Quote Originally Posted by creed View Post
I dare say this has been dwelt on before but yesterday,whilst visiting my friendly neighbourhood RFD I handled some rifles and enquired of prices as you do.
Air Arms S400 £425
FX Streamline £730 (I think)
Weihrauch HW100 sporter £800
Air Arms HFT500 £900 I will add for comparison purposes.
Admittedly,it was the AA S410 I picked up but I would guess fit is about the same for a S400 although I am happy to be corrected.
Yes,the HW100 was a slightly better fit on the day to me but the S400/410 was so close and I do think the German rifle seemed more "solid" but not twice the price more solid.Would it be twice as accurate?
Thankfully,my hand would not fit around a Daystate thumbhole stock to reach the trigger so at least I am spared looking at £1000+ air rifles.
At what point do you say to yourselves "enough of this lunacy.It's just an air rifle and I will not pay more than £xxx for one"?
So maybe in the near future I will buy an S400 classic ...but that German rifle did seem awfully nice
You have many things to consider, weight, shape, balance, feel, looks, shot count, cocking action, magazine capacity, anti double load, manufacturer support, and a few more besides, But of course you also pay for the name.
I paid something like £80 more for my S510 than the S410 was at the time, because I don't like the S410 cocking bolt but did like the S510 side lever.

I do however agree that "top end" pricing offers little over mid range performance for most people, although I did pay more for my used Rapids than for my new S510's & they're still far better rifles.