This Crosman 137 was just moments away from the dumpster.
Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 4:37 pm
This was originally posted in 2011.
A local gunsmith was doing some spring cleaning, and was about to toss this badly abused Crosman 137 into the dumpster, but instead thought that I could perhaps use some of the few undamaged parts still remaining, so he set it aside until my next visit to his shop. It was given to me on the basis of, "if you think you can do anything with it, you can have it".
I could not believe what I saw upon examining the gun. It had been over-pumped to such an extent, that the sear eventually sheared off, making the gun non-functional. The pics below show the result of what appears to be prolonged abuse by over pumping.
Top left: the rear of the grip frame has broken away at the rear mounting screw hole.
Top right: The rear of the main tube has had the mounting screw holes stretched badly.
Middle left: the pump arm has been badly bent. (the handle section should be parallel to the scale).
Middle right: the valve body o-rings have been extruded through the tiny crack between the valve sections - I have never seen anything like this before on one of these pistols.
Bottom left and right: the rear edge of the breech cover has been deformed by the pin that holds the breech cover/bolt in it's forward position. Never seen anything quite like this before either.
This next pic shows most of the parts that had had to be replaced in order to repair the 137. Clearly, without the benefit of a well stocked stash of vintage Crosman parts, the gun would have been very costly, if not impossible, to repair. The rear mounting screw was bent, the rear sight fixing screw had been broken, even the piston head was bent! The broken sear had been lost long ago, but the gunsmith told me that it had just sheared the engagement section clean off.
To add further interest to this little package, the original box was included with the gun - or should I say that all of the pieces of the box were included...LOL. The box was rough - no too ways about it - but all the pieces were there, so the next step was to try to restore - or at least repair the box. The pics below show what I had to work with.
After a great deal of careful TLC, both the box and the gun are looking much better now, with the gun back to fully operational condition, and shooting to spec.
A local gunsmith was doing some spring cleaning, and was about to toss this badly abused Crosman 137 into the dumpster, but instead thought that I could perhaps use some of the few undamaged parts still remaining, so he set it aside until my next visit to his shop. It was given to me on the basis of, "if you think you can do anything with it, you can have it".
I could not believe what I saw upon examining the gun. It had been over-pumped to such an extent, that the sear eventually sheared off, making the gun non-functional. The pics below show the result of what appears to be prolonged abuse by over pumping.
Top left: the rear of the grip frame has broken away at the rear mounting screw hole.
Top right: The rear of the main tube has had the mounting screw holes stretched badly.
Middle left: the pump arm has been badly bent. (the handle section should be parallel to the scale).
Middle right: the valve body o-rings have been extruded through the tiny crack between the valve sections - I have never seen anything like this before on one of these pistols.
Bottom left and right: the rear edge of the breech cover has been deformed by the pin that holds the breech cover/bolt in it's forward position. Never seen anything quite like this before either.
This next pic shows most of the parts that had had to be replaced in order to repair the 137. Clearly, without the benefit of a well stocked stash of vintage Crosman parts, the gun would have been very costly, if not impossible, to repair. The rear mounting screw was bent, the rear sight fixing screw had been broken, even the piston head was bent! The broken sear had been lost long ago, but the gunsmith told me that it had just sheared the engagement section clean off.
To add further interest to this little package, the original box was included with the gun - or should I say that all of the pieces of the box were included...LOL. The box was rough - no too ways about it - but all the pieces were there, so the next step was to try to restore - or at least repair the box. The pics below show what I had to work with.
After a great deal of careful TLC, both the box and the gun are looking much better now, with the gun back to fully operational condition, and shooting to spec.