New to Air Pistols

[sweep]

Hello everyone; I have been enjoying the posts. I never realized how many good air guns there were. I have a question that I hope some of you may help me with. I just bought these pistols and am having a hard time finding anything out about them. They both have boxes and instruction manuals and don't look like they were used. At least not much. One is a Hammerli Rapid CO2 Master Model caliber 4.5/.177 stamped made in Germany, the box is also marked 1048 and the other one is a Winchester Precision Air Pistol Model 353 .177 caliber. Manual says made in West Germany. This one is not CO2.
What I would like to know is when these were made, are these good guns, are they very accurate, are they at all collectable, and what should be shot through them?
Anything anyone can tell me about these would be greatly appreciated as I can't seem to find any information on them at all.
Thank You

[Firestorm]

Can't help with this I'm afraid, but welcome to the forum..

Russ

[Iain K D]

The Winchester 353 would appear to be the German Original Diana Model 5, dating fom the 1960s or 70s, obviously just being sold under the Winchester brand. I'm not sure for how much of this period they were actually sold under the Winchester name, that is just the production of the german-made gun.

Certainly a good quality gun from a reputable maker, although not a fully fledged target pistol as it does recoil (the externally similar Model 6 used opposing pistons to balance each other out, giving no vibration on firing).

Although probably more worth keeping as a collectable, if you want to shoot it any .177" lead pellet can be used, although a lighter weight flathead (like RWS Hobby) would probably be a good first choice to try.

Hope this helps,

Iain

[sweep]

Thank you for the welcome and thank you for the information. That helps me out alot. Now I'll just wait to see if anyone has knowledge of the Hammerli. I think I read on a post these were late 60s gun or around there somewhere.
Thanks Again
Tom

[Snapshot]

Hammerli is a Swiss manufacturer of top-end target guns and its web site is here. Clicking on History then Timeline may help - it doesn't work for me but I may have something disabled in IE.

Jonathan

[sweep]

Thanks for the website Snapshot. It didn't work for me either but I have an email to them.
Thanks again.

[Arch.Stanton?]

....Pm VIC THOMPSON on here - top bloke and a real collector and airgun enthusiast - he knows a lot about Hammerli or ask LAURIE AMATRUDA on here - again top bloke and knows his co2 pistols .