My first rifle was a similar meteor in .22, I literally wore it out. When i got it for xmas (best xmas present ever!) you had to push the pellets into the breech. When i sold it 4 years later the same eley wasps would drop a quarter of an inch down the barrel before they touched the sides. I got through a lot of pellets!
A weekly chore was to squash the barrel jaws in the vice to stop the barrel flopping sideways.