Webley Raider 2 shot review

[Greylag]

Hello All,

Just bought for my middle son a Webley Raider 2 shot in .22 calibre off the BSAOG this has a Hawke 4 x 32 scope fitted. The gun itself is a Birmingham made one oldish but in very good condition.

I set it up indoors along my landing as usual only 10 yards but near enough to let it be fine tuned later.

This is what I thought :-

The gun itself is fairly heavy but manageable, the blueing is very good for the age and hardly touched. The woodwork is not the best but as it's for rat and vermin shooting pretty wood is not my main concern, accuracy is everything to my mind. Sling swivels are fitted but will probably never be used.

The Bolt action is quite smooth and easy to operate without any heavy tugging and I could cycle the second shot without taking my eye from the scope. The 2 shot shuttle system performed faultlessly. The shuttle is spring operated, a pellet is loaded in the left hand side of the shuttle, the shuttle is then pushed to the right and the gun cocked and a second pellet loaded into the right hand side. Once the gun is fired you simply work the bolt and the shuttle slides effortlessly across to the left to bring the second pellet into line with the barrel.

The power was around 11.1 ft/lbs according to the seller and I've no reason not to believe that, over the few shots I had the power didn't seem to deviate at all. Accuracy wise once the scope was set up by firing groups of 4 shots and adjusting it in between to zero it, I got it on target. I shot groups of 4 pellets, putting 4 through the centre of the first target and had one flyer from the next 4 which was only about 1/8" astray the other 3 again went in the centre. I was well pleased with the accuracy although it was set at close range it should be a simple matter to raise the elevation and fine tune the scope to the working range.

All in all a well engineered and reasonable looking air rifle. As most people will know the Birmingham Webleys were well known for their robustness and accuracy and this one was on par with any of the Webleys I've owned and used over the years, the Hawk, Tracker, Ospey, Venom Viper, Raider and Tempest to name a few.

I would recommend the early Webleys to anyone thinking of buying a cheap pcp or springer for plinking or as a starter air rifle, as for the ones made abroad I can't say having never used them.

Regards

[gunman1981]

Totally agree with what you are saying about the raider, I own one and the only thing I can fault is the weight, gets a bit much after a while for me, but I suffer with shoulder ligament problems so a fully fit person should have no problems!
As for the accuracy its great 10-35 yrds pretty much pellet on pellet, after 45 yrd it drops off but manageable. I haven't chrono'd it but stops tree rats/rabbit and pigeons perfectly at 35yrds
id definitely recommend one as a cheap pcp, reliable and robust