Page 2 - Beeman P3 Reviews

The gun is very accurate!

It is difficult to load until you get use to it.

It takes some effort to cock it. I have a pad on my bench and I put the gun on it and press the shroud down. Watch your fingers and hands it will pinch you if careless,

Great shooting pistol. Accurate, easy to shoot and just plain fun... Even the 12 year old grandson likes shooting this pistol!!

A way to do multiple pellets??

Lots of power..

I have owned/shot many airguns over the years - including this one. Now that I'm past the every other week buy/trade/sell/tinker phase or whatever it is....I find myself re-arming my 'airsenal' with guns I really liked a lot. The "real deal" HW40/P3 is one of them! Bang for the buck paper punching and plinking air pistol ready to go out of the box - other than check it out, clean bbl and/or some slight sight/trigger adjustments - this one is it IMO. With a 3 MOA red-dot sight on top from seated/rested position I can keep 'em dime sized 5 shot groups at 45 feet.

Nothing really to change for me - others may add a longer bbl, do some grip mods, etc. and that's ok too.

Top quality air pistol! Have always liked Beeman imports and this pistol is no exception. It's accuracy is great and the trigger is excellent! Weirauch is legendary for top shelf guns. Also a great value. As always, Pyramyd Air is what's going on!

nuthin!

Can't go wrong with this pistol!

Its the Trigger,after owning many Pistols this has it all ! Great Balance with Match Trigger and Match accuracy for around $200.00 ! Bought mine Refurb. w/Fiber Optic sights and will never need to scope this Great Shooting Pistol ! Thanks Again to PA !

Nothing !

Holding against your knee to cock will make it much easier !

After much consideration, decided to step up from the Beeman P17 (MIC) to the Beeman P3 (MIG by Weihrauch). The P3 overall has a better build, a better finish and a more solid feel in the hand. Components are machined stainless steel (sears, springs, pins, hammer, cams, valve parts) and the external trigger, safety and over lever lock parts are aluminum. Hammer, sears and cams have very squared and trued contact surface areas that provide smooth interactions and increase reliability. Out-of-the-box, the excellent precision 2-stage trigger has a 1st stage 6oz-1\2" adjustable pull, with a crisp break-like-glass 2nd stage set at 15oz...Nice! The P3 and P17 shoot about the same velocity and have similar accuracy (possibly P3 a slight hair better). Both have 15oz triggers (P3 2-stage, my P17 single stage-after mod), both sears break like glass, both handle almost identically, both have excellent accuracy and both load pellets - compress pneumatics (over lever pump) equally!

The P3 safety selector "on my unit" is very stiff and requires a lot of effort to take off safety...gotten use to it now, but could be made easier.

When I don't pull a round, with the iron sights I was able to quickly zero in my POA and readily shoot 10 yard 5-shot cloverleaf groupings within a .250 spread (RWS Hobby 7.0g WCs)! The exterior texture finish is rugged and tactile and grip ergonomics is near perfect. Overall weight is well balanced and the pistol has a solid feel in the hand. When I don't pull a round, with the iron sights I was able to quickly zero in my POA and readily shoot 10 yard 5-shot cloverleaf groupings within a .250 spread (RWS Hobby 7.0g WCs)! IMHO, if your wanting\needing the extra durability the P3 offers, or possibly the reliability\longevity it may bring, even though it appears at this time to be a relative equal in the accuracy department, then 7X the investment certainly could be worth it! However, if you want\need to be frugal with your air gun investment, willing to put in the time and effort to tinker-repair-upgrade-mod a P17 (if\when needed), then this option is certainly also woth it!

ACCURATE! Fun to shoot, trigger is phenomenal

No need for a fake slide release or magazine ejector

Loading a pellet takes some getting used to but it's a breeze after a day or two, I can load wadcutters without looking or fumbling around. The trick is setting the edge of the pellet's head in the bore and tipping it into place. I'm shooting RWS Meisters and at 10 yards with the open sights I can usually make a nice clover. I have no regrets about spending the extra money on this as opposed to the Chinese version

I gave away my P3 a few years back because my P 17 seemed every bit as good, which in most ways it is. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But I still missed that extra edge of accuracy and feel I get from a P3. I have an HW 75 and several beautiful custom Crosman CO2 pistols for target shooting, and a CP 88 and a Beretta XX Treme for fun. It was gnawing at me to get another P 3. Really glad I did. For fun, skill and accuracy it falls right in between my higher end skill guns and the replica repeaters. It is simply one the best non-competition competition-grade airguns ever created.

