The cost of PCPs, pumps and compressors

by B.B. Pelletier

We had a comment last week from DB, who says, "I have had some interest in these precharged airguns but the prices for the pumps seem to me to be way out of line, and scuba tanks are even more expensive. You can buy a really nice firearm for less than the cost of this gun [Career 707 Carbine] and pump. Is there any economical option in our future? My wife would kill me if she thought that I would spend $200 on a pump!"

I want to put the prices of precharged guns and gear into perspective for you. Before Daystate began making precharged rifles in 1980, they hadn't been made since before World War I. New guns were still sold in the early 1920s, but they were assembled from parts made before the War. In today's money, those smallbore airguns started at a low of about $1,000 and went up rapidly. They developed less than 200 foot-pounds, and their pumps sold for hundreds of dollars (adjusted to today's prices).

The 19th century was the big-bore heyday
The finest and most powerful big bore guns were made during the 19th century. Power levels got as high as, perhaps, 300 foot-pounds, and guns were sold in kits with all the tools and equipment needed to make them work. A starting price for a complete kit was around $2,000 of today's money, but the price quickly rose to $10,000 and more on the finer models. These were gorgeous guns, for sure, but they didn't use scopes and all had to be filled from hand pumps. If one of today's big bores had been around, it wouldn't have been inoperative, because no one had the means to charge a gun to 3,000 psi. Those vintage hand pumps could get as high as 1,000 psi in extreme cases, but then they took a very long time to fill the gun because they compressed so little air.

Smallbore PCPs
After Daystate broke the ice, the entire world got into PCPs. Shooters discovered how accurate they are and how easy to shoot. Shot after shot with no pumping, no cocking, nothing but loading and shooting. And, accuracy that surpasses a .22 rimfire out to 50 yards.

The big bore revival began in 1996
Dennis Quackenbush brought out his CO2-powered Brigand rifle in 1996. It shot a .375-caliber round ball and got 60-80 foot-pounds of energy. Accuracy was on the order of 5 shots in 1.5" at 30 yards. Gary Barnes soon followed, and his early big bores were pushing the 250 foot-pound mark, with accuracy equivalent to Quackenbush. The Koreans saw a market and brought out the Fire 201 air shotgun with a 9mm rifle barrel. That gun got 150-175 foot-pounds and accuracy of 1" at 40 yards. By now, the 21st century had started and the race for power was on!

The multi-stage hand pump debuted in the mid-90s
Fredrik Axelsson designed a multi-stage hand pump that could compress air to 3,000 psi for the European target shooters and the few sporter PCPs that existed. The name of the first company to market a hand pump was Axsor. Within a few years, Axelsson left Axsor and started another company called FX to make a different hand pump and several models of sporting PCPs. Hill of England came out with a completely different hand pump capable of achieving pressures up to 3,500 psi.

Before we move on, you should know something about the technology in one of these exotic hand pumps. They are actually a pump within a pump within a pump! That's correct, there are actually three pumps nested inside what looks like a common bicycle pump. I have repaired many of these pumps, and they're very complex inside. There are about 20 different-sized O-rings in one of them! And they generate great heat when they work - high enough to cause brass parts to fail if you don't give them a break after five minutes of pumping. I own all three models - the Axsor, FX and Hill, and all my pumps still work perfectly after many years of service because I follow the manual's recommendations. Yes, $200 is a lot of money, but not when you consider what you're getting.

Incidentally, DB, a 3,000 psi 80-cubic-foot aluminum scuba tank sells new for around $150, so it doesn't cost more than a hand pump. I have two tanks. I paid $20 at a garage sale for the last one and $100 for the one before that.

High-pressure electric compressors
You'll pay $2,500 for a cheap electric compressor that will go to 3,000 psi, unless you buy the FX electric compressor. Yes, it does have the hand pump at its heart, but it is water-cooled for much greater longevity. As long as you don't abuse it by filling scuba tanks, the FX compressor should last a long time.

"You can buy a really nice firearm for less than the cost of this gun and pump."
Yes you can! You can also buy a nice lawnmower for less - so what? Neither one is a precharged air rifle. You don't buy these things to save money - even though I hope that I've demonstrated you are now paying less than ever for this technology. Precharged air rifles are science experiments with practical applications. They aren't firearms, nor should they be used as substitutes for them. Enjoy them for what they are.

What about the future?
I don't see big bore prices coming down much. What I see is capability going up. Quackenbush now makes a big bore that delivers 1,000 foot-pounds, and Barnes does the same. The Korean guns are pushing past 300 foot-pounds. Smallbore repeaters are becoming more accurate and more reliable. A new hand-pump that is being developed will at least hold the price steady, regardless of where the Euro goes. Plus, there are several lower-priced electric compressors in development. Companies are working toward a target retail price of $600 for a portable electric compressor (the FX compressor is now at $1,200). If you're interested in precharged airgunning, you're in, what will someday be called, the Golden Age.

Airgun links

by B.B. Pelletier

You're already on the internet, so I don't have to tell you how good it is for finding facts. But, several of you have asked research-type questions, so today I thought I'd show you the mother lode of airguns links - AirgunInfo.com, hosted by Pyramyd Air!

Airgun forums and blogs
Last week, I answered a basic question about airgun forums. Well, there a whole section of the main page dedicated to them on this site. It's on the left margin, and you click on the forum logos to connect. You'll even find this blog there. Then, there's a hot link under the General Info heading to lots more forums. It's called airgun forums, logically enough. The coding has made most links open in a separate page, so you won't lose your index page on Airgun Info. A few do not, however, so pay attention to what you are doing as you browse.

Classified ads and used guns!
You guys are always wanting to buy the neat collectible guns I show you here. Well, the classified ads are where to begin. I just spent 10 minutes there browsing the links and may have bought a bargain airgun book! Don't forget, may of these classified sites give you free listings, so when it's YOUR turn to sell, they are also great for that!

Besides the classifieds, there are also used gun sites. I would have thought Pyramyd would only have linked to their own used guns, but it looks like they got most everybody! I spotted one missing link, which I forwarded to them, but this is the best collection of used gun listings I have seen.

Repairs and parts!
We always need links to repair stations and parts suppliers. The Repairs and Parts page on this website is HUGE! This reference site must rank as one of the best if not THE very best airgun reference site on the internet. One word of caution on the repairs; some of these guys have not been around that long, so check references before sending off a treasured heirloom. If I tell you about someone in this blog, I have already checked out that person's work. Not that I'm an authority, but I won't recommend someone I know to be a fruitcake. On the other hand, anyone can hang out their shingle on the internet!

Manufacturers!
Almost all airgun manufacturers have some kind of website. The links for them are on the Manufacturers page. If you want to know what Baikal IMZ says about the airguns they make (like the all-black Drozd), check out their site! The manufacturers will also announce new products on their website (some of them, at least), so this becomes your window on the world of airguns.

Dealers!
Talk about Macy's sending customers to Gimbels! Pyramyd Air has a page of Dealers. It worked in Miracle on 34th Street, and it works for Pyramyd Air for the same reason. For those who fly the Maple Leaf, there is an entire page devoted to Canadian Airgun Dealers. Customers know instinctively that when a dealer is willing to tell you about other dealers (to the point of telling you what they specialize in!), they are confident of their own position in the marketplace. Gimbel's didn't understand it in the movie and neither do most of the other airgun dealers.

Conversions
For those who still can't convert inch-pounds to Newton-meters in their head, there is a great Conversions web page. If you still haven't found the energy conversion page on the Pyramyd site (despite the tons of bread crumbs I've been scattering), perhaps this page will be of some service.

