New vs old in modern times

[bozzer]

Maybe we should talk about the 'Golden Age of the Springer' between 1981 and 1991 when the TX200, for all intents and purposes, ended the development of the spring rifle.

I can't argue with that. I'm one of the traitor brigade here, in that I'm English and love all things English, but having owned several air rifles as a youth, I then owned my first early HW77 and realised that was a different world from anything else I'd shot. I was then a Weihrauch man. So there was something that gritted me when AA, despite being English ( British ), basically copied the HW77 and added a few bits as standard that places like Venom were doing as tune ups. I stuck with HW but I admit that, as an out of the box rifle, the TX200 had hit the ceiling on springer shootability.

I also have to admit to reading the gumpf about the Walthers, including lots of noise from Mr Doe, about how good they were inside and how well they shot from the off, and thinking there must be a tad of artistic license in all that. Then I shot them and they did cock and shoot as good as a heavily tuned rifle ... and were easy to shoot accurately. I never got one because all my rifles end up in custom stocks ( standard stocks just don't fit me ... or I don't fit them ). I know, moulded trigger units and plastic bits etc ... but from a shootability point of view ... I liked them.

As I have said time and time again, it is THE PELLETS that make the difference. In the old days the pellets were SHIT, with the exception of the Match ones made by RWS and H&N, and these flatheads were only good to 20 yards.

You are very very right on pellets. Back in the day, the old Crosman Premiers suddenly cut group sizes in a good rifle by 30/50%. Until then, we all thought an inch at 30 yards was pretty much the best and anything less a miracle or happy coincidence.

I'm on the fence again here. I admit ... the very early pellets ... woeful. I also agree that along came the Prems and virtually all the ones you got shot well. If you got a good Die they were superb. In more recent times everyone is using JSB made stuff. I seemed to go through a period where I could just buy tins of JSB stuff and the accuracy and grouping was good. I may have just been lucky in the world of the JSB lucky dip. I then went through a very frustrating time where, when my old batch had run out, I just couldn't find a batch that would shoot 5 out of 5 pellets well. 3 out of 5 yes ... but not 5. Go back to the few I'd got left of the old batch and back to 5/5. So I went back to Crosman. This is just a few years back. They seemed enormous at that point. I had to tap them in with a small toffee hammer. They were still good though. Not as good as I seem to remember when all the FT guys were fighting to find some Die 2 or whatever, but much better than the 'average' batch of JSB. I'm sure the Holy Grail of top batch JSB were out there which gave brilliant accuracy ... I just wasn't finding them! Maybe in the last couple of years there are more 'better' batches of JSB. A lot of threads I read suggest that.

So I've been disappointed in pellets re consistency. Especially from the Germans. The H&N stuff always looks quality and my measurements suggest they are better in consistency than the JSB, but they don't shoot all that well in my rifles. The exception, for me, being the Barracuda/Bis Mags. They just always seem excellent. I just don't want to be lobbing 10.6gr out to 55 yards when everyone else is lobbing 7.9/8.4gr.

[robs5230]

I reckon modern production methods and a drive to be cost efficient have seen an overall drop in "perceived quality" certainly within the Weihrauch range and probably across all longer standing manufacturers (who are still in business).
The dressing up of rifles in Minelli stocks to give a more modern appearance does not compensate for good old engineering quality.

[para]

I've always noticed when reading some old airgun books/magazines you see the workers in the gun factorys dressed in their "arkwright" overall jackets they seem to be checking things properly and they looked like crafts men, now I see more and more being replaced by CNC machines.

Now im not out to upset anyone but as for most of the stuff produced in Turkey and China I personally won't touch it and that's because it just looks rough and cheap (sorry).
Airarms, HW and Daystate for me still produce qaulity rifles however they aren't perfect all the time as we all know and hence we end up spending time and money on tuning.

All I can put it down to is modern working practice which usually means cheap materials, cheap Labour costs, and this is not just the gun industry a lot of goods now a days on the shelves look and feel crap which is what drives up the price of older items from an era where manufacturing took pride in what they made.

[Amac]

Personally, I reckon that the current crop of AA TX200s take some beating. They are beautifully finished but more importantly of course, shoot great straight out of the box.
Andy