Diana’s quirky 56TH Target Hunter holds a unique place in the market. Mark Camoccio discovers why

- Mark Camoccio

I’m known for competition shooting, and it’s this branch of our sport that has steered me, ultimately, toward pre-charged pneumatics, for the simple reason that they are the easiest form of airgun to shoot accurately. They dominate field target and HFT for this reason, yet many other power sources exist, and that has been a big part of my fascination with airguns, to date.

Self-contained airguns hold huge appeal, and whilst any spring gun technically qualifies on this front, I’m really referring to the more quirky specialist fare, offering semi-recoilless characteristics. Unsurprisingly, I’ve owned several Whiscombes along the way, and I was on the waiting list for the Parker Hale Dragon; that never quite materialised in full-power .177 calibre. Yes, I came over all dewy-eyed when the Webley Paradigm was being discussed, but again, the blueprints sank without trace.

Indeed, the single-stroke pneumatic in full power still confounds design teams the world over, so until that particular holy grail is cracked, what alternatives are there to the slightly soulless world of the PCP?

UNIQUE

Well, take a good hard look at my review rifle here, for the Diana 56 TH Target Hunter now sits pretty as a unique specimen, offering as it does, a spring-powered action, yet almost recoilless performance. ‘How does it do that?’, I hear you cry. Basically, by mounting the spring-piston action on a sliding-sledge mechanism! Air Arms did much the same with their sadly discontinued TX200 SR, but with production costs cited as