Webley/Scott Turkish Produced Longbow Air Rifle

[Gene_SC]

Ok, I spent most of the afternoon today pulling down a NewWebley Longbow that I bought several months ago, in order to lube tune and possibly do something to the trigger. I think I gave my first impression right after I received it back in May. Just to briefly go over what my major disappointment were.. The trigger was as bad as a Gamo out of the box in my opinion. There was adjustment for free play and that was it. Very hard breaking trigger to say the least. Next was the noise when shooting it. Sounded very rough and loud when fired. Now for what I did like.. The wood was great and the finish of metal was good except the underside and I will go over that down below this paragraph. Not as nice as like an RWS Diana in comparison. It shoulder's to my liking and feels great to hold. In my option it is a very nice looking air rifle. I am partial to carbines and that is what the Longbow is.

Now for what I found after taking the stock off. The underside of the action was unfinished. Looked like they only finished and blued the top of action which was visible above the stock line. The trigger housing mount was spot welded to the action, like allot of the Chinese air rifles I have seen. The trigger blade had allot of play from side to side where it sit between the sides of the welded mount. There is but one adjustment screw which controls the free play and travel of the trigger. The safety mechanism was simple but to me it looked like it was an after thought. After removing the trigger assembly from its mount Bob and me then took the tension off the spring and removed two pins that held a plastic block into place. After relieving the spring tension we pulled the spring and spring guide from the action. The piston was one of the first things that caught my eye. It was rusted and the slot for the cocking linkage guide was almost like a rough cut and not finished. It had high spots and lots of burrs. After removing the seal from end of piston you could see another mess.. The groove for the seal was not tapered and was a straight cut but it had really bad chatter marks from a misaligned cutting bit that was used to cut the groove. That was another mess.. I think Bob spent 20 minutes just cleaning up the piston with a die grinder and in the lathe. Also where the seer slot was there were burrs and it was very uneven.

Now for the spring and spring guide.. Generally what really helps with chatter, and noise is how well a guide is fitted to the spring. Well the spring guide was a piece of molded plastic which all but lip flange end of guide was way smaller than the inside diameter of spring. At the base of the guide was a lip flange and just below that on the guide itself it was ramped about 1/2" which was larger than the rest of the guide and you had to press it into the spring the last 1/2" for a proper fit. The remaining end of guide just sit inside the spring. So what you had was only 1/2" of guide that actually was snug in the spring. I might mention that the shaft of the guide was not solid. It had open slots running the length of the guide. For what reason the slots were their for I do not know and neither did Bob. I do not imagine this spring guide will hold for any long period of steady use. Time will tell. This was a learning experience for me. I have never seen a $300.00 plus dollar air rifle look like this on the inside before.

(Side Note)
I owned a Hammerli Titan and did several turners on them and they are made in Turkey. Quality wise everything was rough inside but not like this Longbow. And the triggers in the Titan was fantastic and it could be tuned and polished to a person's liking. The Titan is a great shooter and very accurate, and it costs around $100.00.

Finally westripped the trigger assembly down and Bob again polished and burnished the sear and a couple other mating parts. Then the task of re assembly. This was nothard and the a basic spring compressor and a bit offinesseand everything went back together. Cleaned up the action and mounted the stock back on the action. Tightened thethree screws and clocked and loaded a pellet up.

As I suspectedafter pulling the trigger theroughness and noise wasstill there. The trigger was smoother to pull but just ashard as before the tunes Before I forget the barrel was cleaned and the pivot was cleaned and lubed along with the piston, spring and seal with 5 different lubes.

In my opinion a new spring with a proper fitting spring guide is in order.Rework the seal end of piston for a proper fitting seal. Also put some spacer's on each side of the trigger to take out all the slop.Asit turned outthe piston seal was and oddball seal and to find a new seal would probably be like looking for a needle in a haystack.. I am sure the noise was attributed from the loose spring guidethey used for the spring. I would like to sell the Longbow but I would be ashamed of myself tosell it or pass it on to someone else..

I did notmention Bob but a couple times.I would be reluctant to pass on anything we discussed about the Longbow in this review.He may or may not respond to this thread but I think that all who read this know me well enoughthat I should know awell built springer when I see one apart..