And SO MUCH MORE!
There is so much on the Airgun Info site that I'm going to let you do your own exploring. When a new guy asks a question that you know is answered here, please refer him if you see the comment first. I think Pyramyd Air deserves our thanks for providing this wonderful reference for free. I've got it bookmarked on my "hot buttons" bar at the top of my browser. I suggest you do the same

Cleaning airgun barrels - the stuff you need to know!

by B.B. Pelletier

This one is for JW, who read the posting on cleaning airgun barrels and asked, "Okay B.B. You're sure this is safe? My RWS owner's manual says not to use brushes, but I'm assuming since I'm only doing it this once, it will not harm anything. By the way, I bought some cleaning pellets and shot a few through my RWS 34. I was amazed at how black they were. I've only shot about 250 pellets through it since I bought it new, so I'm assuming that it came from the factory like this. Is this typical for a new gun?"

Airgun barrels are made from soft steel or brass!
Soft steel abrades very fast, and brass abrades even faster. Incidentally, some of the airgun forums are talking about phosphor bronze barrels right now. The last use of phosphor bronze (and any other kind of bronze) was on the Sheridan Supergrade, whose production ended in 1954.

When you clean the bore of a gun, the cleaning rod can rub against the bore at the point where it enters the barrel. It will wear the barrel if it does rub. That's why you are warned to clean a barrel from the breech, if possible, so you don't wear the rifling at the muzzle.

To overcome this potential problem, cleaning rods are now sometimes rubber-coated for bore protection. The point is...don't let the rod wear the bore by rubbing.

Flexible cleaning rods!
Some guns are constructed in such a way that a flexible cleaning rod or cable is the only way you can clean it from the breech. I use one when needed, but I'm very careful! Some of these flexible systems are potentially very hazardous to rifle barrels!

Several years ago, an airgun hobbyist was selling cleaning systems made from monofilament fishing line. The line was passed through the muzzle and out the breech of guns with sliding compression chambers, like the Diana RWS 52. It was looped to grab a cleaning patch and pull it back through the bore from breech to muzzle - just like the experts tell us. What they didn't tell anyone was that if you got lazy and pulled from the side of the muzzle instead of straight, the monofilament line would cut through the steel on your barrel! If any of you are lapidaries, you can back me up on this. Don't jade carvers use monofilament line coated with diamond dust to carve jade?

This same hobbyist was also selling green ScotchBrite scratch pad material as a bore cleaner! Folks, green ScotchBrite is so abrasive that it can remove the rifling from a steel barrel in a very short time. Many airgun manufacturers use it for final detail finishing before sending their parts out for bluing, annodizing or plating!

Use a brush that is softer than the barrel
I suspect that RWS warns against using brushes to clean their barrels because so many shooters are careless when they clean. If you do use a brush, use one made of a material that's softer than the barrel of your airgun. For steel barrels, a bronze brush is fine. For brass barrels, there are nylon brushes, though I feel you should stay out of a brass barrel altogether unless there is a real problem.

The cleaning procedure I outlined in the linked article is recognized by all the major firearm and airgun manufacturers in the world. You only do it when there is a problem with accuracy - not after every firing.

Felt cleaning pellets
Felt cleaning pellets should not be used in a spring-piston gun. They do not cushion the piston sufficiently, and it is akin to dry-firing. You can use them in just about every other powerplant. If you do use them, pack in enough pellets to provide some resistance when the piston comes forward. For a gun with the power of a Diana RWS 34, perhaps five cleaning pellets in a row might be enough to cushion the piston.

The black stuff JW mentions seeing on his felt cleaning pellets is the graphite anti-oxidant coating found on some pellets so they don't turn into white dust in six months. It does not harm the gun, and it keeps getting removed and redeposited as you continue to shoot.

If I make it sound as though the barrel on you airgun is fragile, don't fret. It really isn't that bad. With a little common sense, you can keep an airgun barrel working well for longer than a lifetime.

The .25 caliber Career Carbine

by B.B. Pelletier

A lot of you like to hunt with your airguns. I'd like to show you a carbine that's a hunter's dream - the Career Carbine in .25 caliber! (Scroll to the bottom of the page to see specs & prices.)


The Career 707 Carbine is a trim little rifle with a BIG PUNCH! In .25 caliber, it will roll the largest airgun game.

Career 707
The Career 707 was one of the first powerful Korean repeaters to come to this country. It has been a huge success, mostly due to the smashing power the rifle develops. In fact, it's so powerful that Americans were asking for modifications to LOWER the power before the first year of importation was up (1995). That's a switch! The big plus with a Career is the accuracy. These rifles can deliver sub-1" groups at 50 yds. and still deliver the same muzzle energy as a .22 short!

Career Carbine
The Career Carbine came several years after the rifle. It has the same general appearance as the rifle, but the shorter length makes it lighter and faster in the woods. You will lose some shots due to a smaller reservoir, and the power is not as great as the rifle, but the Career Carbine is still a very powerful air rifle! Instead of 70 foot-pounds, you're down somewhere in the 50s. Big deal! The woodchucks won't know the difference.

The Carbine is also a loud airgun. It has to be with that much air coming out of a short barrel. If you decide to buy one, do so for the convenience of a small handy carbine that still exceeds the power of most European airguns. Because you will shoot diabolo pellets, you will have the same safety range as lesser air rifles. I'll make pellet recommendations in a moment, but there's one more thing I want you to think about.

The Career Carbine in .25 caliber!
As long as we're going big today, why not go all the way and get a .25 caliber carbine? While I was looking through the pages on the Pyramyd Air website, I noticed how difficult it is to find the Career Carbine. Then, I noticed a sale on the .25 caliber Career Carbines. Do you know what a great deal this is?

I think that airgunners sometimes order a carbine without knowing how powerful it will be. Maybe they're shooting an RWS Diana 52 at present and this little carbine that weighs LESS THAN 7 LBS. is MORE THAN TWICE AS POWERFUL as their rifle. They don't stop to consider how the Carbine accomplishes that. It does it with a lot of compressed air, and the muzzle blast reflects it. If you're prepared for the sound of a .22 rimfire, the carbine sounds nice. If you compare it to a spring rifle, it will assault your senses.

Which pellets?
Today's Career has an adjustable pellet feed, so the gun can adapt to long or short pellets. My No. 1 pick is the 36.6/36.8-grain super-heavy Eun Jin pellet. Yes, they're expensive compared to smaller-caliber pellets, but this is a hunting rifle we're talking about, and these pellets really reach out and do the job. Never scrimp when it comes to ammunition for hunting! My second choice is the (almost) 31-grain extra-heavy Beeman Kodiak pellet. In fact, try both pellets in your gun to see which is the best. Some guns shoot the Kodiak better than the Eun Jin.

Two more pellets
I know from experience that the 21-grain Diana Magnum pellet is very accurate in other .25 caliber airguns, so give it a try in the Carbine. It's lightweight (imagine 21 grains being called light!), so you'll get more velocity to reach out farther and flatter for squirrels and rabbits. The H&N Field & Target pellet also looks good. At 24.4 grains, it's a medium-weight pellet in this caliber.

Scope?
If you use a scope, you've GOTTA pick the new Leapers 6x Bug Buster. It's built on Leapers new TS super-strong platform and has more power than ever - yet it's sized perfectly for the Career Carbine. The article I linked to is about a different TS scope, so don't be confused by the slightly different appearance.

The bottom line for the Career Carbine is this - it's not for everyone. But, for hunters, it's a good 'un. If you hunt where light weight and small size are important, this one might be for you.

Do all spring-piston airguns diesel?

by B.B. Pelletier

This topic was suggested by a flurry of questions about dieseling that we received just after the new year began. I thought I'd take some time to explain what we believe goes on in the spring-piston powerplant when it fires.


This book is a standard airgun reference. It's hard to find. However, you might find one at an airgun show.

The standard reference
For airgun operation, especially spring-piston guns, The Airgun from Trigger to Target by G.V. and G.M. Cardew is the source of most of what is known. The Cardews did extensive research and experimentation in this field, and they published the complete results, including their test designs. So, if someone doubts what they say, he knows where to begin if he wants to prove them wrong. To date, very few have taken up the challenge.

