same quality with my 1995.00 dollar fx crown, almost 6 months & hundreds of dollars spent on pellets,scopes,chronys & list goes on & on ...airgun depot would not do anything because i had a bi-bod installed.(nothing wrong with the wood)..in no way should a gun costing this much shoot the first pellet 20-30-40fps slower than the rest of the mag.& group like a shot gun at 50 yards...my advice -- get your money back as fast as you can.....good luck!!
So I'm just going to throw this out there: you're far far FAR from the only one who has been mistreated by Airgun Depot. I'm genuinely surprised there aren't more harsh words for them in this community, as voiding a gun's warranty because you installed a rail is ridiculous. Furthermore if you contact FX's USA service center, I have every expectation they'll not only take care of you, but will also probably make note of how the Depot treated you.
As far as issues with FX and airguns in general go, I want to point a couple things out:
1) So far as I can tell every airgun manufacturer has issues. This isn't because they're malicious, but because airguns are complex and fickle devices. Take one example of o-rings can fail in a variety of different ways due to incredibly subtle tolerances and situations. If the inside of your reg has too coarse a scratch pattern or there is a tiny bur it can cause your o-ring to slowly tear and fail over time. (something which QC would struggle to catch, as the gun will leave the factory working) At the opposite end if your reg is too polished inside, the o-ring will squeegee off the lubricant and it'll start to stick giving inconsistent pressure outputs.
2) Forums/the internet are bad at identifying brands which have issues, and not a little bad, really REALLY bad. All we see are the failure reports, and a confirmation bias begins to form, quickly causing some brands to develop an unsubstantiated bad reputation. Also brands which sell greater volumes are a lot more likely to have failure reports pop up, not because they have a bad failure rate, but just because there are a larger volume of people who have issues. FX I suspect is suffering from this, as compared to say Daystate, because I suspect their sales volumes are much MUCH larger. Look at the infrastructure they've been able to build out as a result. I don't think it is because they make crap guns, far far from it (I own one, and it works fantastic, has straight out of the box) but I think they make more guns.
3) Above all other brands in the airgun industry I've seen, FX is the one who is most relentless in their pursuit of CQI or Constant Quality Improvement. They are incessantly tweaking, changing, and improving every detail of their guns. Many people don't realize this, but doing that is a nightmare of inventory, parts, dev cycles, etc on the back end. All outward appearances are that they do it because they're genuinely committed to making world class guns at really great prices, and always want to be better and do better. This contrasts with another very prominent brand on here who, when confronted with a clear and obvious design defect, their response was to say "it isn't a problem, we've been doing it like this since 2003" and then having the thread locked.
4) If you go digging, every relevant brand has someone who has had an issue with their gun. No exceptions.
5) Haters love to try and take a bite out of whoever is most successful. Right now that, by all outward appearances, is FX. You've even got guys on this forum who have never in their life owned or worked on an FX who will confidently tell you that FX is crap. Others bought an FX, and due to user error, a manufacturing issue, or just unrealistic expectations were disappointed and now like to take a bite out of them.
So my advice is to buy from a good reputable dealer, and buy the gun you want. If it is the FX Wildcat, then go for it! There are overwhelmingly more Wildcat owners on here who love their guns than ones who have had issues. My personal suggestion is Utah Airguns, as I've had great experiences with them, they test every gun before it goes out (mine came with chrono and a test target IIRC), have good prices, and offer great support. If you want a different sort of gun, then go for that. My final piece of advice is don't string yourself out on the high wire of expectation. A lot of guys get a gun and are so panicky for it to be perfect that they start seeing issues which aren't there. Just something to keep in mind.
