An
inexpensive match gun, the Daisy 853 Today there's a tremendous variety of air guns available, ranging from $10 spring guns that shoot BBs or pellets at 180 fps to pneumatic guns firing 9 mm (and larger) lead bullets at well over 1200 fps, developing energy well into the .22LR range and beyond. The great majority of modern airguns are powered by springs and fire a .177 or .22 caliber pellet between 500 and 1000 feet per second, developing energies in the range of 5 to 20 foot pounds. That's not much, considering that even the lowly .22 short develops around 80 foot pounds of energy, but it's more than enough for a variety of target sports and even hunting small game.
Let's start out with a discussion of the kinds of airgun powerplants that are used today.
Spring air guns can be as simple as a BB gun or as complex as a recoilless match air rifle. They can be simple, low powered guns or high-power rifles developing 30+ ft/lb of energy. In one modern design (Theoben) the coil spring is replaced by a gas strut containing air or nitrogen under pressure. Vortek, of Farmington Hills, Michigan, briefly marketed a similar gas-strut system, some of which may still be found on the used market.
Spring air guns generally develop a significant of recoil from the action of the movement of the piston, but it is possible to produce a recoilless spring air gun. One system, pioneered by Feinwerkbau in their 300B series of match rifles allows the entire action to slide on a set of rails. When the gun is fired, the barrel and action are allowed to slide rearward under recoil, while the stock remains motionless. This system is also used to RWS and Air Arms in some of their rifles. The other system, pioneered by RWS/Diana, uses two pistons moving in opposite directions to cancel out recoil. However, careful balancing and tuning of spring size and transfer port size and shape, combined with spring dampening compounds and devices, can drastically reduce recoil in a standard spring gun.
Pneumatics are also generally much nosier than spring-air guns, as a much larger volume of gas is released along with the pellet. This noise can be reduced via external or built in silencers.
Pump Pneumatics
In pump pneumatic guns the shooter works a lever or piston to compress air into a reservoir. On firing, a hammer kicks a valve open and releases some or all of the air from the reservoir into the barrel. Pump pneumatics come in two basic varieties- single stroke, which require only one stroke of a lever to fill the reservoir, and multi-stroke models, which require multiple strokes to fill the reservoir.
Single stroke pneumatics range from a few inexpensive Daisy and Crosman guns up through expensive field guns like the Dragon and match guns like the RWS 100. Single stroke guns have the advantage of being quick to cock, efficient is their use of muscle energy, and having a high degree of consistency from shot to shot.
Multi-stroke pneumatics are generally found more at the lower end of the scale, ranging from around $30-$100 in price, though there are exceptions. Most are inexpensive guns from Daisy and Crosman, though there are the mid-priced guns from Sheriden and Beeman, slightly higher priced guns like the Sharp models from Japan, and unusual guns like the Korean Yeehwha shotgun. Multi stroke pneumatics offer higher power than single stroke guns, and the option of variable power as a varying number of strokes can be used to charge the gun. This is not necessarily an advantage, as trajectory changes radically with power level.
CO2 guns come in two varieties- those that use the small disposable CO2 cartridges, and those that are bulk-filled from a large tank. The guns using the disposable cartridges are again to be found mainly at the low of the price range, and include a number of inexpensive models from Daisy, Crosman and Marksman in the US, and a few other makers elsewhere in the world. The disposable cartridge gun is basically a US type, for the most part. Disposable cartridge guns today are found mostly at the low end, though there are some interesting guns to be had in the middle price range, most notable the new Crosman 10/77, a CO2 clone of the popular Ruger 10/22 rifle. In past years there was a wider variety of higher-power guns using disposable cartridges, including such oddities as the Crosman CO2 shotgun.