Four phases of spring-piston guns
The four "phases" refers to how much velocity is generated and also how that velocity is obtained. The phases are:

Blowpipe

Popgun

Combustion

Detonation

Blowpipe
This is the weakest of all spring-piston guns. The powerplant doesn't generate much compressed air, and the loose-fitting projectile doesn't make good use of what there is. The Marksman 2000K pistol is a modern example of a blowpipe gun, though there have been numerous other exapmles throughout history. The "Gat" pistols are another example, as is the vintage Quackenbush line of airguns (not the big bores made today by Dennis Quackenbush). The blowpipe is really just a mechanical device that emulates a common pea-shooter or blowgun.

Popgun
The popgun phase begins when there is more compressed air, but it doesn't generate enough heat for combustion. The pellet fits the bore tightly and makes maximum use of the air pressure. Though the name sounds degrading, all the spring-piston target rifles and some of the pistols are actually popguns. The FWB 300 rifle generates velocities of less than 550 f.p.s. in .177. Since there is no combustion (I will address this in a moment), the popgun is usually the most well-regulated of all spring-piston guns, not varying in velocity by more than a few feet per second. The IZH 53M is a good example of a modern popgun pistol, while the IZH 61 is an example of a popgun rifle.

Combustion!
This is the phase that almost all adult sporting airguns are in. When the piston compresses the air, the heat it generates is so high that it ignites any small droplets of lubricants that may be present in the compression chamber. What the Cardews proved by their testing is that all powerful spring-piston guns burn fuel to generate their power. The power that's added by combustion depends on the amount and combustion quality of fuel available. This is where some badly-tuned spring guns shoot at all different velocities. Ten years ago, I was advised by the importer of some Chinese air rifles to liberally lubricate the compression chamber with corn oil. He said the wax in the oil would leave deposits on the walls of the compression chamber and make the piston seal fit tighter, raising velocity. In fact, the corn oil was a very good fuel! The treated guns jumped by 100 f.p.s., or so. [I bet I've just started a race to the kitchen to "borrow" the Wesson Oil!]

The Cardews maintain that all powerful spring-piston airguns are in the combustion phase. They also say that isn't a bad thing. As long as the combustion is controlled and small, it benefits us all. In other words - all guns diesel. But when it gets out of hand, we move up to the next and final phase.

Detonation!!!
This is the phase you DON'T want to be in! An abundance of fuel in the compression chamber no longer burns - it explodes! You get much higher velocities out the muzzle - and broken mainsprings, swollen compression chambers and guns that sometimes actually re-cock themselves at the other end! All combustion-phase airguns are capable of detonating, so the shooter has to severely limit any fuel-like substance that is introduced into the compression chamber.

When you hear a loud BANG! and sometimes see a bright light coming from the muzzle (flames in the barrel!), you have a detonation. Since all combustion-phase guns can detonate, the thing to do is to reduce the number of detonations to as few as possible. Just having smoke in the barrel is not a detonation, but the byproduct of a normal combustion. BB guns are the biggest combustors of all, but almost all pellet rifles and many powerful pistols are also combustors.

You'll have to get the Cardew book to read about their experiments. It's also a good reference book for anyone who wants to know more about airguns.

How do Gamo air rifles compare to Beeman air rifles?

by B.B. Pelletier

We got this comment last week, and I promised an answer as a complete posting because this one will take some time. Butzback asks, "How does the Gamo compare to a Beeman? The Beeman is so much more expensive [that] it makes me wonder about quality, performance etc." Let's get to it!

First we do Gamo
Gamo is a company that dates back to 1889, when they were founded to produce high-quality lead.In 1950, the company decided to start production of lead pellets to satisfy the growing demand in Europe. In 1961, Gamo introduced their first airguns to the Spanish market. Today, they are the largest airgun maker in Europe.

Gamo guns have been coming into this country since the early 1960s. Their models have always been different and innovative. The Expomatic was a repeating diabolo pellet rifle, made at a time when pellet repeaters were not well-known. Gamo guns today range from youth models to the extremely powerful Hunter 1250 Hurricane. Most of their rifles have been springers, which is what I will concentrate on in this posting. However, they're also a leader in CO2, and they've built a few single-stroke pneumatics. The big rumor on the street is that they'll soon offer a precharged rifle. Because they own BSA, who already knows precharged technology, they have access to those designs. They're also supposed to be working on a new type of hand pump, which should hit the market when and if a PCP comes out.

Gamo springers
All Gamo spring rifle models are different, but they do share some common characteristics. The dry-fire capability we discussed last week is one of those, as is the Gamo trigger. The trigger starts out as a very stiff and creepy unit with an ambiguous release point. However, the more you shoot the gun, the better this trigger gets. There have been other airguns with this same characteristic - notably the BSF spring guns from Erlangen, Germany, and many of the Webley rifles of the 1980s and '90s. I've shot a Gamo Hunter 440 with 6,000 shots on the trigger, and it was as smooth and predictable as most spring gun triggers - certainly as good as an RWS trigger.

Moving on to Beeman
Unlike Gamo, Beeman doesn't make airguns. They are an importer that puts their name on models they decide to sell. When Robert Beeman headed the company, he carefully built a reputation of quality and performance that American shooters had never dreamed possible. Since selling the company in 1994, there have been major changes to the quality of the guns that carry the Beeman name. In the beginning, this was limited to the trimming of certain low-sales guns like the HW 55, but as time passed, the Beeman company grew more "corporate" and lost some touch with its roots. They stopped publishing the full-color catalogs Robert Beeman used to build the company's reputation. They are closely associated with Marksman, an American maker of inexpensive, mass-marketed airguns and have had ties for a long time to large retail outlets such as Wal-Mart. Both companies are owned by SR Industries.

A marketing move to extend sales for Beeman was to take Spanish airguns made by Norika and put the Beeman name on them. When Robert Beeman owned the company, they carried a few Norika guns, but Beeman never put his name on them - just as he never put his name on the Yewha shotgun, the S&W pistols or the Sheridan Blue Streak. But, now, it's possible to see Beeman air rifles in Wal-Mart. This has diluted the Beeman name somewhat. It no longer conveys quite the panache that it did when the founder was at the helm.

The bottom line
Because of this situation, you see how difficult it is to write about the quality of a Beeman airgun. They're all over the place! The R-series rifles are made by Weihrauch and are as good as they ever were, but there are increasingly cheaper guns carrying the Beeman name today. So, there is no such thing as "Beeman quality" any longer. To talk about Beeman air rifles, you must pick a model and get specific.

The answer. I hope!
Now, butzback, I'm going to assume that you were referring to the R-series rifles when you asked your question. How do THEY rate against Gamo air rifles? They are better in the following areas. They have a much better and more adjustable trigger. They have a better (well-rifled and uniform) barrel, as a rule, and they can out-group the Gamo rifles. HOWEVER, all companies have good and bad days. On a bad day for Weihrauch, their barrel is not going to be as good as a good Gamo barrel. In other words, there are exceptions to what I say about barrels. The Beeman (not Weihrauch, but Beeman R-series) stocks are better shaped and generally nicer in form and feel. The Beeman R-series powerplants CAN be better, but this is an area in which Gamo is rapidly closing the gap, in my opinion. And, Weihrauch is slipping just a little at the same time.

Everything I said in the paragraph above IS JUST MY OPINION. I can't back up any of it without sitting down face-to-face with someone and comparing two rifles side by side. That would involve shooting as well as a physical examination. So, this opinion is worth about what it costs. Take what I say and evaluate the guns for yourself.

How do 6-groove barrels compare to 12-groove barrels?

by B.B. Pelletier

I don't know where this question came from, but it's been weighing on my mind for many days. I thought it was in a comment to this blog, but it could just as easily have been a topic on one of the airgun forums. I want to address it because it gets down to the fundamentals of the shooting sports.

