Diana 54. Open sights.

I posted a “wanted” add on this forum a while ago, looking for a Diana 54 or maybe even a 56TH….
Well, would you believe I’ve ended up with one of each!

I have only just received the 56, so haven’t started playing with her yet. Ive had the 54 for about 3 weeks but I’ve had very little time to play with her. This review is going to be about my journey with the 54.

My Diana 54 is an older model, in fact it’s a very old model, it was manufactured in October of 1996!
And she is a .177 cal. I haven’t chronoed her yet, but I suspect she is pushing around 14fpe.
The front sight is all made of metal (yes, metal! You don’t see that on todays guns) and is on a sliding ramp so it is height adjustable. Back sights are also made of metal and are fully adjustable for windage and elevation.

I zeroed the open sights at 10m (shooting in my lounge), but at 46 years old my eyes are starting to go and I can’t see a 1cm black dot, indoors, at 10meters over open sights any more, so I decided I was going to put a scope on her.
The good news was that even though I could barely see my aim point, she was shooting one hole groups at 10m 👍🏻.

The action of a 54 is on a sliding sled which absorbs the “recoil”, making the rifle feel almost recoilless and very nice to shoot. The sliding action on this one doesn’t always slide, and the trigger defiantly needs a strip, clean, lube and then some first and second stage tuning (it is the old T01 trigger), but for a 28year old gun she was shooting nicely 👍🏻.

I mounted a 4-16x44 and on Friday I took her to a range to zero at 30m.
Well…. At 30m she was shooting VERY low. Cranked the scope all the way up, still low. Shimmed the scope and still 2 inches low which was very frustrating!

I decided to put her away until I could get some adjustable mounts and zero it properly.
I was feeling quite frustrated and disappointed at that point, and that’s not a good time to be trying to fix a problem, so she got packed away for the day.

The next day I invited a mate of mine to come rabbit hunting with me at a clients farm, a place I call “The Bunny Factory”.
If u follow my YouTube channel @PrecisionPellet, you’ll know about The Bunny Factory!!!
This was intended to be an afternoon of two mates getting out side, spending some time together and doing some hunting.
This was NOT going to be work!

So I decided we should leave the PCP’s and high tech thermals and infrareds at home and go old school and get our springers out .

My mate has an old 2007model Diana 350 Classic in .22, it’s a magnum and really hits with a thump! I planned to take my 2019 Gamo CFR IGT, also in .22.
As I was walking out the door I thought let me grab the D54, I pulled the scope off and if I get a chance I’ll see if I can hit a metal spinner at 10m…

It was a beautiful summer afternoon, we arrived and hunted for 2 hours, we each knocked over a few rabbits and had lots of fun. We went back to the Ute for a drinks break and I decided to pull the D54 out.
We had a plinking target out at 30m which we had been using to check our scopes so I took a shot at it… plink!
What? I couldn’t believe it. With out even holding over or adjusting the open sights!
Let me see if I can do that again.
Another shot, plink!
And another, plink, and another…!
WHAT???
I really couldn’t believe it!
That was 4 shots in a row aiming on, at 30m with open sights! I’d only got 3 out of 4 with the Gamo CFR, and that is scoped!

Well, I put the Gamo down and took the 28year old, open sight D54 out for a walk.

Man, did I have fun with that rifle!!!!
I haven’t had so much fun in years!
I was knocking over rabbits the rest of the afternoon at 20, 30, 40m and more, chest and head shots with open sights!
What a blast!
I went from being so disappointed with this rifle on Friday, to having an absolute ball on Saturday.
I will definatly not even think about putting a scope back on this beautiful old girl, she is going to stay just as she is.
And I can’t wait to get her out again. 😉

Pete! What a fabulous story!

Hi Myson,

I won’t be putting a scope on her, well at least not till my eyes force me too 😂
She has earned the right to keep her open sights free and lovely 😂
The 56 on the other hand is a different story. They don’t come with open sights (like the HW97) so a scope will be mandatory.
If ur thinking about getting a 54 Air king, I’d say do it. I owned a 48 for years and loved it, I’ve wanted to replace it ever since I had to sell it which is why I’ve ended up with these two 😂.

