Air rifle repair

adjman

Well-Known Member
Looking for a little advice on Air Rifles. I have a very old .22 BSA Meteor sitting at home which has seen better days. My local RFD has a .22 Cometa 300 in stock for about £150ish.

The question I am trying to answer is - would it work out cheaper to get the BSA "serviced" (new spring, new seals, trigger adjusted as it is VERY heavy) or would I be better off going with a new air rifle?

Looks like a mainspring is going to be about £15-£20 ish, the seals are going to be about £12 ish, just not sure about fitting it all and trigger adjustment (if it's even possible on that gun)
 
Really nice old bits of kit, but if memory serves the old ones were not full power ie. 12ftlb?
May not be worth the effort to raise the power level?
 
If the seals look ok just change the main spring for a modern one you should see the difference for very little work or cost 20 mins youll have it changed
 
Hi there, A number of years ago I faced a similar problem to yourself.
I had an old airgun whch I had for almost 30 years and looked in a very good condition. I used this air rifle to shoot a number of rats that had appeared around my hen house. Missing more than I hit, I blamed it on the old springer which was put in to a shop for an overhaul.
In the meantime i borrowed a mid range pcp. Good grief, I was astonished at the difference and how much advances had been made in airguns.
Bottom line is that I now have 2 pcp airrifles, one on FAC as i find them excellent for vermin control around buildings and no problems with richochet.
If I had addessed the rat problem first time round with a pcp, I think I may have managed to shoot them all (almost).
I would buy a second hand PCP or a better springer than the Cometa and keep your old springer as is for sentimental reasons.
 
a meteor was a piece of rubbish even 30 years ago when i hunted with air rifles they were crap good for knocking over bean tins at 25yrds but outclassed by mercurys and airsporters
save yer pennies and buy the modern job
 
a meteor was a piece of rubbish even 30 years ago when i hunted with air rifles they were crap good for knocking over bean tins at 25yrds but outclassed by mercurys and airsporters
save yer pennies and buy the modern job

:rofl: Oh dear I wonder just how we ever managed to shoot all the pests an waskerly wabbits with the old Meteors . Mine was a .177" Std my mate used a .22 Super. if I recall correctly I paid £28 for it new from the gun and fishing tackle shop on the Boulevard in Crawley. My mate had his for years by then as he was given his for his 14th Birthday and that came from Continental sports in Redhill it cost £14. The Gunsmith a certain Ray Ward set up his own shop a few yards down the way some years later the son trades on the name now.

By the time I brought mine my mate had several including an Airsporter and switch barrel Webley Hawk that i recall. In fact I stupidly sold mine to a neighbour for his son to help him out. Regretted is so much a brought another .177 Std to replace it about 10 years ago S/H from GT Shooting of Coulsdon.

Rebuilding and bringing up to scratch should not be very difficult depending which model it is some of the later ones MkV etc had adjustable triggers.
 
i had a few of them as well as the super meteor too,orrible triggers and from memory they had a problem with the way the barrel is hinged through the receiver that gave lateral movement i'll stand by my earlier comments they were outclassed by the other bsa rifles and webly mk3s weihrauch hw35s feinwerkbaus sports that were available at the time [h=3]
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I still have the late 50`s meteor my old man got me at 11, I`ll never sell it. For a wee back garden gun they are great.
 
i had a few of them as well as the super meteor too,orrible triggers and from memory they had a problem with the way the barrel is hinged through the receiver that gave lateral movement i'll stand by my earlier comments they were outclassed by the other bsa rifles and webly mk3s weihrauch hw35s feinwerkbaus sports that were available at the time

Ahhh but most of those you mention were only available during part of the production period of the Meteor. I brought a Feinwerkbau Model 127 Sport in .22 cal in 79 but still kept and used the Std .177 Meteor which I think you'll find was a MkV which had an adjustable trigger. The Feinwerkbau was better of course but cost almost three times as much. I still own that Feinwerkbau too.

