"For training of novice shooters. The easy of shooting in various positions ensured by right-side cocking lever and adjustable stock length, trigger pull or travel. Optical or Red Dot sights are mountable. Safe handling due to a lock-out catch of cocking lever and savety unit.     IZH-61 version is equipped with magazine for 5 pellets...."     Because IZH-60/61 loads pellets through a magzine or transfer block, instead of the fingers directly,  the rifle is very safe  for young shooters.

A complete study of IZH-61 by Daver at  http://www.members.global2000.net/~remling/airguns/AirgunsTopPage.htm

Izhevsky Mekhanichesky Zavod is the only enterprise in Russia that produces air weapon. More than 3 million air rifles and 300 thousand air pistols have been issued since 1946. In 1982 the plant started production of top air weapon including the Izh-32M and the Izh-32BK rifles intended for shooting at running targets, and the Izh-33M air pistol which was substituted by the Izh-46 introduced in 1988. Introduction of top air guns became possible thanks to German Protopopov, Vladimir Sterkhov and Valery Cherepanov, the Ieading gun designers.

In 1991 production of the Izh-60 air rifle was started. This rifle was designed by Vladimir Sterkhov, Georgy Romanov and Valery Cherepanov bearing in mind beginners, especially teenagers. The original arrangement of parts made it possible to  reduce the overall length down to 820 mm. The rifle design allows adjustment of the distance between the trigger and buttplate. Adjustment of the trigger pull weight and travel length is allowed too. Cock of the piston is carried out by means of a sidelever. The barrel is unmovable, this allows to have 2 times higher accuracy than the plinking model Izh-38P has. The "Visier" magazine experts consider the Izh-61 to be the most attractive model among Russian models offer for the international market. Recently the new repeating version of the Izh-60 rifle, called the Izh-61 has been created. This spring-piston repeating rifle took over the main features from its prototype having the magazine capacity of 5 Diabolo-type pellets.

Further improvement of the Izh-60 resulted in issue of the Izh-62 rifle which features the highest muzzle velocity of 200 m/s (the original has 100-120  m/s muzzle velocity. Byelorussian Optico-Mechanical Association has developed a Red Point-type sight  for air rifles series Izh-60. This type of sight allows fast and accurate aiming improving comsumptive features of the rifle to a considerable effect.

   Bearing in mind sport shooter requirements the plant's designers developed the Izh-46 version which offers higher muzzle velocity up to 145 m/s.   Increase in muzzle velocity is ensured by a high-capacity CO, cylinder and a higher degree of air compression. Then there appeared the Izh-65 rifle for teenagers, which uses the Izh-43 pistol compressor. Unlike the Izh-32 rifle used by adults, this rifle is more compact and has lighter cocking force.   In 1993 the CO, pistol called the Izh-67 "Kornet" was added to the family of plinking air weapon. This pistol can operate as a double-action pistol  (at the same time giving a sense of being an automatic pistol) and as well as a single-action pistol. Lack of automatics allows ease of handling, reliable operation and low consumption of CO,.

For those of you who have access to either a machine shop- or at least a lathe, there are a couple things you can do to  wring out a little more power and add more smoothness to your little "Black Russian". This info should also apply to the  IZH-61. This info consists of two basic things to be done.
1. Making a longer spring guide.
2. Sealing the bolt to the breech diameter.
You will need acetal(Delrin®) rod for the guide. Machine the diameter of the delrin rod to fit the springs inside  diameter so that you have a contact but NOT press fit.  This may be a diameter of about .545, but can vary with each spring.  Make this turned diameter 2 3/4" long and radius the end 1/16th to 1/8 th radius.  Turn this machined piece of delrin around in the chuck, and in the back  end,  drill/bore a .475 diameter hole into the delrin to a depth of 2 inches. Carefully press fit this tubular piece onto the the original spring guide. HINTS: in the remaining solid end (radiused) drill a 1/16th" hole thru, so that trapped air can escape when pressing on the guide extension. ALSO: application of Home super Glue on the stock metal guide piece will help to keep it permanently in place.  Sealing the breech. You will need to remove the bolt to do this properly. The bolt is retained by a stop plug at the end of the receiver, held in by a  Phillips head screw on top. Once the bolt is removed, knock out the longest pin with a pin punch.  Place bolt in lathe with bolt nose facing out.  Measure 1/4" from the shoulder of the bolt nose, and machine a groove into the bolt about .010 wider than a 003 O ring. Machine the slot so that the diameter will be .107 to .109 inside the slot.  Deburr the slot edges with emery cloth, then slip a 003 O ring over the bolt until it snaps into the groove. Re-assemble the long pin into the bolt, and the bolt back into the gun. When re-assembling the gun, coat the guide, spring and piston and seal with a light coating of Moly grease. You can even thin this out a bit by mixing the grease with Beeman spring oil, as this gun does not respond well to heavy lubes.  An additional note is that you can slip a nickel into the piston as a little extra weight if you are trying to wring out that last fps of velocity from the gun. Should you do this, I recommend gluing it in place- surfaces should be clean and degreased prior to doing this. Install the spring after the nickel is in. A washer of appropriate size may be substituted. The benefits are a smoother cycle and usually there is no more spring/cocking link foot drag across the springs coils, because of the longer guide. Some of these guns will gain up to 40 fps too. One last thing you can do is to increase the length of pull on the stock. Do this by drilling and tapping a couple new hole in the stock tube, at the proper angle. I usually make the first hole about 3/4" from the original. than an additional hole 1 1/4" from the rearmost original hole. The tap size is 5M-x0.8 thd. BUT- a 10-32 tap will also work.  The screw will be a little sloppy with the 10-32 though, until you tighten the knob on the stock adjuster.

One additional note comcerning the tune. The cmpression cylinder needs to me lightly honed on some of these guns, and all sharp edges should be stoned/deburred. I covered this aspect months ago, when I posted tuning info on this gun.  HTH.
Russ

HOME