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Buddy Bottle Options

Buddy Bottle Options

Though both these discontinued yet ‘classic’ PCPs have been consigned to the history books, there still must be a lot of airgunners who own these models, along with guns traded in and now on the second hand racks in gunshops. Some of these may have been traded because of the concerns about getting spare parts. A point in case are the buddy bottles that run both guns. So once again I must credit Richard Bingham of Best-Fittings for his foresight in making available three very attractive options.

OFF-THE-SHELF

You can either buy a fully built up ‘buddy bottle’  (the removable compressed air reservoir these rifles use), in both sizes of 400 and 500cc. Or a re-buildable stainless steel valves kit, and even just the empty bottles with no valve fitted. There are of course other very useful ‘bits’, and a few I’ll mention later.

First up is the BSA/Theoben Buddy Bottle complete with Stainless Steel (Rebuildable) Valve unit. The only feature that is different - due to the internal air capacity storage rating (cc) - is the length and the max pressure that they can be filled to. Both share the common 1/4” BSP thread for screwing into the receiver of these air rifles. Manufactured from high-grade Aluminium and supplied to Best-Fittings by the respected ‘Luxfer’ brand, with a 10-year test cycle. The same bottles are currently used by BSA, Daystate, Theoben, FX etc… the 400cc version has a 230-bar maximum fill pressure, the 500cc 250-bar max. They are 60mm in diameter and 255mm and 315mm long respectively. Cosmetically the 400cc has a semi-gloss black finish while the 500 is flat black.

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BLACK & WHITE

The Buddy Bottle Valve Kits for 400/500cc bottles are manufactured from Stainless Steel, with two Delrin Universal Valve Pips. Obviously it has the required 1/4” BSP thread to insert into the rifle, is fully rebuildable and for this is supplied with spares. The ‘extras’ are additional, rubber O-ring seals and an extra valve pip. The latter is coloured white for Theoben models and black for BSA. 

It may seem an obvious statement to make but do ensure before purchase that as both are compatible with BSA and Theoben Buddy Bottles with M18 x 1.5mm 5mm threads – your bottle does have the same female thread, as it could also be 5/8”UNF. Usually denoted by a round rather than flat bottom on the bottle.

OFF GUN

They can even supply bare Buddy Bottle’s in both sizes with no valve should you prefer to fit a Dr Bob QF Kit plus air gauge (featured previously in ‘Workshop’ a while back). For those wanting to keep the rifles and bottles as originally intended to be removed for re-fills, they also supply a Universal Buddy Bottle Fill Adaptor with Seal & Cap for off-gun charging. This includes the 1/4”BSP Female to 1/8” BSP male thread for direct fitting to a flexible fill line. Suits BSA SuperTEN, Theoben Rapid (including MFR), and even Logun S16 and S16s. Full instructions are included for all kits supplied.

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  • Buddy Bottle Options - image {image:count}

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  • Buddy Bottle Options - image {image:count}

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