| Well what can I say.
It’s an emotional time. All those precious wonderful moments you’ve cherished and shared together, the good times the bad ones too. You know each other, the odd blemish here the odd pot mark there and yet you both see through those and onto the overall inner beauty that shines through. After all it’s what first drew your eyes onto those luscious curves, making you long to run your fingers over them and absorb the smoothness.
But with every beginning there has to be an end, it’s inevitable and as definite as having to pay tax.
For me this is one of those times. A time of loss, no more good times together, no more admiring those curves, no more memories to make. It’s a sad time, off she’s gone to feel the warmth of another man’s caress, and the firmness of his grip.
What ? You mean ? You thought me and my girlfriend had split up.
Nooooo nothing like that. What I’m talking about is my S10, she’s now owned by someone else. What else would it be, this is an Airgun mag after all. In fact other the last couple of months I passed on two of them, both bullbarell's, one a carbine 177 and the other a full length 22 in a lovely Paul Wilson coat.
And as much as I regret both of them going there are reasons why and I think the best way to describe it is needs must. It’s a bit like having to upgrade a car. That sporty little hatchback you’ve had for years, tinkered with, washed, waxed and pulled in, has to be part ex ‘d for something a little bigger. (If you don’t already know about this the time will come trust me or go and ask one of your parents)
I’d been using the S10’s for ages, they were after all working guns, the 22 I used for bunnythumping up the fields and the 177 did everything else. Then a BTAS verminator came into my possession and the 177 got used less, and when an X2 caught my eye, the little S10 was what raised the cash. I regretted it as soon as it went. But oh WOW was that x2 a beauty. I was smitten, I wanted to start doing HFT and I’d replaced it with the Vermy. Nope it was off to a new home and new owner.
No way was the 22 was ever going anywhere.
Until now that is, and to start with a question
Does a man need one gun or four ?
We want 4 ,more than that if you’re like me, but we don’t need them. Even though we can justify a reason for owning every single one of them “Oh yes that’s my Tuesday northerly wind gun, and that’s the same with NV on it for the night time.” My girlfriend knows this and is on to me, she lets it slide as she does the same but with shoes and handbags. They’re so much cleverer about it as the handbag justifies the shoes. Do you think “I need this rifle as it matches my scope darling” would work ?
Back to the point. REALLY we can get by with ( I’ll say it quietly) just the one. However we work hard and it’s better than spending it on beer. So I have three guns. One of which I am just not getting on with. I was drawn to it and smitten by its looks and needed a single shot for HFT but to me I just don’t and can’t get on with it. It’s not the rifle it’s all me. I’m too used to the weight and balance of a rifle with a bottle at the front. I’ve been a long-time with the S10’s. I get on fine with Airwolf’s and Rapids. But the X2 and I just aren’t clicking. The vermy weighs nothing and I can virtually shoot that one handed. It’s not the rifle that’s absolutely fine, it’s all me I just can’t get the X2 right or hold it steady.
I need to take it ratting. It’s fast it furious and if you want to be Zen like with your gun. This is a brilliant way to do it. So after loading up some mags it was off to the shoot.
This is where I hit the first problem. I’ve got a 30 mm scope fitted with what I suspect are medium sized mounts cos the mags won’t fit. So I empty the mags into my pocket and decide I’ll stick with the single shot tray for now. After all I did get it for HFT so at least I can get used to reloading it. I bait up and after a cup of flask coffee I start walking the shoot. There’s not a lot of action, which is no surprise as it blowing a Hooley and still early on in the afternoon. So instead I set about making sure it was zero’d in properly. I don’t understand parallaxes yet. I don’t want to understand then just yet. I just want the pellets to go where I point the reticle. So I set a target at approx 25 yards set the parallax to the same and zero’d in. Then when the pellets where slamming where they were supposed to be, I moved further out and closer in an attempt to work out what point of the reticle to use . Just as I thought I’d got it, it ran out of juice, and I was having a wicked time. Oh for a buddy bottle.
I went back to the car, got the vermy out and went off to nail some rats. Back to the workhorse and practise over.
