You guys are right, in the long run you are better off with good quality anything. tmitch...that hassle of having to ship those guns back must have gotten really annoying. My local UPS station has naive clerks and I always have to go through the "We can't ship guns" line. Actually black powder and airguns can be shipped via. UPS, but every time I do it we have to go through a learning process for them.
With airguns I think there are two camps, serious regular shooters like myself who target shoot/hunt on a regular basis with pellet guns and need something that will last. And the other type of people who consider them toys and don't want to spend much money on a pellet gun. And they have occasional backyard pests, so a few shots a year is enough for them. The cheap guns must be for those types.
I once worked at a sporting goods store that sold guns. Despite carrying the RWS line, in every sale except for one we sold the cheapies. The buyers said they "had squirrels to get rid of".
I currently have 2 cheap airguns, a Crosman 2100 and a Daisy 901. I did not pay much for them, and they do fit my needs. Not sure if I will rebuild the Daisy when it finally goes bad. The Crosman has too much looseness with the barrel in the receiver, and this affects accuracy, will throw it out when it goes bad. I would never have an attitude like that with an RWS rifle.
