Quote Originally Posted by English View Post
At least that explains what happened to BSF for me always wanted one but they were too costly as a poor apprentice at the time
I managed to get hold of a BSF B55 as a nostalgia buy. It's an interesting little rifle but by no means the awesome rifle that the Airgun World writers sometimes made it out to be. The main thing was that it produced a true 12 fpe in both calibres at a time when most other guns were only making about 10 fpe.

It is one of the most difficult springers to get good accuracy out of and as such it is an entertaining challenge. This is because of the light weight and fierce recoil, which means only the loosest grip will give good groups.

The best groups I got out of it were about twice that of an HW35 or similar, so I think the rifles were good hunters in the days when people thought that chest shots were OK.

One of the main problems with the rifle is that the trigger is not fully active like a Rekord or a CD, and this means that the heavier the mainspring, the harder the pull. I put a soft unspaced spring in mine and it became very accurate and easy to use, but the thing was only doing 7 fpe so you might as well buy an HW30S.

In short, you didn't miss anything. A BSA Mercury would have performed as well or better in terms of accuracy, and not far off the power. BSFs were good in their prime i.e. the 1950s and early 1960s but the Kings of the 70s, the HW35 Export and the Feinwerkbau Sport were definitely superior arms.