This is my very first airgun review, which is going to be about the Cometa Model 300, chambered in .177 / 4,5mm caliber.
I will describe the entire journey, that I've had with this particular airgun, from the first impressions by the unboxing part,
to the gun's unexpected, outrageous and almost comical death...
The story began back in 2017, when I got a Cometa springer for my birthday and since then, this review has been long overdue!
I got a model 300, which cost about 200 euros at the time, and I couldn't 've been hapier with what I got for my birthday. Over the years, I've gathered enough experience and knowledge about this particular springer and about airguns in general as well, so that I can now try to finally write a good review about this springer. This was my first proper, quality-grade springer, that I fortunately and also at the same time unfortunately don't have anymore...
More on what happened to my 300 later on.
With that having been said, I've learnt a lot about fixing springers and about spring-piston driven airguns in general and just like that,
I can now finally tell you folks here at AGN a little something about Cometa springers and a couple of technical quirks and odds about these types of airguns. Before I go on with all of this, I'd like to let you know, that this is going to be an in-depth review of the model 300, that will somewhat delve deeper into the technical aspects of this airgun and it is at this point safe to say, that I've certainly taken my fair share of time to write this review,
which should ultimately shock you like the fierce two-way recoil of a Webley's Patriot in the end!
Also, I did my best to bring as much detail as possible into this review about this particular unit of the model 300 Cometa springer,
that I've had for some good one and a half years.
Here are some pictures of this rifle of mine, that I once had and loved so true:
The rifle up above on this last one is a heavily customized Slavia 631, with the model 634's cylinder/receiver and internal components.
The general overview of the gun:
When I first took the gun out of the box, I immediately noticed the nice, bulky, traditional wooden stock that lacked any chequering or serrations forward
of the grip area whatsoever. At the grip area, the stock had four circularly patterned chequered embossements or otherwise panels, from which the stock
narrowed down and then opened up towards the cheekrest, which was nothing fancy, a straight cheekpiece that followed along the downside taper of the
rear end of the stock to the buttpiece, which was apparently made from some kind of dark-grey coloured, hard rubber, which was poorly refined and was
already falling apart in some areas when I took the gun out of the box (Note that the gun was bought new and unused!);
The overall finish on the gun was pretty smooth, save for a couple of areas on the cylinder, which had rough burrs and some scratches that the tooling left behind, but other than that, the blued finish looked quite fine, without any significantly visible tooling marks. One of the things, that I kind of overlooked, but quickly came to realize would become a problem, was the lack of a recoil-stop pin hole, which was absent from the dovetail rail. When I went to try the gun out, I mounted a Gamo 4x32 WR scope with two-piece mounts on the gun and sighted it in, but after a while I wasn't able to hit my targets any longer... And that's when I noticed that the scope had crept back a fair amount and almost sank - it didn't, but if it had, it would be due to the rear mount losing contact with the rail entirely. So then, I took the scope off and only used iron sights for a while, until I figured out, that I needed a one-piece mount and so, I ordered one and then the problem went away. I was very happy to be able to scope up the gun again
In the meantime, whilst I was waiting for the one-piece mount to arrive in the mail, I also tried my luck with a small plastic, dual-screw arrestor, that I attached to the rail, just behind the rear scope ring, so that the block was just barely touching the mount's base. The arrestor had a yellow block sticking out of the front of its base, which allowed it to compensate for the shock. Sadly, the arrestor didn't hold up to the recoil and started walking its way toward the flat rear end of the rail along with the scope.
