After shooting airguns from my childhood to early 20’s and since having spent a long time shooting with powder burners, when I realised it was 40 years since I bought my BSA Airsporter (this March) – my first real “Adult” expenditure as an apprentice I had the feelings of an airgun renaissance coming on – you might say that shooting is a bit of an apprenticeship (itself) in which we often start with airguns and progress though shotguns and other powder burners.

However, whilst I have always shot my airguns since being a kid, I have to admit that re-focussing attention to them today there is a great deal to re-learn?

Before getting married I bought a few “good airguns” and acknowledged there is always something new coming along and that there are some very well made airguns but that you can’t keep up with everything.

When I last had a serious interest in airguns there was the emergence of a wider array of PCP’s (which at one time had really just been Daystate) coming onto the scene.
Now that my interest has been re-ignited I find people still passionate about airguns and forget the powder-burners of any kind, airguns alone are a very serious entity on their own right?

For the first time in many years I bought an airgun mag and after a good read I came to the following conclusions:

Lots of people are really excited about “Air Arms” and the fact that there is a good British manufacturer of both spring and PCP airguns. Lots of people seem to rave about the TX200 is it that good?

Daystate are still producing PCP’s but now compete in a market where there are many new competitors, vying for a share of the PCP market.
Some of the high end Brands that were prevalent in the late 70’s and 80’s do not appear to exist (or at least be marketed in the UK) today
Original
Diana
BSF
Feinwerkbau - for sporting springers (still see high end match rifles and PCP’s)

There seem to be a lot of Chinese and Turkish airguns being offered for sale with differing opinions on their quality, merits and performance and how they might be improved.

From various reading it sounded as though some people have had quality issues with Weirauch airguns in recent times and that if buying one it sounds like some people would actually recommend a used older airgun as being preferable?

It was not entirely clear to me but there seemed to be anecdotal comment that if you buy a modern BSA or Webley, it may not have been made in the UK is this actually correct?

Is this a fair and accurate summation of the airguns of today, what other things have I failed to pick up on or have the points I'm raising been skewed by a few disgruntled people somewhere along the way?

Oh yes – using airguns back in the 70-80’s it was UIT targets, a bit of plinking or some pest control (rabbits, squirrels and corvids).

Apart from the above there seems to be the new emergence of FT and HFT – is there anything else I need to know to be “current” and up to speed with airgun shooting today?

Please help me catch up again?