More power - Tim Allen got it right!
Tim Allen's famous monolog in which he pokes fun at the male lust for more power had a profound message. As he skillfully points out, more power is not always the answer - or even a good idea! Take the Boss Hog motorcycle, for instance. It's a motorcycle built to accept a large-displacement Chevy V8 engine that develops over 500 horsepower! It's the very parody of a motorcycle! It isn't faster than other bikes, it doesn't accelerate quicker and it certainly doesn't handle as well as a hundred other conventional motorcycles. Yet, I want one. To be astride such a beast is to have the biggest, baddest ride in town - as long as Jay Leno doesn't ride up on his motorcycle, which has a 1,500-horsepower helicopter turbine engine!


It's purple and $32,000 in the standard version. Totally useless. Yet, I want one!

Consider the absurdity of the question
If more was always better, why don't sports cars have six wheels instead of four? Why aren't handgun calibers made larger every year? Uh, oh! I forgot. They are! Enter the S&W .500 Magnum revolver - breakfast of complete fools who can't wait for the world to know it. A revolver caliber so powerful that the average used one has fired less than one box of ammo - usually just five rounds (one cylinder full). Nevertheless, this gun sells very well. Good for S&W - not so good for those who have no idea what they're getting into until the hammer drops the first time! More is not ALWAYS better.

Joking aside, there are lots of things that are just as useless. We have advertising to thank for that. Advertising tells us so often that "MORE IS BETTER" that we've come to believe it. Which takes us to today's topic: Are more rifling grooves better (more accurate) than less?

In rifle barrels, the number of lands and grooves MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE, as far as accuracy is concerned. That's assuming that the minimum number of lands and grooves is adequate to stabilize the bullet/pellet. In World War II, the U.S. Army proved that two lands and grooves were enough to stabilize a 150-grain bullet in a .30/06 rifle. They accepted two-groove barrels in their Springfield 03A3 rifles because they could be produced faster than four-groove barrels (the previous standard), and faster production during a war is good. The decision-makers admitted that these rifle barrels were not absolutely the most accurate they could produce, but the four-groove barrels they replaced were no more accurate, so who cared?

What makes a barrel accurate?
The most important factors for a barrel to be accurate, according to Dr. F.W. Mann, who did 38 years of research on the subject, are straightness, uniformity of the bore and rifling, twist rate matched to bullet length and velocity (not as much for pellet guns, because we use high-drag diabolos instead of bullets), a choked muzzle and a uniform forcing cone with graduated rifling (called a leade) at the end of the chamber. Dr. Mann used barrels from several makers, but he did his best work with barrels handmade by legendary barrelmaker Harry M.Pope. Once he figured things out, Pope always used eight shallow lands in a lefthand twist. He often used a gain twist (one that gets faster) but not always. He always choked his muzzles by a half-thousandth. Many of his rifles were meant to be loaded at the muzzle, which would seem to negate the choke, but the heavy smack delivered by the explosion of the black powder charge bumped the bullet, squashing it at the base to fit the bore tightly.

Dr. Mann wrote his findings in his book, The Bullet's Flight From Powder to Target. This book is a classic and is still considered to be the best and most fundamental reference book on rifle accuracy, even though it was initially published in 1909, after 38 years of experimentation. Today's best gun writers have this book in their libraries to fully understand the complex, yet unchanging principles that govern the ballistic projectile we call a bullet.

A corollary
Dr. Mann And Harry Pope both knew that the uniformity of the base of the bullet was extremely important to accuracy. That's why Pope rifling was as shallow as it was and why he used eight lands and no more. He found that each land put a burr on the base of the bullet that interacted with the gasses exiting the muzzle at high speed. This destabilized the bullet by a small but measurable degree. Dr. Mann provided the measurement. That's why the most accurate Pope barrels were muzzleloaders, even though they used cartridges loaded from the breech. By loading the bullet from the muzzle, the small burr would be on the front of the bullet, where Dr. Mann demonstrated almost no amount of mutilation had any effect on accuracy. You could say that Harry Pope perfected the microgrooved barrel, but Marlin was the company that coined the term.

The bottom line is this: the number of lands and grooves has no effect on the accuracy of a rifle barrel. Microgroove rifling can be beneficial, but only if all the other important factors are also correct.

Does dry-firing damage airguns?

by B.B. Pelletier

This post was suggested by JB, and I'm glad he did. This is a subject that really needs to be addressed. Dry-firing, of course, means shooting the gun without a pellet in it. One of our readers, CF-X guy, had inadvertently dry-fired his CF-X and was concerned that he might have done some damage. JB researched the FAQ section on Gamo's USA website and learned that dry-firing will not harm the gun. Today, I want to do a broader look at dry-firing and consider its good and bad points.

Are there good points to dry-firing?
Certainly! In fact, a target gun will be dry-fired up to five times as much as it will be fired with live ammo. The shooter needs constant practice with the trigger, sight picture and grips to improve his scores, so all credible 10-meter airguns have a dry-fire feature for training. But a lot of other guns do, too.

The Beeman P1 can be dry-fired. All you do is lift the top and the trigger is set. The gun doesn't actually fire, but the trigger works as if it did. On the HW 75M, you cock the hammer for dry-fire. However, a more modern gun such as the Beeman P3 has no dry-fire capability. If an airgun can be dry-fired safely, it will say so in the owner's manual. Otherwise, proceed with caution. But here are some general observations.

There's less chance of harming a gas or pneumatic gun than a spring gun when you dry-fire, though I still wouldn't do it if the owner's manual didn't say it was okay. At the very least, you're wasting gas or air when you do, unless the gun has a dry-fire feature.

Don't dry-fire most springers!
Spring-piston guns are the ones most likely to be damaged by dry-firing. These guns rely on a cushion of highly compressed air to stop the piston from slamming into the end of the compression chamber. And, in one instance - the handmade Whiscombe rifles - one dry shot is all it takes to ruin the gun! The Whiscombes have two pistons coming together to generate twice the power of a normal spring-piston gun. If they don't have that air cushion, the seals are destroyed. Whiscombes are the very worst about this, but there are other guns that dislike dry-firing, as well.

The older guns (1960- and 1970-vintage) that had poor synthetic piston seals can be ruined with one dry shot. The list also includes the following:

FWB 124

Most Walther spring-piston air rifles - especially the LGV

The early RWS Diana recoilless guns - both rifle and pistol (Giss system guns)

This is by no means a complete list! Your best guide to dry-firing is whether or not it is allowed according to the owner's manual.

Springers that are more forgiving
Any spring-piston gun with leather seals is usually more tolerant of being dry-fired. The leather takes up some of the shock, and those guns generally have less power to begin with.

Guns with modern synthetic piston seals are generally more tolerant just because those synthetics are much tougher than in the past. Guns with PTFE (Teflon) seals are extremely tolerant. The Beeman P1 is one of these, as are many of the 1980- and 1990-vintage Webley rifles. In fact, dry-firing is how the factory fits the piston seal to the compression chamber. Apparently, PTFE flows under pressure just enough to take the form of the compression chamber. I once had a P1 that dieseled a lot, until Don Walker at Beeman had me dry-fire it on full power for several shots. The problem went away, and the seal is still in there seven years later.

Gamo is unique
Gamo stands alone as a maker that permits dry-firing their spring-piston guns. In the early 1990s, they undertook a lengthy design study to improve the reliability of their airguns. They redesigned powerplant parts and tested guns by dry-firing them 10,000 times to see the effect on the parts. This kind of engineering deserves high praise, because it is all too rare in the world of airguns. The result is that Gamo can say their guns can be dry-fired. I still wouldn't do it on purpose, but it's nice to have that kind of reliability backing up your airgun.

BB guns
I haven't touched on BB guns, but they're in a class of their own. I do know that most Daisys can take some dry-firing, but most Markhams can't (except for the Markhams made in the 1930s that were really Daisys by another name). The Daisy BB gun mechanism is different than a straightforward spring-piston powerplant. If you want to read about it, there's a great, but short, article in the Blue Book of Airguns, Fifth edition. I would NEVER think of dry-firing my Kadet BB gun. It's so fragile that I don't even like to shoot it with BBs that much! The Crosman M1 Carbine and V-350/3500 seem about as tough as a Daisy, so, yeah, I'll dry-fire them, too.

