Equipment Care and Maintenance

None of Pneu-Dart’s projectors are high maintenance.  By the same token, none are totally maintenance free.  Your dart gun will come with instructions from the company on how to care for your particular projector.  I really don’t need to go into depth about this subject, but I will mention a few of the more important things I feel are noteworthy, and possibly not in print you would run across elsewhere.

One of the most important things to take care of on cartridge fired projectors, such as the models 196 and 389, are the power control cups.  This very important feature of the rifle allows you to regulate the amount of gas that enters behind the dart. It also allows you to adjust dart velocity, which is directly relative to the range at which you are shooting and the impact trauma your dart will transfer to the animal.  I have seen several neglected projectors that have been left on the same setting and shot who knows how many times and were never rotated to different positions.  This results in a build up of carbon and gun powder residue generated by the blank loads.  The results of this are the power knob and cup cannot be rotated to other settings when needed.  I have repaired several of these neglected projectors.  Cup removal can be very difficult under these conditions.  When the cup is removed and inspected, all the other cup holes of different sizes will usually be completely filled with this residue.  This material is so hard that only a drill with the appropriate size bit can remove it.  (Most of these neglected guns are purchased by the owner and used by ranch hands that don’t take care of anything.)  If nothing else were done other than to place a couple of drops of gun oil once a week where the outside of the cup meets the inside of the housing, while rotating the power control knob, this could be avoided.  The power cup is about one-half inch long.  The goal is to coat the entire outside perimeter of this cup.  The best way to do this is to have the dart barrel opened up to gain access, and hold the stock portion of the gun at a 45 degree angle in an upward position.  The oil will disappear between the housing and cup as the cup is rotated, thus, putting a film between the two.  The above information generally pertains to the model 196.  Unless you are mechanically inclined, you might be well ahead to ship it back to the company for service instead of attempting to remove the cup.

On the model 389, the younger brother of the 196, the power control cup is easily removed for thorough cleaning.  The company currently has a video on how to properly clean this model that is available to view on their Web site.

On both the above models, I routinely clean the chambers for the .22 blank loads.  You can remove the bolts from these rifles by holding the trigger down with the safety off and pulling the bolt rearward.  Once removed, I have a short cleaning rod with a .22 caliber tornado brush.  These brushes consist of stainless steel wire loops, and can be worked both in an out.  If you use a regular bristle gun cleaning brush, it is very difficult to switch directions and pull the brush rearward.  The .22 chamber is not of that diameter all the way through, and has a small hole at the end of the chamber.  After brushing, I wet a pipe cleaner on one end with powder solvent.  Upon bumping the restrictive hole, the pipe cleaner can be rotated between your thumb and forefinger until it finds this hole, and then is worked through.  After that, I remove any excess oil or solvent from the chamber with a Q-tip swab, and then run the dry end of the pipe cleaner back through the small hole to remove any excess solvent that could be present.

If you neglect this chamber cleaning procedure, over time the spent brass blank will adhere to the chamber wall after being fired. When you try to extract it with the rifle bolt, you will find yourself to be looking for a pen knife to extract the spent case from the chamber.

There is a happy medium to how clean you want the barrels of these guns.  After you clean the barrel thoroughly and oil everything, store it in a dry location.  The worst place to store the dart gun is in a closed gun case that’s meant to transport it.  A firearm can severely rust from any moisture present when the case is sealed and there is zero air circulation.  When it’s time to use the projector after a good cleaning, it’s a good idea to fire a couple of practice darts through it to blow out any excess oil and to slightly foul the barrel somewhat just prior to using it.  A very slick barrel can have an accelerated dart velocity which will cause higher strikes and more impact.  A very dirty barrel will shoot erratically and not group your shots well.  I will usually clean my barrel after fifteen to twenty shots or once a week, whichever comes first.

Vegetable oil should only be used for lubrication on air or CO2 projectors.  Any petroleum type oil will cause disintegration of O-rings and valves.  On a side note, this also holds true when it comes to lubricating the plungers on your hand syringes.

Store your packages of darts in a cool, dry location.  One of the worst places to leave a package of darts is on the dash of a vehicle with the sun shining through on them.  The heat they are undergoing in this type of situation can loosen the gel collar from the needle, or even melt the gelatin completely off the cannula.  I had a friend whose hired hands put a whole cardboard box full of darts, over 100 of them, in a small tin well house cover which was exposed to full sunlight.  When they went to retrieve this box to use some of the darts the following day, all the gel collars had melted off and there were just green puddles of goo in the packages.  The darts were useless without the retention device.  If shot into a calf, you would be able to see the drugs simply spray into the atmosphere after striking.  It was an expensive mistake.

For transporting the darts in the field, I use dart tubes.  These are plastic containers with flip open lids that can carry up to 10 of the large darts per tube.  I take several tubes with different capacity dart sizes in them, so I will be prepared for whatever I come across.  I mark the tubes by what dart size they contain with a Sharpie permanent marker.  I also mix darts of the same capacity even though they will have different needle lengths.  With the permanent marker, I mark all the back side of the tails to reference which one I want to pull from the tube for use.  An example would be a tube marked “10cc”.  I may have both one inch and one-half inch cannula darts in it.  I have marked the one-half inch needles on the flight stabilizer.  If I want an I.M. injection, I’ll pull out an unmarked dart.  This saves emptying the tube to acquire what is required.  This is a much easier way to transport your darts. When you open a package of darts, it is similar to opening a can of worms.  They can go everywhere.  The tubes protect the darts from external forces, and when you go to get one, you won’t have to fumble with the package and fight to get the package to close back up.

For .22 blanks storage I use prescription bottles.  It’s not a bad idea to include a small silicone moisture absorbing capsule in this bottle along with the blanks.  Your pharmacist will likely give you some of these if you ask him to save them for you.  The blanks need to be protected from atmospheric moisture.  The blanks shipped from the company are in a Zip-lock bag for a reason.  If just the cardboard box containing the blanks is left overnight in humid conditions, the powder in the blanks can draw moisture.  This will cause the blanks to perform in a varying manner, and you will lose consistency of the power they generate.  I’ll put a label on each bottle containing blanks I take, which will designate if the contents are brown, green, or yellow loads.

If for some reason different power loads become mixed, they can be easily identified by looking at the crimped end.  The blanks will have a small amount of coloring on this tip, designating whether they are brown, green, or yellow loads.