Okay, my thoughts and past experience earlier with the Crosman Sierra Pro.
It turns that the Sierra Pro is available exclusively at Wal-Mart, while its non iron sighted counterpart, the Remington Summit, is available everywhere else.
My first thought was that, yes the stock looked pretty nice, and the rest of the rifle, especially the scope, looked fine.
Anyway, I did what I have always done when scoping a rifle, that is take my bottle of pure acetone to the scope mount and rings, then degreased the entire assembly.
Then I degreased the scope tube and the mount rails on the rifle itself.
I carefully slid the one piece scope mount onto the rails, aligned the scope stop pin with its mating vertical hole in the receiver, then firmly screwed the stop pin down until it met resistance.
Of course, I mounted the Centerpoint 3-9x40 scope in the rings, snugging all degreased screws down firmly.
I only say this so no one will think that I allowed things to be mounted loosely.
I then took it out to the range and attempted to sight it in.
Well, somewhere around 100 shots later, I finally managed to get it within two inches of my aim point @ 25 yards.
Yes, at least 100 shots!
I never took even 20 shots to get rimfires and centerfires right on the money before, sheesh.
Okay, another 50 or so shots later, and I had it striking the aim point to my satisfaction.
I figured now was the time to shoot groups.
Nope.
The first 10 shots would fall reasonably close to my POA, then they started to roam all over the paper.
WTF! I thought I was shooting groups with an air RIFLE, not patterning a SHOTGUN!
The groups progressively opened up to somewhere around six inches, so I readjusted the w/e until it was again somewhere near POA, again needing about 50 shots to get there.
Again, in approximately another 10 shots, the pellets were doing shotgun patterns.
Okay, something is definitely wrong here, so I checked the scope and mounts, including taking a screwdriver to all screws and attempting to snug them down, but they were all tight and wouldn't go in more than they already were.
So, I pulled the stock screws out completely, degreased the screw holes and screws themselves, applied the grand old blue Loc-Tite, then put the barreled action back in its stock with the Loc-Tited screws, then left the thing to cure overnight.
Well, I am sad to say that nothing changed, and, yes I even checked for hold sensitivity by using what many have come to call the "artillery hold" that most springers require in order to get decent groups.
Nope, something was just horribly wrong, and I don't understand why I should have to take a $150 air rifle to someone to tune for another $150 just to get it to shoot within a minute of barn door!
I had had enough, so I boxed up the whole thing, grabbed the receipt, then took off to Wal-Mart.
Unfortunately, the customer service girl was clueless and tried to tell me that firearms are not returnable.
I pointed out that airguns are most definitely NOT firearms, at which point clueless called the store manager, who confirmed to her that I was indeed right.
Thank goodness I was able to rid myself of that turkey!
So, I took my return money, added another $50, then placed an order with Pyramyd Air for a Gamo CFX, and all my troubles were over.
I now easily stack five Beeman Ram Jets inside 0.4" at 25 yards, and I wonder why I should EVER trust a Chinese manufactured airgun again.
Sorry, I know a lot of you folks out there love the BAM and others, and some of them may well be pretty good, but the Crosman Sierra Pro and the Beeman P17 air pistol both left REALLY bad tastes in my mouth.
I learned my lesson.
NEVER again.