As I've already stated, the one piece mount was the only way to go. In fact, a cheap one-piece mount from Amazon solved the whole issue. But for a while, up until I got that one-piece mount, iron sights sufficed and served me just right... The iron sights had fiber optics in them, both the front one, which was red and the rear one, that had a green liner fiber wrapped within the sight to form an arc - as in a sight picture. Both sights, the front and the rear one were made out of plastic/polymer. The front sight was also hooded by an aluminum shroud sort of hood, which could also be removed at will. The barrel was said to be cold-hammer forged, and it really showed, because the gun was incredibly accurate at first, before the problems with accuracy started occurring (more on that later on). From a couple of photos, that I've found on my phone, I could speculate, that the twist-rate was not in the 1:16s, but rather something closer to 1:14.5, because the spiral was denser than the one in the bore of my Gamo Big Cat 1000; Then again, that's just speculation, however the Cometa was actually a little more accurate than what my Gamo is capable of. What also struck me at first, is that there was a steel ball detent in the breech instead of a latching tongue when I broke the barrel open to load a pellet into it, for the first time (I've heard that the ball detent wears out less over time than the latch, but also seals less air...), anyway I don't know what to make of this. And then, there was the "compensator" at he end of the gun, which perhaps took some kick out of the shot, but was mainly there for cosmetic reasons only, but it kind of added a nice touch to the end of the gun, whilst also giving the shooter an additional gripping point to cock the gun. Of course, it also protected the blueing from corrosion.
What set the model 300 apart from the other Cometa springer models was the stock, the unique safety mechanism and of course,
the length of the cylinder, along with a couple of other components.
Cometa offers and offered the following sping-piston driven models: 50, 100, 200, 220, 300, 400 Fenix.
They offer/offered these guns with polymer (Galaxy models)/wooden stocks and moderated barrels (Carabinas/Carbines).
I know for a fact, that the model 200 has been discontinued and renowned as the model 220,
however, I cannot say the same for the models 50 and 150, because I can't tell whether they're still in production or not.
The safety was esentially a switch to be flipped, with the red being for dead and white for flight.
The internal mechanism preventing the gun from going off, when the safety was on (when the flap's groove showed white), was a ball detent,
that was pushing up on the flap and once the switch had been flipped, the detent dropped a pin-shaped blocker through the sear and therefore
prevented the trigger from being pulled. Now, don't hold my word on this one, but I think the older model 300 had a 26,5mm OD piston seal,
while my had a 26,0mm OD of the piston seal, which is also compatible with the model 400 Fenix and with the 220, but not with the lower numbered models such as the 150, 100, 50... And I also know for certain, that this type of piston seal is not compatible with the model 200, which is basically model 220s' predecessor. Also, the trigger on the model 300 is not readily or otherwise externally adjustable for length of pull, at least it wasn't on the gun, that I got. As I've already mentioned above, the 300 also doesn't have a recoil-stop pin, but the 400 does, both the Premier Star and the basic Star models,
both, have them. One more thing, the model 200 was the last one to have had a metal mainspring guide,
the ones made nowadays are completely made out of plastic.
From top to bottom, the guns portrayed on this image are the following: Cometa 200 (with Frankonia Jagd 4x28mm), Cometa 300, Kandar LB 600 (w/Illum 6x40mm w/illum. reticle)
Shooting this gun felt relatively pleasant for me, with one major downside: the rubber recoil pad was unpleasant to lean into because it was so hard and dense. It just wouldn't conform and fit my shoulder, so I just ended up wrapping the whole end of the stock with some adhesive synthetic tape and the issue was solved. The gun was also quite heavy to hold up and aim for a longer interval; I'd probably be able to keep the reticle on target and completely steady for half a minute or so, offhand, with the Gamo 4x32 WR scope mounted on the dovetail rail. The gun weighed some good 3.8 kilos or about 8.5 pounds. Because of how I configured the gun, I mostly shot it from a tripod or from a bench with some additional support under the forend of the stock.
Gun, wrapped in camo It most certainly felt a little better to hold the gun, but it also protected the rather fragile and soft varnish on the wood.
Furthermore, when I got the gun, it came de-tuned by default, due to the gun legislation our country had at the time.
Even though I haven't chronied the gun, I'm most certain, that the gun's power output was somewhat close to 6 fpe,
or otherwise a little over 8 Joules, with the .177 JSB Exact pellet (8.44gr) traveling at some 570 fps or otherwise 175 m/s.
