I’m playing catch up with the history of the Taipans. I am very interested in getting one of these but wonder the difference in quality and accuracy between the Ukraine and CZ guns. It seems Talon Tunes is selling a version with the CZ barrel. It’s all a little confusing and hoped for some clarification.
Thank you
I'll share what I know.
I bought a Veteran from R&L airguns around 3 years ago. Paid $1250 shipped, a Shorty in .22. At that time there weren't many options, wood or black stock and .22 was a CZ barrel and .25 was a Lothar barrel. All of the Veterans from that time frame were marked on the breech, "Made in Ukraine."
The Mutant was basically the first gen Veteran and had it's own barrel debate. It as before my time, but I understand a barrel manufacturer named "Listone" was involved and the way to determine "authentic" CZ barrel was if it had two dimples in the barrel right in front of the breech.
Fast forward til now. R&L no longer sells Taipan guns, a shame really since the price is so much higher now from Utah Airguns and Talon Tunes, but I digress.....
So, Taipan guns are now no longer made in Ukraine. Manufacture was moved to Czech Republic. Minelli is involved with the making of the laminate stocked Vets. These current manufacture guns are marked on the breech with a big capital "CZ" right where the barrel screws into the breech. I've seen some erroneously claim that CZ stands for CZ barrel, but that is false. To further muddy the waters, up until this last shipments, ALL (all the calibers) of the Vets with the CZ marked breech had Lothar barrels. Supposedly this recent shipment (in the last few weeks) is still Czech made guns, so CZ on the breech, but now again with CZ barrels, vs the LW barrels that were on all the previous shipments of CZ marked guns. Yeah, it's convoluted and will be impossible for buyers in the used market to know what kind of barrel they have. It also really makes me wonder how much we're being played by the retailers, as there really is no way to authenticate a specific barrel as an LW or a CZ, both are traditional 12 land and groove rifled and lack any distinguishing marks (LW blanks come with distinguishing marks when bought as blanks but they're machined away when the barrels are cut for the Veterans, I'm not not sure about CZ as I've never bought/handled a CZ blank, but either way, there aren't any makers marks on the Vet barrels once they're machined).
I have a Veteran Long, purchased from Utah airguns from the prior shipment, so it is marked CZ on the breech but has a Lothar barrel. It is also a .22.
So, from the owner of both a CZ and an LW barreled Veteran I can tell you that accuracy between the two is equally superb.....with not too tight pellets. To clarify, my Short has a CZ barrel and my Long has a LW barrel, or at least they were claimed to be such when they were purchased. With pellets they shoot extremely well. They are also both extremely tight choked. I'm not sure how much control over the specs Taipan has, but it appears that they request their delivered barrels to be choked beyond sufficiently. From playing with the CZ and the LW barreled Vets, I've determined that they do very well with nearly any JSB pellet in an appropriate weight for the speed, but both HATE slugs or tight chambering pellets. My Long loves the 18.13 grain pellets but the 25.4s fit much more tightly and it does very poorly with them. Both of my Vets have shot slugs poorly. I hazard a guess that Taipans barrel specs are intended to make pellet shooters, not slug shooters. Some report slug success with Veterans, but neither of mine have been that way. In fact, pellets pushed through the barrel of my Long measure 0.210-0.211, pellets pushed up to the choke and then back out the breech end measure 0.214-0.215. That seems like a much too aggressive choke to myself. BUT, as long as I stick with the 18.13s, the LW barreled Long shoots just as accurately as the CZ barreled Short.
