air rifle repair

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pishta

I know I'm right....
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Found a Benjamin Prowler break barrel air rifle (no scope) in .177 half buried in the dirt under an abandoned trailer in a trailer park I work in sometimes.
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I was looking for a telephone vault and saw the butt was poking out between a piece of insulation and a jack. The skirts were already taken off and it was fenced off getting it ready to demolish it so I liberated it and it went straight to the back of my truck. After I cleaned it up I noticed the barrel was noticeable bent up and to the right, WTH? I did some research and found that it is common in break barrels if you let the barrel fly up under tension when your cocking it, ie. it gets away from you or your not ready for the pretty stiff tension when cocking the Nitro gas cylinder. So I get it broken down to the barrel and I got the block in my vice on the bench and I get the barrel bent straightened X and Y to where looking down the bore I can see a centered breech. I get it back together and now the barrel has a droop to it? Actually pointing down a bit. My long winded question is should the barrel be parallel with the top of the stock? It has about 1/8 inch drop at the tip of the barrel where the centerline of the barrel would be when looking down the top of the stock. I can probably zero it out with the scope (no iron sights on this) but IT just looks weird to me. This barrel is pretty long at 34" as it has a 6" suppressor on the end and it makes it hard to see the actual centerline of the barrel as its entirely under the plastic barrel cover ( like this pic)
Mag-Fire-HAM.jpg

So shall I bend it up ~.125 to be parallel with the stock or just run with it with a slight droop? New barrels are N/A. Took it to a gunsmith and they wouldn't work on it.
 
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Barrel straightening used to be a thing.

It's possible for the naked eye to spot out of round or straightness issues within .001", even with little experience. I'd suggest trying to remove the barrel from the action and look from the breech end to gauge straightness.

Otherwise, shoot it and adjust the scope or adjust the barrel until it seems OK.

An arbor press with a 3 point rig would make the adjustment procedure a little more precise vs caveman style bending..
 
Got it straight as I can tell with a good old fashioned bench vice and a straight edge. Are these break barrel rifles accurate, keep a BZO? Seems like cranking the darn barrel as a lever against a gas piston for every **** would introduce a little drop in it over time. Its nothing special, $96 from Benjamin online (sale) but its miles ahead of my other plastic .177 plinker and weighs about 4 more lbs.
 
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