if only

[fatttmannn]

Heres one that made me ponder. Today we have one Brtish ownded firm that makes Springers- Air Arms. Yes I know they use german barells and I talian stocks but hey lets not split hairs. Bsa is a Gammo subsidery and Webley yes they stamp there names on guns made and sourced elesewhere and then charge a premium cos its a webley ( which it aint its a Hatsan Now I like Hatsans myself, have a 60 in .22, I allso have The Stingray 2 which is the same gun so what do you think could have saved our gun industry then heres my take. investment was last on the list, management maybe, industrial relations, again possibly. I think it came down to the quallity of the product myself. A Webley from say 1950 was much better made than say the Hawk of the 70,s . My own Hawk series 2 ( with both barells s a nice gun, but on quallity it is way below my Falcon. so what do you lot think then

[aimless]

Hi, I hear sometimes similar complaints about the big three Anschütz, Weihrauch, Diana: plastic parts instead of metal parts, no strict controls before sending to customer or dealer and the wood-work not as good, as in the 60ies or before.

The problem IMHO here is, that they must offer some products in the affordable price-range from about 280....400/500 euros but the income / wages of the average customer did not rise within the last 25 years. So they lower the quality of their products.

Not for all offered guns, but in the mentioned range I think so.

PS: I owned once an classic RALEIGH bicycle : perfect built. Now they sold the name to a foreign company I guess: look at their products now Other sold brand-name: GRUNDIG: now turkish

[gordon]

Hi, I hear sometimes similar complaints about the big three Anschütz, Weihrauch, Diana: plastic parts instead of metal parts, no strict controls before sending to customer or dealer and the wood-work not as good, as in the 60ies or before.

The problem IMHO here is, that they must offer some products in the affordable price-range from about 280....400/500 euros but the income / wages of the average customer did not rise within the last 25 years. So they lower the quality of their products.

Not for all offered guns, but in the mentioned range I think so.

PS: I owned once an classic RALEIGH bicycle : perfect built. Now they sold the name to a foreign company I guess: look at their products now Other sold brand-name: GRUNDIG: now turkish

That brings back memories, my first" proper" road bike was a Raleigh Blue Streak . Mates would sing..." Ride a Raleigh ride a wreak, ride a Raleigh and break your neck" always beat em though

[fatttmannn]

Hi, I hear sometimes similar complaints about the big three Anschütz, Weihrauch, Diana: plastic parts instead of metal parts, no strict controls before sending to customer or dealer and the wood-work not as good, as in the 60ies or before.

The problem IMHO here is, that they must offer some products in the affordable price-range from about 280....400/500 euros but the income / wages of the average customer did not rise within the last 25 years. So they lower the quality of their products.

Not for all offered guns, but in the mentioned range I think so.

PS: I owned once an classic RALEIGH bicycle : perfect built. Now they sold the name to a foreign company I guess: look at their products now Other sold brand-name: GRUNDIG: now turkish

100% agree, most of my 35,s are early to late 70s, the walnut has some fantastic grain on them, I had a Raleigh Cycle has well.

[fatttmannn]

That brings back memories, my first" proper" road bike was a Raleigh Blue Streak . Mates would sing..." Ride a Raleigh ride a wreak, ride a Raleigh and break your neck" always beat em though

yes thats the model I had, lovded it to bits. Sold it to buy my first HW35 in 1979, I was not long turned 14 still have the rifle still dose 11.2 with air arms domes.
seems a bloody long time ago.

[look no hands]

How many threads have come up recently about the quality of modern BSA spring rifles, I've always said that the quality has gone down hill since the demise of the Mercury Challenger and they don't even make underlevers anymore, they just seem to keep peddling the same old crappy Supersport design, which just gets worse and worse with every design change they make, instead of revamping and reinventing the same thing, why don't they sit down and design a proper break barrel (preferably one that looks like the Mercury to give it a bit of character) with a decent trigger and a bloody breach bolt and then people may start singing their praises again, Webley are too far gone now and will only rely on putting there name on any old tat (not saying that Hatsan are tat but compared to what Webley where producing before the Turks took over, they're even putting their name on Chinese rifles) that will make their management company money, you can thank AGS for that.

