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View Full Version : BSA Scorpion Carbine .177, Single Shot, Tactical stock


Hinksy
21-02-2009, 08:53 PM
Hi folks,

My local gunshop got me this rifle in from BSA 24 hours after I ordered it (they only stock .22 cal for some strange reason)?

I sold my .22 Falcon FN19TW to fund this purchase and to say that I'm pleased with it is a major understatement!
I rigged her up with the HW silencer (the muzzle comes ready threaded for a silencer) and a Nikko Nighteater 6-24x44 scope that was on my Falcon and I also put a new Deben 6"-9" bipod and sling on the rifle to finish it off.
I've waited all week to take it out and get it zeroed today. I took a new tin of AA Fields 4.52mm pellets as I know pretty much every rifle seems to like AA Fields!
The rifle itself looks superb, it's all jet black with the tactical stock so it really looks the business. The instructions say the rifle needs a 200 bar fill in 12ft/ibs but after playing around in the garden with chrono and air bottle I've found 180 bar to be the best fill pressure. Charging is dead simple, a brass probe is supplied that you screw onto the end of your bottle hose and push into the hole that is uncovered when you unscrew the end cap at the end of the cylinder. Power straight from a 200 bar fill was a poor 10ft/ibs but after literally half a dozen shots it was running along happily at 785fps and at the end of my zero session after 40+ shots it was still doing 770 bar, not bad for a .177, I was told to expect 50 full power shots in .177 in the carbine version which this one is.
The trigger felt crisp & very precise although I might lighten it a little as I found I was pulling the occasional shot.
The cocking mechanism felt very well engineered and smooth with the breech providing more than enough room to slide the tiny .177 ammo into it. The tactical stock has a lovely little finger scoop which I thought was a great touch, the stainless cocking bolt was well made with a lovely shape similar to the one's found on the Daystates.

On the range I zeroed the rifle at 12 yards then fine tuned it at my desired zero range of 35 yards. I then shot groups at 20, 40 & 50 yards to take reference against the Nighteaters TRX reticule when needing to give holdover for the longer range shots. I have never owned a .177 before but I'm a definate convert-from 10 yards to 40 yards the pellet barely moved from zero.

My final shot card was a half sheet of A4 with a small bullseye-I put ten pellets onto this bullseye and they were easily covered with a 5 pence piece, it doesn't get better than that :cool:

Hats off to BSA for sending out a rifle that was sensibly powered (11.4ft/ibs) and not running at the ten foot pound mark that some new PCP's have been found to be doing recently.

I only have one moan and that is the position of the safety catch-when shooting from a prone position it just cant be clicked forward due to the cocking bolt being in the way, I'm not sure why it was not positioned an inch or two forward?

Overall a superb rifle and a definate keeper, I can't recommend the Scorpion enough, extremely accurate, great lines and it shoots like a regulated rifle with all my shots in the 780's before they started falling away after 50 shots.

Thanks for reading,

Ben :)

noluv6
21-02-2009, 09:56 PM
Nice review.So they sold you a single shot scorpion in a T10 stock?or did you have to buy the t10 stock separately?Always thought the t10 looked long and would of liked a scorpion k in a t10 stock.like you have done.

draconis
21-02-2009, 11:34 PM
it'll get better once you run it in a bit, look on http://www.bsaog.co.uk/forum/index.php for more info/tests etc :)

Hinksy
22-02-2009, 10:00 PM
Nice review.So they sold you a single shot scorpion in a T10 stock?or did you have to buy the t10 stock separately?Always thought the t10 looked long and would of liked a scorpion k in a t10 stock.like you have done.

Yep, it's a single-shot Scorpion in a T-10 stock.

I got the impression in the gunshop while the manager was on the phone to BSA that the single-shot Scorpion has only been available in the tactical stock for a very short while as all the adverts you see it is sat in the beech stock?

Ben :)

arrows180
24-02-2009, 10:55 PM
Must be new out in uk. Single shot tactical were export only. Looks like you've got a nice rare rifle. Enjoy :)

Hinksy
24-02-2009, 11:05 PM
Must be new out in uk. Single shot tactical were export only. Looks like you've got a nice rare rifle. Enjoy :)

Hmmm, well when I ordered the rifle the manager in the gun shop (a good friend) phoned BSA and asked if they did a single-shot Scorpion with Tactical stock, after some umming and ahhing they said they'd do one so maybe they just slapped a tactical stock on my Scorpions action to keep the gun shop happy?

Anyway, she's definately a bog standard single shot Scorpion but in the T-10 style tactical stock-she could be a one off or maybe they are about to start doing them in tactical stocks as standard :confused:

It's good to know I may have a one-off rifle!

ATVB

Ben :)

draconis
06-03-2009, 03:49 PM
Hmmm, well when I ordered the rifle the manager in the gun shop (a good friend) phoned BSA and asked if they did a single-shot Scorpion with Tactical stock, after some umming and ahhing they said they'd do one so maybe they just slapped a tactical stock on my Scorpions action to keep the gun shop happy?

Anyway, she's definately a bog standard single shot Scorpion but in the T-10 style tactical stock-she could be a one off or maybe they are about to start doing them in tactical stocks as standard :confused:
It's good to know I may have a one-off rifle!

ATVB

Ben :)


i bought mine as standard then bought the tactical stock as a separate part!, had it on since before december, but i'm not sure if they are producing it as an option though?

Hawkstone
06-03-2009, 06:16 PM
Thank you Hinksy for your interesting & informative review on your new BSA. The model you have is on the BSA www.

http://www.bsaguns.co.uk/gun_scorpion_t10.php

We have a Hornet which is not unlike the Scorpion in many ways, they are indeed an excellent airgun, congrats on a good buy.