The next time out it was really windy so I focused on the barns and staying inside. The X2 was cumbersome so it went back to the car and out came the vermy. My ratting and in fact all my hunting has to be effective, and we weren’t really cutting it ratting. So I decided a bit of bunny thumping and field work might be in order. We set off for the walk across a patchwork of 6 fields, walking the perimeter of each one in turn. It’s a bit hefty but workable, unfortunately there’s a few very shiny bits on the gun and I think that might have aided the evacuation of pigeons. All I heard was the sound of clapping as they scattered out the back of the copse lined fields. So no birds. And the rabbits weren’t showing either. I have no doubt that it’ll be fine podding a few rabbits off later on in the year.
Needless to say all this led me to the conclusion that me and it are not meant to be. We didn’t get off to a good start and I can’t find a reason for it to stay. As I can do it all with the vermy. The only things it has going for it is the single shot for HFT reason. And although I have only done 2 comps I understand that in order to do it you need to be at one with your rifle. Something I had with my S10’s and I have with the Vermy.
Now I could shoot either of those in HFT and take the mags out between pegs. BUT the Vermy is bloody fiddly to get the mags in and out, and is 22 as is the remaining S10. I sold the 177. GRRRR
I could shoot 22, but I need all the help I can get.
So I need a single shot/multi shot, buddy bottle style rifle that I can use for proper hunting and HFT
I can hear Airwolf, being shouted at the back.
Very nice gun Very very nice gun, BUT I’m not convinced by all that electronic gizmardry ( I just made that word up) I just know I’ll lose keys, forget to charge it, get it soaked and will I be able to rely on those electronics. I know there’s Airwolf user out there screaming at me. Its fine nothing to worry about. BUT I doubt myself with it and that’s the most part. It’s me again so that’s a no. Particularly when a new one is up round the grand mark. It’s those same things that count the Air ranger out as well.
Can I hear someone say rapid ?
That’s what I’ve narrowed it down to. There seems to be a million and one different variations out there. Mk I’s and II’s, S-types, MFR’s and Tacticals, 7’s, !2’s, and singles. There’s second hand, new direct from Theoben . Rapids have their own internet forum ( daystate do too )and a whole wide world of custom tuning out there for the discerning customer. CS in Manchester and Mr Taylor himself being the first two that spring to mind. The final thing that swung it for me was that I’ve used MkII’s and got on well with em so there.
Now I don’t actually know what one I wanted. I loved the look of the MKII’s, I don’t like the look of the MKI’s so that straight out the way. I want single shot adaptability and that leads to MFR and S- types and I love the look of the Tactical. Then I found single shot trays for all the rapids which opened all the options up again. It was time to seek some guidance and I turned to the Airgun internet forums I visit.
Now I think it’s fair to say this here. We are in the 21st century and the internet is a media that the Pretty much the whole world has embraced. All it would appear apart from the Air rifle world .. Oh and the army surplus industry as well.
It’sa world of fast responses and instant transactions which appears to be a million miles away from a few of the Airgun traders. At one point I didn’t get a response from a shop I was looking to spend near on a thousand pounds with and if I hadn’t rung them up I think I still wouldn’t have the answer. Without being rude, and a bit of constructive critiscism here, we have just had the VCR bill imposed on us and that means that in order for me to get some items I have to travel across the country to get it. Seeing as my local shops never ever have any of the items that I want I have to search around.
I can USUALLY get all the info I need from the manufacturers website (sometimes they are impossible to find as well) and to waste fuel and time travelling across country to end up empty handed is really a big let down and very sad considering that other non IT industries can embrace it and get it to work for them. I could ring but I don’t always have the time or ability to make that call in office hours.
So come on guys please have a go and work with this web stuff. It can be working for you 24 hrs a day making you money when you’re asleep Ok lecture over but go and check those emails.
