FWB P70 ALU Problems ????

[Dr Bob]

Santa brought me the above . I did my homework and all the reviews seemed great! But, I have since been PMed by a member on here who says that there have been problems with them plus they are too heavy. The weight is not a problem as I intend to use it for bench rest. Can any body enlighten me as to any problems?

Regards, Bob

[mr_green]

i think the problems people are talking about only affect the older modles with the plastic barrel shroud as there was supposed to be movement in hot and cold temperatchers. the only other thing i can think of is that your folow through on the shot must be impeccable. but other than that i dont think there is anyproblems as i havent had any problems with my p70ft

[Falcon25]

Most target based FT guns suffer from zero shift in extreme temperatures. Mount the scope on the barrel only to get around this. The P70 will give the best 55yd groups of any on the range and is ideal for benchrest. It also has the best trigger in the business as can be shown by the number of 10m medals it has won. Remember weight is your friend when on target. Not popular with the FT boys as they have to carry them around a shoot for 2-3 Hr.

This is a 55 yd rested 10 shot group shot straight with the gun straight from the car with no zero shots on outside range:

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q...z3/55Group.jpg

[easyman05]

Most target based FT guns suffer from zero shift in extreme temperatures. Mount the scope on the barrel only to get around this.

Do you mean BKL single piece mount?

I do also expect a FWB P70 from Santa. For bench rest.

[andrew coleman]

I have own two p70 the first was the older type nice but the zero did change a little from winter to summer temp,now I have the new P70 its simply the best FT air rifle, yes it has a bit of weight but that good for standing shoots.

[Scooby]

I have own two p70 the first was the older type nice but the zero did change a little from winter to summer temp,now I have the new P70 its simply the best FT air rifle, yes it has a bit of weight but that good for standing shoots.

Most of the countries FT shooters would disagree with you

[Falcon25]

Most of the countries FT shooters would disagree with you

Think they may just suffer from herding instinct somtimes. Most FT shooters have no personal experiance of the P70. Are you one of them?. What do you shoot and why would you consider that to be better?

[Pagoda113]

Two common problems; the weight when scoped with eg, a big Nikko, and more importantly the ability of the user.

[Scooby]

Think they may just suffer from herding instinct somtimes. Most FT shooters have no personal experiance of the P70. Are you one of them?. What do you shoot and why would you consider that to be better?

There are also a lot of people who have tried them for FT & moved to something else.

I very much doubt us non P70 shooters are suffering from the herd mentality, FT shooters tend to use the best kit available & very few shoot the P70.


I shoot a Walther Dominator for FT & one for HFT, I wouldn't shoot anything else

[RobF]

i think very front heavy is the main crit i've heard...from those that shoot them...and getting fixes is expensive.

i've heard good things from a lot about the accuracy.

the world of 10m and FT are different though, and although a gun can take some aspects over from 10m to FT, the gun needs to be much more for FT's demands. It is often that people pick the guns that suit their best compromised ideals...reliability, fit, accuracy, price, etc...

there's not much between 10m guns, if anything, in accuracy terms, its normally down to feel and balance.

at the end of the day, i dont think there's one gun thats romping it...if you look at the results of the individuals in GP's you'll see Walther, Air Arms, Zenith, FWB, and Ripley have each taken 1 or 2 wins this year, some 2 or 3.

It might be that Steyr are the only make not to have won a national event this year, but i could be wrong.

[BANKROBBER]

...a FWB P70ft in hft.i love it...never let me down in over a year,its front heavy but so much better than me.the trigger is awesome and the build is superb!
infact i have 2...both with custom shop 8-40x56 scopes on.
i see plenty of steyrs....a few dominators and maybe an odd anscutz....but i have never come across another p70 in hft.its not the ideal hunters weapon,but i am not a hunter....i just like the accuracy

ROB

[Falcon25]

...a FWB P70ft in hft.i love it...never let me down in over a year,its front heavy but so much better than me.the trigger is awesome and the build is superb!
infact i have 2...both with custom shop 8-40x56 scopes on.
i see plenty of steyrs....a few dominators and maybe an odd anscutz....but i have never come across another p70 in hft.its not the ideal hunters weapon,but i am not a hunter....i just like the accuracy

ROB

Fully agree Rob, P70 Build is far superior to Anschutz 2002 as is the trigger and 55yd groups it gives. It is also less pellet fussy. I also have 2 P70 but I use Elite 4200 8_32x40 scopes as I found Custom shops to top heavy.
The moto with the P70 is if it aint broke dont mess with it.

