Diana 430L .177

[EricFR]

Hello,

So like I said, my last acquisition. I've had a long hesitation if I wanted to go Darkside (HW) but not this time. 
What I wanted so far is a medium powered springer like my LGU but lighter and still pretty accurate.

Compared to the D430, there's no open (plastic) sights. It's a bit longer but you need still a lot of force at the end to make the piston stud catch the trigger block.

Now pictures :



The stock is beautiffuly nice, nothing wrong to say about it :







Barrel weight comming from the 470TH :





The famous T06 trigger, only downside, the trigger guard is in plastic, but you only see it when you know it, it's still a strong piece :









Ready to push the pellet in the barrel, it's open at the bottom to let the pellet fall on the ground if you lose it between your fingers. The anti-beartrap system by Diana is always a really effective system, like the TX200 or LGU, not something that only acts on the trigger like HW's :







The burnishing is nice and reflects light how it should, it's not as dark as on my LGU, you see the steel isn't polished to far but it's still nice :







Now shooting with a Hawke Airmax 4-12X50 AO and an adjustable Sportsmatch AOP55 mount.













The JSB exacts 4.52 work good but like said they are a bit lose and 4.53 aren't easy to find so I swithed to heavies.

So the shooting on 37 yards quite impressed me, I like this kind of targets. On the first line, I thought Ohhh man that's a tack driver, it's amazing until the end of the second line...
I think it's mostly my fault, the gun is a bit hold sensitive (maybe less with non heavy pellets), as I changed my grab, POI changed and you see that from pellet to pellet, it hits the same place and suddenly I hold it a bit firmly and it came back to center...
This shows one thing, only after 20 pellets of testing, I've made that paper target and it's accurate. From pellet to pellet, it hits where the previous hitted. There's only a problem when I don't do my job...

With the chrony, after that shooting session (time the dieseling dissipates), I've made 5 recordings (in m/s) : 226, 226, 225, 226, 226.
It says a lot, only 1m/s of variation, so it means 3fps. That's simply amazing !!!!
Powerwise, it's around 17.1J with the heavies, I haven't tryed the standards but should be almost 18J.

Accurate out of the box, with everything OEM, no Vmach, Maccari, Vortek or whatever... I've only disassembled it at the start for a lube tune.
Well made and constructed, light in weight compared to it's opponents.

So I can say that's a good number this 430L !!!

[lefteyeshot]

AoA sent me a 430 with open sights by accident, I'm sure, but I decided to keep it. Hector said at these prices I should get the 430L also. Looking at your pictures I'm thinking he's right. I have a 470th and do like the look of that barrel weight.

[Gear_Junkie]

Excellent pictures and report - thanks!