Back in the day Beeman was an excellent name in finer airguns. I recently bought one at wallyworld and it's nothing but pure chinese junk. I assume Beeman sold out the rights to the name to somebody else. They must have gone the way of Abercrombie and Fitch, Herter's, etc. So FYI---stay away from Beeman
I can see why people hate air rifles.
- Thread starter thirty-ought-six
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Stay away from Beeman.....what an misinformed statement. Pickup a new R11 and say that....plus I bet the one you bought at wally world was a great deal, telling you every thing you needed to hear but left out the skill required to shoot it correctly....too bad you can't run down the the local big box store and buy some of that.
Dr. Robert Beeman sold Beeman Precision Airguns to Marksman a few years back. They still stock some of the old standbys that made the Beeman name but Marksman added a lot of "price point" items to the Beeman lineup.
Not exactly. Beeman does sell a lot of lower end stuff these days. I wouldn't say it's junk, but certainly lower end.
The wallyworld special is a dual caliber plinker, probably one of the lowest end guns from them.
Hoppes Love Potion
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I've been super happy with my Crosman 2260 CO2 rifle. 600 fps with cheap Crosman .22 pellets and the accuracy is excellent. Fits my needs perfectly.
And yet will shoot amazing if you know what you are doing.
My point is in this day and age there are very few BAD air guns of any kind. They are all made on computer controlled machines and work very well. Yes sure one will get by that is a lemon, same with anything else made by man from the most complex machine to the most basic, it can go wrong.
But in general the problem with 99% of these spring air guns that have huge FPS numbers is the person just does not have the skill to shoot it correctly. In general you can't hold a high powered spring rifle like a firearm, you can't hold it steady enough with the double recoil. There is a reason the RWS54 has that special feature built into it, and it is not to make the thing weigh a ton.
I think I said in this thread I have 3 rifles given to me that could not shoot straight, and they shoot very well, I had 4 but gave one back to the original owner after showing him not to hold it like a deer rifle.
Shooting a magnum spring rifle is without a doubt the hardest thing to shoot well, they are also the most inexpensive, this is a very bad combo and leads to a great many returns and bad mouthing of most of the "lower end" air guns.
Mousegun
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Air rifles are in a class of their own. You can get a decent powder burner for a few hundred bucks that will shoot straight. To do that with a spring air rifle you may have to go to the five hundred dollar mark or more.
That is not an absolute but a base rule of thumb.
I happen to love them and did not feel a bit bad spending $700 on my Air Arms TX200. I had to spend an extra $100 to get a left hand stock but that's the way it goes.
I often challenge friends with 22's to a 50 yard shoot out and mostly come out the winner.
Air rifles teach you consistent hold and trigger control and make you a better overall shooter.
They are cheap to shoot and can often be used in the back yard when other rifles can't.
If you choose to go PCP, the accuracy usually increases at the expense of convenience of use. Pumps or tanks are needed to fill them and worst of all, those who shoot springers call them "puffers."
That is not an absolute but a base rule of thumb.
I happen to love them and did not feel a bit bad spending $700 on my Air Arms TX200. I had to spend an extra $100 to get a left hand stock but that's the way it goes.
I often challenge friends with 22's to a 50 yard shoot out and mostly come out the winner.
Air rifles teach you consistent hold and trigger control and make you a better overall shooter.
They are cheap to shoot and can often be used in the back yard when other rifles can't.
If you choose to go PCP, the accuracy usually increases at the expense of convenience of use. Pumps or tanks are needed to fill them and worst of all, those who shoot springers call them "puffers."
NO....that opening statement is pure false.Air rifles are in a class of their own. You can get a decent powder burner for a few hundred bucks that will shoot straight. To do that with a spring air rifle you may have to go to the five hundred dollar mark or more.
That is not an absolute but a base rule of thumb.
I happen to love them and did not feel a bit bad spending $700 on my Air Arms TX200. I had to spend an extra $100 to get a left hand stock but that's the way it goes.
I often challenge friends with 22's to a 50 yard shoot out and mostly come out the winner.
Air rifles teach you consistent hold and trigger control and make you a better overall shooter.
They are cheap to shoot and can often be used in the back yard when other rifles can't.
If you choose to go PCP, the accuracy usually increases at the expense of convenience of use. Pumps or tanks are needed to fill them and worst of all, those who shoot springers call them "puffers."