I suppose in theory at least BSA are still making most of the parts (barrels etc) which is a bit more than what AA are doing but it's just the quality of the product and the way it's slapped together compared to AA, I wonder if a British company made a decent barrel as good as the German ones and the same with the stocks, would AA go over to them?

Pete

[fatttmannn]

How many threads have come up recently about the quality of modern BSA spring rifles, I've always said that the quality have gone down hill since the demise of the Mercury Challenger and they don't even make underlevers anymore, they just seem to keep peddling the same old crappy Supersport design, which just gets worse and worse with every design change they make, instead of revamping and reinventing the same thing, why don't they sit down and design a proper break barrel (preferably one that looks like the Mercury to give it a bit of character) with a decent trigger and a bloody breach bolt and then people may start singing their praises again, Webley are too far gone now and will only rely on putting there name on any old tat that will make their management company money, you can thank AGS for that.

Pete

yes a lot of sense there but I fear it may be to far gone for BSA, like you I have a few older models( mainly Airsporters and Mercureys, I did have a nice Lightning which was let down by a very poor triguer. The Lightning is on long term lend to a mates family and used in the garden to deal with rats after the chickens eggs and a few squirrals. The modern BSA it isnt is it, its a Gammo. Now I have and and enjoy older Gammo springers , I have a ASI Paratropper single shot .22 and the Statical again in .22, both are good if not powerful plinkers/ close in hunters of a average quality. In no way do they compare in quality to my Bsa of that period and that includes my Meteor Standard series 5 in .22.

[look no hands]

yes a lot of sense there but I fear it may be to far gone for BSA, like you I have a few older models( mainly Airsporters and Mercureys, I did have a nice Lightning which was let down by a very poor triguer. The Lightning is on long term lend to a mates family and used in the garden to deal with rats after the chickens eggs and a few squirrals. The modern BSA it isnt is it, its a Gammo. Now I have and and enjoy older Gammo springers , I have a ASI Paratropper single shot .22 and the Statical again in .22, both are good if not powerful plinkers/ close in hunters of a average quality. In no way do they compare in quality to my Bsa of that period and that includes my Meteor Standard series 5 in .22.

The earlier Lightnings and S/sports can retro fit the Super/Goldstar two stage trigger unit which improves the rifle ten fold, this is the thing which annoys the hell out of me about BSA, they can easily fit the Goldstar two stage unit and even put a breach bolt on the newer rifles as they've done it before with the Supersport SS model, for the cost of the parts needed, I don't think it would cost much more and it's not as if they have to spend loads on R&D as the parts have already been designed and used successfully in the past, I did hear that production of the Supersport is now being done in the UK again, which I suppose is good as the build quality should improve but what about the quality of the components themself, I read a thread the other day from Venoman (http://www.airgunbbs.com/showthread....hlight=Venoman) saying how shocked he was about the internal finishing on a Lightning, the new gas ram models have proved to be shite as well, it seems all BSA want to do is put a different stock on it every few years (a bit like what Theoben did towards the end) and hope it rekindles new interest, the thing is the Supersport is nearly a thirty year old design now (and that was a redesign of the meteor) and is getting a bit long in the tooth, what it needs is either a complete new designed rifle or put the improvements I've already said (trigger and breach bolt as well as others) and make the internal parts better fitting (spring and guide come to mind and a top hat that would cost pence to make, wouldn't go a miss) with tighter tolerances to compete with the other makers out there, if AA can do it then so can anyone else, Quality over quantity!

Like already said by other members like TonyL, if BSA cleaned their act up and produced a superb built rifle then a lot of people would buy it, even if it was for nostalgia reasons, people's respect for BSA is quickly waning (seasoned shooters know about the problems and new to the sport shooters, find out to their cost after buying) but if they produced something to compete with the other makers then it could just help them out the mire, by all means keep the cheaper end of the market going as someone has to start somewhere but there are better made rifles out there for half the money BSA charge.

