Bsa Meteors--------rambling on

ggggr

ggggr

Super member
BANNED
Joined
Jul 6, 2022
Messages
826
Reaction score
2,473
Location
Near Holywell
Bsa Meteors--most of us will have started shooting with one or will have owned one. Im talking about the Mk1 to Mk5 versions here, not the Mk6 or later which are Gamos:(.
What is the attraction with Meteors? They are not heavily built like the Cadets and the cylinder is a bit of rolled up tube. The breech jaws can spring apart (TIP----if they do spring open and you want to close then up, then a nut and bolt / or nut and screw + 2 washers is a very controlled way of doing it---------and they dont need much pressure to close up) and the trigger is often criticised.

Well Im not keen on the Mk5 with the built up cocking arm and the shorter slot in the stock. I do own a few of the Meteor Cadets (before someone jumps in saying they bought a load from a shop and what are they worth of ebay?:rolleyes: )
To my mind the built up cocking arm and shorter slot in the stock, along with the rubbing pad, create more problems than the one they are supposed to solve.
I have seen where the cocking arm has cut into the underside of the cylinder and made a hole.:eek:

The Mk3 and Mk4s had the O ring piston head and buffer washer and also a sintered steel trigger (Has anyone actually got one of these triggers without the hole for the adjuster screw? And if so can you please put up a piccy? )

The Mk2 is similar to the Mk1 and has the leather washer piston head (the early ones at least) and trigger of the Mk1. I like the trigger but when the Trip Plate wears the trigger is VERY DANGEROUS, either not cocking and holding, not firing or firing without touching. I told @DanSimpson about this and he had the problem on one he bought.
I prefer the Mk2 to the Mk1 as Im not very keen on the Diana type ramp sight.

The Meteor I have not owned is the Mk3 with the sintered metal rearsight. I did see one in a shop but the stock was cracked through the pistol grip. Maybe one day one will turn up?

The thing about Meteors, is they breed like rabbits. If you leave 2 Meteors alone for a while, there are 5 there the next time you look.


Ok--Not as solid as the Cadet, but a gun that got a lot started and has lasted a long time. The Bsa Meteor👏👏👏
 
Hi ggggr. I have about 11 meteors. Can just about differentiate the MK1 from the others. Your advice of how I clock the MK3 from the others please? And thank you for bringing to our attention, to me a lovely little rifle ,which changed much in my appreciation of " newer" stuff,,,, after my Cadet, in 1959. Think Meteor is still underrated still!
 
Yes I love meteors too!
I have a TH Meteor in .22 but have not experienced any of the problems you write about.
In fact if I hadn't read your thread I would not be aware of them!
I bought mine 18 months ago as a project ,rebuilt it with a kit from Protech ( a very reasonable £23.00 Inc p &p) stripped the stock ,stained with BC walnut stain and tru oiled.
Couldn't believe what a beautiful stock was under the standard factory finish.
You ask what are the attractions of a Meteor?
How about cheap to buy, good and cheap spares availability, easy to work on, light and pleasent to use and accurate if you keep to sensible ranges.
I have been lucky to source a period BSA 4X 20 for the Meteor, basic scope, but still accurate and looks great.
I also have two other rifles a TX and a Vulcan both in .22 but I use the Meteor the most that tells you a lot.
Now here's my question mine has the extra fixings for rear sight as on the Cadet but is in .22 I understood they were only made in .177 ?
Can someone advise?
Many thanks.
 
Last edited:
I love sodding around with these things, made this as a rat cage exterminator, the stock was part rotten and had a bullet hole through it so cut a bit off it and shaped it, the barrel was badly bent and blocked so chopped to 10inch and straightened, the cylinder needed the breech jaws bending back and pinching up, also polished it out with scotchbrite and oil, had an old circlip type piston and bayonet type head so fashioned the head to take a 25mm hw seal and used a big nut and grubscrew to hold it together, this creates a slight longstroke because it loses the buffer washer and the big nut works as a piston weight, all this combined with a beefy spring works very well, it's normally only used for dispatching rats in cages but with the big webley barrel weight and cobbled up sights it does a 2inch group at 15 yards😆20220219_142248.jpg
 
Got to admit, I’ve got quite a few Meteors and can’t resist rescuing a knackered one!! So easy to work on. My “go to” garden rat-basher is an old Meteor Super .22 with a 2-7x32 on it (10.7ftlbs)…got plenty of better quality rifles, but this is my little workhorse!!
 
