IZH 61M multi shot air rifle
I was in the market to buy a low power air rifle for my nephew (12) to give him a feel of art and science of shooting. I had given him a plastic Chinese bb gun for his 12th birthday but he wanted a real air rifle. He had stayed with me for a year and he is as fascinated with air guns as I am. I told him that he will get a real air rifle for his 13th birthday and to only use it under his parent’s supervision.
I already had my old IHP 25 or a new Daisy Powerline 901 in mind for him. While browsing for low end air rifles I came across an unusual air rifle with all the things I had in mind. It was IZH 61M, multi shot, peep sight, side lever, hammer forged barrel! And good reviews about how accurate it was!! Though much costlier than the Daisy.
So, I ordered one from Relishsports. It took two months to arrive. It looked and felt fantastic and scary from its side especially from non lever side. I took it out from the box and loaded up its 5 round clip, shot off the first round. I missed hitting a CD! Well! the sights must be off, I thought. I was in for a great disappointment; it had twanged, buzzed and twisted in my hands. I shot off four remaining rounds hoping for a miracle but none happened
. I shot about 20 clips (100 shots) but the performance was dismal, the shots wouldn’t group. Even though the trigger was good, artillery hold or any other hold just did not work. Groups were the size of a CD (5”) at 15 meters (I shoot lot of Compact Discs (CDs)). Strangely, harder I held the AR better the groups were but they still were over 3”. I felt cheated and was thinking that my nephew was going to get an early gift 
.I got on to internet searched again for reviews for this gun and almost all of them had some praise for it. To me, this appeared unexplainable, until I read in the “Another Airgun Blog” about this air rifle. It was about tuning this air rifle.
So, on subsequent holiday, I opened up this air rifle. To my surprise I found it had practically no lubrication anywhere in it. The spring appeared red from rust, small scratches all over inside where metal met metal. Another surprise was that it had no spring guide! And spring ends had made a deep notch in polymer back stop and in the piston where it had buried it sharp edges. All this explained the poor performance (the twang, the buzz, torque and twist) of this air rifle. My spirits rose as I realised that this air rifle may still rise up to its reputation.
Rest of the story is in pictures. (Cleaned the barrel, honed the receiver, deburred edges, grinded the ends of spring, (didn’t touch the trigger) replaced the missing metal spring guide with a long delrin spring guide, fitted a flat and polished SS washer at backstop, polished the back of piston where the spring guide rests, lubricated the piston seal with Molykote 55, springs and sliding parts with moly grease, lubed all metal hinges with oil.
As it arrived:
The back stop of where spring seated:
The metal of piston has deep indent from the spring:
Polished SS washer fitted on the backstop:
Drawing of spring guide and top hat for my friendly machinist:
Spring guide being turned on lathe:
Moment of reckoning:
Perfect fit (almost):
seems reddish colour of spring is due to some type of copper coating...maybe not.Some other parts:
Finally all fitted up for test shoot:
Needless to say that after this little tune up, I have a cutest little air rifle and a very accurate one. Now one falls in love with it on the first shot. Five shot magazine means no loading after each shot, very little effort to cock, really good sights and light weight so even a kid can easily cock and fire it. The twang, buzz and twist are all gone, replaced by a simple thud and barely perceptible vibration. (it appears that Russians are great at making unusual looking air rifles but they were extremely sloppy in putting this one together) .
I have been shooting it almost daily and having been re-thinking of Daisy 901 for my nephew
. He has some waiting to do until he gets his gift!Please let me know what you think.
. The friendly machinist is a Graduate and he prefers drawings to verbal instructions, I use SmartDraw for drawings which I keep for records too.
