Hi.
I'm in the UK.
Sounds a bit strange, but I have a nostalgia fold on my macbook, where I keep images of various stuff from when I was a kid.
Back in 1975 when I was 14 years old, my dear old dad bought me a Diana air rifle from a second hand shop, they had various ones.
All I can remember is that it had plain finger grooves along the sides of the stock.
The front sight of the barrel was Like a sort of pin, as in the link attached.
I can remember this because it snapped off somehow, and I tried to superglue a bit of wire (yes I know, but I was 14) in the hole in the barrel which was there.
I eventually bought a very cheap scope.
I could have sworn it was a point .22 and not a point .177? It was definitely a Diana, and it definitely looked like this.
Any ideas?
Many thanks for any replies.
Hope it's ok to post a link.
https://auctionet.com/en/1247234-luftgevar-diana-modell-22-brittish-made/images#image_1
Welcome to the forum sir!
Diana made two very similar guns, the models 22 and 23. The biggest difference was the barrel and breech assembly; the 22 had a brass barrel in a blued sheet-metal housing, and the 23 had a solid steel unit. These were pre-war German designs; after WW2 copies of these were made by Milbro in Scotland - still with the "Diana" name on them - and re-designed versions by Diana in Germany.
Your description of the front sight sounds like the model 22, which I believe were made only in .177 cal, but I'm not sure. Your linked photo is also a Milbro model 22.
Here is a bad photo of a page from Dennis Hiller's Collector's Guide to Air Rifles, showing the Milbro versions:
@mdriskill Many thanks for taking the time to reply.
Hmmm.... I'm still none the wiser.
It would be so much easier if just the one gun/model had the type of front sight 😀
I could then say, that's it.
Also, did they have slots (sorry if it's the wrong term) to mount a scope, as I did?
I can't say which rifle you had, but the gun in your photos is definitely a model 22: sheet metal barrel, post sight. The model 23 had an all-steel barrel, and a stout blade sight fitted in a transverse dovetail (similar to the pic below, which is a model 27). You can see the difference in the page from Hiller I posted.
As far as I know (which isn't that far, lol!), no version of the model 22 ever had milled scope grooves. But later versions of the Milbro ones may have had a spot-welded rail, that could take an aperture sight or light scope rings. I've never seen one in person here in the US, so we have reached the end of my knowledge!
Milbro model 22
https://www.airgunspares.com/gunspares/airgun-spares/milbro/model-22.html
Milbro model 23
https://www.airgunspares.com/gunspares/airgun-spares/milbro/model-23.html
@mdriskill Thanks very much for the links.
Looking at the breakdowns, it has to be a model 22.
I'll still have a search.
Trust my parents to have done something with it when I moved out of home..they have both passed away now.
Many thanks all for your replies.
I thought I would pop back to say I found it!
It took me a while.
That's the front sight I was trying to explain (badly) which snapped off, so I bought a telescopic instead.
I knew it was a 22.
I'm going to keep an eye out for one.
Thank again all.
Sorry about the double image, I wasn't sure how to remove it.