Not the first gun i shot but the first i owned 50 years ago and i kept that rifle until roughly 10 years ago through many strip downs, repairs and modifications

Just sold 4 mklll's and still own one + a mkl both of which will stay forever, sold all the spares recently too as i wont be needing them but do suspect there may be a mkll super lurking around somewhere

I love them because they are easy to use and easy to repair but after so many years with them kicking around i got a bit bored with them, having a relation that worked at the factory who passed away i at one point ended up with upwards of 12 and enough bits for probably the same again so suspect a few out there will be "my" guns 😁

The comments on triggers and cocking arms are spot on, also worth mentioning is compression tubes can be oval (usually down to previous owners) but they are not difficult to make round again
Early pistons are often out of round and can have badly worn cocking slots but most are repairable
That silly tit on pistons that is left when they are formed needs to go or the piston head can sit on the cock causing more problems, especially with clip fitting original piston heads (i use knibbs bolt on heads with Orings on all mine now)
Too much preload and silly stiff springs damage the trigger sears making them unpredictable if they hold at all

Original pin fitting rear sights are getting rare now as they are easily damaged and original front sight hoods are getting rarer and more expensive although they can be found on other bsa's
 
I have 5 meteors but my favourite is the mk 3/4, 3 of them are the mk 5 but I'm going to move them on and just keep the 3 and 4, I love the meteor as said easy to work on and both very acurate, I polished all internal parts it's very smooth to cock and just a dull thud when fired brilliant.
 
I have 3, my passion is for Mk1's of which I have 2. Reliving my teenage years as I had a Mk1 and also bought a brand new Standard Meteor in about 1972, followed by an almost new Super Meteor from a school mate. He lived on Camp (RAF) and bought the gun new then found he was not allowed to have a gun on Camp, so had to sell it PDQ. IIRC, I paid £8.50 for it and my new Standard was £20.50.
They are just nice, simple rifles and fun to shoot. (y)
 
I’ve got several, mainly in bits all over the place at the moment. A Mk5 was my first ever rifle and to be honest, that’s enough to keep the interest alive. I have an original Bowkett 12ftlbs converted one in amongst them.
 
The first air rifle I bought was a Meteor mkIV, it was a .22, just like the majority if them. I had a look at a few of them in the shop, they brought out several of them to show me all boxed up. All but one had pale creamy yellow/ light brown coloured stocks which reminded me of the wood they made our school desks out of, but one of them was a rich brown colour & that's the one I chose. I kept it in its original box for months but then had to cut the polystyrene liner to accommodate a 4x20 telescopic sight that I bought to go on it. The crosshairs might have been five times thicker than they are today but it was one of those that was an image moving design. So I had a nice centralised crosshair to view while my pal was squinting at some blurred image of something up in the top left quadrant of his at the 11 o'clock position until he ditched his in favour of one like mine
One thing I remember is the smell of that rifle, it was probably 20% oil & 80% rubber recoil pad but oddly after all these years that rifle still smells the same. It was blisteringly accurate too & probably still is but it dosent really get used now, just a bit of a wipe every so often & that's about it. Don't think I'd ever sell it, well I'm actually blooming sure I wouldnt sell it. It has fired thousands of pellets, Pylarms mainly, Wasps when we couldn't get Pylarms & then when Wasps were harder to come by we tried Marksman & they worked a treat too. 1/32 Airfix figures at 20-25 yards no problem, even with pretty good eyesight we needed the scopes to pick them out at that range as they were stood up in grass. Bought bullseye targets at 10-15 yards didnt offer much of a challenge so we stretched the range out...... mainly standing shots, kneeling occasionally but sometimes resting on a couple of kitchen stools we dragged outside.
The design might have been a bit basic, we never knew the were bent sheet with funny pistons, almost like an adult tin plate rifld, but we knew they worked & that was fine the one i had & the one my pal had were blooming accurate & that's what we wanted. Accuracy & reliability & that's what we got, oh & at a price we could afford.
They are easy to work on but when we bought them we didnt know that.....they were new, we didnt worry or even consider what would happen if something went wrong with them, they were new, & well new stuff lasts, dosent it?
 