Kruza, the barrel length is around 430mm. I’ll definatly do a little review of the internals when I open her up to clean and lube (not that I know what I’m doing 😂).
There will be a short section on our springer afternoon in part 4 of the bunny factory, which will be coming out in the next few days 👍🏻

Been raining all week, but I got a ray of sunshine this afternoon and jumped outside with the D54 and a chronograph.
She is a .177, so I tried a few JSB's...

JSB Exact Monster 13.43gr.     Average 541.6fps ES 21.8 SD6.2 8.75FPE

JSB Exact Heavies 10.34gr.      Average 705fps     ES 11.5 SD 3.9   11.4FPE

JSB Exact 8.44gr                     Average 780.7fps ES 11.7 SD 4.2   11.4FPE

JSB Exact Express 7.87gr        Average   828.2fps ES 19.4 SD 6.8 12FPE

Next step is to try all of them for grouping at 30 yards and see which she likes best.
Shooting her with open sights, I'm hoping one of the lighter ones will perform nicely for as flat a trajectory as possible.
Just hope I can see a target at 30yards over those open sights...


Will have to experiment with different size and colour dots to aim at.
Might have to spray paint a neon orange tennis ball size dot onto white paper...

Miserable day today, pouring with rain the whole day, so what better a day to spend some time with the D54.

Stripped the rear sight and started to play around with apperture sizes and try brain storm a way to get a ghost ring fitted onto her.

What I need to do is move the rear sight all the way back to where the dove tail is. That would maximise the radius??? (not sure if thats the right name for it) between the front post and the rear blade for maximum potential accuracy.
But the rear sight is screwed onto the compression tybe with two screws that are 40mm apart, and the dove tail rail is held on with 3 screws that are each 48mm apart, so to fit the rear sight where the dove tail is would first need the dove tail to be removed, then a hole drilled and threaded 40mm from one of the existing holes, and I dont have to tools or the experience to do that.

Second prize would be to not move the rear sight and just fit a "ghost ring" onto the blade.
I played around with various size ghost rings (washers), some big enough to be called peep sights, and found the best diameter hole to look through with the rear sight 49cm in front of my eye. But how to attach it...??? Humm.

Ok, third best option, get out the file and enlarge the "V" in the rear blade so it gives me a bigger sight picture, as big as possible so I can see as much of the target as possible.
And thats what I did. (Ive got the tools and the experiance for that job... )

Next job was to work out the optimal size target to aim at, at different distances.
For my eyes, and this rifles open sights set up, a 17mm "bull" at 5 yards is big enough to see and aim at.
and at 10 yards, a 20mm bull is enough to aim at.
Tomorrow I'll keep working it back to 20yards, which is as far as I can go at home.

And I'll keep brain storming this ghost ring problem. I'll get there eventually.

Had some time today and needed a therapy session, so I put up a target at 10m in the lounge and tried a few      different pellets in the D54 with her new more open open sights

From the chrono work I last did, the Exact 8.44gr and the Heavies 10.34gr both had very similar numbers, both producing 11.4FPE, with the 8.44gr doing 780fps and the 10.34gr doing 705fps.
I chose to work with the 8.44gr because I wanted the flatter trajectory for open sights shooting.

Well after shooting a bunch of pellets to check groupings today, I'll have to switch to the 10,34gr, The Barrel has spoken...

The 8.44gr group was not very impressive at all, especially for 10m! (I know I can do much better than that).The heavies group was an acceptable 12mm.
Will probably end up testing both again, and again, out to 30.

The suprise was the H&N Hunter (also sold as the GunCity Rabbiter), which is very close in weight to the Heavies at 10.49gr. Will have to include them in the 30 yard testing too.

I'm also slowly figuring out what size and colour dot works best at each distance for aiming at with squinting eyes over iron sights.

Thanks Pete,
Nice shooting!
You may be saving me some work although I guess every barrel is different...can you tell me where I can get sample packs of a variety of pellets or aren't they available in NZ or does someone in this group sell un-wanted part tins? I'm 

My local shop has only Gamo pellets and I've never read anyone who finds them the best... 

Currently I'm using H&N Baracudas at 10.65 gr in my .177 D52 on the advice of Ron but have nothing to compare them with yet.

Somehow I've ended up with two of the H&N .177 sample packs...
Gun city sells them for about $40, if anyone wants a new unused pack of H&N .177 sample pack I'll post these to you for $40.