Tag: Crossman 760

September 1, 2022, ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

So I found more stuff to test, what are you going to do about it? As I pull my son’s Crossman 760 off of the wall, I saw my Daisy 840 looking all lonely. This was my one and only air rifle until about five years ago.

This was the quintessential air rifle of a country boy. My brother and I had the same model. Many a time, a rope was tied across the barrel and the grip and then off on our bikes or trekking through the fields. Our favorite thing to do was take old catalogs and setup on the deck. We would shoot the catalog for half an hour and then leaf through to laugh at what we had hit on the inside pages. We shot things that we were not supposed to but I think that was a rite of passage and made me the rifle shooter I am today.

Time and kid’s ownership was not good to these things. My brother’s broke where the grip was attached to the action turning it into a stockless rifle. Mine, the spot welds broke on the rear sight leaving it more of a guess than an actual rifle. I was able to super glue it for a couple years but that has long since fallen apart and now lost forever. The forearm is also split where the two plastic halves are joined together. So far, it is still usable.

I first realized that it was time for an upgrade when I had a family of racoons living under our kitchen about five years ago. We were eating dinner on our deck and it was in the tree right next to us. I shot it to try and chase it away. When the BB hit it in the chest, the animal brushed the spot where it was hit and slowly climbed out of the tree and sauntered away. I realized that this was not going to work in a pest elimination capacity. That is when I bought the Crossman Legacy 1000.

The Daisy 840 was a single pump BB/pellet rifle. I did some research on this rifle to see if I could learn anything about it. Apparently, it was made between 1978-1986. It advertised 300 fps. My brother’s came with a scope which was broken within a six months, mine did not. I tested it to see how it was going to compare the the 760 and at first, I was only going to use BBs since the magazine was full. I quickly found out that this thing shot all over the place and my trap was not holding BB’s (when it hit where I was aiming).

840 BB840 pellet7601000Optimus
1263180579775944
2307248544781942
3285239540779968
4282265542781936
5264257549771938
6200248541772965
7180223529774940
8242223539773906
9189263552777964
10132230554777953
234 +/- 169238 +/- 76547 +/-40776 +/-11946 +/- 55
All values in fps

All values were measured at the muzzle and each rifle was pumped to the maximum (1 or 10 pumps) using the Crossman 7.4 grain wadcutter pellet. This was an attempt to compare the maximum performance across the spectrum. The thing that struck me was the inconsistency of the the 840.

Before I get too down on the 840, it needs to be said that this rifle is almost 40 years old and hasn’t been well treated. I am considering trying to do some minor seal maintenance by adding some lubricating oil. There has literally nothing ever done in that manner to the rifle.

Despite that, I was a little shocked when I missed the target multiple times standing five feet away. In all of this testing, this is the only occasion where this has occurred. The difference between BBs and pellets is that only pellets are stabilized (and therefore accurate). But, I was capable of hitting targets fifty feet away in one shot as a youth with a BB. My operating assumption is that the wildly varying velocity is causing the accuracy problems, so we will see.

I also had to double cock the action each time I shot a pellet. I am not sure what that problem is. I didn’t seem to have that problem with BB’s and I don’t understand what the different types of ammunition would have to do with the problem. That is a wait and see problem.

End Your Programming Routine: If my relubrication efforts fail, it may be time to end the run of the Daisy 840. There are no serviceable parts, it is missing a rear sight and I can’t trust the accuracy or performance. A single pump is pretty nice for shooting a lot, even if it is not the most powerful tool. But, if you cant keep the shots within the backstop, it is not safe.

August 25, 2022 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

Bonus! I know that I said only one more in this line but I wanted to know something else while I started testing. My son has a Crossman 760 that I was curious how it compared to what I was doing.

The 760 is to prototypical first air rifle. It is affordable and ubiquitous. Most people I knew had one growing up. It can fire BBs or pellets and pumps from 1 to 10 pumps for variable power. Think of it as a value proposition, it is the most bang for the buck.

As all youth’s air rifles do, this particular one has a history. My wife and son bought it at an auction for the private school my kids were attending years ago. They paid probably double what it was worth but they won. My son was very excited at the time. However, it has mostly sat in the corner since the initial outing at the range. Here is the data that I found.

7601000
1579775
2544781
3540779
4542781
5549771
6541772
7529774
8539773
9552777
10554777
Average546 +/- 40776 +/-11
All data in fps

I was surprised to see that the 760 is significantly less powerful than the 1000. This was a new pellet, the Crossman 7.4 grain wadcutter, ten pumps each measuring the muzzle velocity. The data for the 1000 is part of the new data set I am doing in my number of pumps vs. velocity analysis coming next week.

The boxes are long gone. I really don’t know what the published velocity is supposed to be. According to today’s literature the velocity is 350-700 fps for the 760 and 750-1000 fps for the 1000. Those numbers are going to be subject to the weight of the pellet as you have seen from my previous data.

I actually have one more BB gun to look at which I will do in a couple weeks. I haven’t done any testing with BBs but since I was checking the catalog of performance, I was curious. I will talk all about that then.

End Your Programming Routine: I have to say, the 760 is much easier to pump than the 1000. I have a feeling that the longer forearm on the 1000 is an indicator that the air chamber is bigger, hence how to get more velocity. I am much preferring my break barrel spring air rifle to pumping 10 times to get similar velocity. But, for a kid this is a fantasy come true.