PCP airgunners long for affordable guns that are consistent as well as powerful, and Umarex has answered the call!
Video Transcript Below:
Welcome to the Pyramyd Insyder. I’m Tyler Patner. Today, we have probably the most highly anticipated product of 2017, the Umarex Gauntlet in .22 caliber. Let's get to it. Alright guys, I'm really excited we're bringing you the Gauntlet here in .22 caliber, and this is a production gun. We've seen a lot of other content out there on pre-production models. I've had the opportunity to shoot a couple iterations of the pre-production guns, and they've all been phenomenal. They set a very high standard and we had the opportunity to put one of those guns on video for you guys, but we chose not to release that content because, quite frankly, I don't care about what a pre-production gun can do. It all matters if the production gun that's going to get into your guys' hands can do it too so that's what we're doing today. We're gonna take a look at the Gauntlet in .22 caliber here and see if it lives up to the high standard that the pre-production models have set.
Alright guys, starting at the front of the Gauntlet, of course, one of the hallmark features of the gun, fully shrouded barrel, it's a 23 and a half inch barrel. Underneath this full-length shroud, it's about a 28-inch shroud unit and we do have kind of a mono course style baffle system, so it's not like some guns we've seen where their individual baffles are inside. There it's actually a two-piece unit that comes together which means you really shouldn't have any problems with clipping or anything like that. So, overall that should be a very good design and the gun is very quiet. We're gonna, of course, sound test it for you guys, and see how performs there, moving back under the barrel, we do have a 13 cubic inch bottle. Now, this bottle translates to about 200 plus CC's, just a little over that actually 200 CC mark of air capacity, and it's a 3,000 psi fill, so a standard fill in a very similar air size to what you have on like your Benjamin Marauders and guns in that kind of range. You do have your gauge on the right-hand side of the gun and then we do have a male quick disconnect fitting on the left-hand side of the gun. This is really nice, really convenient. You have plenty of space to fit your female QD in there on the end of your hose. Whether you're pumping or filling with a tank, this is going to be super easy to connect to. This cage portion actually does remove so you can remove the bottle and you remove it via the swivel stud. So, you take this full stud completely out and then you just kind of squeeze the cage portion and bring it off, the bottle is actually integral to the regulator, so you can actually purchase regulated bottles for this gun to fit right on here, and our Air Venturi 13 cubic inch bottle does fit right onto this gun. You can purchase it right now if you wanted to have a spare cylinder going with you. One thing I do want to note though is that it does come with this degassing tool and you do have to degas as the cylinder to go ahead and remove it. So, to do that you would just insert the degassing key right here and then twist all the way around. You'll hear it go, it vents out the barrel, so make sure your unloaded with the magazine removed when you go ahead and degas that cylinder, and of course, you guys will note that I did say it is a regulated bottle which does mean the Gauntlet should have regulated performance. What that means is that we should get very consistent shot-to-shot velocities as well as a lot of shots. They're claiming about 60 shots on a 3000 psi filled down to that 1150 psi regulator pressure. We're gonna obviously put it over the chronograph and see if that holds true. We'll find out the pre-production guns that we've shot all hold up to that claim so we'll find out if the production guns do as well.
Taking a closer look at the breech, guys, we do have a repeater action, so you do have a 10-round magazine in .22, same in .177. I have confirmed that the Marauder magazines will work in these, very nice magazine. We know it's a reliable system. They've been used for a long time and overall I've had no problems around in this magazine, no jams, anything like that. The guns do also come with a single shot tray which is nice if you want to get just, milk a little bit more, accuracy out of the gun and the way you load those is via a side bolt action so a nice big bolt here to go ahead and grab onto, simply goes up and back and then you're gonna slide it down into that rear position to go ahead and insert your magazine or your single-shot tray. They have a nice audible snap in when you go ahead and put them in and then when you're ready to go you just simply push the bolt forward and you're all set, really easy to operate system. The gun decocks like just about any other PCP does. You simply hold the bolt back, go ahead pull the trigger, you hear that click and then you can slowly slide it forward, you're all good to go.
The safety dropping down here is a flip style safety so that is your safe position right there and when you're ready to go hot, you just simply flip that forward and you're set to go. We do have a metal trigger blade as well and Umarex says that via the manual that it is adjustable. We didn't adjust it for this video here. I can tell you guys it has a pretty long take-up, but it comes to that consistent stop for that supposed second stage wall, if you want to say it that way, although, again, with that long take-up, calling it a two-stage trigger out-of-the-box maybe not so true, but it doesn't break that heavy. It's right around three pounds and again very consistent when you get to that second stage wall so I don't have any problems with this trigger as it's set up. I do know it can go lighter as well as have a more defined first second stage, so that's good to know. It's capable of that and coming up to the top of the breech. We do have an 11 millimeter dovetail and it is a split breech design so you do have a dovetail section in front of and behind your magazine, all depends on the length of scope you're gonna be using because we're using a 3 to 12 compact swat-style leaper scope today, you really don't need to go ahead and mount it both forward and backwards to get that proper eye relief, and you'll note that we have plenty of room. I'll show you here to go ahead and get our magazine in without causing any contact between the gun and the scope, but that is something to consider. You're probably going to want to go with high rings with most optics on this gun just to make sure you can clear that magazine, and of course, we do have a fully synthetic stock on this gun with an adjustable cheek piece, which is an awesome feature to see, especially for a gun in this 300 dollar price range. Rubber butt pad on the back really cool, note by the way you simply loosen the swivel stud here on the bottom to go ahead and adjust this via the thumb wheel and this is actually your vertical up-and-down adjustment of the cheek piece and then when you get it locked in and in that position that's best for you in your scope height, you're going to want to go ahead and then crank this clockwise to tighten it down and that's going to lock you in place, really nice feature. Overall guys, the Gauntlet feels pretty nice and balanced, is quite well out there, I find that this kind of swooped out section is where balance is best for me. Offhand, you are talking about roughly eight, eight and a half pound gun without a scope and a 46 inch overall length which is on the long side, but it is very quiet and we do need that extra shroud length to keep it that way. Overall, really like the feel though it does have that kind of cheap plasticy feel that a lot of synthetic stock guns do, but so overall pretty impressed, but I'm really excited to get this out to the range guys and see what it can do on paper and over the chronograph so let's head out and check out those results.
Alright guys, we decided to take the Gauntlet straight out to 45 yards. There's really no point in testing really any PCP closer than that for the most part and the results are pretty good. We tested about 10 pellets in the Gauntlet and we found that 3 did better than most so we're talking about 1-inch groups is what my personal wanting was in this gun, you know, if we could do a 1 inch 10 shot group at 45 yards, I consider that a pretty solid grouping, not great but pretty solid, and the predator GTO is delivered right at about an inch for 10 shots, not too bad, but we definitely can do better. The JSP 15.89s you got a 3/4 inch group. They're very tight, little spread there, the regulator is certainly doing its job keeping those shots consistent and the H&N field target trophy is also coming in right at about 3/4 of an inch so pretty good groups, again 10 shot groups. So, they're gonna be a little bit bigger than they would be if they were 5, but the Gauntlet could certainly deliver out a distance 45 yards sub 1-inch groups, pretty impressed with the Gauntlet.
So, with our most accurate pellet the JSB exact jumbo 15.89 grain, we're looking at an average feet per second of about 790 789, which is right about 22 foot-pounds. Now, the important part here, Umarex claims 60 shots per fill and they hit that number on the money from a 3,000 psi fill down to that 1100 psi regulated mark with an extreme spread at 18 feet per second and a standard deviation of only 3.3 feet per second. The numbers are pretty impressive here, guys, it's a little on the large spread side for a regulated gun, but still anything under that 25 foot per second mark really isn't going to impact your accuracy downrange, out to about 50-60 yards so gotta say, these numbers are looking very impressive and exactly what Umarex is touting.
Alright guys, there's not a lot I can say for the Gauntlet that it doesn't say for itself on paper, very impressive offering in a three hundred dollar package. Quite frankly, this is mind blowing a little bit to see where the airgun industries come to in such a short time and for Umarex is first offering into the PCP market. This is definitely one you're gonna want to have an eye on, again 300 bucks, you really can't go wrong here. You're talking about three-quarter-inch 10-shot group accuracy at forty-five yards. You got decent power. It's a little underpowered in my opinion for a .22 right about 22 foot-pounds with those 15.89s, but you're getting sixty shots on a fill, guys, that's unreal, okay, and of course, the fact that it's regulated means you're gonna have very consistent results as well which is why we have such good accuracy out of this gun. It's quiet. It's accurate multi-shot capability. The trigger can be adjusted. The stock's adjustable. There's a lot of features packed into this gun. Guys, definitely check this one out on pyramydair.com guys, when you have a chance to. You know, as always, comment down below, tell us what you think about the Gauntlet, what else you'd like to see going forward in the future, hit us with that like button, and don't forget to subscribe. As always, Tyler Patner for the Insyder, we'll see you guys at the next one.