Crosman's 357GW kit

by B.B. Pelletier

There are more great airgun deals in this world than I have time to report. One that snuck up and surprised me is Crosman's 357GW kit.

This revolver is a real trooper!
In 1983, Crosman brought out their 357 10-shot revolver. It resembles a Colt Python, yet it breaks open from a center hinge like a Webley Mark IV revolver. It uses a CO2 powerlet to push a .177 pellet up to whatever speed the barrel length dictates - and that's where the story starts to get interesting. In '83, they had models with both 4" and 6" barrels, and a year later they brought out the 8" gun. These guns are lighter than their firearms counterparts, so the 8" barreled gun is not too unwieldy for anyone to handle. The Python grips help you control the gun, too. How about that? Positive gun control depends on the grips!

Without any competition, Crosman still made this a great deal!
In 2006, you might be tempted to say, "So what?" to a CO2 revolver; but in the middle '80s, there weren't many airgun revolvers to choose from. Add the Crosman price to the mix (with no competitors!), and it gets even better. This was a deal, if you wanted a revolver, and it was all there was! It was good then..and it still is!

The 357 fires both single- and double-action and gets good power (in the 400+ f.p.s. range, depending on barrel length). It's a fast-handling revolver with lots of shots and has a fully adjustable rear sight that gets you on target. Probably several million 357s have been sold in the time it's been around. Bottom line? This is a gun with a following.

Where do they stand today?
To complete this report, I'll compare the 357 to the Gamo R-77. That revolver came along more than a decade later. They don't currently offer an 8" model, and their 6" gun is available only with walnut grips. So, the Gamo R77 is more expensive, has fewer features and lower power than the Crosman 357. It still has its devoted followers, but feature for feature, the Crosman comes out on top.

The other revolver I will compare it to is the S&W 586-4. This Umarex gun costs three times what the Crosman does, and it does have a better finish and lockwork. But, if your goal is to buy an affordable wheelgun and start shooting now, I don't think the S&W is three times better (or more fun).

What about the 357GW kit?
Okay, you know about the plain 357, but there is also a kit version that has some added features. For starters, it comes with both the 4" and 8" barrels. I would buy it for that, alone, but there's more. Also included is a Crosman red dot sight with mounts for the gun, three 10-shot rotary pellet clips and a special hard case to hold everything. At $78.95, that's a deal!

That 8" barrel would be the thing I'd like to try out. I love long-barreled revolvers, and I've never owned one with interchangeable barrels. The S&W 586 has an 8" interchangeable barrel, but it's only $10 less than the entire Crosman kit! That's not to say it isn't very nice, but the Crosman gives you so much for so little money that I don't think you can ignore it. Plus, I'm guessing the 8" barrel will give velocities in the 460+ f.p.s. range with light pellets.

I'd like to hear from 357 owners. How do you like your guns? Does anyone own the kit? If so, how easy are the barrel changes?

Brocock air cartridges

by B.B. Pelletier

Today, we're going to look at an airgun phenomenon that has recently come to a close, though it may not be gone forever. I'm referring to the air cartridge by Brocock. Air cartridges have existed for a long time, but the Brothers Silcock (Brocock) put it on the map.

Instead of a reservoir - a self-contained air cartridge!
People who write about airguns make a lot of references to firearms because the two are closely related. But one thing separates them. A firearm uses cartridges, where all the energy for the shot is stored. The gun is just a tool for containing this cartridge. Not so for most airguns! Most airguns store the energy in the gun, rather than in a separate cartridge. That makes an airgun work a little differently. People always ask why there aren't more full-auto pellet guns. The answer is, because it's hard to feed soft lead pellets through a rapidly operating mechanism without damaging them. A cartridge, however, handles such abuse fine.

The air cartridge is just like its firearm counterpart, in that it contains both the energy for the shot, in the form of compressed air, and the projectile. Feeding problems are solved by the much stronger cartridge body. Additionally, there is a very big advantage to using an air cartridge - if it is made to approximately the same size as a firearm cartridge, then firearms of that caliber can easily be adapted to use it. Suddenly a whole new level of realism is possible!

A short history
Saxby-Palmer was the pioneer of the modern air cartridge for airguns, with the Ensign being a popular early rifle. The cartridge was about the size of a shotgun shell. They were recharged from a VERY cumbersome hand pump that had to be bolted to a bench or plank. They were filled with 1-6 pump strokes that varied the power, of course. A British report puts the .22 Saxby-Palmer at 800 f.p.s. when pumped to full power, but the one I saw was only making the mid-600s. The difference could be that the one I saw used the early Mark I plastic cartridges, while the other one may have used the stronger metal Mark II cartridges.


Firearms were converted to use the air cartridge. This one was made by Weihrauch.

Brocock bought the liquidated Saxby-Palmer company in 1989 and began producing the cartridges themselves. They became know as the Brocock Air Cartridge System or BACS. In time, Brocock improved the air cartridge until it became the Tandem Air Cartridge, or TAC. This cartridge is the size of a .38 Special cartridge and fits in rifles and revolvers. It is a marvel of small metal parts and O-rings that have to be carefully reassembled for every charging. There is a lot of cleaning and lubrication to do, as well.


The Tandem Air Cartridge is the size of a .38 Special round.

Filling the cartridges
There are three ways to fill a TAC. One is by a labor-intensive hand pump called a Slim Jim. It takes several pump strokes to fill the cartridge this way. The next way is by using a special adaptation of the Swedish manual airgun pump. Usually one or two strokes at the most is all it takes to fill the cartridge. The lazy man's way it to use a scuba tank with a jig holding six cartridges. They all fill at the same time with no effort.


Slim Jim hand pump was labor-intensive.

The biggest drawback
There was a problem with the air cartridges. It took WORK to reassemble, recharge and reload them! It's very much like reloading for firearms, and it is as bothersome as reloading black powder rifle cartridges, which I believe take the most work of all! Airgunners are not familiar with this, for the most part, and they rebelled when they saw all the work that was required! I can't begin to tell you how many shooters I watched as they lusted for and eventually acquired an air cartridge gun - only to discover this evil truth! Boy, did the wind ever leave their sails fast! These are the same people who won't shoot a precharged gun because they don't want the hassle of a scuba tank, and now they are saddled with an entire support system!

The End
The end of air cartridges, at least from Brocock, came in January, 2004, when the Anti-Social Behavior Act of 2003 went into effect. But the guns and cartridges are still around and will no doubt become collector's items rather soon. That's a good category for them, because in a sporting airgun, the TAC leaves a lot to be desired.

Adjustable scope mounts

by B.B. Pelletier

Yesterday, we talked about barrel droop and the fact that many airguns have it. Today, we're going to look at the solution: adjustable scope mounts. This is also the second part of an answer I'm giving to an anonymous reader who asked about an RWS C-mount.

Before we start, there have been one HECK of a lot of postings that deal with aligning airgun scopes. I've listed many of them so you can go back and read them, because the same questions seem to keep coming up. These are not all the scope postings - just the ones that deal with alignment issues.

March 2005
14 What causes scope shift?
18 How to shim a scope
24 Another cause of scope shift: over-adjusted scope knobs

June 2005
1 At what range should you zero your scope?
8 More about sighting-in: How to determine the two intersection points (scope-related)

July 2005
5 How to optically center a scope

October 2005
20 Why doesn't my gun shoot where the scope looks?

You may not need an adjustable mount
If your airgun shoots within acceptable limits and doesn't require a lot of adjustment to get on target, then you don't need an adjustable mount. Although I said yesterday that all firearms and airguns will be off as they come from the factory, many are not off by that much. This is especially true of the precharged pneumatics. The guns that seem to have the greatest problem with barrel misalignment are springers.

