I'll throw in an unpopular experience now:

My rescue Mercury has a quite large fork to barrel block gap, and when squeezed by the bolt,
the forks only contacts the breech block at the front.

Several of my Supersports have very good breech block to fork fit, and have less play than the mentioned Mercury.
And they have been tight for many shots (three of them have seen a lot of use) with proper lubrication and sensible use.

Of course the Meteor is not as durable, but I have one that sees a lot of use and has stayed good for a long time.
But with the number of airguns I have there's a limit to how much use a single rifle sees