cometa air rifles? any experience

[mista meener]

I was looking at the Cometa line of rifles in the fenix 400 and the fusion series. has anyone owned one so I can get a opinion based on shooting them?

[56S]

Almost a year ago there was a RWS 94 up for auction on an online site and a thread was started here on that rifle.  The Cometa Fenix 409 is supposed to be the same gun.  A buddy if mine won the auction and I was local to the seller.  I picked up the 94 and went over it before giving it to him.  A couple of points:  the gun is a finely built air gun.  It was accurate with Crosman 14.3 Walmart specials.  Velocity was down from my Crosman Titan but has since increased.  The pellet needs to be seated deeper in the barrel to fully engage the rifling and accuracy depends on this.  Very nice wood, easy to cock and in my opinion higher quality than your average Diana.  BTW, friend has since bought a Prosport and the hw97k so consider the Fenix a gateway drug!

[tomykay12]

I have two; RWS model 92 and 94. Both are nice rifles and very easy to shoot. I went thru the 92 for a friend, new spring and seal, refinished the stock, deburred, etc, and he ended up giving it to me, lol. Still have to return that fave. It seemed very nicely made, except the trigger group housing is potmetal. Haven't been in the 94...I feel they make decent stuff but don't know their pricing. If it's anywhere near a R9, I'd take the R9 every time, tk 

[mista meener]

Thanks a lot guys .They do seem to be very well made with real nice stocks

[stija]

I have a cometa fenix 400.  While i love the gun, and while i also consider it to be at par with any rifle from the RWS/Diana family, it is not up to par with a Weihrauch or other higher end guns.  The edges are sharp (very very sharp), the pivot bolt (where the barrel pivots to cock) is made of stronger metal than the bolt that holds it so it cuts through and loosens up.  This issue has been addressed with manufacturer in Spain who sent me another pair of bolts promptly via air mail, along with a couple of more shims to install at this pivot point as well.  There was a 0.022" tolerance between shims installed and metal around them, so i ended up installing two more 0.008" shims (one on each side). 

So, to sum it up:

1. Excellent entry rifle, like Diana 54 for example.
2. Needs finishing touches, and some tender care and quality control.
3. Customer service is very attentive to needs and sends replacement parts readily.
4. As long as you dont mind these little imperfections, and can fine tune it a little, it is a great entry rifle.

The only issues it really had is loosening of the pivot bolt, partly due to high tolerances and partly due to one screw being softer than other.  But hey, you can pay 200$ more and have a HW95, and then you need not worry aobut these small things.

It is capable of same accuracy of my HW95, after fine tuning all these imperfections.  Id still take my HW95 over my Fenix 400 anytime of the day.

[uglymike]

Very heavy trigger? Does it compare with a TO5 or TO6 trigger? How light does it adjust?

[stija]

Very heavy trigger? Does it compare with a TO5 or TO6 trigger? How light does it adjust?

The trigger is fine, although plastic. I did not have to adjust it as it worked for me out of the box.

I did discover last night a split in the wood running on the bottom of the stock lenghtwise, all the way to the trigger guard. The trigger guard is plastic and the rear attaches through a wood screw. I stripped that by having to dissassemble and reassemble the rifle previously due to other issues i had which i described above.

I am gonna glue it back and replace the rear wood screw with a metal insert and metal screw intstead. Then i plan on cleaning everything and using blue loctite to reassemble it one last time. 

So as you can see, my particular Cometa had a lot of issues, while my HW95 has no issues. I would gladly have spent a few 100FRNs on another HW or similar higher end rifle. Although, like i said, the Cometa is just as accurate in my hands as the HW. (i may be the limiting factor and not the rifles).

[johnnail]

I had a Fenix 400. The trigger was fine, and it shot 720fps consistently (.22) I liked it, but was never satisfied with the accuracy which was OK, but not great--you had to seat the pellets, or they would deform on closing

[Badgerfan]

1. Excellent entry rifle, like Diana 54 for example.

Did you mean Diana 34?

If not, I think your idea of an "entry level" rifle is rather different from that of quite possibly every other person on the site, as very few people would think a $600 rifle is a good rifle to buy to see if one likes the sport.

