Guns of youth--Which ones?

[I. J.]

..I missed the top...hit the tyre and the rebound just missed my gonads..... happy days.

Glad Im not the only Wally on this forum. Im my case it was Dunlops finest, an .22 Airsporter and just above my eye.

Pumping those cartridges made me the man I am today.
rod

Im glad I stayed with springers then.


My early airgun teen years involved a tatty Diana G34 bought for 50p which eventually, after many thousands of shots, gave up the struggle to survive. It was replaced by a brand new (£12! ) Diana G34 which gave sterling service until replaced with an, as new, BSA Airsporter. It was several years before I discovered purity in the form of German airguns.

ATB
Ian

[roll27]

1st pistol was a Diana sp50, a christmas pressy when I was 11 back in 1975 from that moment on I went airgun mad, all birthdays, x'mas's, paper round money went on airguns. Still have all from my youth all minters. Diana 79 22, ASI SNIPER 22, BSA METEOR 177, BSA SCORPION 22, CROSSMAN 766, ORIGINAL 6 PISTOL 177, and my pride and joys ASI STATICAL 22, JACKAL HI-POWER 22. All forgotten about until mother wanted them cleared from her house 2 years back. Collected them, realised what I'd been missing. Since then have been collecting airguns I always hankered after as a kid.Up to about 25 now and still after the elusive JACKAL WOODSMAN 8" BARREL, AND HAMERLI 420 ABS PLASTIC MILITARY STOCK, anyone got one for sale? Also amazed at what was produced in the meantime, they also interest me but thats another thread. cheers Roll

[mallyally]

forgot to mention the Saxby Palmer Galaxy .22 that I won from Airgun World.

My first brush with pneumatisism.

Straight off to Manchester Airguns to acquire more cartridges than the five supplied. Worn in a 12g cartridge belt I looked the biz. ( a bit of a pillock on the bus tho' ). Pumping those cartridges made me the man I am today.

Anyway it was nicked by one of my sister,s gruesome and chemically addled suitors who was caught with it whilst breaking into a chemist. He still languishes at HM's pleasure and I never saw the rifle again.

For it's time it really was a remarkable air rifle.

it's funny the memories this forum triggers

regs

rod

saxby and palmer
i had one of those but with the big (one and a half pumps ) pump
so it was easy /should have kept that one
bought it out of the wifes catalogue /when you could do that

[ggggr]

All interesting stuff. Ive tried to educate my nephew and nieces in the right way (they are all adults now) and so far it has cost me a Bsa mk5 meteor,a Daisy 922 pump up,a Hawk mk3,a Webley junior mk2 pistol, a Webley ranger,a Diana 15, a Diana mk 4 pistol,a Diana G4 pistol,a Diana 22,a Meteor mk4 and a Webley Falcon-----Also a modern Webley Typhoon but we wont mention that. Almost forgot, I did a mk5 meteor for my mates lad. I quite like to tinker but it can get bloody expensive. I get the guns in "used" condition and just get them up and running safely. Sometimes I reblue and sometimes I refinish the stocks,usually with an oiled finish----I do like them to look their age. The Hawk mk3 I got was in brilliant condition. I reckon It had fired less than 500 shots from new. It was too good for me to justify keeping really which is why I passed it on to my nephew.
Keep the thread going please.

[heirflick]

Kicked off at the ripe old age of 10 with the all accurate & powerful Gat, firing darts.
Progressed up the ranks to a Biakal IJ38 .177, this was power in comparison to the Gat.
An Xmas prezzie around the age of 13 was a .22 BSA Meteor, now im in the real league, I dont think there was anything left without a hole in it.
At 14 I saved for weeks to buy an HW77, purchased from a shop down the road from Streatham Armoury, managed to crack the stock fitting a silencer, Yes, my gunsmithing skills were extremely poor at the time.
At 19, purchased another 77 this time from Streatham Armoury, what a shop.
Still have the Meteor & second 77 which I would not sell for love nor money

[robs5230]

first nice one a vulcan mk1 .
always wanted a titan mohawk or jb1
i can remember ogling the blue streak and silver streak in a local sports shop in the seventies but i was a kid.
wanted a brocock herald for the looks.
now just crave pump up pneumatics - shot more rabbits with an innova than all my other guns for the last 20 years !!!!!!
oh and i think the p h phoenix is a bit of a looker !

