Care and feeding of the Crosman Challenger 2009
Posted: Wed May 26, 2010 5:11 pm
Our shooting club has two Challenger 2009s that are used extensively since they were acquired. The first was purchased shortly after it was previewed at the 2009 JO 3P Championships at Camp Perry and is serial numbered under 100. The second was purchased several months later and s/n under 200. I thought I'd share some thoughts and lessons learned about these rifles.
Shortly after receiving the first one, I promptly broke the trigger sear while trying to degas the rifle to convert it from CO2 to air. Evidently, I didn't release the sear before I tried to put pressure on the hammer with the degassing tool and, instead, the pressure was placed on the sear. Which promptly broke. That should teach me about not reading the operating manual thoroughly. A lesson that, for some sadistic reason, Murphy deems necessary to share with me from time to time.
I reassembled the pieces and welded them back together. It did bother me that I didn't know what the steel type or heat treat on the piece was, but the trigger functioned just fine with the repaired sear.
Actually, to my mind, it worked better than the original as I "slightly" reshaped the sharp break of the ramp that leads to the hammer engagement tab to remove the stress concentrator and then polished all the contact surfaces. While I did a stress relieving heat and controlled cool, I didn't do a quenching heat treat as I didn't want to make the sear potentially brittle.
We shot the rifle this way for two months until I could get a replacement part from Crosman (Sear P/N 10804). Inspection of the repaired sear showed that there was no galling or noticeable wear during the time it was used. Nevertheless, I was glad to have an original part back in.
About the time that I replaced the sear, a strange thing happened. During a shooting session, the cocking handle fell off the rifle. Along with this was a short section of steel rod about a quarter inch in diameter and slightly longer than one inch long. There were also two small ball bearings that rolled out.
At this point, about 3000 pellets had been shot through the rifle using both CO2 and CA.
After degassing the rifle, I removed the bolt. From what I could gather, the bolt handle is retained on the bolt with the rod that is held in place with the screw that is at the rear of the receiver. The two ball bearings roll in recesses that are cut into the bolt handle and bolt and work to (1) secure the handle to the bolt and (2) lock the bolt in place when the handle is pushed fully forward.
This is a complex yet elegant design that is invisible from the outside. The retaining rod has a hole drilled crosswise in one end so that the retaining screw can secure it in place. As the bolt handle is pulled back from the battery position, one of the ball bearings drop into a slot and unlocks the bolt - allowing it to be withdrawn to the loading position. The other ball bearing locks the handle to the bolt unless the retaining rod is totally removed from bolt/handle combination.
Which is what happened. The retaining rod had broken at the thin sections created by the crosdrilled retaning hole and fallen out of the handle. This allowed the ball bearing to disengage and let the handle fall off. Welding this piece back together was not an option as the fractured sections were very thin and any repair would have probably failed.
I called Crosman and they advised me to send the rifle back for repair under warranty. As I live nearly 6,000 miles away, this wouldn’t have been cost effective for me as it would have cost nearly $80 for shipping both ways to replace a simple bolt in part. Crosman agreed to send me a new part if I sent them the failed parts. Because of the complexity, Crosman only sells the complete bolt assembly and not the individual parts. (P/N CH2009-080)
One thing I noticed right away is that the probe on the new bolt is longer than the old one. This is a well known mod among Crossman owners that modify their guns and is evidently now being incorporated by the factory. I haven’t notice any difference in the rifle’s grouping as it was already a five shot, one hole grouper at ten meters before the bolt failed. I noticed no difference with the longer bolt probe.
The second rifle that we have has experienced no problems. This rifle is used by an intermediate junior that has been shooting 3P for about six months and is currently shooting 260.
One last observation. One of our new shooters has exceptionally small hands. She has difficulty reaching the trigger with her pointer finger while holding the pistol grip comfortably. I’ve adjusted the trigger as far back as I can and she still cannot put the pad of her finger flat on the trigger. I am considering cutting and rewelding a trigger with the blade further back but am not sure if this would be legal in sporter competition.