As I've already stated, the gun was incredibly accurate at first (at least for my taste), making 1/2 inch groups at 35 yards with RWS Supermags,
which weighed 9.3 grains - extra weight gave better accuracy in my instance. Another quirk of an issue that this gun of mine had, was,
that when I tried to pull the trigger for the first time, I found myself unable to do so, because the trigger guard plate was interfering with the trigger
blade. Nothing a couple of shims or washers under the trigger guard plate wouldn't be able to solve, the shims pushed the plate a little further away
and that solved the issue, which wasn't really in the plate or the length of the trigger blade, but in the improperly carved depth in the wood of the trigger well, in the stock. Anyway, after I've been shooting the gun for some 5 months or so (at that time, I've probably already gone through a box of 500 pellets), the first accuracy problems started occurring. The gun was continuously shooting low and to the left and the group sizes opened up a significant bit as well (almost to an inch and a half). Because of the said problems with accuracy, I later on tuned the gun with a new mainspring (original, for the 300 model), which gave more power and also had a flat rear-end coil so, that the spring wouldn't bend as much as the old/replaced one has, because it had an uncut, sharp end-coil at the rear of the mainspring. The piston seal also deteriorated rather quickly, and therefore I had to change it out as well, for a new piston seal that has been properly lubricated all-round the sides with some silicone grease with a higher degree of viscosity. The newly refurbished model 300 gave a muzzle velocity output of 260 m/s or 850 fps, with standard weight JSB Exact 8.44 grain pellets, giving out roughly 18.5 Joules,
or otherwise about 14 ft/lbs of energy at the muzzle. Over time, I also stopped using the RWS Supermag pellets (by the time, I had been using them for some good 6 months and had altogether fired some 750+ of them), and finally settled on the JSB Exact pellets. The gun's barrel especially liked the standard 4.52mm heads. The reason behind my abandonment of the RWS Supermags was in the construction of the pellets themselves. The Supermags were just too dense, and all that hardness of theirs started taking a toll on the piston seal, which ultimately led to its subsequent replacement; The air bubble that recoiled back through the air-vent of the cylinder due to the hardness of the pellets (Supermags), during the firing cycle of the gun,
because there was too much redundant air pressure in the vent to quickly enough push the pellet further into the barrel (the chamber of an
airgun barrel is stiffer than the rest of the bore); That pressure recoiled back and over-time started stretching the seal a bit too hard
and that's why the seal lost its rigidity.
BTW; The gun was making flawless 15mm/ 0.6" groups at 15 yards with open sights, before I then swapped the scope for an UTG-Leapers 3-9x42.
I hope you can see the washers under the trigger guard plate, those were a must in my case:
As you can also see from the image above, the varnish is rather soft and fragile in certain areas on the stock and has by the time I was done with the rifle,
also worn away or otherwise imprinted into the wood.
..And of course, the targets with the groups:
View attachment AccuracyOnAverage.jpg
Then, after some 9-10 months, the gun lost its accuracy potential once again. This time it wasn't the seal or the mainspring (which by that time had already settled in the cylinder), but the captive or "retention" screw in front of the main pivot-pin screw at the front of the cylinder, which binds the barrel/breech assembly to the receiver, or well, the cylinder. A shim had to be placed into the hole of that screw in order to almost completely hold the barrel in place and prevent it from wobbling around and, as such causing an air-leak or a gap between the breech seal and the receiver/cylinder. From there on out, I was worry free for about a half of year. During that time, I set almost impossible goals to achieve with that rifle, simply because it was capable of actually fulfilling them. I've been hitting small bottle caps from 40 yards away, shooting beer cans from a distance of up to a 100 yards away, once i even took a confirmed hit at a yogurt cup from 125 yards away (according to Google Earth)... That's roughly 136 yards. I even made a DOPE chart for that gun and the Leapers 3-9 scope, which I mounted on it. When I took that 125 yard shot, I had the magnification set to 9X and since I didn't fiddle with the parallax setting on the scope (the parallax not being directly adjustable and by standard, set at 35 yards), I had to aim 5 mils under the center and 2.5 mils to the left, due to the parallax shift at that distance and because of the bullet-drop. The gun was sighted in at 16,5 yards/15 meters.
These are the scopes I've been with the gun, as well as the laser sighting module I once used to zero the gun in... it worked!
