Theoben Prometheus dates

[Mrs. H]

Can anyone give me an idea when the Theoben Prometheus was being produced? I've Googled my way through an entire pot of tea now and whilst I've found several excellent manafacturing timelines / histories posted on other forums the Prometheus seems to be absent from those lists.
Also, if you have one, does it have a serial number? And if so where is it? I do have a number beginning TB under the barrel block, but it appears to be hand etched rather than machine stamped?
(I shall await a slightly stunned / bewildered call from Dad now who didn't know this one was on the cards...)

Ta folks!

[colin g]

Thats the correct place for theobens and hand engraved was the norm back then. Cant help with a date as they didnt sell very well, The first ones we had in the shop came back and the buyers said they are very inaccurate with any pellets, They had not even tried Prometheus pellets, They thought it was a normal run of the mill Theoben. Why make a barrel to only shoot prometheus but i have seen them shoot other pellets just as well as other theoben rammers even if very pellet fussy. Plus Ben is still making weird barrels, Smooth twist and stx so he certainly knows what he is on about. I have the very first rifle he made and not even sure what barrel is on it. Will have to ask him.
Let us all know how it gets on as we have a better choice of pellets these days. Col

[slug-gun]

I believe that barrels marked 'Prometheus' were merely left unchoked - easy to check with a cleaning rod?

[Shed tuner]

I believe that barrels marked 'Prometheus' were merely left unchoked - easy to check with a cleaning rod?

I had an older theoben rammer with a barrel stamped UC (or U/C)... i always figured it meant "unchoked", ie for this exact purpose.

[BSFNUT]

Thats the correct place for theobens and hand engraved was the norm back then. Cant help with a date as they didnt sell very well, The first ones we had in the shop came back and the buyers said they are very inaccurate with any pellets, They had not even tried Prometheus pellets, They thought it was a normal run of the mill Theoben. Why make a barrel to only shoot prometheus but i have seen them shoot other pellets just as well as other theoben rammers even if very pellet fussy. Plus Ben is still making weird barrels, Smooth twist and stx so he certainly knows what he is on about. I have the very first rifle he made and not even sure what barrel is on it. Will have to ask him.
Let us all know how it gets on as we have a better choice of pellets these days. Col

IIRC the first Theobens had Webley barrels.

Then went to Lothar Walther or Anschutz, certainly for the .20.

Be grateful if you could ask Ben please for the definitive answer

[colin g]

Our own Bengarzy on here is Mr Taylor himself although not been on for a while...
Yes, U/N is unchoked, A lot of early rifles had a letter at end of the serial number as well, BSA on barrel, A=Annie. L=Lother Weihrauch. Etc end of serial number. The prometheus had its own unchoked barrel and where stamped on the block, The rest of the rifle if i recall was sirocco.
All had 12 groove rifling except the Weihrauch that had 6. The prometheus pellets where steel and you used to put them together. Remember the sore thumbs after making a few hundred, Then they went to tin pellets instead of steel but had a hole in the skirt that some rifles just blew the pellet out and left the skirt still in the breech, End of prometheus in the prometheus rifles, After all they where only rivets in a plastic skirt.. Col.

[slug-gun]

Just for the record when the original Prometheus pellets with the steel head and clear skirt ended, ZINC was used instead, not tin.
Prometheus did make a run of super quality match pellets in tin for the US military to be used in recoilless target rifles, and considered using tin for pellets more widely, but the idea was abandoned once the price of tin went sky high.

As such all the non-toxic pellets were made from zinc, but lead was also widely used for more traditional sporting pellets, including those pellets made for Daystate, Logun and FX.
One of the best materials available for making airgun ammo was gold, but that too was considered too dear, though its use would have ensured that all shot pellet remains would have been recovered, so would have been very 'green'!

[Mrs. H]

Thanks for this chaps, my serial number is TB4393 if that range can be pinned down to a year or years. I can't see any letters at the end of it.
Looking forward to trying it with a wide variety of pellets to see what its really like; other threads seem to range from 'not bad' to '*$£@!@$' !