BSA MERCURY "S" AIR RIFLE.

Despite what many people think the latest "All singing & All dancing" gadget isn't always the best, this certainly applies to Air Rifles,  The trend over recent years has been for PCP rifles, this stands for PRE - CHARGED PNEUMATIC, put in simple terms this means that the gun is charged  with compressed air, this can be done in several ways,  a manual pump, a charge from a full divers bottle, or a charge from a mains powered compressor, the ammount of shots you will get from a full charge varies from gun to gun, on average though you are looking at 40+ shots per charge,  The rifles? they are totally recoilless, lightweight, ultra quiet when a silencer is fitted, shot after shot they are consistantly powerful with very little shot to shot variation, they are deadly accurate...errors usually are the fault of the shooter and not the gun, finally...they handle extremely well and are beautiful to behold, in fact PCP's do their job so well, its almost with a clinical coldness about them...I'd say its like putting an aeroplane on auto pilot, does that make sense?

Now the BSA MERCURY "S" is from the "Old school" of airgunning, I've had my .22 model since the early 1980's, it is a real beauty, long and sleek with the "Pointability" of a shotgun, locking on target with ease, its nicely grained woodwork has panels of chequering at its fore-end and grip which are really useful on cold wet days, my MERCURY is fitted with a leather sling and sling swivel's, a Weaver 4X32 scope and one piece mount,  I have removed the guns open sights and replaced the front sight with a custom made silencer, I had a new main spring fitted about four months ago and the Mercury is now spitting out pellets at very close to the 12 ft lbs legal limit, It may not have the finesse of the PCP guns but it is a hell of a lot of fun to use and certainly does the job which it was built for, BSA MERCURY'S are still available second hand, the "S" version may be a bit more difficult to find though...but take my word it'll be worth it !!

REVIEW BY KEN LAMBOURNE.    JUNE 2007.