Diana 54. Open sights.
Printed From: Kiwi Airgunners
Category: Technical
Forum Name: Reviews
Forum Description: Rate your airgun or pellets here
URL: www.kiwiairgunners.co.nz/forum_posts.asp?TID=979
Printed Date: 22 Nov 2024 at 11:21pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 10.14 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Diana 54. Open sights.
Posted By: RangerPete
Subject: Diana 54. Open sights.
Date Posted: 05 Mar 2024 at 12:24pm
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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. 😉 ------------- Walk quietly, but carry a big stick. |
Replies:
Posted By: RangerPete
Date Posted: 05 Mar 2024 at 12:27pm
     ------------- Walk quietly, but carry a big stick. |
Posted By: Myson
Date Posted: 05 Mar 2024 at 3:48pm
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Pete! What a fabulous story! I've always wanted one of these rifles and have been toying with the idea of buying one of the new 54 Air King Pro's in .22 calibre. See: https://www.diana-airguns.de/en/products/sidelever/detail/diana-54-airking-pro-laminated" rel="nofollow - https://www.diana-airguns.de/en/products/sidelever/detail/diana-54-airking-pro-laminated If you ever hear of this - or something similar - for sale in NZ, please do PM me with details. Thanks... Sounds like your rifle is definitely worth putting a scope back on with adjustable Sportsmatch mounts! It'll be accurate out to 70yds at least, if not 100yds!! Happy shooting!  ------------- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq7jVyBfFqE" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq7jVyBfFqE Air Arms S510 US .22 Air Arms S410 .22 Weihrauch HW97KT .177 Weihrauch HW95 .177 |
Posted By: kruzaroad
Date Posted: 05 Mar 2024 at 5:52pm
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How sweet is that. Guess at 46 years old the eyes arnt as bad as you thought. Sound like a pearler of a rifle. Must have been nice to get out and "old school" it with a classic springer and drop the high tech self sighting scope and see in the dark advantage, as well as the pressure of having to get the results as your working. Nothing beats a relaxed arvo/night shooting with a springer no pressure. Have to put a video up of it action ( If you haven't, haven't watched the bunny factory part 3 yet) Looking forward to seeing more adventures with it. Maybe a few dead rabbits shot with it and a bit review as of its internals when you pull it apart. It is a very nice looking gun. What length is the barrel? Looks incredibly short. |
Posted By: RangerPete
Date Posted: 05 Mar 2024 at 11:08pm
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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 👍🏻 ------------- Walk quietly, but carry a big stick. |
Posted By: xyon
Date Posted: 06 Mar 2024 at 9:45am
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Thanks for the story. My Diana 52 is my favourite springer ------------- --- My favourites springer - Diana 52 PCP - FX Wildcat III |
Posted By: RangerPete
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2024 at 7:28pm
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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... ------------- Walk quietly, but carry a big stick. |
Posted By: RangerPete
Date Posted: 10 Sep 2024 at 7:36pm
This is what I came up with as a 20yard (small circles) and 30yards (big circle) target to see and aim at with open sights. ------------- Walk quietly, but carry a big stick. |
Posted By: RangerPete
Date Posted: 10 Sep 2024 at 7:36pm
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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. ------------- Walk quietly, but carry a big stick. |
Posted By: RangerPete
Date Posted: 10 Sep 2024 at 7:38pm
    ------------- Walk quietly, but carry a big stick. |
Posted By: RangerPete
Date Posted: 25 Sep 2024 at 4:40pm
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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. ------------- Walk quietly, but carry a big stick. |
Posted By: RangerPete
Date Posted: 25 Sep 2024 at 4:42pm
The JSB heavies 10.34gr and the H&N Hunter 10.49gr seem to both agree with her barrel. ------------- Walk quietly, but carry a big stick. |
Posted By: JasonEdward
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2024 at 3:04pm
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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. ------------- |
Posted By: RangerPete
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2024 at 6:43pm
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Hi Jason, There is not really any rules for pellet and barrel marriages. The best advise I can give you is try as many pellets as you can get your hands on, different weights, shapes, manufacturers, models, just keep trying them all. Having said that some very general guidelines from my experiences are: (others may agree or disagree, but thats the beauty of a forum like this.) 1- guns in the lower powers (up to about 7 or 8FPE) like lighter for caliber pellets. 2- mid power guns, 8 to 15FPE, like standard for caliber weight pellets. 3- Higher power guns like heavy for caliber pellets. 4- Pellets also have preferences for speeds, the optimum speed for pellet performance is around 850fps, but pellets perform well anywhere from 500ish fps up to 900ish fps. Generally over 900 they will start to become unstable, but of course you'll always find someone who says his rifle shoots beautifully at 980fps... 5- Dont be fooled by the "devastating destruction, incredible penetration, superb accuracy" BS marketing that some pellets advertise. Try them and if the group tightly, theyr good, end of story. 6- If you are shooting out to 30ish yards most "hunting" pellets can be accurate, i.e. hollow point, spear point etc, but if you are shooting past that, usually round head "Diabolo" shaped pellets are the most accurate at longer distances. 7- As far as pellet manufacturers go, there are only two that I would reccomend, JSB and H&N. That is based solely on quality. RWS are not bad, and supposedly crossman are ok. I genrally avoid Gamo and other cheep brands. Air Arms pellets, FX pellets, Cometa pellets and a few others are all made by JSB. Gun Citys shop brand and a few others are made by H&N. The only manufacturer that makes sample packs is H&N. JSB do as well, but I'v never seen them for sale in NZ. Guncity stocks the H&N range. Finding JSB can be difficult, Rons is a safe bet, or online shops like NZairarms are not bad, bit pricy. Stick with the big name manufacturers so you are working with better quality pellets, and then try as many as you can. ------------- Walk quietly, but carry a big stick. |
