..or partial disassembly, anyway.
My Taurus Thunderbolt is performing better. The action is slicking up as I use it. I'm still having trouble with- I guess you'd call it near-jamming. For some reason the last cartridge in the magazine wants to pop up a bit higher than the rest. It can take a couple of tries to get it to chamber.
Having read somewhere that a loose cartridge carrier screw can cause this, I wanted to tighten the screw. Problem being, it's buried deep inside the weapon.
Taurus's cleaning and disassembly instructions aren't useful here. Clean barrel. Shoot the heck out of everything else with an aerosol action cleaner. Foo. But they do have a parts diagram available online. So after studying that for a few hours, I attempted surgery.
I took the fore-end off. I don't think I needed to do that.
Other than that:
I removed the magazine tube by undoing the screw at its front end, on the underside. This leaves the magazine cap free to eject, but with the rifle fully unloaded the spring's not under significant pressure, so that's not much of a problem. Once the screw and cap were off, the magazine pulled out forward.
Had to remove the rear tang screw. With that off, you can pull the butt off. The forward tang screw is very short. It looks like it goes right through, top tang to bottom, but it doesn't. The screw you see on the underside is another one, with its head inside the rifle. The front tang screw is therefore "ornamental" or holding a place for a tang peep sight.
There are two screws at the lower rear of the receiver sides, one on each side. Those come out too.
Once that's done, the lower tang and entire bottom of the action, with associated parts- hammer, trigger, cartridge lifter, etc..- can be wiggled forward, down, and out of the receiver. The bolt stays with the receiver. I found I had to have the hammer cocked to do this step.
Yeah, one of the cartridge lifter screws was loose. I fixed that.
Putting the thing back together, the only tricky part was that a vertical bar coming down from the bolt had to go in a slot in the pump action slide lever. Just a matter of making sure it was pointing in the right direction when I put the pieces back together.
I took the opportunity to scrub a considerable amount of black, sticky grease off of everything, and oil carefully.
Oh, yeah, an option. The bolt dust cover is held to the top of the bolt by one screw, at the rear. Easy to pull that off and clean under it too. The action was noticably smoother with the dust cover gone, but eh, I'll keep it. Never know but what it might keep some powder grit from landing in my eyes.
I've heard it said that the Thunderbolt is a scaled-up version of the .22 caliber Model 62. I have an older Model 62-- Rossi, before Taurus bought them out and started making the Model 62 under their own name-- and by unscrewing a large, knurled takedown screw at the rear of the receiver, the action comes apart pretty much along the same line the Thunderbolt does. So I believe they're related. That makes me think they could have made the Thunderbolt a takedown too. Wouldn't look quite authentic, but it's a pity they didn't. It would make maintenance a lot easier.
One last thing. I now know why I had to have the Thunderbolt. It's because it reminds me so much of the Daisy Model 25 BB gun my grandpa got me, the one I learned to shoot with. Although the Thunderbolt's two-inch pump stroke is a considerable improvement on the Daisy's two feet.
My Taurus Thunderbolt is performing better. The action is slicking up as I use it. I'm still having trouble with- I guess you'd call it near-jamming. For some reason the last cartridge in the magazine wants to pop up a bit higher than the rest. It can take a couple of tries to get it to chamber.
Having read somewhere that a loose cartridge carrier screw can cause this, I wanted to tighten the screw. Problem being, it's buried deep inside the weapon.
Taurus's cleaning and disassembly instructions aren't useful here. Clean barrel. Shoot the heck out of everything else with an aerosol action cleaner. Foo. But they do have a parts diagram available online. So after studying that for a few hours, I attempted surgery.
I took the fore-end off. I don't think I needed to do that.
Other than that:
I removed the magazine tube by undoing the screw at its front end, on the underside. This leaves the magazine cap free to eject, but with the rifle fully unloaded the spring's not under significant pressure, so that's not much of a problem. Once the screw and cap were off, the magazine pulled out forward.
Had to remove the rear tang screw. With that off, you can pull the butt off. The forward tang screw is very short. It looks like it goes right through, top tang to bottom, but it doesn't. The screw you see on the underside is another one, with its head inside the rifle. The front tang screw is therefore "ornamental" or holding a place for a tang peep sight.
There are two screws at the lower rear of the receiver sides, one on each side. Those come out too.
Once that's done, the lower tang and entire bottom of the action, with associated parts- hammer, trigger, cartridge lifter, etc..- can be wiggled forward, down, and out of the receiver. The bolt stays with the receiver. I found I had to have the hammer cocked to do this step.
Yeah, one of the cartridge lifter screws was loose. I fixed that.
Putting the thing back together, the only tricky part was that a vertical bar coming down from the bolt had to go in a slot in the pump action slide lever. Just a matter of making sure it was pointing in the right direction when I put the pieces back together.
I took the opportunity to scrub a considerable amount of black, sticky grease off of everything, and oil carefully.
Oh, yeah, an option. The bolt dust cover is held to the top of the bolt by one screw, at the rear. Easy to pull that off and clean under it too. The action was noticably smoother with the dust cover gone, but eh, I'll keep it. Never know but what it might keep some powder grit from landing in my eyes.
I've heard it said that the Thunderbolt is a scaled-up version of the .22 caliber Model 62. I have an older Model 62-- Rossi, before Taurus bought them out and started making the Model 62 under their own name-- and by unscrewing a large, knurled takedown screw at the rear of the receiver, the action comes apart pretty much along the same line the Thunderbolt does. So I believe they're related. That makes me think they could have made the Thunderbolt a takedown too. Wouldn't look quite authentic, but it's a pity they didn't. It would make maintenance a lot easier.
One last thing. I now know why I had to have the Thunderbolt. It's because it reminds me so much of the Daisy Model 25 BB gun my grandpa got me, the one I learned to shoot with. Although the Thunderbolt's two-inch pump stroke is a considerable improvement on the Daisy's two feet.