One nice feature of CO2 is that it will maintain a constant gas pressure (about 900psi at room temperature) as it transitions from a liquid to a gas. This makes complex pressure regulation unnecessary. The downside is that CO2 has a near-zero vapor pressure at cold temperatures, making guns that use CO2 suitable for indoor use only in colder weather. But in tropical climates it's great- there are some very interesting CO2 guns made in the Philippines (see below)
A side note: There are two different types of CO2 cartridges that have been used for BB and pellet guns. The older guns used a small cartridge developed originally for making seltzer at home. Later guns used a larger cartridge developed specifically for air arms that contains gas and often a bit of lubricant as well. Crosman and Daisy and a few other makers sell these.
Airsoft guns use compressed gas or springs to fire a soft plastic ball specifially designed to be relatively harmless if it strikes a person or object. They were originally conceived as realist looking toys for countries such as Japan where there is strong interest in firearms, but any and all firearms ownership by ordinary citizens is strictly prohibited.
Modern Air Soft guns come in a dizzying variety of styles, and many are indistiguishable from the real firearms they seek to imitate. Such guns have found a place in realistic training, and in paintball-type competition. However, because of their low energies and limited accuracy they have no use in hunting or serious target shooting. Many people collect Airsoft guns as an alternative to collecting actual arms that are unavailable owing to cost or legal restrictions; airsoft guns are available that are almost indistinguishable from a wide variety of common military and fully automatic weapons.
The Mexican maker Industrias Cabanas produced a range of guns that fire a .177 caliber lead ball propelled by a .22 blank cartridge. This is really neither a modern cartridge gun, a muzzleloader nor an air rifle, but it can fire the heavier types of pellets, so I suppose it is a pellet gun (though I believe the BATF calls it a firearm). At any rate, I have one, obtained by an FFL dealer for me from Mandall Shooting Supplies of Scottsdale, AZ, the sole importer, in the mid-1980s. Since acquiring mine I've periodically searched for another, but it appears that they are no longer made, at least by the maker of mine. I've managed to learn that Industrias Cabanas, S.A. in Aguilas, Mexico made them from 1949 to 1999, after which time the guns were no longer made.
All match rifles today are of recoiless design. While various recoiless spring designs dominated in the past, increasingly most guns are of the precharged pneumatic design. CO2 guns were very popular for a time, but CO2 is a bit more difficult to regulate accurate than compressed air. Single-stroke pneumatics were also popular for a long time, owing to their accuracy and lack of recoil, but like spring guns, cocking the guns created muscle strain that interfered with shooting.
10M guns all use calibrated peep sights; no optics or any sort are
allowed. There is an Olympic shooting sport in which telescopic sights
are allowed. It's called Running Boar, and involves shooting at a
rapidly moving target. The guns are similar to 10M guns, but use
longer, weighted barrels (to allow a smooth swing) with telescopic
sights.
An
inexpensive match gun, the Daisy 853
Field Target is traditionally a very relaxed and friendly competition, even at the international level, probably because there's absolutely no money in it.
Field Target guns come in a great variety of shapes and styles, but for purposes of competition are generally divided into two categories:
Field Target guns have to have more power than match guns to knock over metal targets. At the same time, they're limited to a maximum of 12 foot/pounds (Great Britain) or 18-20 foot pounts (US competitions) to prevent competitions from becoming a power race, and to prevent targets from getting too much punishment! Airguns in Great Britain are limited to a power of 12 ft/lbs unless one has a Firearms Certificate, so the limit there is practical as well.
While higher power guns have a flatter trajectory and should be easier to shoot an unknown distances, they're usually not quite as accurate as the lower-power guns. Most of the best spring gun shooters seem to use guns putting out around 10.5 ft/lbs.
Everyone uses telescopic sights in field target- at least, if they
want some chance of scoring. Scopes are used not only for sighting, but
for range finding. Scopes with adjustable-focus objectives can be used
to determine the distance to a target, and this distance can then be
used to either compute holdover or under, or to dial in correction into
the scope turret.
A lot of really bad advice has been distributed on spring gun maintenance, much of it originating from a major distributor of airguns. This company had the buyers of its guns pouring tons of uneccesary lubricants down barrels at $10-20 for a few grams of commonly available materials.
