Diana factory tour

[subscriber]

[Tater]

Moved to the German gate.

[Yogi]

Really bummed that the Diana 34 EMS is no longer EMS!

That new PCP looks promising.

-Y

[Toxylon]

Cool clip (if you can call 70+ minutes a "clip")!

In a way, work at the assembly line isn't too different from what us home tuner folks do. The workers wield manual screwdrivers, and cock the barrels and test pull the triggers as they go, gun by gun.

Of course, since no parts are made at the facility Steve toured, the heavier, more exotic / interesting side of production isn't present. "Mostly in Germany" was repeated quite a few times by the sales guy, as far as where the parts are made. I reckon the springer parts are still manufactured at Gabinvest, Bulgaria.

Some redundancy in the vid, what with Steve spending like 5 minutes marveling at the construction specifics of Ze Vault for firearms. It would've been cool to hear more about the production side of things, in a "what the worker is doing here and why" kind of way.

It'll be interesting to see the vid with the chief engineer, that Steve promised.

[Denby95]

Really bummed that the Diana 34 EMS is no longer EMS!

That new PCP looks promising.

-Y

Agree on the EMS not being an EMS also at 8:45 the worker dry fires the gun!

[DanD]

At 18:17 you can see how to reset a T06 trigger without cocking the gun. Very cool.

[Denby95]

Umarex/RWS provides pretty bad customer service (at least in my experiences), but at least they were contactable. Diana's new importer, Blueline has never responded to a single email I've sent inquiring about parts, and their website has the Diana brand on it but thats about it. No parts diagrams, no info etc.

[subscriber]

at 8:45 the worker dry fires the gun!

I noticed dry firing a number of times throughout the video.  It seems part of the assembly procedure, as a "functional test".   I did see a pellet fired over a chrono at one location.

[Yogi]

I saw 2 guns fired.  One the guy loaded a pellet the other the lady did not load a pellet but fired into something down low.
If you dry fire an airgun but place the muzzle into something that wiil offer resistance there should be no problem.

-Y

[subscriber]

If you dry fire an airgun but place the muzzle into something that wiil offer resistance there should be no problem.

If you push hard enough to achieve a reasonable "seal" at the muzzle, yes.  The traps they were using were to catch grease and the possibility of a pellet.  Look at those traps.  Foam rubber, covered in grease.  No way are they pushing the muzzle hard enough to dry fire for our purposes.  But then we are thinking about being able to do it more than once.

I watched the whole video, but completed watching only after posting it here.  The philosophy seems clear:  A springer must be able to handle being dry fired a few times.  Just don't make a habit of it.

One guy dry fires a springer, then blows smoke out of the barrel (potentially leaving condensation from his breath in the bore, before boxing it up).   I don't care if my new springer smells of smoke (very unlikely anyway).  I would care if there is any rust in the barrel...

It would have been nice if Steve has remarked on the dry firing and had his host tell him that Diana airguns are tough.  It would be nicer still if they fired each airgun over a chrono to verify function, and that velocity was in the ballpark for the intended market. 

Certainly, a model 34 intended for the German market can't hurt itself via dry firing because it does not produce enough power.  We don't know which models are dry fired, and which not.  Steve's camera person spent a little too much time with closeups of the workers.  I would have preferred more time discussing hardware that was in frame at the time.

All that said, thanks to Diana for allowing Steve (and us) into the factory.  If they did not do that, we would have less to complain about.

[Denby95]

The video is interesting but unfortunately is superficial in information. As you said subscriber, it spends alot of time looking at workers, alot of final assembly.

Want to convince me on the Diana brand name? Explain why Diana engineers chose 8 lands for their barrel. Describe the processes Diana goes through to create the barrel and why they believe that process provides particular attributes which are better than their competitors. Show piece by piece assembly, with details on the part selection and why. Discuss the hardening process and spring selection. There were some details here and there but across the space of an hour, alot of it was seemed to lack 'meat' to the content.

This would only be more superficial marketing but I noticed they had a number of colours of the EMS stocks. Green, grey, sand. Clearly more 'limited editions' going out. Talk about those details. The brief bit on the EMS, really did not talk about the whole point of what the EMS was even meant to be (even if thats mostly dead now).

