When I first got into serious Airgunning around 15 years ago I have always been a big fan of the Career 707 family of airguns. I have at one time or another owned every 707 caliber that the Koreans have made. (.177,.22,.20,.25, 9mm) The reason I have always been a fan of this airgun was because when the gun first appeared on the American market they came with the most technology than any airgun rifle I have ever owned or read about. I wasn't into airguns when they arrived in our country but I believe the time frame was in the 1990's. I'm not aware of any airgun from that time that came with a great Lever action, fully adjustable power, Pressure gauge, Inline magazine, safety button, good trigger, and legendary Korean barrel with inherited accuracy plus a LDC could be easily fitted to quite it down. I still can remember when I received my first 707 which was a .22 caliber. As soon as I got it unpackaged I loaded it up with a CPH pellet and open the rear slider and shot it towards the woods in my backyard. My next thought was Holly S_ _ t! This is louder than my 30-30 Marlin. Certainly not what we call today "backyard friendly". Other than the barrel report and being a little pellet fussy because of the pellet transfer shuttle adjustment. I think that was the only cons I can remember. I still have a 707 in .177 with the double tanks that I had Will Piatt reseal a couple years ago. I probably will leave that one to one of my grandchildren because I just don't want to part with it. I also did own one of the first Infinity's that arrived in the US 10 or 12 years ago. I thought that gun would be the cats meow but it fell short of my expectations. It also arrived with a small crack in the stock so I returned it to one of my favorite airgun distributors for a refund. The only regret I have reflecting back is that I didn't get a chance to own the Career 300. At the time these rifles were quite abundant on the old yellow classified and could be owned for $300 -$350. It seems I put it off too long because I have not seen any FS for years.
Anyway, I know many of you older airgunners know more about this great game changer that I do. Would love to hear your thoughts on them.
Hey Bill, I must fall into that "older airgunner" category. I still have my 22 cal carbine, 22 cal long gun and 25 cal long gun 707 Careers. I did have at one time a 25 cal carbine and 9mm Ultra. I bought my first Career (the 22cal long gun) from Davis (the original importer of the Careers) at the Roanoke Show back in the early 90's or was the late 80's....LOL. Do you remember the black synthetic stocks for the Careers that Marty at Silver Streak Sports sold back in the day? I always wanted to try one of those stock sets, but never followed through. I have seen a couple examples of stocks made by Dave G for the Careers....great work as you would expect.
The 22cal carbine was always my favorite--a nice short gun with all the power you could ask for. I had Anthony Story make a short LDC for the Carbine - about 4-5 inches long. While it didn't quiet the carbine as much as the 6-7 inch LDCs, it still made for a nice short carry-around gun and cut the sound down pretty well.
With all my Careers, I would change out the hammer spring to a lighter spring so the gun would shoot a self regulated shot string. By adjusting the fill pressure slightly, you could still use the power wheel and get a nice self regulated curve at the different power wheel levels. I had the 22cal long gun setup with an internal regulator for awhile, but liked using the power wheel and lighter hammer spring setup better because of the wider range of power you could obtain with the power wheel adjustments less the regulator.
Airgun technology has sure seen great advancement in the last 20-25 years, but those Careers were and still are fun guns to shoot.
Ben
Hey Ben, Thanks for your comments. I'm surprised that we haven't hador PA I believe. I have never been a big fan of bullpups but since many of the designers have moved the sidelever forward I purchased my first pup... a Vuncan 2 last fall and I agree the Airgun Technology people are doing a very good job. Might even go for one of those FX Imact MK2's later this year. When they first came out 3 or 4 years ago I was very much interested but I went for a Thomas for BR and FT. The Impacts are doing well in the Extreme Benchrest game which has gained popularity in recent years. Many nice guns out there now to choose from depending on the game you want to shoot.