Taz72

Yes. Run by Tony Wall, aka Sandwell Fieldsports. Its an informal shoot and not strictly HFT, though you can shoot the course that way if you want. They're generally a friendly bunch, and Tracy oft supplies a mean bacon sandwich. Not been for a little while on account of lack of spare time and recent duff weather, but a good way to spend a Sunday morning for some practice. Just watch out for the wind.... ;-)

Reminiscing the other day about how I got interested in shooting, first guns etc and remembering my first shots having graduated from a shooting toy soldiers with a plastic bb pistol. I managed to persuade my parents to let me cut my teeth on air rifles and ended up with an elderly Diana mod 25 when I was about 10 years old (which I still own :-).. Still remember the safety drill, the "Fathers advice" poem (Never never let your gun... pointed be at anyone... etc), lapping up every word of the mags (AGW, Airgunner etc) as the gospel truth (ha!), before being fortunate enough to head by blind luck towards Venom for my first HW80 and my local club, Stourvale. So... question is, do you remember your first shooting experiences: When did you start, HOW did you start, and what with?...

I bought a similar item more out of curiosity than any real need, and after a few brief experiments its stayed in the drawer as little more than a novelty. You could use one for rangefinding or quick target acquisition in daylight the same as you would use a red laser at night, as they are much more visible to the human eye, but at night a 5mw green laser is so ridiculously visible as to be more of a hindrance than a help unless you are trying to show your position as effectively as sending up a flare! ;- You can literally put a dot on something 1000yards away and see the entire line of the laser. It might sound impressive but the high visibility and range of the things is so much overkill as to look silly at night, especially if any kind of discretion on your permission is intended. Unless you have a fairly specific use (ie daytime only) for it or just fancy a bit of tech-geekyness you'd probably be as well off with the normal red type.

The HW's do need fettling to get the best out of them, but by goodness they ain't arf good when you've done it tho... I'm not a huge fan of synthetics either so I'd actually say get a normal 97k, get it tuned and head off to the folk at Customstocks to give it the woodwork it deserves. If only Weihrauch got their stocks from Minelli like AA do.... On the other hand the TX is very nice too. I have both and wouldn't part with either.

Can't fault Tony's work at Sandwell Fieldsports. My 97K has been fettled there and is a joy to shoot. Likewise my 25+year old HW80... (Nowt wrong with Dave Hall or Steve Pope's work either)

The usual answer to this question.... Pretty much as has already been said. If you want a Weihrauch you won't do better than a second hand 80 if you want to stick with break barrels. Or a 77 or (preferably) a 97 if your budget can stretch to it as spring guns just don't get any better than that. They'll be a bit heavier than the BSA (or the 99S for that matter) but they're worth the extra carriage. I'd say avoid the HW57 though; the loading tap/port isn't as reliable or effective as the breech arrangement on the 77/97 and you'll just wish you'd bought the better model. And before anyone says "Weihrauch bias" and "get an Air Arms", yes of course they are excellent also, and the tx200 is a perfectly viable alternative (not to mention prettier than its german cousins...) if you want British. Get a looked-after example of any one of those and you'll never need to replace it. PS - at risk of sounding snobbish - avoid the chinese stuff - I know some folk like them and if you read the comics you'd think all was lovely (apparenty the TH208 or some such was the best selling springer in the UK according to one of the mags recently - that surely couldn't have been correct could it?...), but when you can get british or german 2nd hand for the same money its a no brainer.

I tried RWS Superfield and was hoping for good groups as they are well-priced, they performed similarly to AA Diabolo Field in mine, as per your own results, but mine tends to perform best with Mosquito's - quite convenient as my HW97 favours them also. Trouble is I'm struggling to get Mozzies at the moment so experimenting with Falcon accuracy plus.

The 97 is good as standard. Even better if tuned, but unless you're a dab hand with the screwdrivers already, save yourself the bother and send it to one of the guys who know them inside out, such as messrs Pope, Hall or SFS as mentioned. I've had Venom (now Vmach) and SFS-tuned guns, and started my shooting with a Venom'ed HW80, which spoiled me & made any standard gun feel like a clunker afterwards. All of the above do a cracking job and you wouldn't regret having it fettled, novice or not.

Like the others say- depends what you want to do with it; Any more than 12x isn't necessary for airgun hunting, and sometimes 4x is plenty. Fancy sidewheel focus systems and mega magnification are only really necessary if you're intending to have a proper bash at FT, and even then you need to calibrate carefully, with a large sidewheel for them to be any real use. Multi aim-points, be it mildots, FT reticles etc; Personally I find these more useful, though more for the advantage of the different aimpoints for quick aiming rather than bracketing to assess distance- While you're busy doing the maths of how many milliradians equals such and such, the rabbit/pigeon etc will have b***ered-off anyway. Illuminates reticles - handy if shooting in low light. Otherwise far from essential. I have a mix of sidewheel, front focus, even fixed parallax, including amongst others a Nikko 10-50x60, a couple of chinese-imported BSA 8-32x44, and an old Bushmaster 4-12x40. I used to shoot FT many moons ago with a fixed 6x40 Venom-badged scope with a fine crosshair and an outer circle - I don't even know what the reticle was called on that... Provided the quality is adequate, all do the job fine depending whether its FT or bunny-bashing and at the end of the day it all boils down to knowing where your pellet's going. I'd say buy something you know will be consistent (ie the better quality the better - No 4x20's off the local market ;-)...), take your pick of whatever floats your boat and learn your setup. If that's a thousand quid Leupold 4-100 x60 Hoobiedoobie with all the bells and whistles, and your finances stretch to that, then go for it. If its a 100quid BSA/Nikko/Hawke, likewise.

Jays (or 'owt else for that matter); If you want to eat it, shoot it. If its causing a problem and needs to be killed, shoot it. If its neither of those and its just for the sake of shooting it because there's nothing to say you can't, get another hobby....

Mosquitoes or AA Fields for mine.

Strelok or Airgunhelper are both available on Android for all us non-Iphone owners. The latter is closer to Chairgun in its display, including a nice POI graph a la Chairgun, and does pretty much all of what you mention.

Not an expert but I used a Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil set a while back and was very pleased with the results. Just takes time, patience and elbow grease. If you google it there's lots of info. You might want to look up guitar finishing as well as its very similar, except they tend to be even more fanatical about the perfect finish than shooters...

If it's legit and undamaged... Buy it.... Buy it immediately and be careful not to hurt his fingers when you snatch it from his hands.... :-)

They're as good as you'd expect from their well-earned reputation; Despite also having PCP's and other springers, mine (mildly fettled) is my go-to gun and I struggle to do any more than equal its accuracy with anything short of a full-on FT (PCP) racegun. Maybe a touch on the heavy side for a youngster, and definitely not as quiet as a (silenced) PCP because of the mechanical noise from having a spring/piston, but springers don't get much better. If you're thinking second hand PCP, why not consider a second hand 97 as well?

Stating the obvious but has the barrel been checked to see if bent? Also the post doesn't mention if this is replacing another scope which worked, or if replacing open sights. If it was open sights, the foresight would have moved with the barrel and could have passed unnoticed until a scope was fitted. Just a thought....