I was in a near by town today where I knew the rfd had some of the new meteors so had to pop in and handle one...... well what can I say they could of nailed it but fell short, the length of pull was at least 1" short and maybe even 1.5" the guy in shop pointed it straight out and you really did have your arm bent to shoulder it, when cocking it was as graunchy as could be and the safety tab was so flimsy it was unbelievable like it was made from old beer cans worh a cheap plastic cap,the plastic endcap on the action was dreadful too.
The good points are, the breech/bolt setup is solid as is the lockup and the piston must be 25mm as the cylinder looked too slender for it to be larger, it had high cocking effort so I feel a fast firing cycle is on the card or it may be very snappy I didn't shoot it nice weight similar to hw99 and the machining was nice on the metal, the stock is not the nicest due to the chunk removed from under the cheek piece and was made by minelli as I saw the m badge.
Overall a tricky one as they could of nailed it and I feel it could be made nice for sure but the did miss the mark in my opinion.
The plastic end cap on the end of the action is what spoils it for me, without even picking one up.
You can get all sorts of sub £200 break barrels that don't have that, and look much better for it
True or like what they fitted to the Supersport but I wonder if they fitted that cap as it is sort of like a Meteor trademark, like you say they never seem to hit the mark or add new features that others manufacturers fitted 5 years before, you can see the penny pinching is still going on.
Far too many rifles to list now, all mainly British but the odd pesky foreigner has snuck in
When I bought this ratting 'gamo' a BSA in a different ''dress'' lol I was lucky as the original ones
had the exact BSA type plastic end cap found on the Meteor,
the sloped metal end that this one came with is much more elegant and reminds me of the Airsporter /Mercury
and going by the op description of the new Meteor it sounds like the ones Iv'e had circa 1978 ish was a far better build,apart from the breech being pinned not bolted.
Slightly OT. Bought a nearly new 2013 Meteor from a gent on here in 2014(?). Hated the plastic end cap which moved. trigger & guard (that broke). But it was/is a lovely gun to shoot. In the days when I used to do occasional hunting (Woodies & Magpies) it took over from the HW's.
Light, manoeuvrable & accurate at the max 20/25 yard ranges I felt comfortable with. It would have been so much nicer with a metal endcap, trigger & guard.
Bru
Webley Mk3 x2, Falcon & Junior rifles, HW35x2, AirSporter x2, Gold Star, Meteors x2, Diana 25. SMK B19, Webley Senior, Premier, Hurricane x 2, Tempest, Dan Wesson 8", Crosman 3576, Legends PO8.
The new ones look to have the same trigger and guard as the supersport se and derivatives. My theory is that the end cap is a nod to the meteors of old but they shouldn't of bothered!
Plinkerer and Tinkerer
If it is this one, the sear looks very similar to the standard Gamo trigger...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyLZMhhXLLg
Last edited by evert; 10-01-2023 at 09:02 AM.
Too many airguns!
I had a lightning xlse. It wasn't bad actually. No spring twang (it was the spring version!) and shot accurately. Initially the trigger which is pseudo 2 stage unit had quite a bit of creep on the "second" stage. I found there was a tapped hole in the trigger cage into which I inserted a grub screw. This enabled adjustment of the sear engagement and I got rid of the creep. Whether mine had had the screw missed out on production or they chose to omit it to make it safer I don't know, but the trigger worked fine after that.
Plinkerer and Tinkerer