So the Airgun online forums are brilliant. When the shops are shut or you need that piece of unbiased advice, they are only ever a click away. The trouble with internet forums is that usually there’s several thousand people that are part of the community. Each with his or hers own opinion of what you’re asking. So if you post a thread be ready to get a few thousand different answers, some factual, some speculative and some from planet XYZ population 1. You read it sort out what you think is the wheat from chaff, and then make a decision based on all the evidence. In this case all the evidence pointed me to . . .confusion. I got answers but I had no result. I contacted Theoben with a lengthy question asking for advice and somebody from sales, who didn’t know the technical stuff, didn’t bother reading it, and sent me an answer that bordered on the answer 4 o’clock to the question “Would you like tea or coffee?”
It was no good I had to speak to the guru himself a man that is known as Ben Taylor. I told him what I wanted and what I liked, he suggested a MKII with a cut down barrel and 280cc bottle. The MFR tactical and S-types would all be too heavy and the MK II with a BTAS regulator and the work done would be the mutts and do everything I wanted. This was the option I wanted to take. It only left two options new or second hand, and get the work done.
It was obvious that, for me to be able to afford this one or two of the guns had to go. Not only to raise the cash, but there was no way I could fit another gun in the house.
Now come on out there put your hands up and own up. Who keeps their rifles in or on top of the wardrobe, under the bed or somewhere similar. None of mine are FAC so I don’t need to keep them in a cabinet and there’s nowhere I could really put one in our 2 bedroom flat. So my rifles live in my part of the wardrobe. So a vermy, an X2 and a full length S10 bb. All scoped up in bags and cases, leaves no room for clothes. In fact the S10 has taken up the prime spot of being under the bed. Nope 4 guns won’t fit in our flat. No matter how many pairs of shoes and matching handbags I use as bribery.
So at least one has to go, and through lack of current use and because it will be openly replaced with a rapid. The S10 is the one on the cards. I’m gutted but it has too. The Paul Wilson stocked beauty will be surplus to requirements so it needed a new home. (Which it found straight away) the X2 because I quite simply don’t get on with it will be next. But I have a stock I have to finish working on before it goes.
Now this sort of helped me make a choice here. I have never ever had a new gun. I have always brought second hand one because it’s all I can afford. I’m selling two guns and I don’t want to buy another one THIS IS IT NO MORE. Unless I sell the vermy. Nope this rapid will be it NO MORE. It has to do everything I want it to do. I have also been saving, I’ve been saving a lot. We are saving up for a deposit for a house. First time buyers and that. OOOoooh and if anyone would like to donate to the TRB house fund please feel free to email me. I accept paypal. My Motorbikes gone, I’ve been working extra hours and doing all this so to me this could be the only opportunity I ever ever get to buy a new gun, and I mean a brand new gun all for me. So I’m getting a new one.
As I was at work I had to track down BTAS number in order to get the gun ordered and the work done and call it fate accident coincidence or whatever I end up on a page showing me the BTAS HFT 400 rapid. . . .That’s it that’s the one I want, it will be mine. It will be mine. It has the sexiest silencer I have ever seen in my life and a stock to die for. The action being a hybrid of the MKII and MFR. It’s absolutely perfect.
That was until I ring Mr Taylor and find out that they don’t have any more silencers. No problem just so long as it has that gorgeous stock. Er, no we don’t have any of those either. We only made a 100 of them and with the odd replacement here and there all we have is a couple of actions. Hmmmmmm it’s never easy is it. So I have to lay my hands on a stock. “Give those chaps in Wisbech a call, they should be able to do one” Brilliant !! So after getting the details of the action I was putting a call into TAWNADO’s for a stock. Of course they didn’t have the one I was after either. That would just be too simple and easy. So after explaining what I wanted and putting a deposit down a new stock was on order and being made by Gary Cane as soon as he could.
It might be here in a few days it might be a few months, time will tell. But I have to say I’m excited. It my first brand new gun and its one off a kind. I can’t wait but I have to, as its all beyond my control. I don’t even know if it will be ready for the beginning of the UKAHFT season or not. But then we’ve been here before aint we. Quarry Extreme and X2, practice what practice
So again its Fingers crossed and let see what turns up.
In the meantime anyone got a spare MKII fitting stock I can borrow ?
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