View attachment Sights.jpg
... Read on in PART TWO ...
I will describe the entire journey, that I've had with this particular airgun, from the first impressions by the unboxing part,
to the gun's unexpected, outrageous and almost comical death...
The story began back in 2017, when I got a Cometa springer for my birthday and since then, this review has been long overdue!
I got a model 300, which cost about 200 euros at the time, and I couldn't 've been hapier with what I got for my birthday. Over the years, I've gathered enough experience and knowledge about this particular springer and about airguns in general as well, so that I can now try to finally write a good review about this springer. This was my first proper, quality-grade springer, that I fortunately and also at the same time unfortunately don't have anymore...
More on what happened to my 300 later on.
With that having been said, I've learnt a lot about fixing springers and about spring-piston driven airguns in general and just like that,
I can now finally tell you folks here at AGN a little something about Cometa springers and a couple of technical quirks and odds about these types of airguns. Before I go on with all of this, I'd like to let you know, that this is going to be an in-depth review of the model 300, that will somewhat delve deeper into the technical aspects of this airgun and it is at this point safe to say, that I've certainly taken my fair share of time to write this review,
which should ultimately shock you like the fierce two-way recoil of a Webley's Patriot in the end!
Also, I did my best to bring as much detail as possible into this review about this particular unit of the model 300 Cometa springer,
that I've had for some good one and a half years.
Here are some pictures of this rifle of mine, that I once had and loved so true:
The rifle up above on this last one is a heavily customized Slavia 631, with the model 634's cylinder/receiver and internal components.
The general overview of the gun:
When I first took the gun out of the box, I immediately noticed the nice, bulky, traditional wooden stock that lacked any chequering or serrations forward
of the grip area whatsoever. At the grip area, the stock had four circularly patterned chequered embossements or otherwise panels, from which the stock
narrowed down and then opened up towards the cheekrest, which was nothing fancy, a straight cheekpiece that followed along the downside taper of the
rear end of the stock to the buttpiece, which was apparently made from some kind of dark-grey coloured, hard rubber, which was poorly refined and was
already falling apart in some areas when I took the gun out of the box (Note that the gun was bought new and unused!);
The overall finish on the gun was pretty smooth, save for a couple of areas on the cylinder, which had rough burrs and some scratches that the tooling left behind, but other than that, the blued finish looked quite fine, without any significantly visible tooling marks. One of the things, that I kind of overlooked, but quickly came to realize would become a problem, was the lack of a recoil-stop pin hole, which was absent from the dovetail rail. When I went to try the gun out, I mounted a Gamo 4x32 WR scope with two-piece mounts on the gun and sighted it in, but after a while I wasn't able to hit my targets any longer... And that's when I noticed that the scope had crept back a fair amount and almost sank - it didn't, but if it had, it would be due to the rear mount losing contact with the rail entirely. So then, I took the scope off and only used iron sights for a while, until I figured out, that I needed a one-piece mount and so, I ordered one and then the problem went away. I was very happy to be able to scope up the gun again
In the meantime, whilst I was waiting for the one-piece mount to arrive in the mail, I also tried my luck with a small plastic, dual-screw arrestor, that I attached to the rail, just behind the rear scope ring, so that the block was just barely touching the mount's base. The arrestor had a yellow block sticking out of the front of its base, which allowed it to compensate for the shock. Sadly, the arrestor didn't hold up to the recoil and started walking its way toward the flat rear end of the rail along with the scope.
