After buying and selling scores of airguns on the BBS, I think I have bought my last gun! Serowman sold me a Hammerli 403 which arrived yesterday. I've been looking for a Hammerli 401 since I joined the board, but without any luck. The 403 is very similar although it is fitted with a barrel-weight in the form of a sleeve and an adjustable butt-plate. It needs a little work here and there, but essentially it is the same as the 401 that I had when I was 15. I'm going to scope it up and maybe try it out on one of those Lea Valley springerfests, see how it shapes up, I used to use my 401 for FT in the early 80s.

So this is my little collection now ...

AIR ARMS TX200SR Mk 1 .... this is in top condition and is extremely accurate. It's very consistent so in many ways it is better than a PCP but it is heavy, and there is something about it that leaves me cold. A bit like going on a date with a really beautiful woman but there's no chemistry. I am fitting a period Japanese Tasco 6-24x40PA scope on it, one of the strange ones with the bracketting reticles, maybe that will help!

WEIHRAUCH HW77K Mk 1, fitted Venom Stage 1 and in a 97K stock. I really like this gun, it just feels right, its almost as accurate as the SR but was really cheap! £120 for the rifle, £50 for the kit and nothing for swapping the stock (well, £8 for postage).

BSA Meteor Super .22 - this is the gun I learned to shoot with, my Mom bought it for my Dad in 1973. It has been well-used and a couple of years back I refurbished it and re-finished the stock. The breech slot was badly cut at the factory, which means the barrel is at a slight angle to the cylinder, which means pellets drift laterally at any range past the point of zero. I keep this one for sentimental reasons, and its a nice light plinker too.

BSA Firebird .22 - my first PCP. Can't get this to shoot accurately yet, but have re-settled the barrel which I hope will cure the problem with fliers. Not really sold on PCPs, that big diving cylinder to lug around and the messing about with 'the heart of the fill' seems too much trouble. I won't sell it until I've got it working properly though. Maybe I should have bought a more common rifle, but I am attracted to oddball designs so it serves me right! I quite fancy the BSA Scorpion, that looks like a nice simple design.

QB78 .22 - actually a Webley 'Firebolt'. This has been tuned and smoothed out and I have a bulk-fill adaptor plus a complete 177 conversion kit as well. I bought it because I like the 'easiness' of CO2 and I needed a lightweight rifle to teach a lady friend to shoot with. I might use this as the basis for a fun conversion, I have bought an AR-15 pistolgrip already....

Hammerli 403 - I like these sidelevers, extremely accurate but slightly underpowered. I think the accuracy comes from the superb barrels, which are tightly choked, the very smooth and precise triggers, the tight spring-guides and massively long & highly preloaded springs, also the loading taps have very short throats so there is not much pellet-jump before the barrel. They shoot very sweetly, just a sudden nudge on let-off. They are not very powerful though, my one in the early 1980s would do about 7.8 ft/lbs. I am hoping to get 9 ft/lbs out of my 'new' s/h one. For a good design, some of the build quality is poor, with stamped parts in the trigger affecting its longevity and a strangely slabby and inelegantly made stock. It was a great design built down to a price, the barrel, loading tap and cylinder are all excellent, while the sidelever, trigger housing, stock and triggerguard look like they were made for a budget rifle. I will keep this one for a while as a project and for sentimental reasons.

I guess I might feel the urge for another gun one day, like a HW30 with a Rekord trigger or a Feinwerkbau 300, but I'm not sure. I am pretty sated now. I could slim the collection down to just the HW77, the QB78 and, for sentimental reasons, the Meteor, because those are the only guns I actually need for shooting purposes. The other guns I have owned, well I don't miss them, they were fun to try out and the BBS has been a great 'library' of the old and the exotic.

Blah blah blah. Anyone else come to the end of their collecting bug?