Introducing the TexanSS, AirForce's silenced solution for big bore fans. As easy on the eyes as it is on the ears, the TexanSS features a fully-shrouded carbine length barrel with Sound-Loc System technology. The TexanSS keeps the penetrating power hunters long for, but with quieter shots.
Video Transcript Below:
Welcome to the Pyramyd Insyder. I’m Tyler Patner. Today we're gonna be taking a look at a brand new one from AirForce Airguns, the TexanSS and 457. So, we saw the TexanSS at the Shot Show 2017 back in January and now it's finally here. Not a lot of changes from the traditional Texan platform at least from the back half of a gun. You're still talking about a four hundred and ninety CC bottle, the same non-adjustable trigger as you're gonna find on the rest of the Air Force line, side cocking mechanism and single loading, of course, which all functions flawlessly.
The Texan is a tried-and-true platform at this point with the .45 caliber being the most popular of the three. So, the TexanSS made sense to come out in that .45 caliber. Now what AirForce has changed about this gun, of course, is a shorter barrel so we're going from 34 inches to 24 and 3/4 inches and, of course, a full-length shroud system that's gonna sit off the front of the barrel making the total gun about 45 inches.
The moniker SS fits on many of the AirForce guns. They have an EscapeSS, a Talon SS, a Condor SS, and now of course the TexanSS. SS standing for super silent meaning that the gun is supposed to be quieter than the non-shrouded version. Now, with the small bore guns, that's always proven to be very true in all cases they're very, very quiet, but we don't know how that's going to happen with a big bore. Here we have a very large shroud, a lot of volume. It is a very large diameter can here and you have about four baffles inside as best as I can tell that should dampen the noise significantly. Now, I'm gonna guess that we're talking still on the relative loud side for most air gunners out there, probably not going to be a backyard friendly gun, but for those of you that are hunting out in the field, using this in big wide-open spaces, this is going to alleviate the need for hearing protection which is something that, quite frankly, I don't like wearing big earphones and I don't find that the little earbuds do it for me in most cases, especially when you're talking about guns that go over a hundred and twenty decibels for example like the normal Texans do, so this SS model should give us the ability to remove that hearing protection as well as keep a little bit of that silence factor, especially if we're going after some larger game.
Now, we're gonna take the TexanSS out to the range, put it through the normal battery of tests. We got a couple bullets lined up. I've already done a little bit of pre-shooting, haven't put it on our sound meter yet and obviously haven’t chronograph yet for you guys either. So, they're claiming 400-foot pounds out of this and you really shouldn't see any diminished accuracy with that shorter barrel, but we're gonna find out what it does at 45 yards. Let's head out to the range and check it out.
Alright, guys, before we get to the accuracy in the velocities and all that stuff, you'll notice I'm not wearing hearing protection with the SS. It's really not needed in my opinion even though we are in a pretty tight confined space, so if you're gonna be outside, you're probably not going to need hearing protection, at least I wouldn't, but right now indoors with the noise bouncing off the walls, it's definitely a little bit louder than it's going to be outside, and we're gonna throw it on the sound meter compared to a regular Texan and show you guys that difference, but just my take on it, don't need hearing protection which means that SS is doing its job well. So, let's head down range and see what we can do with these slugs.
Alright, guys, so we tested pretty much all the ammo options that we offer here at Pyramyd in this 457 size, came down to 4 that basically did the best for us out of the TexanSS here. First off, they got the JSB, the 234 grain XXL's, about an inch and a quarter group, maybe a little bit smaller than that in 323 foot-pounds, so definitely moving pretty good, although, not our most accurate option, you do have the 350 grainers coming in right again above an inch and a quarter so and generating 431 foot-pounds. That's a lot of power and our most powerful projectile here out of this text and SS, but still not terribly satisfied with the group, and then coming in at 407 foot-pounds is that 411-grain slug. That's a big freaking chunk of lead, guys, pretty impressive results, obviously, three shots with one going into that same hole there. This is gonna be a lot of power and very accurate, but our most accurate is definitely gonna be the 405 grain 406 foot-pounds of energy out of the 405 is about 670 feet per second at their highest. Guys, this is absolutely phenomenal grouping right here out of this Texan SS. Again, about 3 shots is what you're gonna get on a fill from something this heavy, but awesome groups, definitely get yourself some of these 405's and 411s if you're gonna get you a TexanSS.
Alright, guys, you'll notice we use the 357 Texan and not a 457 Texan here for the unshrouded testing purely because it's what we had on hand. The 457 is definitely a little bit louder in that unshrouded version, but that said, if we look at the audio files here, you can see just how much higher those peaks are for the sound on the 357 unshrouded Texan versus the Texan SS, so you know while that 5 DB difference may not seem like that much, it's actually very significant. It's a completely different sound profile which really gives the Texan SS a huge advantage.
Alright, guys, so to wrap things up on the TexanSS here, obviously, very impressive results downrange 45 yards 1/2 inch group basically cloverleaf in them at that 45 yard mark with 400 plus foot-pounds at the muzzle, these 405s, the 411 grain slugs, definitely going to be the ones to get, the 350 SR all right and they do produce a little bit more energy, but I'm sticking to those 400 plus grain slugs. They were very impressive downrange.
One thing definitely want to note there, we did three shot groups obviously, the gun only does about three shots per fill. You sure you could eke out a fourth if you really had to in the field, but for our purposes to get that best accuracy, we're refilling after three so that's why we did three shot groups.
Overall, though, I got to say that SS, the super silent, the sound moderator on the end of this, guys, is doing its job well. To be able to take the earphones off and be able to shoot comfortably without any hearing protection is a big plus in my book, and if you're looking for some extra stealth in the field, this is definitely gonna give it to you without compromising too much in the way of power, so if you are going after some big game or if you want to shoot long range with the AirForce airgun the TexanSS is definitely going to be one to check out and compare.
As always, guys, we want to hear back from you. Tell us what you thought of the video and if there's anything else you'd like to see comment down below. Don't forget to subscribe, hit us with that like button, for the Insyder, I'm Tyler Patner, we'll see you guys at the next one.
We are always combing through the comment section for questions and YouTube user TacticalToast wanted to see what happened when you put breakbarrel airguns up against underlever airguns.
Video Transcript Below:
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Pyramyd Insyder Insights, today we're gonna be talking about break barrels versus under levers. Our question today comes from Tactical Toast Two - great handle by the way, his question is you should compare break barrels to under levers. PCPs just aren't an option for me, so I'd love to see some good Springer videos. Well, Tactical Toast, we got you covered.
So, today's video, we're gonna be trying to answer two questions. Number one, is a break barrel more or less accurate than an underlever? So, that's obviously a question that gets asked all the time here at Pyramyd. We hear it on the phones a lot, see it in emails. It's a very commonly asked question that a lot of people want to know and the common consensus is that a break barrel is going to be less accurate than an underlever because of the fixed barrel factor, and I would tend to agree with that, but today we're gonna put it to the test.
Now the second question I have though, and this is a personal question, is can a lower priced underlever outshoot a higher priced break barrel. So, today let's go over the guns that we have to do this test with. So, for today's testing, all the guns in front of us here are .177 caliber to keep things consistent. For our under levers, we have a Gamo CFR Whisper and this gun has their CAT trigger so it's a pretty solid trigger for a budget gun. It is an underlever, still very, very lightweight, but with that thumbhole stock and adjustable cheek piece on that lower side, as an underlever it's a really nice option with some good features to it, and it does come with a three to nine by forty adjustable objective scope as well so that's a definite plus.
On the higher end, we do have a wire rack HW 97k. A world-renowned gun as far as under levers go, this and the Air Arms TX 200, whatever you want to call it, two of the best out there. So, the 97k is gonna give us a good accurate representation of what a very high-end under level rifle can do, and on the break barrel side we have a Gamo Hornet Maximum. Now this, again .177 caliber, has a lot of the hallmark features we're seeing on a lot of Gamos, you know, big shroud, very quiet gun, does have their CAT trigger as well and the triple R recoil reducing rail on it, so got a lot of features packed into this gun. We've done a review on it if you guys want to check that out in the past. And on the high end we have a Beeman R9, my opinion straight up the best break barrel you can buy for the money, actually not for the money just regardless, best break barrel on the market my opinion is that Beeman R9 .177 caliber. I've owned one of these. I owned one in .20 caliber and .177. They're phenomenal guns, really, really hard to beat.
