So after I posted here I emailed some tuners and called some local gun smiths places to see what my options were. First I called a local gunsmith and explained to him that I had purchased an air rifle and that I thought the barrel might be bent and could he help me, he told me that he did not work on BB guns. I assured him that this was a real rifle. He said that may be true but he would not know how to work on plastic barrels and suggested I look else where.
At this point I had been starring at the barrel for hours and had tried to measure and align it to different things to see if it was bent or was it just me, my wife said I was going nuts about it. I had started to decide that it shot just fine and was plenty accurate, and I was agonizing over something that was not important. Then I received a reply email from Paul @ Paul Watts Spring Gunning, he wrote :
"If you have no problem getting the gun to sight in, you really don't have a problem. Just shoot it. Very very slight bends would make it hard to sight in. I doesn't sound like you have a problem."
There, he said it, if you have no trouble sighting it in, then you have no problem. This really made me feel better, by that time I had shot 100 or so shots through it and I was having no problems. In this time I had searched all over the net for info on this subject and had found information on how no barrel is inserted to the cylinder 100% straight, just due to the way they are screwed in, and some guns have what is called lateral droop. So I pulled my other 2 break barrels and started starring down the length of them, and guess what. Neither one of them is "perfectly" straight, but so straight I had never inspected them some carefully. I just seemed to notice it more because the BSA's barrel is almost 5 inches longer. In the following day I received some more emails, all but one said that if it sighted in fine and kept constant groups then don't worry about it, and since then I haven't
So once I got over freaking out about the barrel and enjoyed shooting it, it has been a lot of fun.
I bought a new Bushnell's 4x12-40 Banner Scope for it, and it has a B Square adjustable mount. So I took the scope and centered it and then mounted it and sighted it in most of the way by adjusting the scope mounts elevation and windage to make sure it was aligned to the barrel and then sighted it in the rest at 20 yards. It shoots awesome, the trigger is much lighter than my shadow, the first shot went off prematurely, just like in high school lol. I had never experienced such a light, crisp trigger. It is amazing how much better my shooting is because of it. The rifle is nice and light at just over 6 lbs and it came with a nice sling and sling swivels which makes it much easier to carry around. So far at 20 yards I can shoot better groups than I could with my Shadow. I bought a tin of BSA .22 Storm pellets and some Milbro Caldonians in 22 also, so far the Storms shoot the best. It has a nice solid feel when you fire it, very controllable recoil. The gun it self looks beautiful, with gorgeous wood and a nice looking trigger guard. The Bushnell 4x12-40 Banner scope is the second one I have bought from Bushnell (I also have the Sportsman 4x12-40) and I like it much better, it fits the gun perfectly. I will post some pictures soon. Thanks, Michael
