Webley Telescan

[Muskett]

First off I have a Webley Telescan for sale £75 including post. Comes in its box and with all the parts including the rubber eye extension which is the reason for the high price. Its the first one I've found in ten years complete. I have a soft spot for this Webley system.

Now I've done the mercenary part here is my take on the Webley Telescan:

Webley brought out this Scout scope system in about 1981. Single Point red dot sights were in vogue at the time too; so this was Webley's answer. The Telescan promised a lot in Webley's advertising. A scout set up that would be fast and deadly accurate. It was meant to compliment the new Webley Vucan and looked too the part. For us very young impressionable musketeers it looked the biz. The scout system was a relatively radical concept and had quite a following in America for full bore hunting rifles; in truth the concept was even older. The Telescan also overcame any variations in break barrel lock up being mounted on the barrel. To fit the new Vulcan or older Webley Hawk it had potential. The mount could also fit HW 35, FWB Sports and the Original 45.

All very good, and the scope system is a pretty good sighting system using quality pistol scopes. However, typical Webley skimped on the important bit by having a pretty standard cheap pistol scope as used on their Hurricane and Tempest pistols (BSA used pretty much the same one too I believe). With a fine cross hair and pretty poor glass its just not a great scope. If only they had used a better quality scope then the Telescan would have been a winner, but Webley was always cheap, pile it high sell it cheap. No wonder they kept going bust. The system does work and looks the part but the poor optics slows everything down. No better really than open sights, just sexier. The Single Point though not perfect was much better. A decent 4x40 scope a whole lot better.

The Telescan is an important collectable air rifle optic in my opinion. Very Webley of its time and compliments the underrated Vulcan superbly; or a hawk for that matter. No, it might not be great but they are rare as hens teeth. A mint Vulcan still only achieves £140 but is a very good rifle. The Telescan just makes one super interesting.

Finally, I have my collection pretty much complete, but I do have a bit of a bug bear of other collectors. They don't give period optics their due importance that they should. In my opinion a 80's onward rifle is not complete without a period scope. Collectors are putting high importance on having the open sights but thats not how the rifles were used. Frankly a rifle from this period onwards is undressed without a scope... and the right scope to boot.

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