Hi this is my review of the Diana 280K.

I recently had a load of bills arrive (sick dog, sick car and bad tooth) so I decided to sell my PCP airgun

I had a BSA Ultra and the Diana , I needed some cash and ummed and arred about whether to sell , finances eventually won and I sold the BSA. I sorted out my finances and kept the Diana. I hadn't really shot the Diana a lot but just decided to keep practicing as I knew I could shoot a springer ok If I really practiced and kept my eye in.

I had always liked the look of the Dianas and handled the 280K at the gun shop prior to buying .

I am one of those shooters who regularly change guns and now had decided to keep the Diana .



Having bit the bullet sold the BSA and divers bottle ( point of no return!) and kept the Diana I now wondered If I had made the right choice !.



The gun was bought new the good points seemed to be



Carbine barrel good for shooting out of a hide



Threaded for a silencer



Fairly light ( about 7LB I believe)



Decent TR06 trigger (which get a very good write up)



Seemed decent build quality , I rattled and shook gun apart from a very slight rattle from cocking link all seemed tight and well put together.



Bolt on barrel pivot rather than a pin so barrel can be tightened up should it become loose at all in future



Decent length raised scope rail as I use a scope



Nice grained stock , the gun has a large cocking arm as it isn't articulated so the cocking arm slot in the stock is long ( though having had a gun with a articulated cocking arm which graunched and scraped the cylinder may be not a bad thing?)



Gun just felt nice when I picked it up, well balanced for me.

I had previously had BSA, HW ect and Diana was a bit of an unknown quantity , I had shot a Diana G80 in the eighties and it seemed as good if not better than the BSA of the day but that was a long time ago.

I had purchased the gun and gone home to sight it in in my garden. The gun at fifteen meters had been fine an inch to inch and a half group at fifteen yards. Not very good but I am not the best shooter and I had been spoilt by the PCP.



With the BSA gone I decided to strip the Diana which appeared through the cocking slot to be bone dry and just add a little grease. The gun was indeed bone dry so I added some grease to the spring, and to the rear of the piston. The gun had a bit less Twang and I took it out to a small holding and shot it out to 25 meters .

The gun was hard to cock, harder than a Theoben gas ram I had previously used after an a hours session plinking my accuracy went to pot due in part to a very tired arm from repeatedly cocking the gun!! .

I have a manual job and I am not a weakling ,I have shot HW8/77k, Theoben gas rams with no issues so I would say cocking effort (pre tune) is a real issue with these

I was shooting two inch groups at 25 meters so accuracy was not good enough for hunting ,at fifteen is was very good but just seemed to open up past that range . The gun had a lot of boing! a lot of twang and quite fierce recoil which wasn't aiding accuracy.



Back to PCP? no I decided to preserve and I sent to the gun off to Sandwell Field sports . I knew a friend who had a Sandwell tuned HW95 and used it to shoot feral pigeons up to twenty meters he rated his highly and stated accuracy was no issue with head shots easily obtainable. I also googled Sandwell the main information was U tube videos from Si PITTWAY from Vermin Hunters . He clearly rated the tuning work done by Sandwell. I am always a little sceptical of some one promoting any thing whether it be cars or guns but his videos appeared genuine and honest and showed some good results so I took the plunge.



I emailed Sandwell and received a prompt and polite reply stating he could tune the gun as required. I posted the gun off and was advised it would take 8- 10 weeks to return .



I posted the gun and was pleasantly surprised to get a telephone call advising it had arrived which was a nice touch from any company these days .



The gun was returned just under eight weeks later. the gun had been better packed than I had sent it which again was good service.



Tony the owner had put a nice note in advising me of the guns favourite pellet (superdomes) which was nice as he had clearly taken the time to test fire the gun. I had used up a tin of Flat head hobby pellets but the Superdomes halved the group sizes so nice touch testing and recommending a pellet and saved me buying loads of different pellets to experiment



The gun was now.....



Easy to cock



No twang



Lot less vibration



Lot less recoil



Able to shoot decent groups out to 25 meters



The photo below shows test results from zeroing in at ten and fifteen meters , I have shot the gun at the small holding the gun is now capable of inch or less groups at 25 meters . The photo of target's shows a typical group rather than best and the five shot group on the roundel target is 15 meters with a flyer extending group on left of group (courtesy of yours truly!). The group on the squirrel target is five shots at ten meters.



I would recommend Sandwell what ever has been done has transferred the Diana from a ok run of the mill gun into a very accurate sweet shooting rifle . I had asked Tony to set the power at 9.5 FTLB ++ with a view to less power , less recoil, he has got it shooting really nice at 10.5 FTLB and advised it should settle in at 11FTLB . It shoots fantastic so I am very pleased



The Diana (like most springers I have owned from a range of manufacturers ) needs a tune to get the best out of it but is a nice rifle . If I bought another I would get it tuned straight off .Great service from Tony and Sandwell fields sports .