I have always had an issue with the extreme smoothness of the grip. Although it feels good in the hand, I could never really get firm and stable purchase. I bought some grip tape and took some time to apply it on those areas where the key parts of my hand need to feel stable and firm. Worked wonders. Grip tape costs about $4. Cocking the gun is still somewhere between not too, too bad and ridiculous. Because of the awkwardness when trying to get leverage, I don't think it would be hard to dislodge the night sights plastic. But if that is the price for such simplicity, accuracy, and no CO2, I can live with that, easily.

Very pleased with this pellet pistol. The quality and construction is far superior to the P-17. The accuracy and performance is well worth the money. If you didn' t know this was a pellet gun you would swear it was a real gun because of the quality and weight.

Had a little issue with the screw and nut holding the rear site to the gun, as it vibrated off after about 25 shots. I secured the nut with super glue and no problems since.

Don't waste you money on the cheaper pistols, they really are not worth it... If you want a pellet gun, paying the little extra is well worth the investment.

Sweet pistol. Hard hitting, accurate, solid pistol. A great value. Clean design, great sights. I really enjoy plinking around in the back yard with it. I like the safety feature after cocking.

For the price...nothing

If you are just getting into air gunning, get this pistol. You can't go wrong.

My wife and I are Bullseye competitors and were looking for practice using air pistol. Finally, effective in July 2015, rifled air guns were removed from Michigan's definition of a firearm. We purchased a Beeman P3 (HW 40) fabricated in Germany and, in spite of difficulty cocking it, found it to have a great fit (most important for accurate shooting) and a set of wonderful fiber-optic sights. Accuracy is sufficient for practice. We purchased a second P3. The Chinese copy (P17) is a knock off. To facilitate cocking, my wife built a fixture using hardwood we had on hand. The fixture has a groove 135 mm long, 13 mm high (more would be better, but that is the thickness of the wood) and with a gap of 18.8 mm. One places the loaded P3 upside down on the groove and one can then press downward to cock - easier than the alternatives. I also crafted a cocking fixture from a stack of old mouse pads with a cutout portion for the rear sight.

It would have been nice to have a Picatinny (1913) rail to facilitate mounting red-dot sights. Loading is not easy because of too little space near breach. Provide a way to submit pictures.

One should pay the extra fee to have the pistol tested so that you and Pyramyd know it works, and is what you ordered. PCP might be next, but not without a way to evaluate the actual fit of the choices. I have three .jpg pictures showing cocking fixture and its use, but site does not provide a means to attach pictures.

I was wanting an accurate and quiet pistol for whacking troublesome varmints in the yard and got more than I was hoping for with this pistol. I've found Crow Magnum pellets to shoot most excellent through it (1/2" or less at 10m) and regardless of the "3-Medium" loudness rating I can't imagine a gun being much quieter. Too me it sounds remarkably comparable to what you get when you crack open a can of your favorite carbonated beverage.

I'm not a fan of automatic safeties, nor dummy features attempting to make an airgun look like a firearm - such as the dummy slide lock, ejection ports, and compensator. This is still a pretty nice looking pistol though.

If you have big, fat, sausage-fingers you may have trouble loading pellets in this thing. Otherwise it's pretty easy once you figure out how to hold the pellet before inserting.

Very accurate. 11mm dovetail for red dot. Excellent trigger

Nothing

I bought two P13 Chinese knockoffs that lasted less than 200 rounds. Sent back to Crossman. Paid shipping. Lasted less than 100 shots. Finally broke down and bought the real thing. So far so good. Pricey but if it holds up I will be more than satisfied. Don't listen to those that tell you you can get the same quality for under $50. Not true. I spent over $100 on two duds. Hope this on last a long time then it will be worth it

Oustanding trigger, excellent sights, simple single-stroke operation.

The product deserves a better manual. That's my only complaint.

I owned an IZH, and while it has several advantages over the P3, it also costs more than twice as much. The P3's trigger is just as good IMHO, and it delivers more accuracy than I'm capable of a at off-hand shooting. Very, very satisfied with this purchase.

The trigger and the accuracy. Well made gun that feels good in your hand.

Nothing

This gun is hard to pressurize, but you get accustom to it.

It has a great feel, is accurate and has a really good trigger.

The sights and grips are really good, but a finer front sight and target grips put this gun over the top.

I bought this pistol to work on my pistol craft without using up my dwindling supply of non-replaceable rim-fire ammunition. This gun fills that need. It shoots well, the trigger is light but crisp and the gun has a good size and heft to it. The gun is well made. It is not really hard to cock or load, and I usually shoot it for a couple of hours at a time. I think it will be going strong when my grandson inherits it, hopefully a long time from now.

The accuracy is pretty amazing. The trigger, light and smooth. The 410 fps rating is sufficient for target or game IMO. I'm a 1-pump airgun shooter so I like that and have never considered any other type. The fiber optic sights are superior on any pistol and they are on this one too.

