GTA
General Discussion To Gateway To Airguns => Airgun Gate => : Walt March 17, 2010, 03:19:32 PM
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Well today seemed to be through no fault of my own, my lucky air rifle day. I was going to go look at the $98.99 Gamo Big Cats that are going on sale at Cabelas this weekend to check for metal trigger or not. I need a new project rifle. On the way I go past one of our old Sportsman Warehouse locations that is now a Wholesale sports or something like that. I thought I would go in and see what's new and check the pellet selection before going over to Cabelas. After looking over the air gun selection I went over to the powder burner section for no particular reason, where much to my surprise I see a BSA Lightning XL all by it's self in the last row of the rifle racks. No tag or any labeling on it so I got the attention of one of the people down the counter and asked for help. What caliber? .177. How much? $89.99. Really? Its one we are dumping. I had a pretty good idea what that must mean but now was not the time for a detailed explanation. I said as calmly as I could I'll take it. He says I'll get the box. Five minutes. No box no gun. Ten minutes. No box no gun. Another sales person offers to find out what's up. Another three or four minutes go by. I am thinking they are trying to figure out how to tell me there is a three or four in front of the $89.99. Here they come. They apologize for not being able to locate the box. I said I can live without the box. Up to the register we go. Out comes the C note and at a brisk pace out the door I go. I know two thing for sure. No new Gamo and dumping is a good thing.
There are a couple of things I am a little confused about. I already have a Lightning XL but at this price I was not passing this by. Both the guns have similar serial numbers AR 37XXX on today's purchase and AR 38XXX on my old one purchased about two years ago for a lot more money. So I think today's rifle is older than my first Lightning. The serial numbers are 1085 rifles different but maybe I don't know how to read them. The stocks are different. My first one is much nicer. Also my first one had no writing on top of the scope rail and today's purchase states it's a magnum. Does anyone think I have two different grades of rifle or one was made in Turkey or somewhere. Both rifles refer to England but neither clearly states made in England.
The other thing I would like to find out is, are there any BSA tuners out there? I understand they are more difficult to disassemble and assemble than others because of the scope rail.
W
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The one without the scope is the older version. I think the ony difference is the stock and labeling. I think both barrel shrouds come off on that series. I had two also and one was the older version.
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Walt, do you feel lucky? You should. Congratulations on your new rifle. I walked into Bass Pro Shop once to check out the newest R-55 Thompson Center 22LR. They were sold out but they did have a similarTC Classic with the bull barrel and laminated stock.The clerk quoted me $299 for the "discontinued close out TC". I didn't really need it since I already had the original TC Classic but I new it was a good deal so I said " I'll take it". When the clerk rang it up the price was in fact only $199. Less than half what the near identical R-55 was selling for.The funny thing is my shooting buddy had bought out the last R-55 the day before I walked into the store. When we compared guns and the design change between the two near identical models he was stunned at the difference in the price we both paid. Of course on the bench, both models excell. Glad you got a good deal at Cabela's.
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You gotta love deals like that. Good find, its a nice looking rifle.
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Walt,
I'll pay you $99 plus shipping. You deserve to make a few bucks! LOL
Damn why doesn't this happen to me? You're living a charmed life there my friend!
Bet it makes the smile that much bigger when you shoot it!
Andy
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Walt, you lucky guy......you've struck GOLD!!!!