Pete

[fatttmannn]

The earlier Lightnings and S/sports can retro fit the Super/Goldstar two stage trigger unit which improves the rifle ten fold, this is the thing which annoys the hell out of me about BSA, they can easily fit the Goldstar two stage unit and even put a breach bolt on the newer rifles as they've done it before with the Supersport SS model, for the cost of the parts needed, I don't think it would cost much more and it's not as if they have to spend loads on R&D as the parts have already been designed and used successfully in the past, I did hear that production of the Supersport is now being done in the UK again, which I suppose is good as the build quality should improve but what about the quality of the components themself, I read a thread the other day from Venoman (http://www.airgunbbs.com/showthread....hlight=Venoman) saying how shocked he was about the internal finishing on a Lightning, the new gas ram models have proved to be shite as well, it seems all BSA want to do is put a different stock on it every few years (a bit like what Theoben did towards the end) and hope it rekindles new interest, the thing is the Supersport is nearly a thirty year old design now (and that was a redesign of the meteor) and is getting a bit long in the tooth, what it needs is either a complete new designed rifle or put the improvements I've already said (trigger and breach bolt as well as others) and make the internal parts better fitting (spring and guide come to mind and a top hat that would cost pence to make, wouldn't go a miss) with tighter tolerances to compete with the other makers out there, if AA can do it then so can anyone else, Quality over quantity!

Like already said by other members like TonyL, if BSA cleaned their act up and produced a superb built rifle then a lot of people would buy it, even if it was for nostalgia reasons, people's respect for BSA is quickly waning (seasoned shooters know about the problems and new to the sport shooters, find out to their cost after buying) but if they produced something to compete with the other makers then it could just help them out the mire, by all means keep the cheaper end of the market going as someone has to start somewhere but there are better made rifles out there for half the money BSA charge.

Pete

yes 100% on all of that, and totally agree re the Theobens, have to admit I despair somtimes at the future may well be we have no UK ownded gun firms remember when we had a motor bike/ car industry, hell once we made quallity products on evreything, now "that will do " seems to be the norm

[Andy001]

The earlier Lightnings and S/sports can retro fit the Super/Goldstar two stage trigger unit which improves the rifle ten fold, this is the thing which annoys the hell out of me about BSA, they can easily fit the Goldstar two stage unit and even put a breach bolt on the newer rifles as they've done it before with the Supersport SS model, for the cost of the parts needed, I don't think it would cost much more and it's not as if they have to spend loads on R&D as the parts have already been designed and used successfully in the past, I did hear that production of the Supersport is now being done in the UK again, which I suppose is good as the build quality should improve but what about the quality of the components themself, I read a thread the other day from Venoman (http://www.airgunbbs.com/showthread....hlight=Venoman) saying how shocked he was about the internal finishing on a Lightning, the new gas ram models have proved to be shite as well, it seems all BSA want to do is put a different stock on it every few years (a bit like what Theoben did towards the end) and hope it rekindles new interest, the thing is the Supersport is nearly a thirty year old design now (and that was a redesign of the meteor) and is getting a bit long in the tooth, what it needs is either a complete new designed rifle or put the improvements I've already said (trigger and breach bolt as well as others) and make the internal parts better fitting (spring and guide come to mind and a top hat that would cost pence to make, wouldn't go a miss) with tighter tolerances to compete with the other makers out there, if AA can do it then so can anyone else, Quality over quantity!

Like already said by other members like TonyL, if BSA cleaned their act up and produced a superb built rifle then a lot of people would buy it, even if it was for nostalgia reasons, people's respect for BSA is quickly waning (seasoned shooters know about the problems and new to the sport shooters, find out to their cost after buying) but if they produced something to compete with the other makers then it could just help them out the mire, by all means keep the cheaper end of the market going as someone has to start somewhere but there are better made rifles out there for half the money BSA charge.

