. Any other ideas to get this shooting nicely are welcomed.

[Whiskey500]

Nice post! You have put alot of time in on this havent you!

You have yourself a very nice stock there, (sure ive said that already!?), havent seen that way of reducing muzzle energy before but it is interesting, you could still opt to Thoeben gas strut your Vulcan as the gas strut its self is pre set to the legal limitations, other than this that additional power may be coming from the piston rather than the spring... would you say that the piston has been replaced at some point in your vulcans life? does the piston seem origional? a sign that it isnt is a large reduction of weight away from the pistons head, you may find lines of drill holes or cut outs in the lower body of the piston, just a tell tell sign that you may have a modded or custom piston in there.

Anyway I have put a couple of snaps in a gallery on here that is yet to be approved?.... anyway there are 4 images of where my vulcan project is at 7 months in, which seems like a long time but saying that i have owned this rifle since it was given to me over 10 years ago.lol (was rusty, pitted, split cracked stock, bog standard everything with alot missing too.)

Cheers

Oh, and forgot to say, your doing well just dont rush it and what you cant afford right now save for, itll pay off in 20 years time when you still have a fully functioning Vulcan in your grasp and a fat rabit in your crosshair.

[brettguise]

Whiskey I think the piston is an original. I have a picture here that may help identify if it is or not.

Ok so just an update from last nights tinker time. I started polishing the ends of the spring to a mirror finish.

After a tiny bit of polishing,
Photo 02-02-2012 21 22 45.jpg

The end result, the same on both ends.
Photo 02-02-2012 21 32 25.jpg

I polished up the piston with wet and dry and autosol similar to the spring. I really do need a polishing mop kit for a small hand held tool. Any recommendations of a cheap kit much appreciated. I have it like this so far and I don't think I need to go much further I doubt it would make much difference to the end result.

Photo 02-02-2012 22 03 06.jpg

I don't know if anybody can advise but the seal turns on the end. Don't know if that's a bad thing? Does the seal look like it needs replacing at all? It does need a clean its had dirty fingers on it but it looks in ok condition.

Partly because I like to try different things and because I don't really like the trigger as it is and it was full of dirt and rust and was rough as hell I thought id try smooth it up and give it a nice chrome finish. I had to use a rough sand paper to get the grit off it and will polish it tonight with wet and dry and autosol so its not complete just yet. I managed to get the following results in a very small amount of time. I think it will look cool to have a polished trigger when the rifle is assembled and it may help smoothen it up. (Well that's my uneducated theory)

Photo 02-02-2012 22 07 36.jpgPhoto 02-02-2012 22 36 03.jpg

More to come!

[DoodleBug]

I don't know if anybody can advise but the seal turns on the end. Don't know if that's a bad thing? Does the seal look like it needs replacing at all? It does need a clean its had dirty fingers on it but it looks in ok condition.

Yeah thats normal, mine does it too, your's looks in ok condition to me, they are very hard wearing so you should be fine, my vulcans knocking on 20 years now and its never been changed, shoots like a dream.

Also very nice grain on the stock!