Vote - Most unreliable airgun!

This title surely must go to the Whaley Crosman conversion by Streatham Armoury in the 80s.

The gun looked fantastic, taking a std Crosman 760 XL, fitting a full length cylinder to the muzzle, with the promise of 2 high power shots at 12 ftlbs for 8 pumps. The plastic stock was chucked out and fitted with a piece of Walnut and full length forend/pump lever. 

Everyone bought into the fantastic sales pitch and enthusiastically paid out 6 times the cost of the std. Crosman 760 based on the hype from a major AG magazine of the time. My first purchase did not work on the 2nd shot and the replacement leaked all its air out quicker than i could pump it in. In fact none ever worked correctly and the project went tilt within 12 months. No fully functioning specimens are in existence to my knowledge.

Next up, it has to be the Saxby and Palmer air cartridge guns....any of them. You would dutifully pump up each cartridge with the trusty hand pump. 6 pumps each cartridge then unscrew a cap which held the pellet. The procedure was annoying, labour intensive and time consuming. Upon firing you were greeted by the sound of a rat farting and a pellet stuck in the cap. Some came out at 4lbs, others 3ftlbs, and some never fired at all. I got so fed up with mine that i threw into the trash one evening for fun.....
 
Cometa Orion, sadly. Medium cost, good looking gun with a steamed beech stock and adjustable comb. It came with a giant air leak as a welcoming present -- had to return it to Spain. When it came back, pellets literally went everywhere. After 10 rounds of rebuilding this gun I was on the verge of damning airgunning forever. The root causes turned out to be:

- crap magazine damaged the pellets;

- badly cut leade damaged the pellets even more;

- excessively long probe blocked the mag;

- bad alignment between the barrel and the probe caused inconsistencies in airflow. The poorly placed o-ring at the very end of the probe blew out several times.

In addition, the gun was a heck of a barker and the shroud lacked an adapter to put a silencer on. Last but not least, the trigger was as wobbly as a drunken sailor.

I learned a lot from this gun. Cured the issues one by one, including replacing the barrel by a longer Cometa and telescoping out the shroud to insert baffles & hair curlers. It shoots nice now despite some action noise that I initially mistook for hammer bounce. The components are actually high quality. The barrel is accurate, hammer forged with nice bluing. But the gun required intervention for which I lacked the experience at the time.


 
Nova Vista Liberty. Inevitable leaks, mine would have weird POI shifts all the time, groupings were either horrible or great depending on the day, and the cocking cycle was extremely rough on mine. 

AK

Hopefully it's direct decendant the NEW AVENGER doesn't fall too close to the tree.

Haven't had any problems with mine but only had it for a bit over a month. I shoot it everyday and the accuracy is on all the time. The internals are completely different from the liberty but only time will tell the full story. Keeping my fingers crossed.
 
“The One That Didn’t Work,” by SepticDeath, the writer of such other wonderful stories as “Bang You’re Dead Chipmunk” and “Did You See his Eye Pop Out”? With this book, you can read with your kids for hours about the joyless occasions when your gun breaks and you can’t shoot those adorable animals you name individually. Only $17.99

@septicdeath will be a rich children’s book author some day