I picked up my BSA Lightning XL from my local Sportsman's Warehouse yesterday. I had been wanting a high quality European .177 rifle in a more compact size than the RWS 36 that I had. I was considering several Weihrauch rifles, the HW50, HW95 and HW97K.......all in .177. I go into Sportsman's Warehouse about weekly for pellets, misc. shooting supplies and they had this BSA in the rack for months. I had peeked at it before, but was a bit put off by the price $429.00, (The two other sites I found online for this rifle in the US list this rifle at $479.00). I made the mistake of asking to handle and shoulder the rifle about a month ago. Wow, very compact, shoulders very well, light in weight, beautiful wood, great metal, deep, even satin bluing. Two weeks ago I went in and asked an old friend that works there to let me take it out back and cycle it and shoot cleaning pellets through it to feel the action and trigger. That was all it took to convince me. It has a very smooth cocking cycle, great trigger, the barrel locks up like the proverbial bank vault. I put money down on it for lay-a-way that day.
I got home with the new rifle yesterday morning, took her out of the box and began prep. I cleaned the barrel thouroughly, the barrel cleaned up quickly, not a lot of crud from the factory. As a point of interest, the BSA barrels are very high quality, hammer forged units. Scope mounting revealed that the BSA "Maxi Grip" rail on the receiver is a 14mm rail, so I could not use the BKL 260 11mm mount I had that I wanted to use, (BKL does offer the 400 series mounts in 14mm). An Accushot 1pc medium mount worked fine on the rail with the clamping plate reversed to allow for the wider width. The scope mounted on it now is a Leapers 3-9 x 32mm AO. I will put a different scope on it in fairly short order, probably a Leapers 3-9 x 40mm AO or a Bushnell Banner 3-12 x 40mm AO. I will probably stick with the Accushot mount, strong and compact, works just fine on this rifle.
I sighted the rifle in on my indoor 10m range. I used BSA Wolverines 8.4 gr FTs, (These are BSA labled JSB exacts). I tried a sampling of different pellets, the BSA, RWS superdomes, CPHP, Gamo Hunter. The rifle prefers the BSA pellet and this pleases me as I am very sold on this pellet for accuracy, quality and performance. The rifle dieseled consistently for the first 75 shots, no detonation, just smoke. Accuracy is very good for a carbine sized rifle, very consistent. Cocking effort is a bit high due to the short barrel on this rifle, and the compact, fairly high powerplant in this gun. I would guess cocking effort at about 35-40lbs, not bad, just not the effortless stroke like my HW30. BSA lists this rifle at 900 fps, 15fpe. AOA shows their testing at 14fpe, so the advertised power is pretty close. I don't have a chrony so no numbers, but perceived power is right up there with any of my higher powered rifles. The trigger is very good, light, short first stage, very crisp second stage at about 2-2.5 lbs. I have not adjusted the trigger yet. This rifle has a "moderator" built in to the barrel, a mechanical baffeled unit. I'm not certain of the effectiveness, the rifle is not loud, but not silent either. The mechanical noise is just a sharp, smooth slap, report is a sharp, quick pop.
This rifle is very compact: 37.5" OAL, 14.5" overall barrel length (the actual barrel on this gun is 10", combined length is the barrel and moderator). Its listed weight on the BSA site is 6.1 lbs unscoped. Scoped as it is now it is 7.5lbs on my bathroom scale.
Pics below show the rifle, the rifle with my HW30 and .177 CFX for size comparison, and a 10m target, 6 shot group with Wolverines, rifle forestock cupped in my left hand on my rest, elbows on the bench, butt unsupported on my shoulder.
She's a keeper!