If there is interest, I'll continue to share what I learn here as I gain more knowledge about this rifle.
Shortly after receiving the first one, I promptly broke the trigger sear while trying to degas the rifle to convert it from CO2 to air. Evidently, I didn't release the sear before I tried to put pressure on the hammer with the degassing tool and, instead, the pressure was placed on the sear. Which promptly broke. That should teach me about not reading the operating manual thoroughly. A lesson that, for some sadistic reason, Murphy deems necessary to share with me from time to time.
I reassembled the pieces and welded them back together. It did bother me that I didn't know what the steel type or heat treat on the piece was, but the trigger functioned just fine with the repaired sear.
Actually, to my mind, it worked better than the original as I "slightly" reshaped the sharp break of the ramp that leads to the hammer engagement tab to remove the stress concentrator and then polished all the contact surfaces. While I did a stress relieving heat and controlled cool, I didn't do a quenching heat treat as I didn't want to make the sear potentially brittle.
We shot the rifle this way for two months until I could get a replacement part from Crosman (Sear P/N 10804). Inspection of the repaired sear showed that there was no galling or noticeable wear during the time it was used. Nevertheless, I was glad to have an original part back in.
About the time that I replaced the sear, a strange thing happened. During a shooting session, the cocking handle fell off the rifle. Along with this was a short section of steel rod about a quarter inch in diameter and slightly longer than one inch long. There were also two small ball bearings that rolled out.
At this point, about 3000 pellets had been shot through the rifle using both CO2 and CA.
After degassing the rifle, I removed the bolt. From what I could gather, the bolt handle is retained on the bolt with the rod that is held in place with the screw that is at the rear of the receiver. The two ball bearings roll in recesses that are cut into the bolt handle and bolt and work to (1) secure the handle to the bolt and (2) lock the bolt in place when the handle is pushed fully forward.
This is a complex yet elegant design that is invisible from the outside. The retaining rod has a hole drilled crosswise in one end so that the retaining screw can secure it in place. As the bolt handle is pulled back from the battery position, one of the ball bearings drop into a slot and unlocks the bolt - allowing it to be withdrawn to the loading position. The other ball bearing locks the handle to the bolt unless the retaining rod is totally removed from bolt/handle combination.
Which is what happened. The retaining rod had broken at the thin sections created by the crosdrilled retaning hole and fallen out of the handle. This allowed the ball bearing to disengage and let the handle fall off. Welding this piece back together was not an option as the fractured sections were very thin and any repair would have probably failed.
I called Crosman and they advised me to send the rifle back for repair under warranty. As I live nearly 6,000 miles away, this wouldn’t have been cost effective for me as it would have cost nearly $80 for shipping both ways to replace a simple bolt in part. Crosman agreed to send me a new part if I sent them the failed parts. Because of the complexity, Crosman only sells the complete bolt assembly and not the individual parts. (P/N CH2009-080)
One thing I noticed right away is that the probe on the new bolt is longer than the old one. This is a well known mod among Crossman owners that modify their guns and is evidently now being incorporated by the factory. I haven’t notice any difference in the rifle’s grouping as it was already a five shot, one hole grouper at ten meters before the bolt failed. I noticed no difference with the longer bolt probe.
The second rifle that we have has experienced no problems. This rifle is used by an intermediate junior that has been shooting 3P for about six months and is currently shooting 260.
One last observation. One of our new shooters has exceptionally small hands. She has difficulty reaching the trigger with her pointer finger while holding the pistol grip comfortably. I’ve adjusted the trigger as far back as I can and she still cannot put the pad of her finger flat on the trigger. I am considering cutting and rewelding a trigger with the blade further back but am not sure if this would be legal in sporter competition.
If there is interest, I'll continue to share what I learn here as I gain more knowledge about this rifle.