I picked up my QB-18 .22 cal from Scopes and Ammo yesterday, and have just given it a once over. My first impressions are that this is a nicely finished Chinese rifle, I'm particularly pleased with the grain, and detail of the wood stock. Overall, the visible metal is deeply blued, but not finely finished. The breach area of the compression tube (forks) and scope groves have very sharp edges. The breach leade itself is somewhat crude and not centred, the crown is "tight": with pellet pushed through using a wooden dowel it sticks when the skirt gets to the crown. Visible rifling marks were left on a CPHP pushed through, both skirt and head. The crown passed the Q-tip test, not a fibre remaining - but like most rifles of this ilk, a bit of polishing with a brass ball and compound is in order. This bodes well for future accuracy tests.
This rifle will clean up nicely, and it has potential. It's dieseling like a freight train with 2 dozen pellets through but CPHP are consistently between 495 and 499.5 fps, curiously none over 500 fps. Superdomes are doing a bit better. I cleaned the bore with wet then dry patches, about 10 wet ones and 5 dry ones. The usual brown preservative came out of it.
The safety is easy to operate, and what I like is that it has a very positive release with a loud click. The trigger was very stiff to begin with, I was double checking the safety because the pull weight is tremendous. Either I got used to it or it is lightening up with use (I think the latter), but it's improving. The breach lockup is very positive, also with a firm click. The recoil is tame. I haven't sighted it in, but I was on paper at 20m with the factory sights, which are fibre optic and of decent quality. I will put a tin through it and see what it can do before tearing into it. The trigger will get some attention for sure, I didn't mention but it breaks quite cleanly, even with its mammoth pull weight.
So, overall my opinion is that this is a decent rifle.
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