How to tell if you need an adjustable mount
When you have to do a lot of adjusting of either the windage or elevation knob to get the pellet to strike where you want it, you need an adjustable mount. On most scopes, the erector tube inside the scope tube is what moves the crosshairs. Opposite each adjustment knob is a coiled spring that pushes the erector tube against the adjustment knob. When the adjustment is run too far out (for example, too high for the vertical adjustment), this spring relaxes and doesn't put much tension on the erector tube. Consequently, the tube can bounce around and perhaps move to a new setting on its own accord. This is especially true on guns with heavy recoil and those with a lot of vibration. To prevent this from happening, a set of adjustable scope mounts can be installed. The scope can then be returned to the center of its adjustment range, and all necessary windage and elevation adjustments will be provided by the scope mount.

RWS C-mount
Ten years ago, there were a lot more adjustable scope mounts than there are today. Nobody had tested them to see how they worked. When writers started reporting on how adjustable mounts worked, many of them fell by the wayside because they actually damaged the scope! The RWS C-mount was one of these. The C-mount (a one-piece mount that looked like the letter "C") adjusted for elevation only. Although the rings went up and down independently at the front and rear, they didn't compensate for tilt when they weren't level. If a rigid scope tube is suddenly elevated by its rear ring and still held firmly by the front ring, the tube has to bend to accommodate the elevation difference between front and rear. The RWS C-mount was bending scope tubes!

B-Square to the rescue!
B-Square has long had an interest in airguns. The founder, Dan Bechtel, saw the problem adjustable mounts were causing and went to work on a solution. His solution was the B-Square adjustable scope mount. Not only do the rings adjust up and down independent of each other, they also tilt backward and forward, as needed, to compensate for the misalignment. When they're adjusted, they put no strain on the scope tube! They also adjust side to side.

There were several European adjustable mounts that sold for hundreds of dollars and still bent the scope tube. B-Square just about put them all out of business with their new mount. To my knowledge, only one other manufacturer made an adjustable mount that didn't bend the tube - Sportsmatch. Theirs was a one-piece mount, which proved too limiting for the American market.

I note that Gamo now has an adjustable mount. I've never examined one; from the picture, I see that it's also a one-piece and only adjusts for elevation. From the look of it, it would not strain the scope tube when adjusted. It looks simpler than the B-square rings, so if elevation is your only concern, perhaps this is a good mount for you.

Remember, you don't need an adjustable mount if you can get on target with just small adjustments of your scope. But, when you have to make large adjustments, it's time to start thinking about adjustable scope rings.

Barrel droop

by B.B. Pelletier

Barrel droop is a phrase that I believe was coined by Tim McMurray to describe the airgun barrel that points downward in relation to the top of the receiver (where the scope is mounted). It's been around as long as there have been airguns, but it was the scope sight that made it visible.

What is barrel droop?
From the name, you might suspect that we're talking about a barrel that somehow bends downward, but that's not the case. Barrel droop is actually a straight barrel that's been mounted in the receiver so that its axis points downward. There are bent barrels that point down, of course, but that's not what we mean by barrel droop.

Why does the barrel point down?
Good question. Why does the barrel of your Winchester model 70 point down? You say you think it doesn't? You're probably right. Yours probably points up! The point I'm trying to make is that almost no rifle barrel points exactly straight ahead in relation to the rest of the receiver and, more specifically, to the machined mounting pads where the scope bases go. Airgun barrels are the worst offenders, by far.

Come with me!
Take a close look at the Webley Patriot. If you've followed this blog, you know I think a lot of the Patriot, but look where the front sight is mounted. It's on the end of the barrel, isn't it? Where's the rear sight?. It's on the OTHER END OF THE BARREL! You may not be able to discern that in the photos, but both sights are mounted on the barrel. This is a breakbarrel rifle. That means the barrel swings down through an arc when the gun is cocked. The sights maintain a perfect relationship with each other because they both move. So, naturally, the gun shoots to where the sights are adjusted. If you mount a scope on the Patriot, where does it go? On the back of the receiver - the part that doesn't move when the barrel is cocked. So, a scope will be sensitive to where the barrel points, while the open sights just ride along with it.

But it's not that simple
Let's now look at an Diana RWS model 52. Because it cocks with a sidelever, the barrel doesn't move on this model. Plus, the rear sight is mounted on the receiver tube - not on the barrel. Know what? The RWS 48 and 52 have reputations for being droopers! Yes, they do. So, that fixed barrel that you thought would take care of everything didn't do all you had hoped, did it? Don't fret, though. The Weatherby Mark V that cost you $1,200 last year doesn't point straight ahead, either. You took care of that one when you sighted in your scope, and you'll do the same for your air rifles, no matter what kind they are.

Here's what's happening
First, the bore of your rifle does not run straight through the center of the barrel unless you paid a lot of money for it to be made that way. Second, all screw threads have room for fitting - called "tolerances." They cannot be perfectly machined and still go together, so if your barrel is screwed into your receiver, it isn't straight. If it is pressed in, as are most airgun barrels, it isn't straight either because the hole in the receiver isn't straight, which is my next point.

Third, the hole in a rifle receiver is not bored straight in relation to anything. What would it be straight WITH? Fourth, the grooves or mounting points on top of the rifle receiver are not straight with the receiver, except by accident. In short, in the world of manufacturing, everything is off by just a little. Usually, the amount they are off is so small that you don't notice it; and it's cancelled when you sight in. Sometimes, everything works together against you, and the rifle has a REAL problem!

The fact is that most of today's spring-piston air rifles point down to some extent. If the angle is small, you can correct it with the scope adjustments. If it's large, you need an adjustable scope mount. Tim McMurray sold a "Drooper" scope mount that corrects downward slant. For really bad rifles, there was the "Sooper Drooper." He had the rings bored out on an angle so they held the scope on a downward slant. It worked, but adjustable mounts came along and eventually proved even better. We'll look at them tomorrow!

Airgun makers that spawned firearms

by B.B. Pelletier

I'm interested in all the shooting sports, but airguns are my special love. I especially like the fringes, where the airgun and firearm worlds come together, so I'd like to show you some airguns that spawned firearms - and some well-known airgun makers who also made firearms.

The Daisy - Whamo connection
In either the late 1950s or early '60s, a company called the Floyd Hyde Engineering Corporation invented a semiautomatic gas BB pistol. The interesting thing about this company was it's location - Alhambra, California, which was also the home of Whamo. Daisy bought the rights to the Hyde BB pistol and turned it into the Daisy model 100, which was only offered in 1963. But that's not all that happened.


Sure 'nuff, the Hyde pistol looks like a Daisy 100.


This is the Daisy 100 for comparison.

Whamo ALSO used the frame of the Hyde BB pistol for their .22 LR single-shot! Yes, ladies and gentlemen - Whamo made a firerarm! It has a slam-fire mechanism, which means it fires from an unlocked bolt without any retardation. When this pistol fires, the bolt flies back, kicking the spent shell out like a semiauto. Because it's a single-shot, nothing more happens until it is loaded once more. It's a fascinating study in gun design because the frame is made of the same pot metal as the Hyde and Daisy gas pistols, yet steel parts are used where they are needed. Until Glock popularized reinforced synthetic pistol frames several decades later, this was a unique firearm!


Whamo's only firearm was this single-shot .22, based on the same air pistol frame.

A Sheridan WHAT?
The .22 rimfire single-shot Sheridan Knockabout was produced from 1953 to 1960 and was hailed as the perfect tacklebox companion. You can get a sense of how simple the mechanism is from the pictures. There are plenty of Knockabouts around, but because of their simple, rugged design, they aren't often in very good condition. When a nice one comes along, it commands a little more than the Blue Book of Gun Values' maximum of $110.


Yes, Sheridan made a .22 single-shot pistol! It's as simple as it looks.


The barrel pops up to load. The extractor is manual. Neat!

