Canadian Airgun Forum

I purchased this pellet rifle online from Vancouver on Jan.14, and it arrived quickly on Jan 24 by Purolater in Antigonish NS. Double boxed and the original factory box seemed not to have been resealed... On unpacking everything was in good condition so I was anxious to check it out, read the instructions and I put a Crosman 7.4 g in it and cocked it.... It seemed very rough on cocking... This is a spring piston gun and my only other air gun is a 310 Benjamin so I didn't know if this was normal... Pulled the trigger and there was a bit of a puff at the breech and the pellet was stuck in the barrel. Obviously not enough power. After some fiddling I tried it again with the same results. Hesitated but it was the weekend and no telephone support at the dealer. Not one to give up, I took it apart. Just 3 Phillips screws and had a peek inside the lever pin promptly fell out onto the floor when I removed the stock. I took a good look and couldn't see any missing pieces or signs of scratching on the piston tube and spring... It seemed very dry so I lubricated the spring and piston cylinder and worked the action back and forth. (had to put a piece of tape on cocking lever pin to keep it in place). The action gradually got smoother, so I blew out the old lubricant with a silicon lubricant pressure can and worked it again... seemed a lot smoother. So I put it back together. The trick to get the stock on easily is to get the screw hole lined up at the back of the trigger with the stock using a small screwdriver, install the screw and the screws on the fore stock go easily into the threads on the action. The pellets no longer stuck in the barrel. After putting couple of drops of chamber lubricant Silicon into the chamber and after about 100 pellets using iron sights I was getting consistent groupings and the action seemed a lot smoother. One thing that really pissed me off was the box said it had a fully adjustable trigger which was obviously serious BS as there was no provision for such on the trigger mechanism. I could have taken the trigger off and smoothed the sear, but without a shop manual with specs there was no way I was attempting that at this time. I properly installed the 3x9 scope which came with the air rifle and it seemed quite nice optically but after another 50 pellets and getting much poorer groupings than with the iron sights, disappointment turned me to installing a very old but still very good Weaver K3... Huzzah!!! groupings were now equivalent to that of my 70 years old Benjamin 310 smooth bore pumper with a peep sight. (Pellets touching at 15 yds.) The action seems to be getting smoother and lighter the more I shot it and am getting used to the creep of the gritty weird trigger pull. The Chinese scope that came with the gun is beautiful with clear optics but is obviously has unstable cross hairs adjusters or lenses and therefore shoots like a POS. I would recommend that you buy this rifle from a local dealer without the factory scope, hopefully at a lesser price and have them put it together and test it first. You might save yourself a lot of grief... I am now reasonably happy with my purchase. (After a lot of agro). This rifle was not lubricated, likely put together under dirty conditions and was obviously not tested at the factory in China the wood screw holding the front of the trigger guard was stripped. (I fixed it with epoxy filler). Not worthy of the Browning Brand....I think the scope is going into the garbage pile. I will be talking to Umarex support.. Will let you know results if any.

After some phoning and checking I found that UMAREX USA (on all the paperwork with airgun),will not handle Canadian purchases and that I had to ship the rifle etc to one of 4 authorized repair sites in Canada for warranty work. I shipped the scope to Smith Army Supplies in Kingston Ontario and it cost me $19 to ship it with insurance. This is likely throwing my money away, but the scope might be fixeable... I am hoping they just replace it... Will let you know what happens. Crosman Premiers 7.4 gr shoot dead on and touching at 15 yds. RUAG Ammotec Superdome 8.3 gr shoot 4 inches low at 15 yds at the same sight settings on the scope. At 8 pumps my very old Benjamin 310 pumper BB gun is much quieter and putting holes through a 1 inch pine board at 15 yds with the Crosmans... The Browning leverage is just sticking into the board or making an impression and bouncing out. (Good thing I have a PAL)... Will still be destroying vermin with the Benjamin until my eyes get too bad to use the iron sights. The Browning Leverage will only be useful for shooting targets in the basement on rainy days or training a new shooter.

Tks, Keppoch, for the update.

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Best Wishes
Daryl

The saga of my new Browning Leverage .177 490 fps continues....Not getting any improvement in groupings and having a very strange trigger pull, I took the gun apart and greased everything I could reach, springs and wear surfaces with Molybdenum HI Slip synthetic grease. I then worked the trigger action etc. to spread it around especially in the spring chamber. There was a very noticeable immediate improvement. The airgun now sounds like other springers I have owned and the trigger lightened up and was more predictable on release. After stubbornly shooting 500 plus rounds of Crosman Premier Pointed 7.4gr., the rifle is now able to consistently punch a hole the size of 3 pellets with 5 rounds dead center at 15 yd. I am looking forward to mounting a higher power scope than my 60 yrs. young Weaver K3 post that came with the Model 70 Winchester .308 that I bought new in 1962 . (the post is a bit wide for short range small targets and no adjustment for parallax). Hopefully the authorized repair site will be sending me a new scope or repair the scope that originally came with the gun.

