A Tale Of Two Halfs

[hunter100t 56]

Sorry to hear about your experience mawders, I was looking to buy a prosport myself, untill a couple of lads from my club mentioned the cocking lever problems. seems in thier efforts to keep weight down, they neglected to properly measure the load strengh that can be consistently put on the alloy parts in the leaver. Shoddy AA, very shoddy ! by rights they shoud do a re-call like the car manufacturers do, that would be the right thing to do. I realy want one of these rifles, but cant imagine having one with this badly engineered cocking lever and link ! unless i buy second hand, but like you, i like the warrenty side of things in case things dont go according to plan.

But on a plus note, Glad you got the HW, sollid dependable gun makers, coupled with a decent tune, should see you through mate.

Happy hunting mawders !

 

atb phil

[redial 81]

Great write up. Before reading I was about to buy a TX 200 HC from B'pool air rifles £375 then I thought may as

well put the extra money and go for the Pro Sport £465 as at my age it's likely to be my last serious air rifle pur-

chase. Now Iam thinking TX 200 HC or stick with my HW77 from the 1980's and spend some money on it getting

it tuned. Phil.

[secretagentmole 1,701]

Get the 77 tuned and keep about £200 in the back pocket Phil, or invest in a scope upgrade!

[Mawders 595]

Wow if I was you I would keep that 77 gem and get it tuned with a nice scope setup as well unless it already has a nice scope. The tx or the prosport won't do any more than your 77 can.

 

ATB

 

Mawders

[Skot Ruthless Teale 1,701]

yeah i agree with what these two ^ have said.

[Taz-n-Lily 62]

Interesting thread.

I've never been tempted by the Prosport because the cocking geometry just does not look right to me. I much prefer the tried-and-tested long cocking lever on the TX.

 

Looking at the Prosport, AA don't have much room to improve that cocking lever setup, and I can see several areas where the machining and materials would have to be absolutely spot-on to avoid problems.

In defence of AA though, the TX's are brilliant, and a simple re-lube and self-tune using original parts is all that's needed to fettle them. The CD trigger is a bit rough when you take it apart, but that's just poor finishing, and nothing that a bit of wet-and-dry, some polish and a hour or so won't sort out. Once fettled the CD unit is at least as good as the Rekord units I've tried. My CD trigger, which I've spent some time on, is superb.

 

The stock on my Mk111 was not great. It's beech, and was heavily laquered and the butt-pad was not a great fit.

Easy enough to sort out though. It's a hunting rifle so as long as it looks/feels ok and is weatherproof that does me.

 

My feelings on the Prosport are that the innards, which it shares with the TX are very good straight out of the box.

The rifle looks good, no doubt, but if I want a rifle which look as good as that, with no problems attached, I'd buy a powder-burner.

The TX, 97, and 77 are much of a muchness once the HWs have been tuned. Once the TX has been tuned it's possibly that little bit better?

Edited April 10, 2013 by Taz-n-Lily

[Mawders 595]

That's a cracking looking rifle you have there Taz. They really are cracking rifles the tx200. My hunting partner has one that's a mk2 and its never been serviced or had any work done on it and its still going strong never missed a beat, like old faithful! It's also about 16 years old to put it in perspective!

 

In jan last year I owned a tx200 mk3 hc in .22 cal and I couldn't fault it at all! I only sold it as I got tempted into the pcp world where I soon realised my mistake and went back to springer. Don't get me wrong pcp have their place and have far more benefits to spring piston rifles but for what I use my rifles for a spring piston rifle is all I need!

 

I've never fired a tuned tx so can't comment if they are better than a tuned hw but others may be better suited to answer that question. As far as I was aware there isn't a lot more you can do to an AA spring piston rifle to make it any better as they are generally outstanding from the box. The tx is also fantastically priced for what you get.

 

All the best

 

Phil

[A1WOC 212]

Hi Mawders,

 

You commented on another thread to keep an eye on the op's HW97 power creeping up after it was tuned! Has yours settled in yet, and do you anticipate having to take it back for adjustment?

 

Regards, Steve

[Mawders 595]

Hi mate,

 

Mine is still going up buddy, after 20 shots it went from 10ft/lb to 10.3.

 

I'll hopefully be putting a good 100 of so through over the weekend so I'll let you know. I would imagine it will go up another 2ft/lb by the end of 500 shots maybe less so yes, it will be going back, its just a question of when. All the SFS rifles I have owned or know of have had to go back after a month or so to have the power taken down. Once the rifles properly bedded in though it should not creep up much more.

 

Phil

[zini 1,939]

A good thing to do is ask Tony to tune it to 9.5 FPE for you like I did with my new springer and Davy had done so they bed in to around 10.5 to 10.9 FPE which is perfect.

 

Si.

[Skot Ruthless Teale 1,701]

Thats a good idea Si saves the faffing about of sending it back a few times

[Taz-n-Lily 62]

That's a cracking looking rifle you have there Taz. They really are cracking rifles the tx200. My hunting partner has one that's a mk2 and its never been serviced or had any work done on it and its still going strong never missed a beat, like old faithful! It's also about 16 years old to put it in perspective!

 

In jan last year I owned a tx200 mk3 hc in .22 cal and I couldn't fault it at all! I only sold it as I got tempted into the pcp world where I soon realised my mistake and went back to springer. Don't get me wrong pcp have their place and have far more benefits to spring piston rifles but for what I use my rifles for a spring piston rifle is all I need!

 

I've never fired a tuned tx so can't comment if they are better than a tuned hw but others may be better suited to answer that question. As far as I was aware there isn't a lot more you can do to an AA spring piston rifle to make it any better as they are generally outstanding from the box. The tx is also fantastically priced for what you get.

 

All the best

 

Phil

Hi Phil,

 

Thanks for that.

 

The TX/Prosport run on bearings, which makes them very smooth new. Deburring the compression tube/piston and polishing the spring-ends and the bits they rotate on all helps to smooth the rifle even more. And a good lube helps too. Of course the deburring would take place naturally over a few years - but I prefer not to wait.

 

The CD trigger unit is ok out of the box, but brilliant once the sears are smoothed and polished.

 

I run my TX at around 11 ft-lbs which it seems happy at. It's .177 and there is no recoil to speak of.

Looking at the stock I think I'll be taking that back in "the shop" to finish it a little better (Linseed rather than Danish oil this time). While I'm at it I may do a bit more internal polishing...... .

Edited April 12, 2013 by Taz-n-Lily

[bunnyman 68]

sorry to read Mawders of your prosportproblems a great and witty write up,

yes Tony at SFS does a great job i have a hw95.22 and a hw80.25 all tuned by Tony

and when funds allow a hw97kt.177 for a full stage-2 tune -up Tony turns a good gun

into a fantastic gun, the reason he is so busy is because he transforms any gun

into a great gun, i hope and know you will get lots of shooting pleasure from the hw97.

atb brian

Edited April 12, 2013 by bunnyman

[Mawders 595]

Thanks Brian I totally agree mate.

[Brackenharley 16]

Hi, great article and read about the Prosport. I had a .22 with the same problem, squeaking and alloy filings. As the gun was second hand I assumed it was lack of use so went about giving it a service and clean up. After new grease, polishing, V - Mach kit and trigger tuning it improved massively, but every now and then I would feel some friction when operating the under lever. This hasn't put me off getting another Prosport as in my opinion they are one of the nicest looking spring rifles out there. Think my next springer will be 97k though, only ever heard good things about them.