As I've already stated, the one piece mount was the only way to go. In fact, a cheap one-piece mount from Amazon solved the whole issue. But for a while, up until I got that one-piece mount, iron sights sufficed and served me just right... The iron sights had fiber optics in them, both the front one, which was red and the rear one, that had a green liner fiber wrapped within the sight to form an arc - as in a sight picture. Both sights, the front and the rear one were made out of plastic/polymer. The front sight was also hooded by an aluminum shroud sort of hood, which could also be removed at will. The barrel was said to be cold-hammer forged, and it really showed, because the gun was incredibly accurate at first, before the problems with accuracy started occurring (more on that later on). From a couple of photos, that I've found on my phone, I could speculate, that the twist-rate was not in the 1:16s, but rather something closer to 1:14.5, because the spiral was denser than the one in the bore of my Gamo Big Cat 1000; Then again, that's just speculation, however the Cometa was actually a little more accurate than what my Gamo is capable of. What also struck me at first, is that there was a steel ball detent in the breech instead of a latching tongue when I broke the barrel open to load a pellet into it, for the first time (I've heard that the ball detent wears out less over time than the latch, but also seals less air...), anyway I don't know what to make of this. And then, there was the "compensator" at he end of the gun, which perhaps took some kick out of the shot, but was mainly there for cosmetic reasons only, but it kind of added a nice touch to the end of the gun, whilst also giving the shooter an additional gripping point to cock the gun. Of course, it also protected the blueing from corrosion.
What set the model 300 apart from the other Cometa springer models was the stock, the unique safety mechanism and of course,
the length of the cylinder, along with a couple of other components.
Cometa offers and offered the following sping-piston driven models: 50, 100, 200, 220, 300, 400 Fenix.
They offer/offered these guns with polymer (Galaxy models)/wooden stocks and moderated barrels (Carabinas/Carbines).
I know for a fact, that the model 200 has been discontinued and renowned as the model 220,
however, I cannot say the same for the models 50 and 150, because I can't tell whether they're still in production or not.
The safety was esentially a switch to be flipped, with the red being for dead and white for flight.
The internal mechanism preventing the gun from going off, when the safety was on (when the flap's groove showed white), was a ball detent,
that was pushing up on the flap and once the switch had been flipped, the detent dropped a pin-shaped blocker through the sear and therefore
prevented the trigger from being pulled. Now, don't hold my word on this one, but I think the older model 300 had a 26,5mm OD piston seal,
while my had a 26,0mm OD of the piston seal, which is also compatible with the model 400 Fenix and with the 220, but not with the lower numbered models such as the 150, 100, 50... And I also know for certain, that this type of piston seal is not compatible with the model 200, which is basically model 220s' predecessor. Also, the trigger on the model 300 is not readily or otherwise externally adjustable for length of pull, at least it wasn't on the gun, that I got. As I've already mentioned above, the 300 also doesn't have a recoil-stop pin, but the 400 does, both the Premier Star and the basic Star models,
both, have them. One more thing, the model 200 was the last one to have had a metal mainspring guide,
the ones made nowadays are completely made out of plastic.
From top to bottom, the guns portrayed on this image are the following: Cometa 200 (with Frankonia Jagd 4x28mm), Cometa 300, Kandar LB 600 (w/Illum 6x40mm w/illum. reticle)
Shooting this gun felt relatively pleasant for me, with one major downside: the rubber recoil pad was unpleasant to lean into because it was so hard and dense. It just wouldn't conform and fit my shoulder, so I just ended up wrapping the whole end of the stock with some adhesive synthetic tape and the issue was solved. The gun was also quite heavy to hold up and aim for a longer interval; I'd probably be able to keep the reticle on target and completely steady for half a minute or so, offhand, with the Gamo 4x32 WR scope mounted on the dovetail rail. The gun weighed some good 3.8 kilos or about 8.5 pounds. Because of how I configured the gun, I mostly shot it from a tripod or from a bench with some additional support under the forend of the stock.
Gun, wrapped in camo
It most certainly felt a little better to hold the gun, but it also protected the rather fragile and soft varnish on the wood.Furthermore, when I got the gun, it came de-tuned by default, due to the gun legislation our country had at the time.
Even though I haven't chronied the gun, I'm most certain, that the gun's power output was somewhat close to 6 fpe,
or otherwise a little over 8 Joules, with the .177 JSB Exact pellet (8.44gr) traveling at some 570 fps or otherwise 175 m/s.