Posted By: RangerPete
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2024 at 6:48pm
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. ------------- Walk quietly, but carry a big stick. |
Posted By: JasonEdward
Date Posted: 27 Sep 2024 at 8:22am
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Yes please. I'll fire $40 buck sat ya immediately. What is the best way to contact you? ------------- |
Posted By: RangerPete
Date Posted: 27 Sep 2024 at 1:11pm
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Something I should add to my post above about pellet testing is the "Lead in process". I used to think this was rubbish, but experience has shown me that it is actually a real thing and should be done. So if you are testing pellets and change from one brand to another, you should "lead in" the barrel with the new brand of pellets before the real testing begins with the new brand. The reason for this is that different manufacturers use different recipes for their lead. I dont think any of them use 100% pure lead. I think JSB is probably the closest as their pellets seem to be the softest, but its still not 100% pure lead. H&N's pellets seem to be a bit harder than JSB, so they probably add more tin and mayeb antimony, but who really knows for sure...??? Anyway, when changing from one manufaturer to another, shoot 5 or 10 or 15 before you start to look critically at the group size. How many do you need to "lead in " the barrel? I dont know. I find with my rifles 10 is enough. Some people say up to 40...? I know 10 usually works for my rifles because I shoot them in groups of 5. First 5 will be all over, big group. Second 5 will be tighter. Buy the time I get to the 3rd group of 5 the group has usually settled down and will be about as tight as its going to get. I dont usually bother doing this if I'm changing with in pellets from the same manufacturer, because I believe JSB uses the same lead recipe for all its pellets, as with H&N. So if I'm testing 3 types of JSB and 4 types of H&N, I'll do all the JSB's first, then change over to H&N, shoot 10 or 15 then start testing all the H&N's for grouping. Obviously if you try a "green" lead free alloy pellet, they dont contain any lead, but I still go through the same "leading in" process, just to condition the barrel to the new pellets. ------------- Walk quietly, but carry a big stick. |
Posted By: JasonEdward
Date Posted: 28 Sep 2024 at 11:07am
  
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Posted By: JasonEdward
Date Posted: 28 Sep 2024 at 11:08am
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These huge Eunjin should be interesting but unlikely to group well. I think i got them with a Gamo Hunter years ago. ------------- |
Posted By: JasonEdward
Date Posted: 28 Sep 2024 at 11:12am
Keen as Pete. You can call me 0274500955. If you're Cambridge it's only an hour or so away maybe we can catch up sometime and talk some sh*t...shoot some guns and I could learn some skills from the pros? ------------- |
RangerPete wrote:Posted By: RangerPete
Date Posted: 28 Sep 2024 at 4:44pm
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I used to have some of those EUNJIN pellets, they were in .20cal and huge monsters if I remember correctly. In fact I think I still have them somewhere...  Its strange that you never ever hear of any .20cals here in NZ. ------------- Walk quietly, but carry a big stick. |
Posted By: RangerPete
Date Posted: 19 Oct 2024 at 9:36pm
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One of those arbitrary, listed in the in the wrong section, probably paid too much for it, trade me finds… I guess patience can be a virtue.😉 Peep sight with changable size peep hole, that looks like it might fit onto a dove tail. Also comes with two other interchangeable blades, one with a V notch, the other is an almost ghost ring. When I get some time I’ll fit it onto the D54 and have a play 🙂.  ------------- Walk quietly, but carry a big stick. |
Posted By: RangerPete
Date Posted: 26 Oct 2024 at 4:58pm
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Got some time today… Miserable day, very windy so I’m playing with the D54. The clamp (just bent metal) of this new sight was loose on the dovetail, so I ever so gently squeezed it in a vice a few times till it was a snug fit. Had to tap it on with a hammer but so far after 20 odd test shots it hasn’t moved 👍🏻 Started with the peep sight with changable appertures. It’s actually a really cool little device, just a pity the mount and dove tail part is so crude 🙈 I want to zero this rifle with JSB 10.34gr heavies at 25yards, but I can only shoot 21yards through my house and into the garden 😂 so if I zero it about 5 or 8mm high at 21 it will be perfect at 25, and pretty much one point of aim (for rabbit head shots) from 5yards out to 30yards. With the open sights I don’t think I’ll be shooting much past 40, so will just learn the drops at 35 and 40. I played around with height, got it right, then I needed to adjust windage, and that’s where it got a bit tricky. There is a tiny brass screw and a 4mm nut holding the peep sight onto the body which is also how u adjust the windage, but it’s in upside down so u can’t get a screw driver to the head of the screw with out taking the sight off the rifle 😡. So off it came, I took it a apart, adjusted it, put it back togather, took it apart, filed down a spacer, put it back together upside down, was better but…. U get the idea. After an hour of fiddeling around I had changed a few things and put on the “almost a ghost ring blade”, put it back on the file and started again. I remember now why I love ghost rings so much… because they are just lovely to use. First group of 3 is about 6mm center to center at 21yards. Lovely 😉 Now to start the “fine adjustments” with the not so fine screws and nuts 🤔 An almost ghost ring.  3 shots at 21yards with the almost ghost ring.  ------------- Walk quietly, but carry a big stick. |
Posted By: RangerPete
Date Posted: 26 Oct 2024 at 6:13pm
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Changed the tiny little brass screw and 4mm nut for a slightly bigger M3 pair and a spring washer. And rain has just cancelled play 😔 Frankensight. (But it’s working 👍🏻)  ------------- Walk quietly, but carry a big stick. |