Quote Originally Posted by Hsing-ee View Post
It IS strange that BSA thought a pin would do way back in the 1970s when Haenel, Relum, the Shanghai Airgun Factory Number 1 or whoever produced the 'Arrow' air-rifle in China etc etc ... all of them inferior brands managed to use a bolt. The cutting of a screw thread and the use of a bolt must have added almost nothing to the price of a rifle, so why didn't they do it until it was too late? Arrogance? Stupidity? A mixture of the both ('Arrogidity)? The idea that 'barely good enough' is the same as striving for excellence? All they had to do is buy an HW35 and take it apart, steal the good ideas (breech bolt, active sear in trigger unit, proper scope grooves) and Bob's your Aunt Fanny. But no, they made mad things like the BSA Buccaneer because it was the shortest distance between doing some development work and getting cash back (stick a pistol which is already in production in a placcky stock with a longer barrel) or the borderline insane like the VS2000, the 'B-58' of airguns. They are lucky that John Bowkett was around to save their complacent arse with a decent raft of ideas for PCPs.

BSA is a PCP company now, the springer branch is a zombie division. None of them are as good as the quality products they once made like the Airsporter Mk 1 and Mk 2 and the swansong SuperStar.
Webley was just as bad. Oddly similar to British car manufacturing at the same time. Turning out inferior products with poor quality control apparently because they assumed people would "buy British". And when they had an interesting idea (Rover SD1, Triumph TR7, Austin Princess) they still managed to bugger it up in practice.