Back in the 1960s, when the typical spring air gun used a leather washer
to seal the piston, it was necessary to regularly add oil to the cylinder
to saturate the leather and keep it supple. Some of the oil would burn with
every shot, and some would be sprayed out, requiring replenishment.
The leading airgun writer of the time, Ladd Fanta, popularized the use of
silicone oils as a replacement for the hydrocarbon oils used before that
time. He also developed the technioque of using Dri-Slide to wash out the
existing lube and leave a trace of molybdinum disulfide in the chamber.
Robert Law, who was the only importer of a range of quality airguns at the time, marketed these products and also helped distribute information on care and tuning of spring airguns. In the 1970s, Robert Beeman entered the airgun business, and through a combination of aggressive marketing and exclusive dealerships with Law's major suppliers essentially put Law out of business. Beeman also began to aggresively market cleaning and lubrication products. Now by the time Beeman antered the market, leather pistoon seals were increasingly being replaced by synthetic seals, which don't absorb lube and don't need continual replenishment. But Beeman continued to recommended that all the guns he sold have their barrels washed with his private-branded version of Dri-Slide and be regularly dosed with silicone oil.
Luckily a number of individual tuners and independant importers were beginning
to emerge in the US market in the 1980s, and they started telling owners the
truth- that a properly lubricated spring gun is probably good for 10 years of
regular shooting with no internal lubrication at all! All that's needed is
an occasional wipe down with a cloth lightly dampened with a good polarized
oil, like Birchwood Casey "Sheath". (Beeman also sold an identical oil
mislabeled as "Non-polarizing Oil).
Some guns, like the HW guns Beeman sold under their name, can benifit from a
simple tuning, which involves cleaning any existing lube from the cylinder,
replacing it with a tiny amount of a silicone/moly paste (like
Jim Maccari's "tar") and adding a little silicone grease to the spring. But
many guns, like those from Air Arms, don't need any attention at all
unless you plan to do custom tuning for competition.
So if you have a spring air gun, ignore the "advice" to squirt silicone oil down the barrel every 500 pellets. Just give it the occasional wipe of Sheath, and after 10-20 years you can send it out for a stripdown and cleaning/lube, or do it yourself. You should clean the barrel from time to time to prevent excessive leading and maintain accuracy. I prefer a pull-though, non-metallic cleaning rod to prevent any wear at the muzzle. A number of the airgun vendors offer good barrel cleaning solvents. Just make sure you thoroughly dry the barrel before shooting the gun to avoid detonation of the residual oil in the gun. (Competitors have more complex cleaning and lubing rituals, some of which I may add in a later section)
First, do not apply any lubricants to the gun's seals except for Crosman CO2 gun oil!. Adding other oils will cause the O-rings to expand and result in a non-functional gun. Crosman's red-tinted oil is designed expressly for use in these guns. Most of these guns have very few steel parts (they're mainly zinc alloys) and don't require much attention to prevent rust. You don't need to lube the barrel as the tiny amount of oil in Crosman Powerlets keeps the barrel clean and oiled, though you might want to pull a brush and patch through occasionally.
See my airgun yard sale:
http://mind.dreamhost.com/airguns/sale.html
An airgun by itself isn't of much use. The first thing you need is a good selection of pellets. There are hundreds of pellets on the market in various shapes, sizes and weights. A good many of them are actually pretty useless. Many are bing prodused on machinery so old that the dies have become worn, and the pellets are oversized. Some are not appropriate for the guns they're being marketed for. One example is the Beeman Silver Jet, a delicate pointed pellet with fragile skirts designed for very low power pneumatic air guns 40 years ago. It should never be used in guns with more than 4-5 foot-pounds of energy.
Useful pellets can be divided into two groups: Flat nose (waycutter) pellets for target use, and round nose pellets for everything else. Flat nosed pellets are used for target shooting because they cut nice round holes in the target. That's it. Use them in target guns, or for informal target shooting with low-powered airguns.