[stija]

1. Excellent entry rifle, like Diana 54 for example.

Did you mean Diana 34?

If not, I think your idea of an "entry level" rifle is rather different from that of quite possibly every other person on the site, as very few people would think a $600 rifle is a good rifle to buy to see if one likes the sport.

Yes, i mean the 34 not the 54.  The 34 sets the standard in my books as the entry level rifle. 

To the poster that had accuracy problems: I believe you had play in your fork-barrel pivot connection.  I experienced somewhat disappointing accuracy and i never considered the pivot joint until i disassembled my HW95 to install the kit.  It took me a good 20 mins to reassemble the pivot joint with the two shims that were in there because of how tight it was. 

Then after the 2nd or 3rd time i disassembled the Cometa i realized i wasnt running into the pivot connection issues that i was having with my HW95.  Then when i inspected further i noticed i could see light through the fork to barrel pivot connection.  I compared to my HW95 which had no such slack. I also noticed marks on the front of the barrel/breach area which was due to the fork bending when i tightened it. And it was bending due to 0.015" free play in this area.  At this point i also figured out that i could notice this lateral play by moving the barrel laterally very little (no play on my HW95) when it was "broken"after cocking it.  This led me to conclude that this was the cause of the accuracy issues i was experiencing.

Long story short is i Contacted Cometa in Spain and told them about this.  They were happy to send me a new pivot bolt, as well as the little stopper bolt, and 2 more shims (0.008").  Unfortunately i was able to fit only one, even though i measured 0.015" of play with a digital caliper. They only had 0.008" size shims, although i know i could have fit another <0.005" (on top of the 0.008" i installed for a total of three shims now) to improve the tolerance and thus also accuracy.

After i installed the shims my Cometa is capable of pretty much same accuracy as my HW95, as i mentioned earlier.  Most of my shooting is done at <50 yards by the way.

And i don't know anything about seating the pellets properly or having them deformed.  I never ran into any pellet issues, and after the shim fix all accuracy related issues resolved.

[mista meener]

1. Excellent entry rifle, like Diana 54 for example.

Did you mean Diana 34?

If not, I think your idea of an "entry level" rifle is rather different from that of quite possibly every other person on the site, as very few people would think a $600 rifle is a good rifle to buy to see if one likes the sport.

Yes, i mean the 34 not the 54.  The 34 sets the standard in my books as the entry level rifle. 

To the poster that had accuracy problems: I believe you had play in your fork-barrel pivot connection.  I experienced somewhat disappointing accuracy and i never considered the pivot joint until i disassembled my HW95 to install the kit.  It took me a good 20 mins to reassemble the pivot joint with the two shims that were in there because of how tight it was. 

Then after the 2nd or 3rd time i disassembled the Cometa i realized i wasnt running into the pivot connection issues that i was having with my HW95.  Then when i inspected further i noticed i could see light through the fork to barrel pivot connection.  I compared to my HW95 which had no such slack. I also noticed marks on the front of the barrel/breach area which was due to the fork bending when i tightened it. And it was bending due to 0.015" free play in this area.  At this point i also figured out that i could notice this lateral play by moving the barrel laterally very little (no play on my HW95) when it was "broken"after cocking it.  This led me to conclude that this was the cause of the accuracy issues i was experiencing.

Long story short is i Contacted Cometa in Spain and told them about this.  They were happy to send me a new pivot bolt, as well as the little stopper bolt, and 2 more shims (0.008").  Unfortunately i was able to fit only one, even though i measured 0.015" of play with a digital caliper. They only had 0.008" size shims, although i know i could have fit another <0.005" (on top of the 0.008" i installed for a total of three shims now) to improve the tolerance and thus also accuracy.

After i installed the shims my Cometa is capable of pretty much same accuracy as my HW95, as i mentioned earlier.  Most of my shooting is done at <50 yards by the way.

And i don't know anything about seating the pellets properly or having them deformed.  I never ran into any pellet issues, and after the shim fix all accuracy related issues resolved.

you guys are great thanks for the replies. glad you got the gun working right. it is good you were able to pinpoint the problem and good enough to fix it. it is amazing it shoots as good as your HW 95. after a bump in the road you know have a fine rifle