Daisy, again
In 1968 Daisy, brought out a really strange gun. It was a .22 that fired caseless ammunition, which was ignited by the adiabatic heat of a conventional spring-piston airgun powerplant. That's right, a pellet rifle that shot a 40-grain lead bullet at 1100 f.p.s. It was a firearm, of course; but, because Daisy built it, it had a plastic stock. The Daisy VL was never popular with anyone, and they're still sluggish on the used market today. By the way, if you're wondering if one could be used as a spring-piston air rifle - you can forget it. The bore is sized for the standard .22 rimfire caliber of 0.222"-0.223" instead of the airgun size of 0.218." Pellets shoot at 300 f.p.s. or less because of the excessive blowby. Daisy ceased selling the gun in 1969.


The Daisy VL looks like a cheap pellet rifle, which probably kept it from succeeding. The black and yellow box above the gun contains tubes of VL ammo.

And, again!
Unable to resist the humiliation for long, Daisy climbed back into the firearms ring in 1987 with a bolt-action single-shot rifle called the Model 8. It was sold only at Wal-Mart, a small retail outfit one town over from the Daisy plant. A year later, they brought out a line of bolt-action single-shots and repeaters - their Legacy models. With both plastic stocks and wood, they were not well-received and can still be bought today for a low price. They stopped production in 1991.

Both these Daisy guns will probably start attracting some collector interest in the years to come. They're currently very available at gun shows, though the VL is perhaps harder to find because few people know how to classify it.

Barrel harmonics and airgun accuracy

by B.B. Pelletier

Dok Watson suggested this topic. He says he had never heard of barrel harmonics til he got into airguns. Since then, he's learned a lot. It was the same for me, Dok.

What are barrel harmonics?
A guitar string vibrates in a certain way when plucked. Those waveforms (they look like the waves in the ocean) determine the sound the guitar string makes. It turns out that many things vibrate in the same way. In a former profession, I worked with vibration dampeners to kill the vibrations made by steel beams and windows, so people could not listen in on private conversations from outside buildings!

Airgun barrels have vibration patterns, too, and they can dramatically affect the accuracy of a gun. Here's how. When a barrel is free to vibrate any way it wants, it tends to vibrate exactly the same with every shot. As long as nothing is done to disturb the vibration patterns, such as a tuneup or using a different pellet, the barrel will try to vibrate the same every time.

The shooter has an effect!
By holding the airgun differently for every shot, you are changing the vibration patterns. It's exactly the same as placing your finger on a guitar string at a different place. You get a different note. If you place your finger at the same place repeatedly, you will get the same note over and over, which is how guitars make music. If you hold your airgun in the same way every time, you get the same shot - meaning the pellet leaves the muzzle at the same place in the vibration pattern every time, so it tends to go to the same place downrange - every time.

But it is impossible for anyone to grip an air rifle tightly with both hands and repeat that hold shot after shot. It's the same as trying to hold ten fingers and your shoulder and your cheek against the guitar strings in exactly the same pattern, time after time. Don't bother trying - it's impossible!

So, the airgunner does just the opposite - he holds the gun as loosely as he can and allows it to vibrate as much as it wants. And, if he does a good job of not influencing the airgun, his groups get better. I'm talking about all airguns - not just spring-piston guns, though those are the ones most affected.

We're only beginning
A good hold lets the gun do its best, but that's just where it starts. You can also tune the vibration patterns of airguns to optimize their accuracy. I have tested adjustable harmonic tuning devices on several makes of air rifles and found that they not only work - they work dramatically well! Unfortunately, there isn't much information relating to airgun harmonic tuning, but the Browning company makes their BOSS (Ballistic Optimizing Shooting System) for firearms, and you can find lots of information about it.


The Browning BOSS is a proven way to adjust barrel harmonics.

Barrel tuning relates to length
Like guitar strings, the length of a barrel defines its vibration pattern. A tuning device like the BOSS lets the shooter make small changes in the length of the barrel, or more specifically, where the vibration nodes occur. Some airguns do this on their own through their design. A rifle with an air reservoir connected to the barrel changes vibration patterns as the reservoir pressure drops, which causes the reservoir to move. That can have a big effect on where the pellet goes, and it's a good reason why a free-floated barrel (no contact with the gun other than at the breech) is good.

Now you understand Dok's concern with the barrel-mounted bipod of the Crosman Nightstalker. Other barrel-mounted accessories, such as muzzlebrakes, will also change the vibration pattern. In the case of the Nightstalker, however, it seemed to make the gun MORE accurate, not less. You see, they don't necessarily make things worse; they simply change things. The shooter has to be aware of what he's doing to his gun when installing such accessories.

Vibration tuning is not an exact science. Even the top scientists in the free world could only guess what the effects of their work might be. We had to test each installation rigorously to determine whether we had been successful or what else had to be done. And, so it is with airguns!

Parris Kadet trainer - a strange BB gun!

by B.B. Pelletier


The Kadet Trainer BB gun from Parris is a strange-looking bird!

Let's take a look at an intriguing BB gun that's not a Daisy. Back at the turn of the 20th century, there were dozens of BB gun makers in the United States. One by one, they passed by the wayside, and the last one went in the early 1930s, I believe. But in 1960, something very strange happened. Parris, a toy gun manufacturer, began making BB guns that look like they were developed from toy cork-shooters, rather than being designed as BB guns from the start.

They catch your eye!
The first Parris gun I saw was in the mid '90s at the old Winston-Salem airgun show. What caught my eye was the cocking lever and trigger that were made from stamped metal plate! To keep from cutting flesh, the lever was dipped in a rubber coating similar to the type you put on hand tools! The lever isn't bolted to the cocking mechanism. It's riveted! Just those two details tell me this is a gun made on the cheap.


Cocking lever and trigger are made from one piece of stamped steelplate.

Get out your Blue Book!
The Blue Book of Airguns, Fifth Edition, has a short section on the Parris Manufacturing Company. It lists five different models and gives as much information as was available at the time of publication, but this is a line of airguns that has not yet been fully researched. The model shown here is the Kadet 500. It's a 50-shot repeater that stores the BBs in the swelling at the muzzle. Before each shot, you have to twist the front sight housing so a BB can drop down onto a magnetic shot seat! To fill the BB reservoir, the front sight slides straight back, opening a port for the BBs.


Push back the front sight to fill the BB reservoir.
Twist the front sight assembly to load the gun with a BB.


The paper label on the butt provides the only information to be found on the gun!

The stock is full, rather than the common Daisy practice of a separate butt and forearm. That gives the gun a solid look that is, unfortunately, unwarranted. When you cock it, the lever snaps into place with a sharp crack. When the gun fires, it buzzes like an angry hornet. After five decades of shooting Daisys, I didn't like this feeling one bit! The power is high compared to today's Red Ryder, but about where a BB gun of 1960 ought to be (300 f.p.s., plus or minus).

To the Internet!
A long search on ebay turned up several Parris cork shooters with similar characteristics. I won't go into every little detail, but the stamped lever and trigger are found on many Parris guns.

From Blue Book, I learned that Parris started making toy guns in Iowa in 1943. They moved to Savannah, TN, in 1953 and made the BB guns from 1960 to approximately 1970. It appears that the BB gun grew out of the toy gun mechanism. This has happened before. In the 1920s, the All Metal Products Company made a line of BB guns called Wyandotte - named for the Michigan town in which they were made. They had been making toy cork guns and wondered if there was some money to be made in BB guns.

The problem was that, as a toymaker, their adherence to specifications was loose. Today, you find their pop and cork guns in antique shops and very often the metal has split open around the compression chamber. When they made their BB guns the same way, the sealed their own fate. They didn't last through the Great Depression as a BB gun maker.

Parris did not suffer the same fate. Although they ceased making BB guns around 1970, they continue to sell toy guns to large sporting goods stores such as Bass Pro and Cabela's. Many of these guns are entirely non-functional, but a few pop guns and cork guns are still being made. I note that most of today's guns are made in China, where the toy level of quality is well understood!

Are they collectible?
Well, they are certainly not common. Due to the lower quality, I suspect there are very few who collect Parris BB guns, though there must be some who do. They can turn up anywhere today because they aren't that old, so keep your eyes peeled for one of the strangest BB guns ever made! If you own a Parris gun or know something about them, I would like to hear about it.

