I bought a 52 in '89 after I had just been made redundant. Back in the days I think the whole world felt that nothing could touch the HW80. The 52 proved that wrong. I never really gave the 52 fair play though with only a few outings.
I've since picked up a few other Dianas and I guess that the underlever mechanism is a tad more convenient.
The 52 is a big ole lump of shooting iron and I wonder if a scaled down version would ever catch on in the European market?
There must still be a market for the sidelevers or the 56th wouldn't be around??
Dave :-)