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The Editor explores the latest release from RTI Arms. Can old dogs learn new tricks?

Unless I’m losing it at a faster rate than normal, I believe the subject of this month’s Editor’s Test is a first for me. Is the RTI Arms Prophet really the first rifle I’ve tested with its sidelever fixed to the left-hand side of the action? Yes, plenty of other models can have their levers switched, and the Priest II, also from RTI, had a left-mounted cocking system, but that was a straight-pull bolt, not this biathlon-style sidelever we see on the Prophet. Answers on an e-postcard, please.

LEFT BEHIND?

Before I get into the technical aspects of the Prophet, and there are plenty of those, let’s see where this rifle is positioned within the airgun marketplace. Around 15 to 20% of us are southpaws, at least according to the airgun sales data. Is RTI Arms pitching its rifles – it makes just two models – at the potential left-hand market? I’ll immediately counter that with my recent findings, which show that, of course left-handers like the Prophet’s sinister sidelever, but so do plenty of right-handers.

My esteemed chum in the U.S., Jim Chapman, likes the Prophet’s lever system, and Jim is extremely highly regarded in the hunting world. He gets to shoot pretty much everything out there, too, so he has a huge comparison range from which to work. Jim’s by no means alone, either. Two of my trusted shooting consultants – basically, mates I’ve known for years and who find fault with most things – shot the Prophet for a couple of hours while I did some more research and consolidated my notes, and they grudgingly admitted that they ‘were coming round to that lefty lever’.