Pete

Hi,
The trigger conversion sounds interesting for the supersport. Would I need the whole of the trigger parts from the gold star. I've looked on chambers but the parts look similar to the supersport.

Thanks andy

[look no hands]

Hi,
The trigger conversion sounds interesting for the supersport. Would I need the whole of the trigger parts from the gold star. I've looked on chambers but the parts look similar to the supersport.

Thanks andy

It was a conversion that Tony at SFS used to offer, not much use now as you can't get the parts anymore but it made a real difference.

I think all you needed was TR034 and TR035.

Pete

[Andy001]

It was a conversion that Tony at SFS used to offer, not much use now as you can't get the parts anymore but it made a real difference.

I think all you needed was TR034 and TR035.

Pete

Hi Pete, thanks for that. I been searching a few threads on this matter too. Thank you for the heads up about it. I didn't think any of the bsa had a two stage trigger.
Andy

[Geezer]

Interesting stuff there on BSA triggers.

I suspect that whatever did for Webley and BSA was probably similar to whatever did for British Leyland/BLMC/Rover. The foreign competition made better things at the same price that people wanted to buy. Webley went bust making production Venom springers and selling FX PCPs. So the guns weren't the problem - something else was.

I was really struck in around 1990 you could buy an HW77 - the gun then winning FT - for less than an Eclipse or Superstar. Ditto the Omega/FWB/HW80. Birmingham expected us to pay more for guns that were no better and (imho) a bit worse than the Germans. Nuts.

I'd put the original question differently: why are Weihrauch still in business? Almost every other traditional volume maker of medium quality guns at medium prices has gone bust. Webley, BSA, BSF, all gone. Diana seems to have hit problems. FWB and Anschutz are now essentially high-end 10m target makers (bar the unimpressive massively over-priced new Sport). In the US, Crosman has discontinued traditional medium-quality Sheridan and Benjamin products, keeping Benji as a brand name for thinly-disguised Crosman PCPs and an awful Chinese pistol ("NP Trail").

Mid-market does not work well these days. People either want cheap, or they want quality. LIDL and Waitrose are doing well. Tesco isn't.

The US airgun market is the biggest. There is a low-cost volume market that Europeans can't compete in, which is filled with cheap Chinese things (and Turkish, Spanish, Mexican). And a small high-end enthusiast market.

Which explains why AA do well, and - probably - the Umarex "Walthers". They are a high-end product (for a springer) and marketed as the best to enthusiasts, who are prepared to pay an extra percentage for that. Weihrauch benefits from 40 years of the late Bob Beeman pushing their stuff, but their market position cannot be secure in the long term. (How much profit is there on an HW57?)

But let's not be too hard on ourselves. Just about every advance in airgun technology in the last 40 years has come from the UK, usually from a couple of clever blokes in a shed or light industrial estate. Nowhere else has produced the Ivan Hancocks, Steve Popes, John Bowketts, Ken Turners, Ben Taylors, John Whiscombes, Shaun (forgot surname, sorry!) at Spartan and all the rest of them. The UK used to make large volumes of often fairly indifferent medium-priced guns. Now it makes smaller quantities of top-end guns. It could be a lot worse.

[fatttmannn]

Interesting stuff there on BSA triggers.

I suspect that whatever did for Webley and BSA was probably similar to whatever did for British Leyland/BLMC/Rover. The foreign competition made better things at the same price that people wanted to buy. Webley went bust making production Venom springers and selling FX PCPs. So the guns weren't the problem - something else was.

I was really struck in around 1990 you could buy an HW77 - the gun then winning FT - for less than an Eclipse or Superstar. Ditto the Omega/FWB/HW80. Birmingham expected us to pay more for guns that were no better and (imho) a bit worse than the Germans. Nuts.

