Webley Patriot-a review
Having decided not to sell this rifle I thought I would put a few thoughts down as to how nice it really is. So here goes.
The rifle: a .25 Webley Patriot with lovely bluing, open sights as well as scope rail, The stock is very bright and cheerful being a turquoise 'plasticote' finish on top of the original wood. The rifle was tuned by our very own Baz and sold to me by Gareth W-B.
Current state: Running at around 26 ft lb with H & N FTT pellets.Safety catch removed by previous owner. Trigger perfectly adequate with a smooth let-off and no creep. Accuracy is fine and cocking effort perfectly reasonable for a springer running at this sort of power.
Comparison with the Eliminator: a tricky one this. The Patriot has a VERY poor reputation out of the box. This is in spite of its obvious build quality. I don't know how much they cost when new but they sell from between £100 and £150 which is between 1/3 and 1/2 of what you would expect to pay for the Eliminator. Now as I have owned both I feel reasonably qualified to compare the two. The first thing that is obvious is the cocking effort! The Eliminator even with proper technique IS a hard rifle to cock. It is probably responsible for my bad shoulder even though I didn't use it much. Once cocked and fired however, the firing cycles are different. As with most gas ram rifles the lock time on the Eliminator-which dear reader please remember is a 'magnum' rifle with a long stroke and large swept volume-seems very short. The pellet has gone before the shooter can 'interfere' with it and so it feels like all the other gas rams I have owned-snappy and fast. My previous experience has told me to run the Eliminator below the maximum to get a sweeter smoother shooting experience so I have always run my .20 at 24 ft lb and my .22 at 26 ft lb knowing they can go higher. I haven't got that experience with the Patriot as this .25 is the only one I have ever shot BUT although it has a longer firing cycle the extra length doesn't seem to make accuracy suffer. They both seem to me to be powerful accurate air rifles BUT the Patriot is usefully easier to cock. Nothing to choose in terms of weight nor in build quality.
My conclusion is simple: what has gone wrong with the standard Patriot to make it get and keep such a poor reputation? Perhaps someone could come on this thread and tell me. In the meantime I am just pleased I decided not to sell my Patriot and hope that my shoulder will repair itself enough for me to be able to shoot it from time to time.
Thanks for reading.
Pictures below.
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http://s127.photobucket.com/albums/p...urrent=WP5.jpg
http://s127.photobucket.com/albums/p...urrent=WP6.jpg
Last edited by Rapidnick; 16-12-2009 at 07:00 PM.
'It may be that your sole purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others'.