The Meteor was similar to the original Model 27 in that is was more of an entry level rifle and should be viewed in that context. There were far worse ones out there at that time and later. Neitehr of my Metoers had that side to side slop you refer too. Most of that was caused by poor usage and misuse. My mates did develop it after many years of use and only after he had worn out several springs and a piston. I would love to know just how may shot that one had fired but he used to get through at least two tins of pellets a week with it more if he could wangle them out of his mum. Remember I said he was 14 when he found it under the Christmas tree. I remember him rebuilding it when he was in his 3rd year as an apprentice mechanic so by then it had seen 6 years of hard use. When I next speak to him I'll ask if he still has it in his collection.
 
it's all too long ago :oops: but i would have thought mine would have been 76/77 we spent hundreds of hours in our back garden plinking with them a tin of pellets would last an afternoon :eek: i'd say the ground at the back of the concrete garage there is a bio hazard with the % lead in the soil :rofl: so i suppose we just wore them out but when we progressed to the bigger and better models ,the dianas and meteors were abandoned in favour of mercurys and airsporters the build quality was better i know i still had 2x hw35s in 81 a 177 and a 22 as well as the fw sport but they were eye openers for us german engineering at it's best with fantastic triggers and enough power for hunting at sensible ranges, hours spent stripping polishing chambers and transfer ports better springs and ptfe washers from manchester airguns , i shot enough rabbits one autumn to buy a brand new aya yeoman ejector and to my eternal regret sold my air rifles
 
we spent hundreds of hours in our back garden plinking with them a tin of pellets would last an afternoon

So who needs the weight machines at a gym when you can cock a springer all afternoon :D.

Fancy selling them :eek:.
 
i know i knowdifferent time !different life ! the longer you live the more you come to realise the wheel always goes round. how and ever they would have been sold one way or the other as over here an air rifle is licenced the same as a centrefire and in those days it would have been no contest i think the oldman still has a meteor for squirrels in the cage trap and my uncle has a bsa club 177 so all is not lost ;)
 
Same kind of thing here, i tramped miles, day after day clutching a HW80 in my hand as a skinny kid, makes me laugh all the grown men on here that complain there rifle is too heavy!:)
 
Same kind of thing here, i tramped miles, day after day clutching a HW80 in my hand as a skinny kid, makes me laugh all the grown men on here that complain there rifle is too heavy!:)

Shhhsh you will hurt some egos if your not careful.
 
Thanks for the advice chaps, much appreciated, I think I will probably look to get something 12ft/lbs second hand and keep the old BSA for plinking cans ;)
 
Thanks for the advice chaps, much appreciated, I think I will probably look to get something 12ft/lbs second hand and keep the old BSA for plinking cans ;)

Get ready for a quality and sticker shock then. I had a look at some of the modern springers the other year and to say they were rather poorly fitted and finished is no lie and the price :eek: . I had a look at the copy of the Old BSA RB2 Airsporter made in Spain now I beleive and it was not a patch on the RB2's I had seen. Original BSA ones that is. I always meant to get one as a companion for my CF2 Stutzen but something else always took the money now if I can find a nice one the price well ................................ it's beyond my pocket now.

Last time I saw a reasonable Fienwerkbau 127 for sale on the used rack it was just under £200 and that was a couple of years ago now.
 
If you have already bought the new gun then be prepared to finish it properly for yourself.Even the HW brand is rough out of the box these days,(Err comparativly speaking of course).Every new gun could do with a strip and polish and deburring then a good lube using the correct grease(no oils despite what some of the manuals tell you,)Should you need a guide on this just PM me and I shall be very glad to oblige.I,unlike so many have kept and still shoot with my airguns.I have recently just rebuilt a mkII Meteor and yes the power is lower than todays guns and the trigger is as you describe and will always be such, even after a fettle they still are crap triggers.The Comet that you saw is not bad when fettled and you can even get an after market trigger for it to make it a true two stage adjustable trigger with excellent results.Best value at the moment is the Chinese copy of the HW95 which is known as the SMK XS20 and is an exact copy down to the rekord trigger.Only available in .22 in the uk but an accurate and well balanced little hunter.They also do an exact copy of the Diana 34 again a very good example of a very nice gun.This is SMK XS28 this model is actually made for RUGER and Badged as the airhawke.
You can get full Steve Pope Venom tuning kits for both of these models.
 
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