There's your problem, switch to some JSB Exact or Exact RS domes and shoot some groups.
Mine did single hole 5 shot groups with JSBs at 10 yds.

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Iacio ergo sum

Thanks! Duke... will try both....will have to order them in...

I purchased a Bushnell Mantis 3x9 scope which is supposedly built for air guns from Londero Sports Air Center. It came professionally wrapped with lots of bubble pack and it came within 5 days from ordering. Couldn't wait, so I stuck it on the Browning Leverage within a half hour of receipt. Really clear and sharp and easy to focus, with mil dots and Parallax adjust. Much Impressed as to price as well. I just about had it zeroed to where I wanted it and then the Spring Lever wouldn't come off the barrel. There seems to be a major design flaw in the latch mechanism. It will not stand up to the stress of multiple usage as the rod that slides on the spring is not machined properly so the u at the end breaks the plastic at the lock and there is no way to move the latch down to unlatch the lever. After finding out how much it would cost me to ship it for warranty work. I decided to fix it myself by drilling a 1/16 in diameter hole through one side of the plastic slide at the top and about 1/8 in. into the plastic on the other side. I then cut a brass pin that was a tight fit just long enough to go into the hole in the plastic and into the hole on the other side of the u, leaving about a 1/32 in deep, small hole on one side which I filled with black epoxy to hold the pin from falling out. Seems to be holding up fine. Looks to be an improvement. I have since found out that several other people have had the same issue. This air rifle should not have the Browning Brand associated with it, if they care about their reputation. Beautiful air rifle, but quality management seems to be lax.

Agreed.
Like many things made on the cheap, quality control is lacking.
If you get a good one, then the quality is there, but the percentage of good ones in often low.
Good choice to fix it yourself. I wonder how Luna made out with her TX200 - she had a similar problem.

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Iacio ergo sum

Been wondering the same, myself, Duke.

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Best Wishes
Daryl

Many Thanks to "Duke"... the exact 8.44 gr Diabolo, domed, pellets greatly improved the grouping and consistency for this air rifle. I was still getting the odd pellet out, in the vertical plane which could be due to a loss of pressure on the shot and closely examined the breech seal with a light and found a tear due to an obvously faulty installation. I phoned the warranty service center which was dealing with my scope issue that came with the rifle, hoping to have them send me a new breach seal and was told that they did not carry any parts. What is the use of a warranty agent if they don't carry any parts to fix a warranty defect? This is absurd. The american warranty agent will not handle any Canadian warranty issues or send parts to Canada and the Canadian Warranty people do not have any parts. gg...lol Don't buy one, you have to buy two, one for spare parts....Ha!, Ha!... joke is on me for buying this rifle... I removed the breach seal and used clear Shoe Goop at the tear and got everything smooth again, waited until it was well set up and then installed the repaired seal... so far it is working great and shows no sign of wear or tearing . This heavy under lever rifle is now shooting like it should, pellet on top of pellet, at 15 yds. It has been a journey...

Glad you got it going. It's true, for the most part we are our own best warranty and service centre. CAF is invaluable in this regard too.

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Iacio ergo sum

The saga of this air rifle continues....I managed to lightly snag the rear plastic sight on my jacket as I was putting it away and much to my surprise it became two pieces and was now useless. The plastic ramp is held on to the riser by a piece of plastic surrounding a plastic pin. This does not surround the pin and goes only half way so it is extremely weak in construction and designed to fail with only a little sideways pressure. No big deal as I only use the open sights to confirm it is or is not the fault of my scope when groups deteriorate. The issues I have had with this air rifle include... faulty piston lever latch, no initial grease or spring lubrication by factory, stripped wood screw on trigger guard, damaged breech seal, woefully weak plastic rear ramp sight, defective scope, no parts available at the warranty repair shop, and still no word on the scope repair. These issues, at least in Canada, would lead me to suggest that this air rifle is not worth the hassle and I would not recommend its purchase. It should not carry the Browning brand, which I greatly respect as I have had several excellent Browning firearms.

Surprise.... package by Fedex arrived today.. the original scope provided with the Browning Leverage, which I was positive was defective and sent back, has vanished, and has been replaced by a Browning 3 to 9x, scope which has parallax adjust on the objective lens but no Mil dot reticule. Scope seems nice and bright and sharp, and my Browning Leverage really likes it... Thank You, Smith Army Surplus...

Glad you didn't risk the K-3 on it. Repair work on them is very scarce now.
Some sub-500 springers are harder on scopes than magnum springers because of the way they were detuned...

-D.S.

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"Ain't no half-way"
-S.R.V.

I have a Leverage for a while and shot about 10 tins of RWS Meisterkugeln 7.0 gr through it... Grouping was big when shooting the first 100 pellets, after 200 shots break-in just holes on hole within 20 yards... With stock scope it weights 10.7 lbs, a sub 500 spring won't even shake the rifle...
The only problem I came across was the lever release button... It got jammed frequently so I removed it completely...

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