Now this is also gonna rub some of you who already own aWebley Longbow the wrong direction, but this review is a hands on in the shop look at what I bought for $300.00 plus air gun... This review is my own opinion. It could be I got the only lemonLongbow they ever made in Turkey..

When I first bought theLongbow andchronied it. TheFPS was from the low 800 fps to the mid 800 fps. I did not check it afterit was done because wedid not change the spring, guide or seal.

There you go fellow air gunners.

Gene

[davee1]

You are the man...thanx for taking the time to post this well written and informative review. Please never stop doing what you do. I have learned most of what I know about airguns right here at GTA, and this review adds a little bit more to the factory in my head...LOL.

[Splash]

Excellent, Honest review Gene, but I wouldn't expect any less, from you. I was thinking about spending a little time with one, not anymore. It almost sounds as though the Longbow, is a $300 B-3. It's a shame when a quality product, sells out, in hopes the name will keep them going.

[Progun]

Thanks Gene for your excellent insights. Looks like a classic case of "Looks good--Feels baaad".

[shadow]

Well...........it look's good   I alway's trust my buddies take on a springer's quality, Bob and Gene going over her, can't beat that. I agree with Mike, sound's like a expensive B3 and you still have to do some TLC hmmm. Thank's for your take on her buddy and let us know if you dive into her again to do some mod's. Ed

[CharlieDaTuna]

You want my opinion...?  Gene brings me the damnedest things....lol... I don't usually criticize airgun's to much but I gotta tell you.  I could not believe the quality of this gun and with it carrying the Longbow signature. I have seen few Chinese guns that were as bad as this gun was and I have been through many many hundreds of guns both cheap as well as the expensive ones.

 The innards were unbelievable. The piston seemed to have been chiseled out of a block of steel....with a dull chisel. It was so bad that it was eating up the action walls and gouging into it. The sear capture slot looked like it had been chopped out with a mini-axe. The milled out slots for the cocking foot had been cut so roughly that the edges were a raised above the edge of the slot and were like razor blades. as was all the other surfaces. Slots were cut on both sides of the pistons as were another capture slot. I may have been designed to fit two different guns.

The tube was total rust inside, very rough and needed some serious honing from the compression area back to the rear of the action. It was so bad that I used a flex hone on it and that is something that I would rarely use on any action. And the taper was unbelievable. In fact, I thought at first that the seal was way to small for the gun but as it was installed into the action, the further that you went, the tighter it got until you got to the bottom. Also, the seal itself was very rough from the abuse on the chamber wall.  The stamping on the action was about as bad as you will ever see on any Chinese gun and much like or maybe even worse than what you would see on the B-3 or KL-B3.

I could go on but Gene did get most of it. But.... I will say this. If you are going to spend $300.00 on a gun, spend $300.00 on a B-3. I think you will get more for your money, setting the wood aside. What a shame to turn out something like that and call it a Webley Longbow.

That's my 2 cents worth.

Bob    aka: Charlie

[PeakChick]

I have both a Turkish Longbow and a Tomahawk. I do agree with Gene on a lot of points. I think I may have been more fortunate than Gene in that both my Turkish Webleys are a bit nicer finished than his sounds like.
The Turkish Webleys do have a quick, harsh firing cycle and are demanding on scopes and mounts. I have a Center point 4-16 x 40 in a BKL 260 mount, with a BKL stop backing it up on my Tomahawk. The Tomahawk has the goofy Hatsan rail on it. The Longbow is getting a BKL 260 on it too. I had a BSA 3-12 x 44 scope on it in a Accushot one piece, high mount. The mount began to slip on me, and I am putting a BKL 260 mount on it. The Longbow has traditional scope rails machined into the receiver, but no stop pin holes.
I agree that the triggers are basically junk. They are about on par with an average stock Gamo trigger. I can't understand why Hatsan didn't just copy the very good Webley trigger.
Both my Hatsans have such good ergonomics and are both very accurate, despite the bad triggers, that is why I like mine.
I do agree that Webley and Hatsan need to come together and put a good trigger in the Turkish Webleys and need to really place a priority on QC if they are going to market these rifles as Webleys and ask nearly $400.00 for them. I do really hope that happens. I would hate to seen these really fine rifles disappear.