It doesn't need changing but be careful cocking it - keep your cocking hand flat to keep the action from getting some of your skin. I've read some don't like the safety on the left side and I disagree - it's in the perfect place to take off with my weak-hand thumb...which is where I put my thumb when I shoot anyway.

When I ordered the P3 it was on back order so I also ordered the P17 and got it about a month before I got the P3. Appearance and functionally they are really close to the same. The biggest difference that I noticed is that the safety is easier to set off on the P17 - the P3 takes a little more force and a "click" which may be a good thing. Other than that, both pistols are quite good so far. The P3 is German-built and the P17 is a Chinese copy, but a decent one as far as I can tell for the person on a budget - $240 vs. $40 is a big deal. Common sense tells me that the P3 is superior - we'll see how the P17 holds up but so far it's doing the job.

Accuracy wise it was just super. It will happily put 5 rounds in a group the size of a nickel, and probably better. Notice I said it will, not "I can". Right now my goal is just putting all 5 in the black. It is surprising how much harder it is for me to see the front sight indoors as opposed to outside in the sunshine. The pellets I ordered are Crosman premier light. They are $26 dollars for 1250. If you order three boxes the fourth is free. There are cheaper pellets, but with with cost of .22 LR these days what the heck? I am frankly kind of fired up about my new pistol. It looks like it will give me good feedback on my trigger control and sight picture. And, I can practice in the comfort of my home rain or shine.

It does take a little time to load, but that's probably a good thing, as it made me slow down rather than just plink away. The trigger doesn't reset after you break the shot, so that's kind of a bummer.

I recently ordered a Beeman P3 air pistol. A retired Fish and Wildlife officer friend of mine had brought me a stack of old Shotgun News magazines. The articles by Tom Gaylord had got me thinking about an air pistol that I could shoot indoors. Tom is in the employ of an outfit called Pyramyd Air. I understand that the P17 is a Chinese made copy of the P3 and a bargain to boot. That's all well and good, but frankly I was willing to pay more for the P3, as it is made by Weihrauch in Germany. Besides that, Pyramyd Air was sold out of P17's. 8) I set up a 10 meter "range" in a upstairs hall using a wooden target holder with a putty backstop. I placed the target on an old milkcrate and set a piece of scrap blandex against the wall, just in case. In the target holder I placed a sheet of 10 meter air rifle targets. What a hoot! The P3 is a fun little pistol. It seems to be modeled after some generic polymer pistol. To fire it you pull the "hammer" back to release the "slide". The slide hinges at the muzzle, and after levering it forward you can place a .177 cal pellet in the breech end of the barrel. Then after pressing the slide back down you can fire the pistol. There is a safety above the trigger that is applied automatically. The pistol comes with fiber optic adjustable sights. I blacked out the rear fiber dots. It was difficult for me to focus on the front sight with all those dots shining at me. The trigger is quite good. Two stage and it broke at 1 pound and 6 ounces on my Lyman trigger scale.

Accuracy, accuracy, and more accuracy: Thanks to top quality construction and a phenomenal trigger this little pistol shoots groups that fit under a dime. If I fire five shots, at least two of them are going through the same hole and the rest are touching or very close. I estimate that this pistol is more accurate than I am… and, I am the author of the book rexGun. She’s a shooter! In the era of polymer weaponry this little air pistol is a joy. Yes, it is made (externally) entirely of ultra-modern high-tech polymers. That keeps weight to a minimum and also means that the external of the pistol can be handled frequently without concern of rust or corrosion. All internals are solid and metal.

These Beeman pistols are long since out of production (to my knowledge) and as such they come with old seals. Put a new breach seal in upon purchase and you will not be disappointed with this pistol.

The P3 and the P17 are not comparable: The P3 is a superb piece of German shooting excellence while the P17 is… Not! Beeman Kodiak pellets are great for this pistol. My accuracy results are using copper plated Kodiak pellets.

I’ve just received the pistol, tried it, and want to share my first impression. Very nice pistol for average and large hand. I read a lot of complains that it’s hard to cock and load, but in my opinion cocking is easy enough (at least for average male) and loading pellets is not an issue at all. The pistol feels very comfortable in hand, shoots precisely right from the box. Trigger is next to perfect – you feel it, but it doesn’t require any sufficient force to overcome before a shoot. Very good bright fiber optics front and rear sights, clearly seen even without bright lighting. It looks like the pistol is powerful enough for 10m target shooting, although the pellets don’t dive into a wooden bar (I was shooting it from 5m).

Maybe it’s just my first excitement, but I don’t see anything I don’t like with the pistol. OK, I wouldn’t argue if it was more powerful, but for this size it doesn’t seem to be possible to do.

The pistol is for target shooting, it might be not strong enough to kill even a mouse.