i had the 766 and the 2200 in the 80s...both based on reading airgun articles.
The first being David Lanes duck hunting article with a 766 that he had fitted out with a pump shotgun style stock.
I was sold and bought one a month later.
The gun was pretty good in .177 it must have been doing near on 800 fps for 11 or 12 pumps ...with no blow off mechanism at the time...
Within a few months Lane ran another article with the 2200 but this time rabbiting...
I had to have it and purchased it a month post article......talk about AGW advertising articles doing their trick lol....
I had too much money back then ....no kids, no house, living free at home and 400 quid a week....and AGW had David Lane.....im damn sure airgun sales would double if he were still writing....His articles truly excited me....not a grain of truth in them but made fantastic reading ...as Did Lyntons....cut from the same cloth that saw Pigeons being taken at a measured 67 yards in one article.
I quickly grew disappointed in the 2 guns, mainly the horrible plastic breech bolt....i dreamed of making a steel one but never got onto it..
Around the end of that year The Victory featured in another of Lanes Articles....yep bought it and flogged the 2 Crosmans to other youths.
That Victory was finally everything Lane had said....
Interestingly the 760 with tiny pump tube wasnt bad.
A friend had one and it seemed better made than the biguns somehow and v accurate ..
The WHaley ...well what can i say ....Lynton old boy....i bought the bstard thing on the strength of your wood walking article and its 3 shot potential....it farted on the second shot and the pellet got stuck in the barrel.
It later failed to shoot on the first shot and the front pin bent.
It sure looked good but Mr Whaley ....i was gonna come hunting you boy.