I had the Hammerli 401 (excellent accuracy, but never got enough power out of it, stupidly sold it)... the Anschutz 335 (never quite as accurate as the mags said it would be, but in retrospect I think it was my poor technique and a low-quality scope), the Crosman 766 (cheap plastic and potmetal thing, not very accurate and wore it out over a few months, definitely not as good as the hype), borrowed a Feinwerkbau Sport but wasnt as accurate as the mags said it would be.. Tried a Webley Vulcan Mk 1, powerful but flappy barrel and dreadful trigger. The most disappointing was an Original Diana 50T01, which I bought on the basis of Rod Lynton's review and which was very, very disappointing and expensive and I gave up shooting FT after it let me down.

Easily the BEST rifle that I owned in the 80s was a very heavily used third-hand Weihrauch HW35 Export in .177. It was powerful, accurate, great trigger, easy to strip and rebuild and was proper 'quality' like a good firearm with a elegant stock. Stupidly sold that one too. The Hammerli was a great gun, but had some design faults (trigger unit screws would work loose after heavy use) and could not (at the time) be tuned over 9 ft/lbs in .177.

The pellets in those days were all rubbish, with the exception of the flat-head H&N Match and RWS Meisterkugeln.

Interestingly the HW35 is still being made and sold, whereas most of the other rifles are gone....