Old School Venom lazaglide Vs Modern V-mach Weihrauchs...

[sbd]

...shooting bud of mine has a Mastersport 77 in a Mastersport FT stock and it is very, very sweet. Bad news? It's a cack-hander

It's one of the few that I rate beside my old-school Venom 95

[Snooper601]

...shooting bud of mine has a Mastersport 77 in a Mastersport FT stock and it is very, very sweet. Bad news? It's a cack-hander

All mine are too, which Graham (Baxterbasics) wishes wasn't the case
He's fired my HW80 sporter and my TX200 Ultraglide and would probably like to try the rest as well

I'm trying to get the day off for the Anston springer comp, but there are too many of my colleagues already on leave. I will have to leave it nearer the time to see if I can get the Sunday off.


Cheers

John

[bozzer]

Old vs New

My tuppence worth ...

I wandered in a gunshop many moons ago now and spotted a very very nice looking 77 in the 2nd hand rack going for peanuts. It turned out it was an old Venom Vantage and had a lovely walnut tiger stock and brass straight blade trigger and silencer/catch.

It was as smooth a 77 as I'd ever cocked/shot and very very accurate. I shot it at the HFT Worlds at the first year and it shot well on the first day and then I couldn't hit a thing on the 2nd day. When I got home I took it apart ( for the first time ) and I was surprised that it didn't have any buttons on the piston. So not Lazaglide ... just a metal custom rear guide and a top hat and sleeve. The spring had broken in 2 places. So I contacted V-Mach ... Venom had gone at this point. Steve told me that that sounded like an old Venom kit and his kits had changed a bit as the new ( at that time ) rear guides are now delrin. He advised that it would be a nightmare trying to match a spring to those guides so just fit a complete new V-Mach kit. So that's what I did. Just dropped it in.

The gun still cocks and fires very smooth. It's the most accurate gun I have. The action is now in a FT stock and is called 'The Yacht' and if I use the right pellets and do my bit it will do sub 10mm groups at 35 yards.

So for me, the new V-Mach kits are as good as the old ones ... I just can't see how it can be any better than this ( for me ). I suppose it's what you get used to ... I've shot other people's tuned 77's and TX's and some do seem to have less kick than this ... but the kick is so fast on this ( it seems to me ) and the trigger better than any other I've shot ( for me ) ... that I just find this so easy to shoot accurately. Just as easy as my pcp's.

The thing that I must add ... I've had loads of 77s and I've fitted V-Mach kits in some of them and other tuning kits in others. I have another 77 now with V-Mach internals and silencer/catch. Now I don't know what else they did to this old 77 above ... but even with V-Mach kits in, none of my other 77s come close to this old one for smoothness of cocking and sharpness of trigger and ease to shoot very accurately. They are good ... but when you then pick up and shoot this one ... it's just different ... butit does now have a more modern V-Mach kit.

[copperjacket]

I wonder if in many ways there is a question of how well used the rifles are: I suspect that the older conversions were often owned by people who really used them i.e. they are well run in and are consequently smoother compared to a lot of the later conversions which if the sales section is anything to go by, are sold all too soon after completion and have not been given a chance to adequately run in.

There is as Nick points out perhaps a changing trend in tuning for faster lock times rather than simply a smooth delivery?

Talking of tuning greats, lets not forget Mr innovation - John Bowkett.