I'd put the original question differently: why are Weihrauch still in business? Almost every other traditional volume maker of medium quality guns at medium prices has gone bust. Webley, BSA, BSF, all gone. Diana seems to have hit problems. FWB and Anschutz are now essentially high-end 10m target makers (bar the unimpressive massively over-priced new Sport). In the US, Crosman has discontinued traditional medium-quality Sheridan and Benjamin products, keeping Benji as a brand name for thinly-disguised Crosman PCPs and an awful Chinese pistol ("NP Trail").

Mid-market does not work well these days. People either want cheap, or they want quality. LIDL and Waitrose are doing well. Tesco isn't.

The US airgun market is the biggest. There is a low-cost volume market that Europeans can't compete in, which is filled with cheap Chinese things (and Turkish, Spanish, Mexican). And a small high-end enthusiast market.

Which explains why AA do well, and - probably - the Umarex "Walthers". They are a high-end product (for a springer) and marketed as the best to enthusiasts, who are prepared to pay an extra percentage for that. Weihrauch benefits from 40 years of the late Bob Beeman pushing their stuff, but their market position cannot be secure in the long term. (How much profit is there on an HW57?)

But let's not be too hard on ourselves. Just about every advance in airgun technology in the last 40 years has come from the UK, usually from a couple of clever blokes in a shed or light industrial estate. Nowhere else has produced the Ivan Hancocks, Steve Popes, John Bowketts, Ken Turners, Ben Taylors, John Whiscombes, Shaun (forgot surname, sorry!) at Spartan and all the rest of them. The UK used to make large volumes of often fairly indifferent medium-priced guns. Now it makes smaller quantities of top-end guns. It could be a lot worse.

or a lot better

[look no hands]

Interesting stuff there on BSA triggers.

I suspect that whatever did for Webley and BSA was probably similar to whatever did for British Leyland/BLMC/Rover. The foreign competition made better things at the same price that people wanted to buy. Webley went bust making production Venom springers and selling FX PCPs. So the guns weren't the problem - something else was.

I was really struck in around 1990 you could buy an HW77 - the gun then winning FT - for less than an Eclipse or Superstar. Ditto the Omega/FWB/HW80. Birmingham expected us to pay more for guns that were no better and (imho) a bit worse than the Germans. Nuts.

I'd put the original question differently: why are Weihrauch still in business? Almost every other traditional volume maker of medium quality guns at medium prices has gone bust. Webley, BSA, BSF, all gone. Diana seems to have hit problems. FWB and Anschutz are now essentially high-end 10m target makers (bar the unimpressive massively over-priced new Sport). In the US, Crosman has discontinued traditional medium-quality Sheridan and Benjamin products, keeping Benji as a brand name for thinly-disguised Crosman PCPs and an awful Chinese pistol ("NP Trail").

Mid-market does not work well these days. People either want cheap, or they want quality. LIDL and Waitrose are doing well. Tesco isn't.

The US airgun market is the biggest. There is a low-cost volume market that Europeans can't compete in, which is filled with cheap Chinese things (and Turkish, Spanish, Mexican). And a small high-end enthusiast market.

Which explains why AA do well, and - probably - the Umarex "Walthers". They are a high-end product (for a springer) and marketed as the best to enthusiasts, who are prepared to pay an extra percentage for that. Weihrauch benefits from 40 years of the late Bob Beeman pushing their stuff, but their market position cannot be secure in the long term. (How much profit is there on an HW57?)

But let's not be too hard on ourselves. Just about every advance in airgun technology in the last 40 years has come from the UK, usually from a couple of clever blokes in a shed or light industrial estate. Nowhere else has produced the Ivan Hancocks, Steve Popes, John Bowketts, Ken Turners, Ben Taylors, John Whiscombes, Shaun (forgot surname, sorry!) at Spartan and all the rest of them. The UK used to make large volumes of often fairly indifferent medium-priced guns. Now it makes smaller quantities of top-end guns. It could be a lot worse.

So in theory BSA could beat AA into producing a top end break barrel springer, if they got their act together and listened to a few shed tuners off of this very forum.

Could it also be that Weihrauch have survived better because they still make every single rifle they have made from day one and offer such a vast array of different types (even if they are a bit bland)

Pete