Hello all
Although I’m new to the forum I just wanted to comment on the beliefs that the SMK 19 is a very poor weapon. I can totally understand many people’s opinions and can concur that there is a few pronounced cases of poor manufacturing and certain things that would otherwise let a budget rifle such as this down.
However I feel compelled to defend what is potentially a fantastic little rifle. Some people are genuinely guilty of air gunning snobbery I know this having been guilty of this myself I am and always will have a huge love of old school Webley’s. They were well made and built to last and designed as hunting rifles proper work horses come rain or shine.
However our little XS19’s let’s take a look at the reality of it, they are a budget air rifle, plain and simple. They are NEVER going to be anything special out of the box, how could they be. But if you do a tiny bit of prep things like loss of power, unreliability can be totally mitigated. Like I said I was very “name bias” prior to being gifted with mine, I didn’t have much money so a friend was charitable enough to sell me his a good few years back and allowed me to buy it for a measly 40 pounds, he even let me pay for it in two payments as I was proper on my backside. He did say its “ok but not great”
As it was I lived on a farm in Tidworth at the time and the farmer was kind enough to allow me the freedom of the farmyard and immediate area to clean up rats, rabbits and feral pigeons alike. Well things didn’t go to well initially and I wasn’t that impressed and often cursed my XS19 until an embarrassing easy shot miss in front of said farmer. From the sound the rifle made alone and being a keen air gunner in his youth he asked if I’d had it apart and cleaned out any swarf, excessive lube’s de burred it and polished the internals. No was my answer, and he kindly offered to show me what would need attention. Now this guy being a farmer did actually take precious time out to show me what and how to do, so I followed what he said and cracked on.
The difference was quite measurable and the improvement was awesome, admittedly not in the mid to higher end BSA, Webley Springer league but pretty dammed good, group size improved, firing cycle a lot better and accuracy much improved. Over the 18 months I lived there I bagged plenty of bunnies with decent headshots out to as far as 30 yards and a host of corvids, rats and pigeons. I did all that with little more than household tools some scotch bright, some emery paper, some polishing cloths and a little bit of moly based grease. Oh and a little elbow grease, that coupled to putting in a home made piston sleeve was about it. That was without spending any money of a drop in kit or tuning kit. It lasted well and stood up to hunting in some pretty crappy weather and never missed a beat. Stupidly I sold the rifle in an effort to put money towards a car I needed to get for work, now my finances are much better I have a HW99S a Hatsan Edge and have recently purchased another used XS19 for little money, this time I will go the extra bit and spent a whole 23.99 on a servicing kit with spring guide, top hat slip washers, compression washers and proper molly grease, which will bring my spending total to about 70 quid.
I would like to think of the XS19 as the XR3I (older members will remember) of the air rifle world out the box they were OK but nothing special and had their faults, but spin a few spanners and tinker a little truly turned them into something that punched well over its weight, so please guys don’t be guilty of air gun snobbery as some people just can’t afford the big named rifles that most of you are harking on about, and truly why should they miss out.
I hope I haven’t offended anybody and we are all entitled to voice our opinion, heavens knows I spent 24 years defending our right to freedom of speech and freedom of opinion, but a little flexibility and adaptability will allow you a wider perspective on things and that can only be a good thing in the long run.
Regards
Phil Martin