Mmmmmmm......lots of questions there, Andrew, and you're sure to get numerous varied responses.

Yes, the mighty HW certainly offer a good range of high quality, robustly engineered rifles with precise shooting characteristics.

You would be able to de-cock various underlever rifles, if you wanted to include some of those on the list.

The newer Diana rifles seem not to attract so many favourable comments these days due to reported quality issues.

The best rifle for you will be the one from a number of quality rifles which suits YOU in terms of balance, weight, feel and dimensions, so you could really do with trying a number of rifles. Intended use plays a huge part, too. So, for example, that heavy more "targetised" rifle which shoots so superbly from a bench or other static position may not be your perfect hunting partner if you're trudging round fields for long periods.

Many of the "top-end" springers are not supplied with open sights.

Some HWs do exhibit refined charcteristics out of the box. Even the ones that seem less refined will, however, shoot very accurately. Many will do a quick home fettle to make them more refined, but there will be many thousands of them out there delivering super performance and pride of ownership that are standard. I have many HWs, some professionally tuned, some home fettled, some standard.

The recent Walther models do find favour amongst many shooters and, generally, display very refined manners out of the box.

The rifles I'd be putting on the shopping list would be - Weihrauch HW98, 95, 99, 35, 80, 77 and 97. A mix of break barrels and underlevers there.

Air Arms TX200 - underlever.

Walther LGV and LGU.