So, what we're gonna find out today on the range is can we compare the accuracy on the high-end side between the underlever and the break barrel and can we do the same on the low-end side, and then does this CFR match up to the accuracy of this R9, and those are the questions that we're going to be taking a closer look at out on the range so let's go ahead out.
Alright, guys, so for today's test for all of the guns we're gonna do 10 shot groups for everything at 30 and 45 yards, so pretty decent distances for your average spring gun, especially for these Gamos, but we're gonna see how they do. Now I do want to point out one thing on this Hornet Maximum. Obviously, had to replace the factory scope, it's not a parallax adjustable scope, and I was having some trouble getting good accuracy out of it in my preliminary testing, so I've actually used a couple different scopes on this gun, kind of got settled in. We'll see how it does on camera though. Let's get to shooting.
Alright, guys, so we just got done shooting the two Gamos. We'll take a look here at the Hornet Maximum first. Now obviously the group of 30 yards was not that great at slinging those eight forces about nine hundred and thirty feet per second, but the biggest issue I'm having here, guys, it's not the fact that this is break barrel, okay, it's the fact that it's a six-pound gun. It's quite difficult to maintain good accuracy with that light of a gun in my opinion, especially at a decent distance like thirty yards.
You will notice we had about six shots there in about a one-inch pattern, but overall you're looking at about a two and a half inch group for ten shots, and quite frankly not very good, but again, you know, your mileage might vary, might like a different pellet, but I tried, you know, eight, nine pellets in both of these guns and the 8.4s were the best I could muster and obviously we didn't even, it's not even worth it to push out to forty-five yards. Guys, with the Hornet Maximum, it the group's only gonna get bigger, but the CFR is pretty impressive. I'm actually quite surprised. You're talking about throwing those 8.4s at about 850 feet per second just a hair under, but a one inch 10 shot group here at 30 yards, this gun is certainly capable and with the factory scope as well, so pretty impressive, and then stretching it out to 45 things opened up a little bit, but we still some nice clustering, you know, you're talking about an inch and a quarter inch and a half group here at 45 yards with a sub $300 under lever spring gun so you know Gamo definitely has a winner here in the CFR, and obviously in a head-to-head of, you know, Gamo break barrel versus a Gamo underlever, you're definitely going to want to go with the underlever.
Alright, guys, so now we're gonna take a look at the higher end guns. We got the AR 9 and the 97k ready to go. They're both scoped up with three to twelve four to twelve scopes so we have the same magnification levels. Both are holding zero fine, tested a bunch of pellets. You got the R9 like in the 8.4s and the 97k leg in those JSB 10.3 is the best so we're gonna stretch them out 30 and 45 yards again, 10 shot groups for both, and see how they do.
Alright, guys, so immediately you're seeing better groupings looking at this R9 group at 30 yards here. You got those 8.4s going about 890 feet per second and you're talking about a 3/4 inch group, guys, at 30 yards. This is squirrel’s head every time if you do your part and that is why again, my opinion, the R9 is the best break barrel out there. That said, some key differences though that make the guns easier to shoot both in this case; both of the guns are a little bit heavier and that little bit of weight mitigates some of the recoil which makes it a little bit less hold sensitive and more friendly to shoot, and obviously, the record trigger on there from Why Rock is absolutely phenomenal on both guns and probably one of the best triggers on a spring gun or gas ram gun out there that you're gonna find, so definitely a big factor here in making these guns easier to shoot, but again 3/4 inch group and then stretch in that are nine out to 45 yards one inch for ten shots, damn impressive. It doesn't get a whole lot better than that with a spring gun. I'm very pleased with that and the 97k of course did not disappoint at all. Now with the JSB heavies, you're getting a little bit more knockdown power right about 15 foot-pounds in the 177 right at 800 feet per second or so this is basically a half inch group for ten shots at 30 yards, not very hold sensitive, but of the 97k is a absolute joy to shoot. You're gonna see similar results out of your TX 20 LT use, you know, the higher end under levers are all going to produce results like these, but this 97k obviously a pleasure and then stretching it out to 45 yards, you're looking at about a three-quarter inch group here for 10 shots, so again the 97k just like we saw with the CFR versus the Hornet Maximum, the 97 k and that under lever outperformed the R9 just a little bit, not a whole lot, but definitely enough to make a difference, especially on those longer range shots.
Alright, guys, so those results pretty well confirmed kind of what we were saying in the beginning as well as, you know, what I thought personally and what a lot of folks think in that a underlever is typically going to be more accurate than a break barrel. Now what this test is not is a comparison of a high-end spring gun versus a low-end spring gun. Sure, you could take it as that, but bear in mind the statement holds true, especially with airguns, you get what you pay for. If you are gonna be spending the money on a higher end spring or underlever gas RAM whatever, you know, up into the five-six hundred dollar range, yes, you can expect better performance, and that's, there's a multitude of reasons for that. You're gonna get a better trigger, you're gonna get a better fitting powerplant, it's gonna be smoother, it is gonna have a better barrel, all of these things are gonna go into making that a better gun overall. Now that's not to say you can't give very good groups out of a lower end brake barrel or even a lower end underlever. I think we've shown that, you know, something like this Gamo CFR as a more moderately priced underlever air gun can do quite well at distance, so it's it certainly puts the first question to bed as to the underlever, yes, is more accurate than a break barrel, no doubt about that. As for the second question though, is a lower end underlever more accurate or less accurate than a high end break barrel; they're about the same. You're talking about roughly a little bit over, I think a one inch group on the Gamo CFR at forty five yards and right around a one inch group with the R9, some of that's going to have to do a trigger, you know, trigger control is going to be way better on a record trigger than it is on the CAT trigger, although the CAT trigger for what it is and the price point it's in is quite good, so the bottom line here, folks, if you're looking at a springer or gas ram or whatever you might be looking at, if there's an unde lever in your price range nine times out of ten that's gonna be the way you want to go. Now if weight’s a concern, certainly a break barrel is not a bad option, but make sure you're buying a quality break barrel, you know, that's not to say that that all Gamos are gonna shoot exactly the way this Hornet Maximum did or exactly the way that the CFR did, that's not the point here, guys. It's that buy the biggest thing, is buy the best you can afford, alright, that's the number one thing that I tell folks. The best gun you can afford from a quality perspective is gonna be the way you want to go whether that is a brake barrel, an under lever, a side lever, it really doesn't matter if you can afford getting yourself a fixed barrel gun, it's probably gonna do better in the accuracy department down the road, but even if you don't want to go for that and you want something that's maybe a little bit more convenient to load and lighter weight, a good quality break barrel certainly not a bad option, and there are plenty of them out there. So, Tactical Toast, thank you very much for the question. It was a great question and a great topic. We'll see you guys back again for the next Insyder Insights video, I'm Tyler Patner, check you later.
Hey, guys, thanks for tuning into today's video. If you want to see more Insyder videos, go ahead hit the subscribe button. If you liked the video you saw, hit the like button, and if you want to talk more about the video or another video you'd like to see, comment down below. Thanks for watching.
After a few mixed accuracy results from the first test of the Texan .357 Air Rifle, we were contacted by Texas's favorite airgun company with a few suggestions on what ammo to use. Tyler heads back out to the range armed with new knowledge and new ammo. Let us see if round two is any better.
Video Transcript Below:
"Welcome to the Pyramyd Insyder, I’m Tyler Patner. Today we're going to be taking a follow up look at the AirForce Texan in .357, looking at some new ammo, and making it shoot, this the Air Venturi Air Bolt. Let's check it out.
So, we're here with a bit of an update to the .357 Texan purely because back when we did our full review in November of 2016 we didn't get the best accuracy out of it, and we got with the folks over at AirForce to figure out why and with their help what we found out was that we were actually using basically the wrong diameter ammo. We carry a lot of .356 diameter, .357 nine-millimeter ammo, purely because it works best in a lot of the guns we had at the time, the Recluse, some of the Atom, in rifles of Evanix as well, so you got .356 diameter but this Texan really shines with the .358 stuff, so we had to get some .358 ammo. So, we have a 67-grain round ball and 190 grain flat point that we're gonna take out to 45 yards and see how they do in this AirForce Texan, both power and accuracy, so we're gonna head out to the range now and check it out.