Round nosed pellets have better aerodynamics for longer distance shooting. Keep in mind that Olympic air rifle competition takes place at only 10 meters; everything farther than that is long distance shooting in the world of air rifles! You can also buy hollow point pellets, which are supposed to expand better (they do not, at least at air gun energies), pointed pellets, which are supposed to penetrate better (they don't, and have poorer aerodynamics) and a host of other designs. Most hollow point pellets, like the Beeman SIlver Bear, are really just round nosed pellets as far as performance is concerned.
There are really only three factors your should consider in selecting pellets: Size, consistency from pellet to pellet, and weight. Size means more than just selecting the right caliber. Some pellets are undersized, which leads to blowby, which reduces accuracy and can damage high-power spring guns. Consistency leads to accuracy- you want each pellet to be like every other pellet. Weight influenced the transfer of energy from the gun to the pellet; for every gun, there is a weight of pellet that will provide the maximum every transfer, and a pellet weight that will produce the best accuracy.
Spring guns in particular are very sensitive to pellet weight. Too little, and the pellet will leave the barrel before it has transferred all its energy to the pellet. This results in the piston slamming against the front of the chamber, which in turn leads to poor accuracy, higher perceived recoil, and shorter piston seal and spring life. Too heavy a pellet leads to loss of power. The best way to select a pellet is to find out what other shooters are using, and use that as a place to start experimenting. That having been said, I (and others) have found that Crosman Premier pellets are among the most accurate and consistent pellets currently made. The .177 caliber pellets come in two weights, 7.9 and 10 grams, and one should suit most field guns from 10 to 18 foot-pounds. The .20 and .22 pellets are very good as well. Target shooters should look at the wadcutter pellets from RWS and HN, both of whom make wadcutters in different weights and levels of quality.
Most shooters will want to replace the stock open sights that come on most airguns with something that allows greater accuracy. Open sights are fine when you're shooting a .30-30 at something deer-sized at 50 yards, but when you're trying to put a .177" pellet in a .25" hole at 50 yards, as field target competitors do, you need better accuracy. Even plinkers appreciate better accuracy. Shooting asprin tablets at 30 yards requires great accuracy, too.
One alternative is to install a peep sight. I've used the Marble peep, designed for .22 rifles, on my R7, and it greatly improves accuracy. But most shooters prefer a scope for airguns. There are a wide variety of suitible scopes out there, from around $75 to well over a thousand dollars. While you can buy cheaper scopes, they're generally just not worth the money. A scope for airgun shooting must have two characteristics that distinguish it from firearms scopes: First, it must have its focus adjusted for use as close as 10 yards. Most firearms scopes can't be adjusted any closer than 25 or 50 yards. It's not just a matter of having a sharp image. If the target and the crosshairs aren't both in focus- that is, in the same focal plane- they're move with respect to each other, destroying accuracy. Good airgun scopes of over 6x magnification generally have adjustible focus.. Second, if the scope is to be used on a spring gun, it must have the lenses reinforced against the forward recoil that occurs when the piston slams forward. Many scopes around $100 that are perfectly fine for high power firearms use have optics that are only held in place by a ridge rolled into the tube; these can be destroyed in short order by a moderately powerful spring airgun.
Good quality scopes in the $60-$200 range can be had from Bushnell, BSA, and others. Tasco is very popular in England, but the Tasco scopes sold there for airguns don't seem to be distributed here. In the $150-$500 range, both Leupold and Burris make excellent scopes for airguns. Burris has a pair of compact 4x and 6x scopes that make excellent rugged hunting scopes. Above $500 one can find scopes from Zeiss, Swarovsky and others that can be adapted to airgun use. A good technician can adjust many of the better scopes for use at airgun distences.
(more to come)
U. S. Airgunner magazine - - I was a field editor for this magazine for a few years and wrote a number of review articles. It's no longer in publication, and was succeeded by Rimfire and Airgun Magazine- also out of publication.
American Airguns - A good collection of reference material, classifieds and useful links from an enthusiastic airgunner.
mje@spamcop.net
last modified 5/17/2005