[Muskett]

Shot my first rabbit with a Webley MKIII and 4x20 BSA scope (good quality one). I had to take my feet off the ground to cock it
Realized it was rubbish and saved up to exchange the Webley for a FWB Sport .177; WH35's were way too heavy. What a rifle and it accounted for a lot of vermin. Scopes were always a problem and I never did get a Moonlighter; have now Kassnar were not as hgood as the press would have you believe and big scopes were not great either.
Finally, upgraded to a Theoben Sirocco and went through a couple.
Always .177 and shot placement was everything.

Then took a break for 18 years and shot proper rifles.

Now, back to air power and have had pretty much everything I wanted back then. I shoot a Sport again. Wow, how disappointing so many of the old stuff was out of the box.

Good rifles are:
FWB Sport, HW77, Sharp Innova, Original 45, Theobens and Vulcan.
The Sharps are still hard work to keep working and pump. The Vulcan MKI is still great for the £ though out classed; the rest are frankly poor until the Omega. The HW35E are a bit hit and miss and in .177 loose a bit on the power stakes; heavy but accurate (its the trigger that wins). The Anschutz 335 is nice but well low on power and a bit basic, accurate though. Get a good Original 45 and they are outstanding but most are very average; .177 are the better bet. BSF are fine but extremely dated and far from perfect. BSA's Airsporter S or Mercurry's are very average if not poor.

Theobens have always been very good but you pay for it and the companies after sale service is rather robust and expensive.

If I was to only have two old springers then it would be a FWB Sport and a HW77. Scopes before 1986 from Tasco and Optima were great. After this date you have to be very canny to were a particular model was made and when. Most makes were only good for a couple of years; just look at Simmons and Nikko.

[Old Brass]

THE WEBLEY VICTOR i owned one back in the 80s along with a new venom 77 varminter..

the victor had something about it that i just love to this day...i had an 'airforce' mod i believe it was fitted to it with a 'hunter' 4x32.

happy days.

id pay well to find a victor now

[richywilk]

My Dad gave me an ASI Sniper for my 9th birthday but had to wait till my
16th to get the fwb sport, £84.95 from Optima!! those were the day's.
Rich

[Grayling]

I've now got all the rifles I owned in my younger days.

Feinwerkbau Sport 127.
Air Arms Highpower.
Air Arms Camargue.
Vemon HW80.

I wouuld like a little AR17 was it Crossman or Daisy they were great fun in the garden.

Maybe one of the Sheridans. Apart from those I'm happy with what I've got .

[Pad. E]

I've now got all the rifles I owned in my younger days.

Feinwerkbau Sport 127.
Air Arms Highpower.
Air Arms Camargue.
Vemon HW80.

I wouuld like a little AR17 was it Crossman or Daisy they were great fun in the garden.

Maybe one of the Sheridans. Apart from those I'm happy with what I've got .

Hi Gary.

It was made by Crosman. I brought mine with me to the Collectable shoot at Rivi. Next time we meet up I'll bring it along.

Regards
Paddy.

[edbear2]

For me.....used to share guns in our "gang".......thats the tree climbing, egg collecting, den building type, not the currant incarnation!....so it was cadet, cadet major, one or two of "borrowed" prewars from dads and relatives....then a couple of us got meteors , my first actual "airgun" was a daisy winchester "spittin image" BB repeater (big cowboy fan at the time!)...crimbo gift.....I was too grateful to say I actually had wanted a "proper" air rifle......ie with rifling, that shot lead.....but it was a 40 shot repeater, which gave me the edge as I made my mates squeal as they tried to reload their single shot guns I also soon learned how to duck whilst shooting it at a steel target trap.......the BBs come straight back at you!!!!!!.......got loads of my friends, and even my dad with this.......looking back we could have been blinded, but compared to the airgun battles we had wearing old goggles and tin hats ....it was pretty good range discipline for us...happy days

[ratgunner]

I was given an Original Mod 22 ( I think ) in .177cal around 1952 it had a brass lined barrel and was deadly accurate, my Brother and I used to shoot at cards side on at around thirty feet and every 5 or 6,000 pellets we would hit one so it must have been??

In 1953 my Brother bought me a Webley Junior .177 which took weeks of grunting and sweating before my puny little arms could cock it, I still have it and shoot it regularly, strangely enough the older I get the harder it is to cock?

[lodmoor]

Diane Mod 2, the pop out, used to take it to school in a holster, actually shot the bum of a disbeliever in class when I was about 12. Not PC!

[bozzer]

Webley Hawke ( I'm sure it's spelled with an E )

Fixed barrel 0.22

Always used open sights

Bought it when I was 17 from the local Sports shop.

Boz