FB Record Champion (1987 to c. 1997)

The FB Record Champion! The only “stick”  magazine-fed spring-powered air pistol ever manufactured! What’s more, just like the Record Jumbo, it’s a concentric design with an oval piston. To top it off, it’s also side-lever cocking, has a two-stage trigger, adjustable sights and has a dovetail rail so that a pistol scope can be fitted!

The magazine, which slides into the grip like a conventional semi-automatic pistol, takes 12 flat-headed .177 pellets. Each time the pistol is cocked, a pellet is loaded into the breech automatically. Great care must be taken when loading the magazine into the pistol as the fragile plastic pellet probe can break very easily. Therefore, the magazine should only be inserted when the cocking lever is fully extended.

Typically the piston was fitted with smooth walnut or brown plastic grips. Walnut match grips were also available to order. There is a trigger adjustment screw in front of the trigger guard although it does not offer much adjustment. The rear sight is adjustable for windage and elevation.

Later variants are fitted with a device to prevent double-cocking and hence prevent the loading of two or more pellets into the breech. This was probably introduced to reduce the change of pellets jamming in the barrel.

Just like the Jumbo, piston seals are incredibly hard to find and, along with the delicate plastic pellet probe, are the Champion’s Achilles heel! As such, there are not many working examples left making the Champion a rare item worthy of any airgun collection.