Bipods and airguns

by B.B. Pelletier

I've wanted to do this report for a long time, but I'm not sure what sort of anthill it will kick over. Not all air rifles are suited to using bipods, but those that are, benefit greatly from them. I'm throwing caution to the wind and writing about bipods.

AirForce is the bipod king!
AirForce Airguns weren't the first airguns to use bipods, but they were the first airguns to be designed specifically for use with bipods! The lower accessory rail on all AirForce air rifles is perfect for mounting a bipod, and the AirForce bipod comes with an 11mm dovetail clamp for that purpose.

Exercise the legs!
Their bipod has extendable legs that hold in place with friction locks. I have found that the legs tend to freeze up after a long time in one position, and I have to exercise them to get them moving again. Once that is done, however, the legs adjust to whatever height I need and lock solidly in place. This bipod is suitable for shooting from the prone position or from a bench. The legs adjust separately to compensate for uneven ground. The bipod also tilts, so the rifle is held level regardless of what it sits on.

Pyramyd Air now offers an identical bipod with a longer support clamp for the same price as the AirForce bipod. For those who may have a lot of accessories attached to their rifle, consider this option. If you own a Talon, however, be aware that it has a shorter lower accessory rail, so make certain there is enough room to mount this bipod and whatever other accessories you have to mount on that rail.


The NightStalker bipod mounts directly on the barrel and doesn't hurt accuracy one bit!

Crosman NightStalker
Crosman's new NightStalker kit comes with several valuable accessories, including a bipod. Last week, one of our readers asked whether a barrel-mounted bipod was harmful to accuracy. Well, according to Tom Gaylord's test report, the NightStalker certainly isn't! I read a recent magazine report where even better NightStalker accuracy was obtained - shooting from the bipod!

At present, the Crosman bipod is available only as part of the NightStalker kit, but I expect it will be a separate option some time in the future. You can use it on the barrel as intended without fear of losing accuracy. It's a wonderful addition to the rifle, because, like the AirForce bipod, it supports the rifle when you set it down.

Logan Gladi8tor
FX of Sweden makes the Gladi8tor for Logun. The Gladi8tor has a long barrel, providing more power than most precharged rifles - up to 35.5 foot-pounds on the highest of three power settings. The bipod mounts on the forward reservoir. I have not tested the rifle, but from what I read on the forums, it's very accurate!

Logan S-16
The other Logun rifle with a bipod is the Logun S-16, a 16-shot repeater. Logan has done everything possible to keep the price of this rifle competitive in the U.S., so the bipod is offered as an option. It's a low-cost option that every owner should seriously consider - for the reasons mentioned above. This rifle has a CONFIGURE button on the Pyramyd Air website. I invite you to play with this button, looking at all the ways the S-16 can be configured. Best of all, when you get what you like, just push the "buy" button, and you'll go straight to checkout! Of course, you don't have to buy one just to see how it looks with the bipod.

What about bipods for other air rifles?
Pyramyd Air offers a Deluxe Universal Aluminum Bipod that clamps to a forward sling swivel stud (the quick-detachable kind). This is how most firearm bipods attach, and it has been proven in field use. If you have an appropriate air rifle, such as an RWS Diana 48/52, you can mount a bipod. Any other gun with a wood stock that doesn't have a long cocking slot (so the sling swivel stud can be mounted) can also use a bipod.

A bipod isn't for everybody, but it sure is a handy accessory when you want a steady rifle! Let's hear from those of you who use them!

Scopes in airgun competition

by B.B. Pelletier

We got this question about a week ago: "Do none of the NRA or other formal shooting competitions allow telescopic scopes? What about the shooting part in biathlon? If not, what kind of sight do they usually use? Is it similar to the sight on daisy 753?"

This is a good question that I have heard many times before, so today I want to take some time to answer it. I will be discussing only airgun competition. I believe the reader who asked the question didn't want the answer limited to just NRA competition, which is quite a small minority of airgun competition, so I'm opening my answer to all airgun competition.

Competitions that do not permit scopes
All the formal bullseye competitions forbid the use of scopes at national and world levels. I compete in air pistol at the regional and national levels; and, although we follow most of the international rules, it is governed and run by the NRA, who hasn't always made things easy for us. That deserves an explanation.

The National Rifle Association was created in 1871 to train American civilian men to shoot. The marksmanship performance of city-bred soldiers in the recent Civil War had been so poor that the leaders in the War Department felt it necessary to get the U.S. shooting again. Two years later, a fledgling U.S. team beat the world-champion Irish team at Creedmore, setting the stage for a long string of international shooting victories. By 1900, a top shooter was as respected as an NFL player is today.

But in the years following both World Wars, the NRA became more of a self-contained association than a training ground for international competition. They used different targets and different scoring systems, and it all worked against American shooters who found the world-class competition more stringent than their own. The NRA has recognized this problem and is now using most (but not yet all) of the international rules.

No scopes at all?
A biathlon competitor uses a special type of peep sight that has been made solely for that sport. Instead of shooting at a paper target for a high score, they shoot at a mechanical "paddle-type" target that registers either a hit or a miss. Close doesn't count in this sport! Biathlon shooters also use a special five-shot repeater, the only one used in world-class airgun competition, because time is their enemy. Only the sport of running boar, which changed its name to running target when political correctness demanded it, uses scopes. That sport has fallen on hard times in recent years - not because of politics, but because the target systems needed to run it are so cumbersome and expensive.

Competitions that permit scopes
Field target not only permits scopes - it demands them! This is the toughest non-timed shooting competition I know of, and I include black powder cartridge silhouette in that list. I have seen SWAT-trained snipers fail to place in the top five at tough matches! The scopes used by the leaders range from 30-60x and are probably the finest scope sights in the world. In fact, field target is responsible for many of the recent innovations in scope technology.

Airgun silhouette is another sport where scopes are permitted. In fact there are classes for scopes or dot sights in the handgun component of this sport, which I must say is the most aggressive part. Handgun silhouette with air pistols has even brought back the Creedmore shooting position espoused by Elmer Keith in the '40s and '50s, though I doubt anyone recognizes it. This position is shot lying on your back, with the gun rested either at the side of one knee or between both knees.

One paper competition that permitted scopes
The sport of BRV, which was formerly called BR-50, was a sit-down, benchrest type of airgun target sport that demanded the use of a scope. This was a sport that looked deceptively easy until you tried it. The target was only 25 or 30 yards away, depending on the class you shot in, and your rifle was capable of hitting an aspirin at that range. AH - but not EVERY time, and THAT was what made it so tough! It was a sport of $2,000 rifles and $1,000 scopes, shot by older men with no perceptible heartbeat.

The rimfire version of this sport continues as RBA, but I do not find any recent references to it as an airgun competition. The founder of BRV died a few years ago, and a lot of the push for the sport went with him. If anyone has information on a benchrest airgun sport conducted at the national level, I would be grateful to read about it.

Let's see - did I miss anything? Probably, and that's what the comment section is for. So, the short answer to whether scopes are permitted in airgun competition might be - sometimes!

Gamo CF-X

by B.B. Pelletier

I'm going to review an airgun I've never seen, held or tested. The only reason I'm able to do this is because it's a Gamo CF-X, which resembles a BSA Superstar in many ways. I will really be talking about the Superstar and relating it to the Gamo, and there are several Gamo CF-X owners who have promised to assist me by posting lengthy and detailed comments to this post. Together, we should be able to get the gun reviewed for you.

Not that big a stretch
Oh, I forgot to mention, Gamo owns BSA and borrows their technology from time to time. The Gamo Stutzen, for instance, is almost a direct copy of the BSA Stutzen - but for $100 less. BSA optics are distributed worldwide by Gamo, and the two companies cooperate on a good many things. That's why this post isn't as much of a stretch as it seemed at first.

Look and feel
The CF-X is big, but not heavy.