Alright, guys, looking over these accuracy groups of 45 yards out of .357 Texan and with this new .358 ammo, obviously those round balls basically one hole at 45 yards, this is absolutely phenomenal and you're talking about a hundred and eighty foot-pounds out of a round ball which is pretty damn good, especially for a .35 .357 caliber gun, and then 190 grain slugs were really impressive as well, about a 3/4 inch group for the three shots that we took, and a 288 foot-pounds of energy power coming out of this gun with those bullets, definitely going to be the option for you long-range shooters or your hunters out there. This is gonna do really well.
So, I told you guys at the beginning of the video that we're gonna show you how to use the .35 caliber air bolts in the 357 Texan and now right now as it sits with the 34 inch barrel, these are not gonna fit far enough down the barrel because of this guy, the threaded adapter here, that actually hits the crown of the muzzle and doesn't allow you to push it in any further, and we really need to get it further back to see the full potential of this. So, right now in the 34 inch barrel, this is only shooting about 200 feet per second, obviously not good enough to do anything serious with, so our friends at AirForce made us a 24 inch barrel that drops right into the .35 .357 caliber Texan and is gonna allow us to use the air bolts, so the question really is a is this still as accurate as the 34 inch barrel with slugs, how accurate is it with the air bolts, and how much power is it putting out with both. So, we're gonna show you how to install this and then head out to the range and see how it does.
So, this is really easy to do, guys. First thing we're gonna do, go ahead and open our bolt that way we'd see the end of the barrel here, and then take the gun flip it on over, really all this is is just removing a couple screws. So, we have a 3/32 Allen wrench here. I'm just gonna go ahead and start at the front and move these screws here. Now this front one, you don't loosen all the way, but we do want to get the end cap off, and it's just easier to take them out, so we take that end cap off and now we get to work on the screws that actually retain the barrel.
There are eight barrel retention screws that we need to remove so let's get to it. Alright, this is our eighth and final screw here and once we get it out, we are just simply gonna pull the barrel right on out and it releases very easily.
Alright, so now we have a barrel-less frame basically, so we're gonna take our 24 inch barrel and you notice we got a couple threaded points here and this is actually exactly going to line up with our holes that are on the frame to allow us to mount this barrel properly, so take the barrel slider on into the frame. Alright, so once you make sure you got everything aligned, we're gonna watch the barrel actually come through right at the back and match up with our valve here in just a second, perfect there. Now we're just going to rotate ever so slightly to make sure that our holes are matching up with the open slots here in the frame itself. So, now that we have everything aligned, we can go ahead and reinstall our screws. Last thing to do is put our end cap in and put our retention screw on. For that, I haven't actually cinched up these screws as tight as they'll go apparently, because I want to make sure everything fits okay first, so now that I know I have everything fit properly now I'm going to go ahead and give those the last little tightening. Alright, guys, so now that we had the barrel installed, you can see obviously a much shorter profile gun basically the same length as all your Condo or SS. Let's head out to the range test some air bolts in it and test the slugs, see what we're doing.
Alright, guys, so talking about our accuracy and our velocity results here for the 24 inch barrel on our Texan SBR, if you will the round ball is obviously still very, very good group out of those guys at 45 yards, basically like three quarters of an inch, and you're talking about a hundred and sixty-two foot-pounds, so about thousand fifty feet per second, a little bit of a drop-off but not too dramatic, where we saw it the most though obviously the 190 grainers a 100 foot per second drop-off coming in at about 750 feet per second, so you're reducing your energy to about two hundred and thirty from about two eighty to ninety foot pounds, but still plenty of power in that .357 caliber. In case you didn't catch that, that second air bolt went right through our target.
Alright, guys, I'm looking at our air bolt here at 30 yards three shots about an inch and a quarter group around 550 feet per second just as fast as any other gun we've got, maybe a little bit faster even, and you're talking about two hundred and forty five-plus foot-pounds out of that air bolt in 35 Cal in this short barrel Texan. That is a lot of power. Now that said, I do want to show you guys real quick how to install a broad head onto this setup because you actually can which is a really neat feature on the short barrel Texan so let's check it out.
Alright, guys, so to put a broad head on this guy, you're gonna want to stop short when you load that air bolt in initially and then take the field tip out, so really easy to do you, just unscrew it there and then we're gonna very carefully, we got these g5 broadheads fixed blade, you can use a mechanical as well, and just place it in there, obviously that's the part you want to be most careful of so you don't cut yourself, then you get one of these air venturi broadhead wrenches that work with just about any broadhead that I've seen at this point at least, go ahead place it on there and then you just screw it in very, very easy to do, then once it's nice and tight, we go ahead take our broad head wrench leave it on top there and just go ahead and push it on down until that insert that aluminum insert is seated at the crown of the barrel, and then we're ready to go and you got one badass looking hunting rig going here. I would hate to be the animal on the other end of that thing.
Alright, guys, that about wraps it up today for the .357 Texan part 2. Obviously, the short barrel has got a lot of merit to it. If you're looking for a more compact big bore hunter, you're still looking at 230 plus foot-pounds out of those hundred and ninety grain slugs and in reality you're only losing about a hundred feet per second even with the 67 Grand round balls in comparison to the 34 inch barrel, so for a 10 inch difference in the overall length of the gun, it's actually not too bad in my opinion and obviously the ability to use the air bolts makes this a badass hunting tool so definitely want to check out next time you guys are around pyramydair.com. If you liked what you saw in today's video, guys, hit us with that like button down below, comment, tell us what you thought about this or what you guys want to see next time, and don't forget to subscribe. I'm Tyler Patner for the Insyder, we'll see you guys at the next one.
From the powerhouse of Turkish air arms comes the Hatsan Proxima air rifle. Powered by a Vortex gas-piston powerplant, the Proxima is ready for hours of backyard target shooting and small game hunting. This air rifle’s greatest asset is its ability to quickly fire repeating shots, thanks to the 2 included spring-loaded rotary magazines. With a cock of the underlever, you’re ready to fire again and again.
Video Transcript Below:
Welcome to the Pyramyd Insyder, I’m Tyler Patner, today we're going to be taking a look at the Hatsan Proxima .22-caliber.
The Proxima is Hatsan's latest offering and it's available in .177 and .22-caliber. Now the big thing here is the fact that it is a repeating underlever gas piston rifle. A lot of features packed in there but that repeater’s gonna be the big one. Obviously we saw Gamo come out with the Swarm earlier this year and Hatsan has followed suit here with an underlever which means we should be getting really good accuracy out of it. Let's check out some of the up-close features of the Proxima. Starting at the front of the gun we do have a really tall front sight here with the red fiber optic in there. Now I can tell you that this isn't going to come into into you know your view if you're using a scope with high rings, which I had to on this rifle, also we went with a mini SWAT scope here purely because the front sight comes into play in terms of the length the scope. Overall you're gonna have a lot of options here but we just went with the SWAT to make sure there were no clearance issues and obviously that front sight not coming into view on that highest magnification setting of 12 power, I did mount a three to nine on it as well to try that out even on nine couldn't see anything, on three you do catch it a little bit, but it's not going to impact your shooting. And you guys will notice on this kind of plastic molded piece here that also houses the underlever you do have your release for that underlever, so you just slide this brass piece forward and kind of pull down on the lever itself at the same time to go ahead and release it which is gonna allow you to cock the rifle, and then once you're done and ready to go ahead and close it up, it just snaps forward and back into place. Really easy to do. Sliding back a little bit further we do have our rear fiber optics site which is micro-click adjustable and you have the green fiber optics here to match up with the red up front. Very stout unit, you can remove it if you want to, just a couple screws no problem, so you can mount a longer scope if that's the way you want to go, although like I said you're gonna have a couple scope options in terms of length that you can go for that aren't gonna come into contact with that rear sight. And going on to scope mounting, you have Hatsan standard 11 millimeter and weaver style rail so you do get the best of both worlds there, and you can mount whatever you want. I went for a dovetail setup, just what we happen to have, but the weaver style mounting is no problem as long as your scope has enough tube space to accommodate the non-standardized spacing between those mounting brackets. And just on the right hand side of this rifle you will notice this anti-beartrap release lever. So what this is gonna do is when you go ahead and cock that rifle, this is gonna engage and actually not allow you to bring that cocking arm back up forward until you depress this. We'll show you guys how this works once we get the mags loaded and everything and show you guys the whole process of how that works. It's fairly easy to do and as long as your hands aren't too small to get around the stock it's not really going to be a problem in terms of being able to depress it and fold that cocking arm back up quickly. The trigger is Hatsan’s Quatro triggers so fully adjustable you're gonna be able to get this to a very nice feeling place for yourself. Right out of the box it's a little on the heavy side and there’s definitely some creep there but knowing that you can adjust that out more than enough to keep up you know my mind at ease there and I've used the Quattro triggers many times, it's a very solid trigger especially for those hunters out there you know what you're gonna get and it's going to break clean, which is always very important. And up top at the very back of the action we do have an automatic safety here that is going to engage every time you cock the gun, so keep that in mind there as well. And you will notice here we have a gorgeous walnut stock, Turkish walnut of course, just beautiful detail work on this stock. It's got a very dry oil finish, it's not, you know, doesn't have a gloss finish or anything like that on it, but it works really well with the rifle I think, you know with the kind of matte finish they have on the metal, it's a very good-looking gun. That thumbhole style pistol grip with the finger grooves on there fits my hands really nicely. You got the adjustable cheek piece here which is also a great feature, just two screws to adjust it up and down to get the height perfect for you. Rubber butt pad, of course, and even a storage slot for your second magazine, which is awesome, and the gun does come with two as I mentioned before, so really nice feature there, and you also have swivel studs here, one on the back and one in the front on the side there to mount the sling that does come with the rifle as well. So a lot of features packed in here to this Hatsan Proxima, but without further ado guys, we're gonna head out to the range and show you just how well this gun works.