[Dr Bob]

Well so far the only problems are with the guys shooting with Pro Targets

Regards, Bob cheap GC2 anyone??

[simona]

I’ve had a P70FT in a P700 alloy chassis (which seems a perfect fit and the same inside as the P70 chassis) for about two-and-a-half years and a Walther Dominator for about a year.

The P70 is capable of extreme long range accuracy; indoors it will shoot tiny 50 yard groups with seemingly any decent pellet. The rub is I can never be certain where those groups will form. Once the P70 is ‘on’ shooting at a white-painted steel plate on my club’s indoor range it is very rare to totally miss a pellet mark at 50 yards. The Walther will occasionally match the P70’s groups with the right slugs but it rarely prints the groups where I don’t expect them. The P70 barrel must be fantastic, the trigger is (to my tastes) the best I’ve ever used, the first stage is like pulling through space plasma and the final break is like snapping an ant’s leg which is made of glass. I also like the cocking method and the direct loading.

I just can’t believe the way the action is mounted in the chassis. At the front there is an A-clamp with a giant grub screw which pushes the barrel up and to the left; everyone seems to either loosen this screw, remove it, or replace it with an O-ring, or in my case a shim. At the rear there are two side screws which act like an axel, there is no ‘bottom’ of the stock and without the barrel A-clamp the whole action pivots on these screws. When everything is in place the action dangles or hangs off the barrel. On my gun the tension on the rear side screws is extremely critical; it will shoot the best groups with the screws totally slack but then the zero moves all the time. With the screws nipped up the gun will only do 1 inch groups at 50 yards but is relatively zero stable. The magic zone of good accuracy and relative zero stability amounts to about 1/8 of a turn on each screw, and they are still so loose that zero can be lost at any time.

I wish the gun were total rubbish then I would just bin it, but in many regards it’s fantastic. In the next few days I should be receiving a wooden P70 stock from Germany, this has a screw hole in the regular place just in front of the trigger in the base of the fore-end (the action still has an M4 hole in this position but this is not used in the alloy stock). I do hope that this will take some weight off the barrel at the A-clamp and stabilise the back end.

The chief bugbear with the P70 might be that it’s very hard to decouple the barrel from the chassis, and while the A-clamp is probably in the sweet spot for supporting the shorter 10 m barrel the long FT barrel is probably held in too far back leading to a requirement for compensations elsewhere to get acceptable performance (i.e. removing A-clamp grub screw, inserting O-rings and in my case loose rear screws).

The split scope mounting has to be better than having both on the breech block, if the barrel moves at least the scope will follow it to some extent. If the barrel moves on a floated Dominator (with both mounts on the breech) then an even greater zero loss will ensue – the thing is the barrel on a fully floated Dominator is far less likely to move at all.

The Dominator is far easier to get to a nice fully floated format and is excellent in every regard. I personally seem to find the Alutec chassis very comfortable too. I can fully understand why it’s far more popular than the P70FT, mine has so far been very reliable, and I feel that I could use it to knock in fence posts without losing zero.

I’m going to persevere with my P70 but given the time I’ve wasted on it so far and the extreme sensitivity of the gun I would find it difficult to recommend it without qualification. From my experience of mine it’s not the choice if you want an easy life. If I had spent the time wasted on fiddling with the P70 practising with the Dominator I would be shooting better.

I’ve had some goodish results with the P70, I came joint 3rd at the Harriers GP last year, despite missing 2 targets miles off to the right at medium range (screws too loose). I think I also got the 3rd highest score at the BFTA interegionals with 33 ex 40 in horrible conditions. I also won a couple of smaller shoots with it. However, I got far more consistent results once I switched to the Dominator.

If the P70 were more reliable then it would be perhaps better than the Dominator for some people. The fact is from my experience it’s nothing like as reliable. I can’t sell the P70 as it is and if I fix it I won’t want to sell it – I think that’s called a Catch-22!

[Dr Bob]

Now thats what I call a reply!

Many thanks, Bob