[subscriber]

I sent Steve of AEAC an email to invite him to look at this thread.

[microsalmo]

Thanks for the invite Peter.  I'm here & following guys.

I've also sent this thread link to Markus at Diana, so please consider it a direct link to them with any questions 😊

Note:  Some the good questions asked here were also asked in the comments on my YT channel,(dry firing for example) and I've been answering them there 👍

Best,
Steve
AEAC

[DanD]

I don't need to be convinced that Diana makes accurate barrels because the many I've owned and shot have been great. The one exception is a 1980s gun that probably had rocks shot through it before it came to me.
I am frustrated to discover that the .22K EMS I've been waiting on for years will never exist. The video clarified that different EMS barrel lengths will not be offered.

[Madd Hatter]

Really bummed that the Diana 34 EMS is no longer EMS!

That new PCP looks promising.

-Y

Agree on the EMS not being an EMS also at 8:45 the worker dry fires the gun!

That's what I noticed. I guess all of the new springer people who post on GTA worried they've damaged their new air rifle don't have to be so paranoid about it as long as they don't make a habit of doing it. 😱😁 I did comment on the lack of ems barrels and spring/gas piston conversion parts being available and considering Hector saying that the barrel isn't a easy swap.

[HectorMedina]

As any type of information in life, this was created with a "readership" in mind.
And that "readership" was definitely not the average attendant here.

To look for something different is like asking someone to make a comic-book version of the Britannica.  ;-)

Steve did a great job pointing out and, literally "exacting" some more precise answers from DIANA. Did you count how many times he asked about the making of the barrels?

It takes a lot of patience on both parts to achieve something like this because they both speak (literally and figuratively) different languages. And what Steve judges to be his "audience" would probably have been bored by what a few here would regard as "basically technical".

For ME, the most important part, that was not said, is that DIANA has not been putting out a lot of things because they have been busy building a completely new factory. And factory it is. Whether we like it or not, the modern definition of manufacturing is based on added value. So, as long as the last "building" adds more than 51% of the total value, it is "Made there".
The days of total vertical integration have given way to the days of total globalization.

And current "Quality control" has given way to ISO 9000/9001. And if you do not know what that entails, just let me tell you that the company that made the Hubble Space Telescope's Main mirror was ISO 9000 certified. Now, remember that the Hubble needed "glasses".  ;-)

I still don't understand why some of you say the EMS is not an EMS anymore. Just like the protests from a few years ago about the Stormrider/Bandit/Chaser/Trailscout family, parts need to become more widely available, and also, hopefully, some independent maker will  start offering further variations. But this process needs time. And it needs to be economically viable.
It took 3 years for aftermarket parts to become available for the above mentioned family, so some patience here is in order.
So far, we have made variations on the EMS with all the parts offered (stock, sights, powerplant, caliber), it may not be as "easy" as once thought it would be, but the versatility is still there and it only needs a market demand to make whatever is desired to become real.

No need to remind you that cost and market size are inversely proportional.

And, lastly, the aim of the video was not to "convert" anyone over to a DIANA fan. The aim of the video was, somehow, to explain that DIANA has taken a huge step forward, and that has taken some time and effort. If things are not going exactly as we would like, we just need to be a little patient.

Where we do NOT need patience and where we should NOT be patient is with service by the current local importer. Only by alerting DIANA of the problems we face on this side of the Atlantic can we solve this in the long run. Solving our problems without alerting DIANA is just rewarding the delinquent attitude of the current importer by isolating DIANA from the market sentiment.

JMHO



HM

[null]

This is very good.

From working on air guns for a few decades now, I come to appreciate a manufacturer's design in relation to simplicity.

[Yogi]

I sent Steve of AEAC an email to invite him to look at this thread.

You should do the same for the Diana employee who gave the tour.

-Y

[L4z4r0s]

I sent Steve of AEAC an email to invite him to look at this thread.

You should do the same for the Diana employee who gave the tour.

-Y

Steve said that he has sent the thread's link to Markus at Diana...

[L4z4r0s]

I sent Steve of AEAC an email to invite him to look at this thread.

You should do the same for the Diana employee who gave the tour.

-Y

Steve said that he has sent the thread's link to Markus at Diana (sorry for the double post).