So loading the magazines up here for the Proxima, you're gonna take the face, rotate it with the cassette ,you see everything moving counterclockwise around there till it gets that stop, and you flip it over, now we see that hole there, we're gonna go ahead and load the first pellet skirt first, so we simply take it and put it in skirt first until it drops in then we can let everything go. It's retained under spring tension, we don't have to worry about it anymore. Now we can go through and load each one of these with the pellet head first and just rotate on to the next one until you are all loaded up with 12 rounds. First step to loading the Proxima, we're going to go ahead push this brass pivot forward and then release our cocking arm. Now we're gonna go ahead, cock the rifle, forty-five pounds of cocking effort is pretty stout and you guys will notice that, that frees up the breech. The probe is out of the breech now and we actually are retained by this bear trap. We're gonna take our fully loaded magazine, go ahead you see the indent here on the back, we're gonna line it up right there, slide it in, it is good to go now. Once you have your magazine in, you're gonna depress the anti-beartrap lock here, go ahead and close the cocking arm up, and you are good to go. So this next part is really important guys, Hatsan nailed this next part and this is what a lot of companies in the past that have done underlever repeaters in spring or gas piston have failed at. This magazine will actually not allow you to dry fire the rifle with the magazine in place once it's empty. So you notice this is an empty mag and it's actually covered there in the hole that the probe goes through, so that means you're actually not gonna be able to close that cocking handle when you actually have this rifle cocked with an empty magazine. That's huge. So that means you're gonna know exactly when you need to go to the next magazine to continue shooting.
Alright guys, so with everything shooting basically three-quarter-inch groups at 25 yards, we're just gonna skip ahead to the 45-yard results here. Two-inch group out of the H&M barracudas, not very good. You got an inch and a quarter group for all five shots out of the H&N field target trophies with four of those actually going into basically a half inch groups about 45 yards, that's pretty solid, but still I'm gonna have to give the nod to those JSB 18.1 three heavies. Three-quarters of an inch basically a very similar group to what we saw at 25 yards. The Proxima’s definitely got accuracy all the way out at 45 yards, plenty for a small game, so good marks on accuracy.
Alright guys, let's give the final thoughts here in the wrap-up on the Hatsan Proxima in .22-caliber. Overall obviously group wise very good shooter and very consistent chronograph numbers as well. Sub 1-inch groups at 45 yards out of just about any springer gas piston rifle is on the money for me. About 20 foot-pounds of energy not too bad in terms of power so small game hunting is gonna be no problem with this. A couple of gripes I have, obviously the gun is very heavy. Over 11 pounds with the scope that we have on it and it is a bear to cock as well for a multi-shot gun. You're talking about 45 maybe 50 pounds of cocking effort here for that vortex gas piston, so it is not an easy one to cock by any stretch so know that going in. And that does really make getting those repeating shots off quickly a big challenge in my opinion. I do love the fact that they have an adjustable cheek piece on the rifle, and the stock ergonomics here are spot-on, even though it does have a little bit of a long length of pole, it's very comfortable once you get used to it, get that scope mounted properly for yourself and that cheek piece set up, and you're gonna have no problems getting along with this gun, assuming you can hit that 45 to 50 pound cocking mark. So that's a Hatsan Proxima in a nutshell guys. Thanks for joining us today here on the Insyder, I'm Tyler Patner, we'll see you guys at the next one.
Hey guys thanks for tuning into today's video. If you want to see more insider videos, go ahead hit the subscribe button. If you liked the video you saw, hit the like button. And if you want to talk more about the video or another video you'd like to see, comment down below. Thanks for watching.
When it comes to semi-auto pellet airguns, does it get any better than a SIG Sauer MCX? Rossi converts the MCX to a PCP with the Air Venturi HPA Tank and gets some serious trigger time in this episode of the Pyramyd Outsyder.
Video Transcript Below:
"I got a Sig MCX, I got thirty rounds, I got a bunch of targets, oh here we go. Let's roll. Ah, that was like 40 targets! There's only three standing. Welcome to the Pyramyd Outsyder, this is the Sig MCX. Hey, what's up guys? Welcome to the Pyramyd Outsyder. Now this is a cool, cool very cool, very intimidating, very bad mama jama looking rifle. The only thing that's disappointing in this rifle is it's not as big it as bad as it looks to be honest. It's a .177, nothing wrong with .177 other than the fact that it's just a .177 small caliber, but a lot of fun. This is a very fun rifle to shoot, but first of all, let's take a look at it. It’s co2 powered. It is semi-auto. There's a 30 round rotary mag so it's like it's like a little magazine, I'll show you as we move through it, but first of all, let's take a look at the gun itself. Obviously, it's very tactical looking as you would expect from Sig Sauer. Sig Sauer recently gotten into the airgun market and they're putting out guns that are just, they're just awesome looking, so I mean these are the kind of guns I wish I had when I was a kid to go out and play with and, you know, hunt small game and shoot target stuff because they just look awesome. It has a metal housing so everything in here in the component side is metal. It's tough and it's built right. You've got your safety right here. It's kind of got that AR look to it if you will. It's got the pistol grip. It's got the magazine here. I'm over on the back side, push, it pops open and as you can see this is the the magazine, let me just pull it out and show you, so it holds thirty thirty pellets, like I said, it's slightly, you load it up it's already loaded, but you slide it in to rotor, it just moves like this and you fires, you know, as fast as fast as fierce as you can you got the thirty rounds. It's got, it's got the the handle up here, a little grip you can move this around, you can also remove it if you just want to hold it, up here on the on the front of stock it's got the Weaver row back here for the optics. It's got the Picatinny rail up here where you can put all kinds of stuff. It's got a look at the rear and front sights pop up and down so you can use those. It also comes with the Sig Sauer airguns red dot sight that goes on the top there to make it even cooler. On the other side, I mean, it's got all the I'm not everything works, you know, like normal all this stuff doesn't flap open, you can't push this stuff view, but it's it's there when you when you load it, you rack it just like you normally would with a with a semi-auto rifle. Other than that's it, you know, the basic rundown of this gun is you pop this off the battery little you know just release it there and then you plug an 88 or 90 gram co2 capsule in there. The bigger capsules in this slides over the top of it and gives it that look. I don't have those because I don't love those. Those 88 grams co2 cartridges are expensive and you don't get near as many shots as you should so what I am going to do with this gun, because it's what I try to do with all co2 rifles that I can, is it doesn't look as cool so I want you to take it in this is the Sig MCX we're gonna change it a little bit now. We're going to pop this up and Air Ventura has come out with this 13 cubic inch tank that you can replace co2 cartridges with this and put 3000 psi into this gun. This thing is regulated in to 1,100 psi so from 3000 to 1100 you're getting a regulated shot you're gonna get a tremendous amount of more shots from this than you are from a co2 cartridge. You'll always know exactly how much air you have, comes with this little adapter. It's pretty simple.
So, you want to screw this in and then so from what I've learned it's best to kind of screw in what is the adapter and then you should over screw this guy in. Okay, and then it comes with this little butt pad you can just throw on so you can have the same effect of the rifle, so, you know, it's a little bit longer than this, it's obviously not near as cool, but I mean I just turned the co2 gun into a pcp now I've got this male quick disconnect I'll just plug her in fill her up and then we can start doing some testing on the Sig MCX.