As I've already stated, the gun was incredibly accurate at first (at least for my taste), making 1/2 inch groups at 35 yards with RWS Supermags,
which weighed 9.3 grains - extra weight gave better accuracy in my instance. Another quirk of an issue that this gun of mine had, was,
that when I tried to pull the trigger for the first time, I found myself unable to do so, because the trigger guard plate was interfering with the trigger
blade. Nothing a couple of shims or washers under the trigger guard plate wouldn't be able to solve, the shims pushed the plate a little further away
and that solved the issue, which wasn't really in the plate or the length of the trigger blade, but in the improperly carved depth in the wood of the trigger well, in the stock. Anyway, after I've been shooting the gun for some 5 months or so (at that time, I've probably already gone through a box of 500 pellets), the first accuracy problems started occurring. The gun was continuously shooting low and to the left and the group sizes opened up a significant bit as well (almost to an inch and a half). Because of the said problems with accuracy, I later on tuned the gun with a new mainspring (original, for the 300 model), which gave more power and also had a flat rear-end coil so, that the spring wouldn't bend as much as the old/replaced one has, because it had an uncut, sharp end-coil at the rear of the mainspring. The piston seal also deteriorated rather quickly, and therefore I had to change it out as well, for a new piston seal that has been properly lubricated all-round the sides with some silicone grease with a higher degree of viscosity. The newly refurbished model 300 gave a muzzle velocity output of 260 m/s or 850 fps, with standard weight JSB Exact 8.44 grain pellets, giving out roughly 18.5 Joules,
or otherwise about 14 ft/lbs of energy at the muzzle. Over time, I also stopped using the RWS Supermag pellets (by the time, I had been using them for some good 6 months and had altogether fired some 750+ of them), and finally settled on the JSB Exact pellets. The gun's barrel especially liked the standard 4.52mm heads. The reason behind my abandonment of the RWS Supermags was in the construction of the pellets themselves. The Supermags were just too dense, and all that hardness of theirs started taking a toll on the piston seal, which ultimately led to its subsequent replacement; The air bubble that recoiled back through the air-vent of the cylinder due to the hardness of the pellets (Supermags), during the firing cycle of the gun,
because there was too much redundant air pressure in the vent to quickly enough push the pellet further into the barrel (the chamber of an
airgun barrel is stiffer than the rest of the bore); That pressure recoiled back and over-time started stretching the seal a bit too hard
and that's why the seal lost its rigidity.
BTW; The gun was making flawless 15mm/ 0.6" groups at 15 yards with open sights, before I then swapped the scope for an UTG-Leapers 3-9x42.
I hope you can see the washers under the trigger guard plate, those were a must in my case:
As you can also see from the image above, the varnish is rather soft and fragile in certain areas on the stock and has by the time I was done with the rifle,
also worn away or otherwise imprinted into the wood.
..And of course, the targets with the groups:
View attachment AccuracyOnAverage.jpg
Then, after some 9-10 months, the gun lost its accuracy potential once again. This time it wasn't the seal or the mainspring (which by that time had already settled in the cylinder), but the captive or "retention" screw in front of the main pivot-pin screw at the front of the cylinder, which binds the barrel/breech assembly to the receiver, or well, the cylinder. A shim had to be placed into the hole of that screw in order to almost completely hold the barrel in place and prevent it from wobbling around and, as such causing an air-leak or a gap between the breech seal and the receiver/cylinder. From there on out, I was worry free for about a half of year. During that time, I set almost impossible goals to achieve with that rifle, simply because it was capable of actually fulfilling them. I've been hitting small bottle caps from 40 yards away, shooting beer cans from a distance of up to a 100 yards away, once i even took a confirmed hit at a yogurt cup from 125 yards away (according to Google Earth)... That's roughly 136 yards. I even made a DOPE chart for that gun and the Leapers 3-9 scope, which I mounted on it. When I took that 125 yard shot, I had the magnification set to 9X and since I didn't fiddle with the parallax setting on the scope (the parallax not being directly adjustable and by standard, set at 35 yards), I had to aim 5 mils under the center and 2.5 mils to the left, due to the parallax shift at that distance and because of the bullet-drop. The gun was sighted in at 16,5 yards/15 meters.
These are the scopes I've been with the gun, as well as the laser sighting module I once used to zero the gun in... it worked!
View attachment Sights.jpg
... Read on in PART TWO ...
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