I put one of these into my order at S&A.com last week.
I haven't shot it yet, but that will change soon enough.
Here's a few pictures:
That's the new clamshell packaging. There's an anti-theft chip taped to the inside of the clamshell.
If anyone's interested, I can post up photo's of the disclaimers on the back of the packaging- if not, I'll just let them go.
There's the pistol fresh out of the packaging. Sorry for the dark photo's- wife's snoring away beside me, and I don't want to wake her with the overhead lighting. Light is from one of those newer fangled 13W squiggle bulbs.
That's the standard 22-XX bolt and plastic breech- not the flow through bolt that was erroneously posted on some other boards. There are no laser etchings on the gun- lighter-struck roll stamps on the right hand side of the tube, and electro stencilled s/n on the left hand side of the tube.
Somewhere along the line, Crosman changed the bluing process to approximate the ever-popular Jena-Lite Cold Black. If I had my druther's, I'd take the standard gun-blue finish that we've been accustomed to with crosman, up until a couple of years ago. I first saw the new bluing on a 22-40 that I bought in 2010. I guess they gotta do what they gotta do- to keep the gun in the price bracket that makes it popular. Personally, I wouldn't mind paying more for an improved finish, and less plastic, but apparently not all air gun buyers think the way I do...
There's the new plastic side plate. Yeah, it's plastic. It's a heck of a lot neater than the warped out one piece aluminum that they were doing before. Haven't enough experience to say if I like it or not. I'll have no bones with it- if it stands up to normal field use.
Muzzle crown. Looks like there's a bit of Shang-Hai/ Hai-Karate crease to it. I'll be fair, and slip the unit into a packer frame, and good scope, just to test for group. Habit says it'll get a clean-up polishing with the far east valve compound...
I think I've done well, considering the under 70 dollar price.
I'll be back to this soon, perhaps with a slightly unfair side by side with my phase 1 medalist, and a few other things...
Regards,
Doc Sharptail