Here we go. Let's do this. Rack it, locked and loaded. 425 feet per second. 405 feet per second. 423 feet per second. Oh, 384, dropped a little bit shooter air, but 431, 400, I mean, are you kidding me? There's six nice little group. Let's see what we can do. When you're done, it goes into safe, can't shoot anymore. 376 all those, pretty good group at 25 yards. Guys, for a 177 gun like this, looks like this semi-auto, it doesn't get any cooler. I mean, it's got, you know, pretty good speed. You're looking at high 300s for the most part, mmm mid to low 400s which is good enough for this is a good planking gun. I mean, I don't, I would not recommend going and doing any hunting with this personally. I mean very, very small game, you know, I say like like like cockroaches, maybe ants, but for the most part, this is a gun for fun, for plinking, for knocking down targets. Let's take it to the gun range and see what we can do with it shall we? We shall.
I want to see it has the power to blow the hundred and thirty psi bottle we've got down there, the two-liter. Oh no, that's a big negatory, but let's see what we can do to a can of soda. Oh, there you go! See, got some power for the can. Let's see how good of aim I have with the rocket shot, hit it up, shoot the can in the air, hit the can. I'm gonna go ahead and say I probably missed that, you know, I'm not gonna miss King Kong's giant face. Reload. Alright, so looking at the the kind of the magazine here, there's a flat side and then this side has like a little it's just like the little part you put it in the thicker part, the thicker part you put that pellet down, so I'm finishing up here, but what so once you get like that and then you look at this, you'll notice that these little pegs fit right in there and then it just slides in like so pellets your face now. Now you gotta drop the chalk buddy, just drop it, yep, King Kong, I said drop it, drop the chalk. Ah-hah, King Kong, get gummy, you're the toughest monkey in the world I get it, but just fall down.
Guys, look, this is a great fun, plinking, a target gun. It's great if, you throw, this adapter on there from Air Ventura, you know, it's not gonna have the most power, it's not gonna pop off. Some of the big things we've got to here, but you talk about knockdown targets, hit little things at different distances all the way up to 35 40 yards, this is it the Sig MCX. You can get it for a hundred and eighty bucks. It's a repeater. It's 30 shots. It's semi-auto .177. It's as fun as you want to make it then we make it fun. Thanks for watching The Outsyder, see you next time.
"
This airgun 6-shooter is an authentic replica of the famous Schofield No. 3 designed by Army Ordnance officer, Major George W. Schofield of the 10th Cavalry.
Video Transcript Below:
Dance! That right there, I'll teach myself to mess with me myself, you know what I'm saying, just don't mess with me when I got my six-shooter. Hey, guys, welcome to the Pyramyd Outsyder. Today we are looking at the Bear River version of the Schofield number three. Now this is an old western gun, the 9th of 10th cavalry to be used back in days, it was actually invented, to put together by an Army General, so this is actually an army gun, but it was, it's got a couple cool features, and and specific features, for reasons why they used it and loved it in the Old West.
First of all, look at the gun. You got this this nice gunmetal color here. I got the wood polymer grips. There's different colored grips and ivory grips, different color guns are. They can go silver, maybe smugglers, I'm not exactly sure, but this is the one I picked. I think it looks cool with real, it's got a genuine cocking, single fire hammer right there, so you've got a cock it to shoot it. You can't just pull the trigger, got a cock it to shoot it just like that. It's also got, they've a cool feature that the reason it does this is because back in the old days in Old West when they were riding on horses, guys used to love to use it because when you cracked it open like this how all the shells would pop out and they would or you could just pull them out really quick, so this is a, this is a feature that not a lot of six-shooters had. You're used to seeing the little door open up on the side, you got to do it. Well, when they were riding horses and you can just, yep, there you go, they pop out just like that, you are good to go. So, this was something, this is one of the reasons they loved it and this is a gun has it right here so cool this is one of those cool features we've seen this before in some of these replicas BB guns, but yet they've got, that they've got the realistic looking bullets here. You put, the you put the BB in there in the end and then you get to load it just like this and then when you shoot, cock and shoot, the hammer works just like a real single-shot revolver, the cylinder moves when you cock and move to the other different BB, you got six shots and then you reloaded and, of course.
Let's take a look here. So, you load it, very simple, crack it open, just take these, take the bullets out here, and I call them bullets because they are genuinely replica bullets, but, you know, it's loaded up just like this. There's two ways to do it. Some people do it like this. I prefer to do it like this, just pick them up, just like that boom, boom, you know, get organized, snap them down just like that, and you are good to go. Big clicks up like this, did you go a little bit further, it goes down so then you can just drop them in like that just in case you're worried about dropping and, you know, you lose them you're kind of SOL, so make sure you hold on to your bullet. So, you actually can't shoot the BB, so of course this is the co2 powered revolver. It's got your got your tool right there so, you know, you pop it in there your co2 cartridge, tighten it up, handler goes back on, and you are good to go now. Now that it has the BB’s in it, it is ready to go, so if you pull that hammer back and fire, it's going to shoot.
Let's just look and see what kind of feet per second. I think they're saying like 450 or something like that. 233. 233. 226. 215. Alright, so there you go, so you're mid 200s, 213, 192, so that actually dropped off quite a bit. I could be low on on air right now. I've been shooting a lot of that, I had a show down there at high noon earlier, dance, and I was getting to the end of my co2 cylinder, so I just put a fresh one in. Let's take a look one more time, see we got. 364. So, there you go, right out of the gate, you're gonna get, you know, mid to high 300s, as you lose the co2, you're gonna get, that's probably at this point, I'd say one twenty twenty-five shot, that co2 starts to touch, start to diminish and just going to get hit, it looks like mid to low two hundreds. So, we got some targets. I mean, listen, guys, this is a pistol. It's a six-shooter. It's a BB gun so you're gonna be close. You get to work on your speed. I mean, I got some targets there, but you know what I want to work on is is it speed, how quiet, how fast can I can I draw and shoot. You can't fan the gun. There's no, even if you hold down the trigger like that, you can't move the hammer which is kind of annoying. I really like to fan the gun. I'm not gonna lie to you, I like to just hold it where you hold the trigger fan and you just pull the pull the hammer back and go as fast you can so you can do that and there is a safety right here which obviously was not a part of the original gun. So, right here that's safety so then you can't can't cock it. If you can't cock it, you can't shoot it so you want to make sure that you're off the safety, but other than that, I mean, this is realistic, it's heavy, it's got good weight, you know, when I said, like I told you, you all you're wanted to, I don't want to do a spin and learn how to twirl, so here we go. Let's take the shot to see what kind of accuracy we got.
Not bad. You see this is the thing now, back, you know, these days everyone holds their gun like this, was a whole gripping back in the day and that was a one-handed shot mean you got to pull it out of your holster, you were to cock it like that and then you had to shoot and then you had to do it fast. Let’s see how fast I can do it. Ready? Son, are you kidding me? Let’s try that one more time, that was high and then you got a spinner up, go, yes, sir, gotta reload. So, I was having my showdown with that fool from earlier and trying to make him dance like a monkey, he was all screaming like he normally does, this is how I did that, I had to pull it out real quick right, get back, ha and then just cock and shoot, cock and shoot, and cock and shoot, and cock and shoot, and cock and shoot, and cock and shoot, like that and he was dancing. I might have hit him in the foot cuz I'm not that good of an aim, cuz it's kinda hard to shoot this thing, I'll be honest, but I got six shots. Gotta reload the old skulls with number three. I'll tell you, it'd be nice to have an original one right the back of the day. I think 18 has are in 1877 right up in the day, pretty cool. So here we go, see would you say if I can just aim and shoot. Alright, here we go.
Alright, guys, so go to pyramydair.com, get you a Schofield number 3, and show me your spinning and twirling and holster and techniques. I want to see what you got, see if you got what I think I've got, you let me tell you something, they're only 100 bucks so everybody should have one. Alright, thanks for watching the Pyramyd Outsyder.
Tyler is always combing through the comment section for questions and YouTube user Coinhound had several good questions about scopes. Keep those questions coming. You never know when we will make a video answer!
Video Transcript Below:
Welcome to the Pyramyd Insyder, I’m Tyler Patner. Today's video is gonna be on a viewer comment. Today's comment comes from Coin Hound 4, let's check it out. Coin Hound says, “I would like to see an in-depth video on zeroing scopes. What is the best distance to 0? What happens out past that distance and before the set 0 distance? Can you use a rifle scope on a PCP? How long will the scope last on the springer? Should the scope you mount it as close to the gun as possible? How about scopes with bells and whistles, when are they needed and when are they a waste of money? A lot of questions in there. Let's get into it.
