UPS brought me my Air King today. :^)

 Thought there was something wrong with it at first cuz it would not cock all the way. But it was just me I had to put a little more effort behind the last little bit of pulling on the lever so the barrel/action would slide and I could get the last couple of clicks and lock the sear. Yes, it is a heavy gun we all know that but it is noticed more when you have a scope on it and are actually holding the thing! Cleaned all of the little lead chunks out of the barrel, purchased the gun used, before I shot it and there was plenty of lead there. Then I adjusted the open sights with the first few shots and after that removed the scope from my Diana 52 and put it on the 54 as it should be a bit more accurate due to the action sliding in the stock. Then shortly after that I heard the 52 and the addiction, from the other room complaining that the 52 had no scope. So, pulled my Airmax 4x12x50 out of the drawer and put it on instead. It's a rough life having to make these important decisions all of the time but somebody has to do it. ;^) After sighting in it was shooting the 18.13 JSB .22 pellets through the same hole at the ten meters I have available in my basement. Can't wait to get it to the range and see what it will do.


 
That last little bit of cocking effort does require a bit of extra effort. However, its actually optional but no one discusses it. You can remove the metal bracket from the stock that the cocking lever pushes against to push the action forward into the detente position. In the case of my D56, it also helped to improve accuracy because the tab of that metal bracket, that sticks up and is what the cocking lever actually pushes against, gets pinched between the cocking lever and the spring tube/receiver/action. Since that tab is pinched in there, it can interfere with the sliding action during the shooting cycle. It was actually wearing away the coating on the spring tube on my rifle. If you do choose to remove it, you'll have to remember to push the action forward before you shoot. I do that when I push the safety off which sometimes I had to do anyway because the action can slip out of the detente position on its own particularly when the ball bearing in the rear slide is adjusted to apply light pressure. A light pressure is good for target shooting but a stiff pressure is good for hunting and hiking around in the field- or just remember to push the action forward if it slips out of detente. You'll know if you fire the rifle with it out of detente; you'll all of a sudden notice a heck of a lot of recoil!

I hope you enjoy your rifle. They are fascinating rifles to shoot. The weight of my rifle doesn't really bother me since I really just wanted an interesting long range paper puncher to shoot.
 
Sold off so I could buy a walnut stock Weihrauch 35E , my Air King was a beast ! Not sure this works on all Model 54's , but to reduce the cocking cycle , I would push on the back of the mechanism where the safety rests. That would return the rifles sledge movement. It seems to me that at the end of the cocking cycle , that it was the last and harder part of the cocking work. A slight push forward did this easier then pulling that cocking lever right at the end backwards. Has anyone noticed this ?