Hi David, there’s loads of info (& video reviews etc on line) but basically:
Super just had a different stock (cheek piece & recoil pad) from standard meteors.
From 1959 Mk1 to 1994 Mk5 revisions were Birmingham made and had revisions to such things as their: open sights, cocking lever, stock design & triggers. Seriel no.s under the breech distinguish the different MK’s. Mk 6& 7 from mid 90’s onwards are really “Gamo’s” not Birmingham BSA’s
 
Martin Bacon said:
Hi David, there’s loads of info (& video reviews etc on line) but basically:
Super just had a different stock (cheek piece & recoil pad) from standard meteors.
From 1959 Mk1 to 1994 Mk5 revisions were Birmingham made and had revisions to such things as their: open sights, cocking lever, stock design & triggers. Seriel no.s under the breech distinguish the different MK’s. Mk 6& 7 from mid 90’s onwards are really “Gamo’s” not Birmingham BSA’s
Click to expand...
Ok Martin thank you for the info
 
Martins right, the Meteor Super has a cheek piece & rubber recoil pad, but they also have a deeper squarer forend. The one on the Meteor is more tapered. Theres differences between sights on early ones, like the mk 1 & 2 metal sights then the 3 /4 had larger plastic sights some fit on by a cross pin & are getting fragile with age, later ones have the generic BSA sight that screws down into the barrel. The 3 & early 4 have small raised blocks on the barrel to fit the sight to. Early, very early ones have metal cylinder end caps later ones are plastic. Very early Mark's have wider pairs of dovetails ( i think) so fitting a scope isnt as straightforward as it could be but with special mounts its straightforward enough. Oh, mk1 has a ribbed stock. Think the Super was mk 3 & mk4, dont think the later ones have a Super variant. Mk 5 onward no ventilated recoil pad, slim black one instead. Loads of varriations over the years, then with repairs mods & interchangability there are hybrids all over the place. Have a look at exploded diagrams of parts then you can see some other things.... the change from one piece cocking levers to articulated ones......etc etc
 
Blimey Halifax you have some skill! brilliant and beautiful work 101 out of 100 for that!
Are you a woodworker by trade, is that a BSA silencer or counterweight and are the jaws adjustable?
Thanks for sharing now I feel more inadequate then ever!
 
I have a MK1 , I bought it for £4 when I was about 11 from a pawn shop that's long long gone . I used it for years on the rats on a pig farm it had no rear sight but I could still hit them ok at the short ranges involved . Only thing I used to do was rub it over with an oily rag and a couple of drops of engine oil through the transfer port every tin or so of pellets ( I didn't know any better at the time ) but it killed thousands of rats over the years and the odd woody that decided to land on the piggery roofs . Happy times and good memories of freezing my nuts off in the winter sat waiting for the rats to show with the meteor across my knees and a pair of home knitted fingerless gloves and hat . How times have changed .
 
David B said:
Blimey Halifax you have some skill! brilliant and beautiful work 101 out of 100 for that!
Are you a woodworker by trade, is that a BSA silencer or counterweight and are the jaws adjustable?
Thanks for sharing now I feel more inadequate then ever!
Click to expand...
Heyup David.... thank you for your comments...

I am an engineer mate, who loves dabbling with wood and metal.. I too am a serial TINKERER.. so I have always got summat to make, fix or do.

It keeps me from standing on street corners with a bottle of White Litening hurling abuse at passers by!!!!
 
David B said:
Blimey Halifax you have some skill! brilliant and beautiful work 101 out of 100 for that!
Are you a woodworker by trade, is that a BSA silencer or counterweight and are the jaws adjustable?
Thanks for sharing now I feel more inadequate then ever!
Click to expand...
Heyup David.. my apologies I didnt asnwer one of your questions.. the ally section on the tactical Meteor is a backvented moderator...

I shortened the barrel (by removing the HORRIBLE big bore tapered muzzle section) , face and re-crowned the barrel and then made the mod..

20190126_192745.jpg20190126_192755.jpg20190126_193317.jpg20190214_213519.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top