Short answer here, yes, you can use a rifle scope on a PCP. We're probably talking about centerfire rifle scopes here so the thing to consider is that a centerfire scope doesn't have a parallax adjustment in some cases, and if it does oftentimes they only go down to 25 or 50 yards, so you have to be concerned about what the minimum distance requirement you need to get a clearer image of your target is, so make sure that you get a scope that has a parallax adjustment that accommodates that. It's going to depend on so many factors that it's going to make it impossible to answer a hundred percent of the time. That said, there are some things to consider when you are buying a scope for a spring piston or gas piston gun. So, the first thing to consider here is the warranty. You want to make sure that the manufacturer warranties the scope if it does break or have a problem when used on a spring piston or gas piston rifle too. You want to make sure that it's a scope that is obviously rated for use on a spring piston or gas piston rifle. Most scopes are. They say airgun rated or spring rated or something like that on the manufacturers website. Just to give you guys an idea, Leapers, Athlon, Hawk, and Mantas scopes that Pyramyd Air sells are all going to be spring piston and gas piston rated.
The last thing to consider is the amount of money you're spending. Okay, you get what you pay for, you spend a little bit more money, you're gonna get a better quality scope built on a better chassis that's hopefully going to last longer. Is that a guarantee? Of course not. Any spring piston or gas piston gun has the capability to break just about any scope you put on it, but spending a little bit more money means better quality which means you're going to have a better life expectancy.
So, this is another very opinionated question here. So, for a bell and whistle, what I consider a bell or a whistle might not be what you consider one. That's okay. For me, I'm gonna take this a little bit different direction. Let's talk about the things that I think are absolutely necessary on an air rifle scope. So, number one is going to be a parallax adjustment of some sort. Now we have an adjustable objective here on this Leapers UTG. You also have side parallax adjustment where it's on that little side turret which is a bit more convenient in my opinion, but you're gonna spend a little bit more money to get it. Either way, I want a scope that has an adjustable parallax down to 10 yards so I can resolve an image, make it nice and clear from 10 yards and out. Another thing that I consider an essential feature is a mil dot or some other type of holdover reticle. So, I really prefer it, some people may not, but for me a mil dot or something with hash marks, something is going to be really essential for a lot of what I do with air guns, because I want to be able to shoot at various distances without having to actually click adjust my point of impact. If I had to think about some bell and whistle type features that really aren't essential to me something like a turret locking mechanism like we have on this Leapers UTG scope right here, that actually stops your turrets from adjusting so they don't get bumped or something like that. It's a nice feature. Is it an essential? Not for me, might be for you though. The other one is an illuminated reticle feature. A lot of people like them, but it's also very underutilized so really depends on what you're doing with your gun and scope combo, you know, whether you're using it in low light or some situation where you might need that, but again something that could be considered a bell and whistle, but it's also found commonly on a lot of scopes, but is it essential, I don't know, that's up to you.
So, I'm gonna split this into two parts here in terms of what the best distance to zero at. It's a hundred percent dependent on what you're doing with your gun in your scope so if you know that you got a bird feeder in the backyard that you got some pests they keep attacking or something like that at 20 yards zero your gun at 20 yards. Guys, it's really simple in that kind of scenario, but if you know that you're shooting at multiple distances, what I often recommend is that people zero the gun for the apex of their trajectory. Now that's also a factor of not just your pellet and your velocity and things like that, but your scope height as well so before we head out to the range and show you what your trajectory looks like passed and before your zero point, we also want to show you guys what the impact of having your scope mounted either closer or further away from the centerline of the boar means which is Coin Hound’s last question. So, to do that before we head out to the range, I'm going to introduce you to my Walther LG 300. Now this is a 10-meter gun. It's only shooting about 580 feet per second with an 8.4 gram pellet so very, very slow, but we're gonna go ahead, I just mounted this Hawk Air Max 34 216 scope on it, we're gonna go out and get it zeroed on camera for you guys, show you that process, and then we'll go ahead and shoot it closer and further than our zero point, and show you what kind of impact that this two-inch scope height has on the trajectory.
First thing we're gonna do without touching our scope adjustments, let's go ahead take a shot here. Now you want to hold dead center on the bolt, okay, so you can see we won't weigh the heck off to the right and just a touch high, so we're gonna go ahead and dial in our up adjustment here, and that looks about right, and now we're gonna go ahead and crank it all the way over now. We'll see if we have enough adjustment to compensate in laymen's terms. Sighting in your scope is just matching your point of aim to your point of impact. Almost there. Alright, so you'll notice how we are now dead on our last shot which is exactly what you want to do and we don't even have to use our target. We can actually use that point if we want to because theoretically we should be able to put it through the same hole. What do you know? Perfect. Alright, so now that we've made our adjustment here, over to our original point of impact, we're gonna go ahead and recenter everything and take another shot, and we should be very, very close, if not dead center, pretty much dead on, maybe a tad left. We can always adjust out for that. We'll take another one just to verify and right through the same hole, pretty satisfied with that zero.
Alright, so now we're gonna see what our pellet does at our closest distance of 10 yards. Let's take a look. Alright, so about two mil dots low there and again just off to the left right about that second mil dot so we know that if we want to hit dead center on the target, we need to be two mil dots below the sign. Alright, so now we've got our target out at forty yards here, so just to give you an idea of what the trajectory looks like all the way out at 40, take a shot and see. So, you can see that's about three mil dots down, just off to the left. I'm not very concerned with the right left, but you can see that's a much more pronounced trajectory out at distance than we had at that 10 yard target. Let's take another one just to see what happens here and again just a little bit lower there, but still right around that third mil dot, so again you can see how much more pronounced the trajectory is here out of distance as opposed to 10 yards. 40 yards is quite a blaze further for a gun that's only shooting about 600 feet per second.
So, with our Hawk Air Max 30 mounted, it's got a 15 millimeter bail, so we have to use high rings to make sure it clears the barrel. That puts us at about a two-inch scope height so that's what we're gonna use here. The red line at zero represents the centerline of your scope so because of that two-inch scope height, we do create an apparent rise as we shoot so with our 25-yard zero and our two inch bore height, we're hitting about a half inch low at ten yards and you'll notice as we start to get further out in our trajectory, we're right around fifteen yards. We hit what we call our flat spot or the apex of our trajectory. That's that top end of the pellets path and it produces a very flat area so if we were gonna translate this to a target, we're basically going to be zeroed from about 15 all the way out to the back end of our flat spot at around 25 yards before we start to experience any drop. Now you guys can see that once we get to that 25-yard point in the back end of our zero distance the pellet drops pretty dramatically. After this at 40 yards, we're experiencing about two and three-quarter inches of drop which is pretty significant. That's a lot of compensation you're gonna have to do and as you guys saw about three mil dots in our scope.
So, to illustrate what increasing the scope height would do to our setup here, you can see with a 4-inch scope height we would actually hit our apex around the same 20-25 yard point, but it's a much shorter distance that we're zeroed at now, so we're with a two inch scope height we had a nice flat spot from about 15 to 25 yards now we only had that flat spot from about 21 out to 25-26 yards so it's a much shorter area that our guns going to be zeroed at. You can see how much more compensation we have to do on the short end leading up to the apex of our trajectory. The benefit of that higher mounted scope though is that we have a much less pronounced drop-off past our zero distance, so if you're doing a lot more long-range shooting, a higher mounted scope may actually benefit you where you're going to have to compensate a lot less where it counts at further distances.
Alright, guys that about wraps it up for this look at scopes today. Hopefully, it answered some questions you guys might have had. Coin Hound, thank you for submitting the question. We had a lot of fun doing this video here and putting everything together. For the Insyder, I’m Tyler Patner, we'll see you guys at the next one. Thanks for tuning in to today's video. Hit us with the like and subscribe down below, feel free to leave a comment if you so desire, and tune in for the next one. We'll see you guys then.
The Air Bolt by Air Venturi is a revolutionary, patent-pending ammunition system that transforms your .35 caliber PCP air rifle into a powerful archery tool!
Air Venturi Air Bolt .35 Caliber Video Transcript:
M.: Hey Tyler.
TP: What's up?
M.: They're here.
Tyler: No, they're here? Let's go dude. Thanks, that's good. Todd they're here! Yeah oh, that's alright we'll do it later. That's nice I'm working on one myself. Yeah we'll talk later. Oh boy, oh boy, oh yeah, .35 Cal Air Bolts.