You can buy a spring type air gun for well under $150 and put 10 for 10 in the size of a dime at 35. The difference it that it requires skill on the part of the shooter....and that skill only comes with practice. Now if you move to a sup $100 MSP that is much more forgiving to shoot and can shoot very well. I have two 2100's that I would put up against anyone any day. Same with CO2 guns, a QB78 is VERY easy to shoot and also VERY accurate right out of the box at around 500-ish FPS, you want more upgrade it yourself, I have one stock and one that shoots close to 900fps. Both I can shoot a cherry off a tree at 30 yards.....all day long.
Like I have said dozens of times here and other places, places that get me the ban hammer, low information buyers run to wally world buy the gun with the most FPS they can find then hop on forums and say they all suck turn around and quit the hobby or spend close to a grand on something that they will work with because it is from europe (BUT NOT SPAIN) or England.
There is one truth in the air gunning world, that there is a great deal of snobbery going on, and an even greater amount of dolts that don't know what they talk about.
So why do I do it, knowing the forum gods don't like it.....to get the real TRUTH out. This is not a hobby where you have to spend north of $500 to get something that will shoot straight, and people need to know the truth, they need to know that those high power spring guns they see at walmart are VERY hard to shoot well, and even harder to shoot well time and time again. They also need to learn that if they thought their 22 rim fire was ammo picky this can be worse, head over to Straight Shooters dot com and get one of their samplers in your flavor....best way to find out what your gun likes. And that brings up another point, after they buy the rifle at walmart they pickup the cheapest daisy ammo they see.....gee I wonder why you had such horrid results, then you run to PA buy a $700 rifle with JSB pellets....did you ever try those pellets in the walmart special, no, did not think so. Do you think remington thunderbolts shoot as well as Eley?
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Officers'Wife
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Well, thank you for that anyway, the farm has a Daisy that Dad bought (before I was born) we use for rat and sparrow control. Once you get used to how the thing "cocks" it's as accurate a weapon as you could hope for and a lot less hard on the grain bins than a 22. My only complaint is the device will only function with "BB's" and I'm concern the steel shot will ricochet when a certain unnamed idiot that shall remain my brother goes out after sparrows when they are roosting in the rafters of some of the older buildings.
Birds are not real tough critters. If you are close you can get by with something that will shoot a lead pellet, and that will not bounce but have the power to take down the bird. My battle is with starlings. What I would suggest is a Benjiman 392, that is a nice MSP that you could vary the power on, and would be very easy to shoot. It is around $170 however. The other good choice is a 2100 crosman, around $70, that has just enough power IMHO to take birds in an ethical manner. If you go to youtube and check out ted's holdover videos he did a review on one some time ago....other then that there is a 2200 crosman, but they have not been made in years....I think they stopped in the 80's. Fantastic guns, but they do have a following, and a nice working gun is north of $100. There is always the chance of issues with used guns, both of mine needed new valves....most parts are still available. The plus with the 2200 is they never get steel BB's run in them so the rifling is usually pretty good. Remember the steel BB's will be hard on the rifling in the barrels....and even some of the alloy pellets are harder then lead and hard on the soft barrels in many air rifles.
The lead will not bounce as bad as a steel BB will. Both are great little guns, that shoot very well....and that will last you for years.
Mousegun
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Rule o' thumb only, not absolute. Buying top shelf spring guns gets you a good shooter out of the box with less hold sensitivity in general. Again, not absolute.
I agree, China has done a pretty good job of bootlegging some of the better guns and make them a lot cheaper than the Europeans (not Spain).
A pump can be a single or multi pump, it means that you use a handle or lever on the gun to pump it up with air to take the shot.
A Co2 gun uses the pressure from Co2 to fire the pellet. It can use the small powerlets, larger cartridges, or bulk fills. No pumping is required.
A spring gun can use a steel spring or a more modern gas spring. To use this gun you cock it, usually by a break barrel system, but sometimes with an underlever. Cocking the gun compresses the spring. When you fire the gun the spring expands and pushes on a piston of air. This compresses the air and that pushes the pellet. Spring guns are very common, some of them are harder to shoot because of the recoil of the spring releasing, it happens before the pellet leaves the barrel, which can mess with your accuracy.
A PCP gun is similar to a Co2 gun, except instead of using Co2 it uses High Pressure Air. HPA is more powerful, usually the guns are pumped up to 3,000 psi. It requires an external source of air, either a hand pump, a compressor, or an HPA tank, such as a scuba tank.
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