Power Plants: Multi-Pump Pneumatics

Ok, back to power plants; I know its been a while since the CO2 post and thats because I would rather be shooting BUT, I have 66 percent of my replies to my poll now going to "ummm... do what now?" This means that much like Lucy, I got some splaining to do.

Now on to the multi-pump pneumatic, were just going to call them pumps for the sake of my sanity. This is a pretty common power plant with cheaper rifles. Remember I said that the CO2 was the most common for pistols because it was easy and cheap to produce right? Well... the two easiest and cheapest to produce in the rifle department are probably piston rifles and pumps. The pumps have a lever... or pump... usually on the underside of them that can be actuated multiple times to produce a more powerful shot. "Now... how does this witchcraft work?" Well keep your damn pants on I'm getting there.

The pump type power plants have a valve. This vale stores, and upon trigger pull, releases air, simple enough right? So back to this pump, well on the pump is a sealed piston, lets call him George, no seriously, it will make it less confusing in the long run (don't want you mixing up this piston with the piston in a piston powered rifle now!) So as you pull the lever down or "pump the gun" George moves up and down the air chamber. As you pull the pump down, George moves down the chamber and compresses the air within the tube. Now the Valve we can call her Monique (this is merely for my amusement) has a hole in her... ok that sounded dirty... its about to get worse so just save the giggles for a few seconds. Anyway Monique has this hole, and as George compresses the air it gets forced into Monique's hole (this is why its so important to lube your air guns... haha... see what I did there?), the more you pump up your rifle the more air George deposits into Monique. Alright thats enough about George, lets get to know our valve a little better.

Monique takes all this air and stores it in a tiny chamber, her womb if you want to go there I guess? "Thats all fine and good but how does it get out?" Im glad you asked! You see, Monique has a rather large rod, don't tell George it would crush him! She hides it from George on the other side were Olga is, Olga by the way... is The Hammer! So Olga The Hammer gets locked back by the sear when you cock the gun (the sear is just the sear, he is boring and we don't care much about him or his TPS reports), when the trigger is pulled the hammer spring forces Olga The Hammer forward and she slams into Monique's rod. Yeah.. I know what your thinking, Olga's rough, its true... and she likes it that way. Anywho when Olga The Hammer slams forward into Monique and her huge rod Monique blows her load...

OF AIR! ... pervert... See Monique has this hole on top of her that goes into the barrel. When she blows her load it lets all the air that George forced into her go into the barrel. This propels the pellet or bb out of the barrel and into whatever unsuspecting neighborhood pest was unlucky enough to cross your path that day.

Soooo.... lets recap this time with pictures.

This by the way is a Crosman 1377, if you've read my review of it you may be somewhat familiar. We're going to use the bottom picture. The copper colored thing on the bottom right is the valve (Monique) you can see her in action in the cut away. So the piston (George) has a black rubber on (the seal) and is attached to the pump arm, I'm going to go on assuming you see him. Olga The Hammer is well.. the hammer, she's located to the left of Monique and is a grey cylinder in the cut away. 

Now look closely at the valve in the picture you can see a hole at the front, a hole in the top, and a rod in back. You can also see where the sear is engaging the hammer and imagine how the spring behind said hammer would propel it forward. I want you to take a minute to look very closely at the valve, click the image to see the picture even bigger. Inside the valve are some very important things; the valve has a grey block towards front (the piston end) and a top hat on a rod in the back (the hammer end) between the block and top hat is a spring holding them at opposite ends of the valve, air goes in the middle. This is what makes the valve capable of sealing and storing air from the piston as well as depositing that air into the barrel behind the pellet when the hammer hits the rod. 

So one more time lets put it all together, as you actuate the pump arm, George the sealed piston moves up and down the air chamber compressing his love air and shoving it all up into Monique the valve. Monique the valve just sits there and takes it because truth be told she likes it. This makes Olga The Hammer jealous so she has to get up in Monique the valve's business too! Olga the Hammer slams forward onto Monique the valve's rod, this causes Monique the valve to blow her load of air that George the piston so graciously filled her with. This load of hot air flies upwards out of Monique the valve and into the barrel were it meets a pellet and sends its ass blistering out the end of the barrel. 

And that boys and girls is where babies come from... I mean how multi-pumps work! Ok so my explanation was rather unconventional but its late, Im loopy, and I can just about bet you learned something AND won't forget it any time soon! Any questions just ask!

I would say stay safe and keep it classy but after that I don't have the gaul to tell anyone to keep classy, so in that case, just stay safe. I'll come out with a piston explanation pretty soon, then all we have left is pcp!