The connection with the manufacturer and the vendor is important. First choose manufacturer and model and then choose vendor. I would even change the manufacturer and model if all the vendors sucked. I bought a HW 35E that shot great and I think it only has a 1 yr warranty from the manufacturer. 3 years later, it shot like crap with various scopes. Took it apart but could not get it back together. Sent the mess to AOA fully expecting to pay for the repair. They cleaned it up, cleaned the very dirty barrel and tested it with their scope and it shot great. They sent it back with the test target for no charge saying repair covered by warranty. They even paid the freight. I got to talk to the tester and went over what went wrong, what I did and what they did in the repair. I did not scope it when I got it back so not sure what was the problem. I fell in love with shooting it with iron sights as one member here suggested the gun was set up for iron sights so ditched to scope. It shoots great., I would pick a manufacturer, model and a established large vendor with excellent reviews like AOA and others where majority of repairs are done in their shop.