HFT500 cocking mechanism weakness

[Johnny Wizz]

Having had the cocking mechanism on my brand new HFT500 fail after about 100 pellets I contacted the dealer I had bought it from. They, slightly reluctantly, replaced the gun with a new one but warned me that there was a serious weakness with the cocking mechanism on these guns. Apparently if you let the side leaver slip before you have got it past the cocking point then you are in serious danger of breaking one of the sears on the two stage trigger mechanism. Now, having just forked out a small amount short of £900 for this gun I am pretty pissed about this. I am wanting to use the gun for field target shooting and I can see how cocking and loading on a cold wet day could easily lead to a slip like this. I would be really interested to hear from any other HFT500 owners about their experience with this problem and to hear if anyone knows if Air Arms are doing anything to beef up this gun so that it is safe to use without it being permanently wrapped in cotton wool. At the moment I feel that I have bought a pup!!

[Johnny Wizz]

I am happy to be able to update this post in a very positive way. Having messaged the issue to Air Arms via their website I received a personal call this morning from them. They acknowledged the problem, explained that it had been caused by a faulty batch of material and gave me details of how many guns they thought were involved. Top notch customer service Air Arms, I am now a fan for life.