Alright guys, if you couldn't tell by my excitement, the .35 cal Air Bolts are here, they are ready to go, and we obviously have a smattering of .35 cal rifles to test them in, so we are gonna break it down across the board, we are gonna shoot just about everything we can get our hands on and see how these bolts perform in all of our .35 cal offerings. So real quick before we talk about some of the guns we're gonna shoot it in, let's check out the bolt itself. Now the .35 cal Air Bolt is obviously you can tell, a little bit different from the .50 caliber bolt but does share many of the same features. We do still have to knock at the back with that O-ring on there, and of course when we go ahead and load it we're gonna want to keep it greased up with some silicone grease or some silicone lube, either one's gonna be fine. It'll just keep that O-ring nice and preserved for the life of the bolt there. So moving up, this is where we get into the departure from the .50 caliber bolt. This is our, it's almost a Velcro-like stabilizer here at the back, and really that's just helping keep the bolt stable in flight, we don't actually need it to create any spin or anything like that. That is all happening being imparted from the barrel on the nock itself. This is just creating some extra drag there in the barrel and obviously in flight as well. You guys will also notice that we have this yellow band on there, that's how you know it's a .35 cal, so the yellow colored ones are gonna be the .35s, the box will also have the yellow labeling on it to let you know that you're buying .35 cal bolts, and again they come in six packs just like the .50s.
Just like the .50, we have a full carbon layup shaft here on our bolts and it's a 23-inch overall length that does come into play for the barrel length to the rifle. You're gonna want at least a 21-22 inch barrel somewhere in there, if it's shorter than that like some of the Ebonics guns, you're simply not going to get good enough accuracy out of it. But overall, carbon fiber 23 inches that's what you guys need to know, and we still have that nice aluminum insert at the front that's gonna help you know when it's seated. We do have a hundred grain field point here, and obviously can be replaced with any standard broadhead, although the fit on some of these rifles is gonna be a little tricky with some of the shrouded guns, but we'll talk about that here later. Overall weight on this guy's 375 grains with that 100 grain tip, so obviously a pretty stout heavy bolt that is going to hopefully give us a lot of good energy downrange. Now in terms of loading I wanted to actually show you guys how to load these, because the .35s are a little bit different than the .50s and that we have some rifles that actually do have shrouded barrels that makes loading these a little bit tricky, but I'll show you what the easy ones are.
Now moving to the Recluse here, we have our single tube model here, obviously also comes in a double tube variant, and you notice that we do have a nice quiver mount that actually will allow you to mount a bipod on this guy as well. Holds up to I think six or eight arrows on this quiver, a really nice unit obviously, and slaps right on there, doesn't add too much weight so you have them readily available, easy to access, pretty cool little unit. And that's gonna fit on the single and the double tube versions as well. But showing you guys how to load this, so we're just gonna take one of our bolts, very simple to do, you're just gonna insert it, this is just like the .50 here we're just gonna insert and push. Alright it's really really easy, now there's the last little bit that's kind of tricky, and obviously for those of you that are gonna be putting broadheads on this we wanted to make something that would make broadhead installation, as well as insertion into the guns, easy and safe, that's the big one. So Air Venturi created a broadhead wrench that's actually going to allow you not only to properly install a broadhead into the insert, but also insert the bolt into the gun without getting your fingers in the way. So it works like this, you simply place it over the top of the bolt. Go ahead and push it on down, and then one little tip I like to take the back end of the wrench, press it on, you can do this whether you have a broadhead or the traditional fuel point like we have here, and just push it down till it's fully seated, you're all good to go. So that's the relatively easy installation on the Recluse guns, they're gonna be super easy to load in any unshrouded gun with you know a 23-24 inch barrel is going to be no problem at least again 21-22 inches is what you're gonna want to be shooting for, at least on that barrel length. But super easy to load the unshrouded guns, moving over to a shrouded gun like this Benjamin Bulldog here. I'm actually really excited to shoot these bolts out of this Bulldog because obviously Benjamin has the Pioneer air bow and I am very curious to see how this compares with the bolts, compared to the velocities and the energies that the air bow puts out, and obviously being able to shoot a couple different types of ammunition is really cool in my opinion so. We're gonna go ahead and load it up the same way. You're just going to go ahead and in to knock in. Now you do have to kind of feel so I would recommend not just going ahead and shoving that in there. You're gonna go ahead and slowly insert and you'll feel when it catches the barrel. Then we're gonna just gonna push it down nice and slow there, now you can use the broadhead wrench, but here's the kicker, once you get past the shroud opening you're gonna have no way to continue to seat it, so what I would tell you to do you can either get a doll rod you can even like use a hollow pen or something like that. I just like to take the other end of the Air Bolt, you take that nock end and you just go ahead and push it until it seats flush and you are good to go, ready to shoot. So pretty easy to do but again you're probably going to want to keep something on you if not another Air Bolt to make loading into those shrouded guns a little bit easier. I am very sad to report that this is not gonna be a really good option for the AirForce Texan. Now obviously this was the one I was hoping that it was going to shoot out of the best. Reason being you have a 23 inch bolt in a 34 inch barrel, so we have a whole bunch of dead space there and the valve doesn't, the valve requires that back pressure from a pellet or a slug being loaded right there to keep the valve open long enough to actually push that projectile out with any serious force. So this Air Bolt, when you can get this to actually fire out of it, is only producing about a hundred to 150 feet per second, it's not even making it to a target at 30 yards, so sadly for those of you with a full-length AirForce Texan in .357, that's not gonna be a good option for that .35 cal Air Bolt. Alright guys now that we've gotten the specifics out of the way, let's head out to the range, get you some velocity numbers, some power figures, and see how accurate these bad boys are. Let's head out.
Alright guys, so let's wrap this up. Looking at all of the guns in terms of how they shot as a whole, you're looking at the most energies out of your single tube Recluse and your dual tube Recluse, obviously with a single tube being a little bit more powerful due to the fact that it has a heavier hammer. But it doesn't have as much air capacity so you're not going to get as many good shots per fill out of it. That's netted over 215 foot-pounds of energy, it is slinging these arrows at some real speed with some real power and under an inch at 30 yards for 3 shots you're not getting a whole heck of a lot better than that, so that's gonna take the top spot. Obviously got the dual tanked Recluse after that, with similar accuracy just not as much energy. The surprise one for me was the Hatsan, you know coming in at about a hundred and forty foot pounds almost, and very accurate, three-quarters of an inch at 30 yards, but the gun’s super bulky and quite frankly not one I would take into the field. That's where that Benjamin Bulldog comes in, I like from a carrying perspective, that gun is a lot more friendly. You know with the shrouded barrel it's not quite as loud and still plenty of smackdown with a 121 foot-pounds. And for those of you guys that are just looking to, you know, have a little bit more fun or even produce you know similar to compound bow energies out of your gun, the Atamans sling them pretty well in terms of accuracy in just over an inch right around 300 feet per second means about 70 foot-pounds which you can expect out of a whole lot of compound bows, and certainly even some crossbows out there. So definitely really impressive numbers out of the Air Bolt across the board on a lot of these guns and some really big energies out of those Recluses.
Alright guys, so to wrap things up today I think you guys have probably at least at this point see why I was so excited about these .35 cal Air Bolts. They are so versatile, a ton of guns you could shoot them in. You're talking about like 70 foot-pounds in the Ataman all the way up to 230 plus foot-pounds out of the Recluse, so very very impressive numbers overall, and obviously it's got the accuracy to boot, everything pretty much shot at an inch or so for three shots at 30 yards, so this is going to get it done, not only in the field but if you want to shoot targets with it, whatever you want to do, these .35 cal Air Bolts are gonna give you the option to do that. One thing I will mention though, these little knocks on the back, we damaged a ton of them because these things are so accurate they just keep shooting right into one another, so definitely keep that in mind. I wouldn't shoot two at the same target if you can help it. Thanks for joining us today for the video guys on these .35 caliber Air Bolts, check them out on pyramydair.com when you guys get a chance. For the Insyder, I'm Tyler Patner, see you guys the next one.
Thanks for tuning into today's video guys checking out these badass .35 cal Air Bolts. Definitely make sure you check out this brand new quiver setup and the mount set up for the Recluse and the Dragon Claw on Pyramyd Air when you guys get a second. In the meantime though, go ahead and hit that like button, subscribe to the channel to see more awesome videos, check out our .50 cal Air Bolt video, and don't forget to comment down below, we want to know what you guys think.
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