BSA 240 magnum.

[tinbum]

I was lucky enough to have one of these arrive in the post today! it's in .22 flavour, boxed with paperwork and in very good, almost time-warp condition with only slight wear marks from (presumably) careful use.
I'd heard many bad reports about this gun being snappy and hard to shoot so had no real expectations of accuracy. The only .22 pellets I had around were a few dozen mixed rubbish ones that had been discarded over the years, badly oxidised and mainly misshaped, but they'd do for playing in the garden.
The first thing that struck me was the weight, or lack of it! It seems very light for a full power spring pistol. Much lighter than the hw45 and considerably smaller too. it feels particularly narrow, not necessarily in a bad way. Cocking it is easy with all the clicks and snicks sounding positive and as is they were well engineered. It was a surprise to see the barrel stopping well short of the front of the pistol, but as soon as I saw it a memory surfaced of this being a design feature to reduce muzzle blast. I'll have to look that up in a bit. Loading the pellet is easy and access is good, and I like auto safety on all guns, so happy there too.
With my target at 6yds I went for a loose hold with my middle finger under the trigger guard taking most of the weight and just reaching my thumb with the other fingers in a definite cameo role to the performance. Brought the gun up to the target, take up the fir...BANG! ..st stage. Buggrit! That was light! Ok, lesson learnt, try again. Up, squeeze, bang. That's better.
Given the quality of the pellets I was happy with the 6yd group being just over the inch mark edge to edge with flyers which I'll charitably put down to particularly bad ones. I'm gonna get some geckos or hobby's and see if I can find the time to shoot the whole tin and get more acquainted with it.
I enjoy plinking with pistols, springers especially, and this has not disappointed in any way. I'm looking forward to some happy times with this little beeza.

[Mattatack]

yes they are a nice little pistol full of little quirks! i have a couple(long story) and it proves we could build something that matched the germans at a time. my favourite little bit on them is the rear catch that gently releases the overlever much better than the hw45. enjoy it mate they will be very collectable one day.

[ratgunner]

Congratulations on getting a great British gun,

They are so light because they are made of Duralumin or Dural Aluminium which is aircraft quality,
and not cheap and a bitch! to machine, they like vintage pellets in 5.56mm or old .22
but will swallow RWS Superdomes quite happily, I have the .177 version and must admit they are a snappy
little gun much like the Walther PPK when we Adults were allowed guns, the butts take walnut oil very nicely
but use the quick drying Parker Hale stuff as you just have to keep picking the little Buggers! up

Knibbs near Warwick have a lot of spares, HTH, Bernard.

[tinbum]

Durillium eh? sounds a bit star trek dunnit! I think I'm gonna get a new breech seal as this one seems a bit "gummy"! It's only cheap and can't hurt.
The serial number is AN03535, any idea when it was made?
I haven't used eley wasps for many years, but it sounds like they could be just the ticket.

[harvey_s]

I liked mine a lot, so much more compact and lightweight than an HW45.
They are quite hold sensitive though, probably because they sit a bit higher in the hand maybe and theres less mass to damp the recoil.
They're not quite full power, but at about 4.5 ft/lbs they're not far off (I've not seen an un-dieseling HW45 doing more than 5.2 ft/lbs over the chrono anyway)
RWS Super Mags worked very well in mine.
The only piece of advice I'd offer is that despite there being dovetails, forget any form of optical sight unless you fit adjustable mounts as you'll run out of elevation trying to zero it.
But they're a still a great gun and I never could figure out why they stopped making them...