Never owned a PCP, but through a mate of a mate been offered an air arms 300 something. Apparently available with all the relevant charging equipment. Not sure if that means tank and compressor or just a pump.
Only thing I know about a 300 is it's old.
Anybody think this is even worth more investigation and a look? And if so what sort of money are they worth?
Yes it is worth investigating, depending on price being asked, condition and what accompanies it.
There are some things to keep in mind that I will detail below.
Broadly speaking the single shot S300 version usually perform without issues, the earliest generation of ten shot S310 can be a bit variable, more particularly in .177.
The reason for this is pretty much down to the feeding from magazine into the barrel on the first guns with the transfer port direct drilled into the barrel. Pellet seating on these can feel very notchy and my own personal experience is that accuracy wasn't great. AA did figure out the issues fairly quickly and modified them with the brass seal carrier assembly which contained the breech seal and transfer port - this cured the issues and carried over into the 400 Series until a few years ago.
I bought one of these early examples in .177 a few years ago, knowing that they can be problematic, the rifle came as a full kit with 3 litre 300 Bar bottle and gauge, a stirrup pump, scope, mounts, two magazines hard case and pellets for £350, so I took a punt on it.
As expected pellet seating felt poor and accuracy wise it was pretty poor, so I set about sorting it out. I bought the relevant seal carrier parts from Air Arms Spares, cut the original transfer port off the barrel and re-machined it to accept the seal carrier and drilled the breech block for it. That made pellet loading silky smooth and the rifle now produces the expected level of accuracy.
At the same time I upgraded the internals with a 400 series firing valve pot, the three sear trigger and new inlet valve plug to take the late fig-8 barrel collar instead of the stock mounted version of the original.
Selling the charge kit / pump / hard case and scope, which I didn't require as already had charge kit etc, more than paid for the cost of the upgrade parts.
As standard they do not have a pressure gauge fitted, although personally that doesn't bother me in the least as I just routinely fill it to the required pressure before going out, then shoot the number of shots I have found it gives, re-fill and repeat as required.
They often came with a nice walnut stock.
Think some of the earlier models had an issue with the breach seals.
The majority of the 300 Series both 300 and 310 versions are equipped with an ambidextrous beech sporter stock as standard. There was a walnut sporter stock option but they seem to be exceedingly rare, I have only seen four or five of these stocks, one of which I managed to acquire. A more common walnut stock is the thumbhole sporter, unfortunately I don't have a picture of one of those to hand.
300 Series beech sporter (non standard adjustable butt pad fitted):
Rare 300 Series walnut sporter stock:
Price wise for gun only I would expect to see anything from £200 to £400 for the bare rifle depending on condition and which stock is fitted, beech sporter being the cheapest, the walnut options being rarer and more expensive.