Kennish
06-03-2009, 11:41 PM
I only have one moan and that is the position of the safety catch-when shooting from a prone position it just cant be clicked forward due to the cocking bolt being in the way, I'm not sure why it was not positioned an inch or two forward?



Undo the screw in the back of the bolt, angle the bolt up enough that your thumb will go under to work the safety then tighten the allen screw again, also if the safety lever is to tight remove the stock and adjust the tab that runs over the steel ball. Should help...

Slacker24seven
03-06-2009, 11:25 AM
I've just bought a T10 from Weevie this week and I thought I'd add my 2 penneth to this rather than going over old ground in a seperate review.

With a HW it is really very quiet; thats perfect for me as while I have a long garden perfect for plinking the houses here are all terraced and I like to be considerate to my neighbours and passers by. It sounds like a very gentle fart really, the only discernible noise is from the action - I must say the hammer sounds a bit twangy.

It's very accurate with either JSB 4.52s or BisMags, I haven't bothered with any others yet except to check I'm legal with the Combro because I haven't felt the need. 5 shots into one 5p sized hole at the length of my garden and I've been shooting off flower stalks too:cool: At the moment I have a Tasco varmint on it but I'm waiting for a Bushnell Legend to arrive. Can't wait:)

The stock is a revelation, I have never liked synthetic stocks before but this one looks and feels the business; I have never handled a factory stock that feels as good as this and the palm swell and thumb groove are thoughful features from BSA. My only minor gripe is that the bits where the stock would be cut out for the Lightning tactical stock bolts and break barrel are visible - but I'm not really arsed.

The bolt is fairly slick, certainly better than the 'agricultural' bolt on the S10 which feels like rooting around in a bag of spanners. It looks nice too but the ball could be a teeny bit bigger for my hand. The trigger needs a bit of fettling until I get it to the same crispness as my S10 but I have plenty of time to tweak it this week. The mag is solid and well engineered but then I never had a problem with the old style ones anyway. I would also like to add to Hinksy's moan about the safety catch. It looks rubbish, its too stiff and in a stupid place.

This is a very good gun, I can't wait to go hunting with it and I'm actually even tempted to a bit of HFT now! At some point I will have it JBed/Tweak'd but I am rather happy with the way it is.

Hinksy
03-06-2009, 11:48 AM
Since I posted my original review I took the Scorpion up to Derby to be 'Tweaked' by Simon (Tweaky).

He fitted one of his custom regulators (supplied and fitted for £110) and it is just superb :cool:

When I first bought the rifle it was giving me 50 shots from a 200bar fill, the first shots starting at about 10ft/ibs, rising to a peak of about 11.4ft/ibs for about 15-20 shots then falling of again.

Now, I'm getting 90-100 shots from a 220bar fill. Shot one is 11.5ft/ibs, shot 50 is 11.5 ft/ibs and shot 100 is 11.5ft/ibs :D After that is drops off the reg.

I'm saving a lot of air, I have no power curve to affect accuracy and the gun is just soooo much better now.

I'll be taking my .22 S200 up to him for regulating when I get paid at the end of June.

If you own an Ultra, Scorpion or S200 get it off to Simon and get it regged-you won't look back!

For the record, I've tried many pellets through my new Scorpion, the AA Fields have the edge (only just) accuracy wise and leave the barrel at a fair few fps but I was getting a few runners when rabbiting. I switched to Logun Penetrators and they probably dont group quite as well but more than good enough (5 pence size groups at 35 yards) and because they are a much more efficent pellet than the AA Field the drop at 45 yards is just over 1"! The AA Fields were dropping nearly 2.5" at 45 yards. I've had NO runners since making the change to Penetrators too-the exit wound they leave is incredible :rolleyes:

ATVB & HTH

Ben :)

Slacker24seven
03-06-2009, 01:14 PM
Thanks for that Ben. When my bank balance has recovered I'llbe doing the same as you!:cool:

Kyoto
03-06-2009, 03:38 PM
Simon did my Scorpion carbine in 177" too while I waited and the results mirror yours...incredible. My Scorpion rifle T10 is next up for Simon's magic (I feel a NV rig coming on!

Simon has incredible attention to detail, and fixes the bolt to index the mag for a small amount of money, screwcuts and shortens barrels and many other things.

He's also one of the nicest guys you could ever wish to meet!

ATB

Ken

Hinksy
03-06-2009, 10:07 PM
One thing I didn't mention about the regulatoris the fact that the cylinder is left sticking out a good 2" further as the reg sits directly behind it-when the gun was re-assembled I couldn't get my HW silencer to fit without it making contact with the filler cover!

We decided to make a small groove in the filler cap to allow the silencer to fit properly and keep the barrell totally fully floating, not ideal because I have to remove the silencer whenever I need to make a fill!

Apparently mine was the first Scorpion he'd had with a HW silencer that did this, others he had done had been fine. From what Simon has written he's now had a few of these 'touching' silencers so, iirc, he has had a local engineering firm make him up some small extensions that are exactly the same diameter as the Scorpion barrel. These screw onto the threaded muzzle thus extending the barrel slightly and are then threaded for a normal 1/2" unf silencer so this problem has been sorted now. He's sending me one soon so at least I won't have to take my silencer of to refill anymore!

If you use a smaller diameter silencer like the Parker Hale for example it won't be a problem, it's the chunky mods like the HW which were the problem but all sorted now.

ATVB

Ben :)

mattie
04-06-2009, 07:37 PM
Hi Ben,
great info, will be getting my scorpion done very soon, glad to hear of the adaptors too, i like the hw silencer, wouldnt fancy using any other now really, and certainly wouldnt want to remove it every fill!
will also try the logun penetrators for rabbits too! :)