Today while waiting for the 'puter to do its file system
check (had to replace the hard drive, redoing from a recent backup) I cleaned up an old Haenel 303 Super that Rich Hoch gave me years ago. First time I've ever taken apart a "springer" air rifle. My hunch was right, there were "issues" inside. The spring broke off a coil at the rear end, flakes of steel were in the leather washer. I don't have the "right" stuff to do it up, but made do with what is on hand. Used a wire brush to clean out the washer, which is in remarkably good shape considering what it looked like when I got it out of the rifle. Took a bit of diesel and a brush to wash out the insides, used the drill in a "drill press" adapter to spin a washer to reduce diameter to fit the tube to take up some of the slack left by the broken coil. Used some divers' silicone grease on the washer, reassembled everything, used heavy grease on the spring since there's none of the "heavy tar" around here that the pro-tuners in the US use. Next need to fix the spring tensioner that holds the cocking arm tight against the action and mount it in the stock. Other than a bit of smoke with the first shot (only one so far) it's looking good. Will have to find a way to get up to the gun club once I get it together and see how it's shooting now.