Posted by JimG on August 03, 2000 at 16:10:50:
I was reading some of the previous posts on the 717 upgrade with 747 parts. The question is, is the 747 an upgraded enough pistol to warrant almost double the cost?.......or is one better off getting a 717 and ordering the parts from Daisy.
From what i could figure......cost of the trigger, 747 sear and 747 barrel would come to about 40 bucks.......bringing the total cost of the 717 to about 120+labor.
BTW: Do the 2 pistols have the same sights?
Posted by Roland Cannon on August 03, 2000 at 19:26:43:
I am no gunsmith, but I really like both of these guns and have worked on them. The trigger sear is the same for both models. The 747 adds a bogus "anti-spring" to give the illusion of a lighter trigger pull. No gain there, in fact the 717 is easier to modify to an adjustable sear (the key to a good trigger in this series) The 747 trigger blade is wider and metal, but I like the 717 trigger better.
The 747 barrel is probably better being a choked lother-walther, but the 717 barrel is plenty good enough.
Posted by Scott E. Thomas on October 12, 2000 at 22:50:41:
I do not believe the two pistols have the same sights. I shot a 717 as a starter pistol for a while and was satisfied with my results. I believe I was shooting above 90% consistently when I decided to upgrade to an early (non-removable reservoir) Morini 162E. Here are the things I did to the 717 to make it beat a number of FWB 65's and Skanakers in my air pistol league.
1. The sights are plastic and rather cheap. Having said that, they ARE adequate. The only problem is that they can move around (grab them and wiggle them and you will feel movement) Take the gun apart and press a heated paperclip wire against the rear sight making a series (2-3 per side should do it) of vertical grooves on the sides, front, and back of the sight. on the sides of the grooves, the plastic will be raised just a little, but it will be enough to effectively "shim" the sight and get rid of any slop.
2. Drill and tap the frame for an overstop screw. There are a number of places you can do this. I did this just forward of the trigger on the bottom of the frame (there is an internal extension of the trigger which bumps against this). You could just as easily put one behind the trigger as well. Don't forget to put a drop of locktite on the overstop screw to keep it from moving once you have it set.
3. I took off the right hand plastic grip and fabricated a new right side grip with finger grooves and stippling for my fingers. I was going to do that to the left side as well, but after the one side was done, I got lazy. (I am right handed, by the way. I used simple tools, hand files and rasps and kept gripping the gun, marking with pencil and filing away. It took a couple of hours (I stippled it with a nail set), but really helps to gain a repeatable grip.
4. I did something with the spring. As I recall, there were two springs (both rather cheaply made, but effective) One of them, a single leaf spring, I think I removed. The other, I believe I snipped a turn or two off it and stretched it out and by trial and error, got my trigger weight down to near the minimum allowable weight. Be careful with this and proceed slowly.
5. The last thing I did was to smooth out the sear. It is made of cheap pot metal, and I simply took a small sharpening stone (fine) and shined it up a bit. A gunsmith friend of mine suggested that if you want a really smooth sear, take pieces of metal from a razor blade (Fine quality steel) and epoxy them to the sear engagement surfaces. That way you would have two tooled steel surfaces. It makes a lot of sense and would not be too hard to do, but I never got that far.
I liked my 717, although it is rather front-heavy. It is a good starter gun to see if you like the sport and to see if you have the patience to do everything else well. If you can't shoot reasonably high and CONSISTENT scores with a good starter gun, you probably need to work on other areas like grip, breathing, stance and all the other "basics" before upgrading to a world-class pistol. Good luck!
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