Products of youth

[ggggr]

Sort of a follow up to the "guns of youth " thread from a bit back. Having got a Diana 27 off here with a Parker hale scope ramp on it (think its says we 1) it made me think of a couple of things from the mid 70,s to early 80,s. I remember paying £4 for a Cardew spring for my meteor which had a flat spot on the cylinder. I remember "triflon"---Hated the smell and it dieseled like hell if you didnt let the carriers evaporate. Those horrible Jackal pellets in the tube--they were pointed pellets but seemed to be poorly made and the points were knobily. Champion hunter pellets .22 pointed pellets with a flat point. I remember shooting down the garden with the meteor at some buttercups. I fired about 30 pellets and the group on the fence was about the size of a 2p piece. I tried h+n pointed and RWS hobby when they were cheap. I saw the LEM pellet moulds advertised in AGW. I remember the Manchester Airguns .25 mercury coming out--Did it have a special name and has anybody still got one? let you lot ramble on now.

[yoshiwolves]

yea i remember all those,,,, do you remember the "lanes" pellet clip ? still got mine ,
atb
paul

[jonnyone]

Yeah I remember all those. There were a couple of LEM moulds on sale recently (one still is at .20-wished I was quick enough to buy the .177). I have a .22 but havent cast a bullet in quite a few years now

Many of the adverts in AGW back in those days made me drool (see Optima advertsing blurb for the '35E).

One of the little gems in AGW as a product was the MAG FSR springs. For a fiver you had a top quality spring that was an excellent starting point for any tune up. Sadly no longer available- but had one in my '80 until not that long ago and only changed it to upgrade to one of B&C excellent tune kits.

Ahhhh- those rose tinted specs

[fat man]

Ah Nostalga!, yes to all youre points, i still have my lanes pellet clip somewhere in the depth of the gun cabinets. Jackal pellets , yes they were crap!, anyone remember Lanes Heveyweight pellets in .177, came in a silver coloured tin, and the Lem moulds,. Feel quite tearful with remembering now ! all the great guns i should have bought !

[smallholder1]

i had a LEM mould took a bit of practice but started making pellets in the end,real heavy weights only had a diana at the time pellets did not come out the barrel very fast but i enjoyed myself.

[MrGreengrass]

Good evening,
I remember all of the products mentioned....for being a let down.
The pellet moulds were especially horrendous,they made the lanes and jackals look accurate.
.The things we thought that were good..
.The amount of times i used to waste money on half researched crap..i can't believe i was ever so gullible...
..errr..still am..with ammo..must stop at once
.still, life is boring with no mistakes

[keith66]

I had an LEM mould, the pellets it produced had a trajectory like a howitzer.
Our local fishing tackle shop used to sell a large range of evil looking knives & Relum airguns. The cheapest pellet was Beatall & actually they were not that bad.
And those horrible scopes by webley 4 x 15, like looking down an old bit of gas barrel.

[ggggr]

If you are throwing any of those Webley 4 x 15,s (4 x 20,s) or any bsa scopes or reflexes out, please throw them here!
I remember Millets used to have Diana,s for sale and some sort of pump action thing that I think was foreign made. Czech? Also a lot of fishing tackle shops, pet shops and toy shops also sold airguns, again usually Milbro. I can even remember when a lot of newsagents had gats in the window as well as the little Milbro catapult.

[richywilk]

I remember buying Marksman pellets in a cardboard carton from my local toy shop in the late 70's and drooling over my dad's mate's AR7 Jackel with a single point site on it, I only had an ASI sniper then.

[ggggr]

I remember a Pram shop!/toy shop that sold pellets and my mother had to sign the book. Looking back I think it was a good idea. A lot of rules are just there to P-ss us off but I think the shop was doing us a favour on the quiet. I wouldnt have a problem giving address when buying a tin of pellets if it meant that we could go back to Airguns in sports shops, pet shops and aquariums.

[ggggr]

I though Id give this a bump up. Has anyone got any more good or bad memories of products or where they bought them from? I remember when nearly all pet shops/fishing tackle shops sold Milbro guns and also pellets. I think there were the odd crossbows as well. Im sure gats were sold in lots of shops---Ive mentioned a toy shop in a post above and Im sure I saw gats in newsagents. What about "miracle products" and tuning stuff and lubricants?

[fat man]

The BSA RS1 Reflex sight, read an article in AGW, think Xmas 1980. With spare xmas money i had bought one for my Bsa Meteor mark 5 in .22. I can remember being disapointed with it until i got used to it over a tin of pellets (real ely wasps) . It was useless in confined spaces due to white aiming mark but great on rats if you had enough light to pick out aiming mark. I still have both gun and RS 1 sight. Allways wanted one of the Singlepoint sights after seing on a Jackal AR7 or better still an Aimpoint Red Dot made in Sweedon. Oh well nostalga is a good thing,. Also Hw45, when they first came out you could get a shoulder stock to turn in to a carbine. Couldnt afford at time as not working, when i returned to airguns it was the first pistool i bought and shortly afterwards the shoulder stock to go with it. Well worth the wait.

[westy1946]

I remember the "Gatts" you had to unscrew a pin at the back of the barrel put a pellet in and replace the pin, take aim, sqeeze the trigger, and only god knows where the pellet went.

A mate had one, and had his collar felt one sunday morning going fishing, he was shooting it walking up a country lane in (Wooton Wawen) Nr Stratford -upon-Avon, he was given a bollocking by this copper, it put the wind up him and that gun has lived on the bottom of the canal for the last 51 years. LOL

[I. J.]

Must be great to be old. I cant wait.

Heres ONE for Dave.

ATB
Ian

[harry mac]

Airgun World advert that ran for over a year proclaiming"THE OX IS COMING" no mention of what it was. Then Gunsport launched the OX mainspring writers raved abot it, they flew out of the shops, and nearly every Webley Hawk in the land was ruined by them (mine included).