I was disassembling my RWS Diana Model 100 air rifle so that I could replace all of the seals and gaskets. I made a serious mistake! I was working without adequate light. I determined (wrongly) that a couple of small screws alongside the barrel had heads with hex (allen) sockets. I chose an allen wrench (which seemed to fit the sockets) to remove the screws from the air rifle. I was lucky with one screw, but I stripped out the socket of the other screw. Looking closer, I discovered that the sockets were actually T8 Torx (and not hex allen). I found replacement screws at Hubbard's on State Road 62. But what to do about the screw that was now stuck in the air rifle?
I had some ideas as to how I might remove the stuck screw, but my wife encouraged me to let a professional gunsmith or machinist do it for me, inasmuch as she knows that I am very fond of this air rifle, and would be very unhappy if I were to make the problem worse, or disfigure the air rifle.
I took the air rifle to Boening's Custom Guns. I had never brought a firearm to Boening's before, but I had heard good words about him from other gun owners, and had seen examples of his work.
The gunsmith agreed to take on the task of removing the stuck screw. This was actually a difficult problem, because the axis of the screw was parallel to the axis of the barrel of the air rifle, so that it was not possible to drill a hole in the head of the screw and use a screw extractor to remove the screw.
I also asked him to modify a concentric barrel weight, which is on the muzzle of the air rifle, so that it would be easier to insert a false muzzle down the axis of the barrel weight to facilitate cleaning the barrel through the muzzle. This air rifle is not of the break-barrel type, and it is very cumbersome to clean the barrel through the breech. The modification required the use of a machine shop lathe.
The gunsmith's estimate for both tasks was $60.00, and he said that I could expect a telephone call on Friday of that week. He did not ask for a deposit.
He telephoned me on Thursday of that week to tell me that both tasks were finished.
When I returned to Boening's, I was delighted to see that he had indeed removed the stuck screw without scarring the air rifle, and that he had done a beautiful and flawless job on the barrel weight modification. His bill was $50.00, and I paid with a personal check. read more