Goodbye to an Old Friend

Obviously I have been MIA for quite some time. I guess that now I actually have some time to do some blogging and this is as good a time as any to say goodbye to an old friend. About two months ago I traded off my beloved Benjamin Trail NP. I needed a decent 22 rifle and a friend of mine MM, had been trying to get my Benjamin from me since he first shot it (right next to the biggest intersection in the city I live in). MM shot that rifle in broad daylight just outside the store were he works, he then brought it inside and shot it just to see if the rifle was actually as quiet as he thought... it was.

Since MM shot that rifle I had done the trigger job on it I featured on this blog (look up top). I called MM and asked if he had any spare 22 rifles and he did a 1994 black laminated mannlicher stock stainless steel Ruger 10/22. I fell in love with the rifle the moment I saw it. Now we had to talk turkey, MM wanted my rifle and I wanted his, after I swapped him the Benjamin and a Leupold scout scope, he traded me the 10/22 and three bricks of 22 ammo. I was happy, he was happy, everyone won.

I have since taken the 10/22 out and put it through its paces. It now wears a Nikon 4-12 Mildot Prostaff scope and it is dead accurate. MM tells me that the Benjamin has added a few more squirrels to its list of victims, something he is no doubt quite happy about since he lives in a densely populated area of the city. I wish MM the best of luck and hope he loves that rifle as much as I did. For now, I will be enjoying this 10/22.

Oh, I guess I should explain the necessity of the 22. In a nut shell, I have access to one of the greatest plinking spots of all time. It is a fish farm run by a friend, Doc. Doc and I go out and shoot the birds off his ponds at ranges stretching out as far as 400 yards. I considered brining a 308 out but I didn't want the bullets to skip out into God knows where. The 22lr bullets are doing a pretty good job of hitting and plopping down right were they hit. I considered bring out the RWS 48, but 400 yards is about 4 times what that rifle is capable of. So I now own a 22 rifle for the first time in several years. Its a sweet little kit, but it only comes out when we are shooting past 100 yards.

Anywho

As always, stay safe and keep it classy!

A Little Shout Out

Recently I ordered a pellet pistol from Airguns of Arizona. I typically order from Pyramid Air, but AoA had a little bit better price on the pistol I was after (and had it in stock) so I decided I would give them a shot. I ordered the pistol at about noon on Friday and received my invoice by 2pm. It was at about 4pm that I realized I was ordering a match pistol and had literally no wadcutters to shoot in it, so I gave AoA a call right then to see if I could tack a couple tins onto my order. Not only did they allow me to do so, they lowered my shipping rate for the pellets (the gun itself was free), and they also made a suggestion about the RWS Mieserkugeln pellets I was ordering (they come in several different grain weights and they suggested the most appropriate one for the pistol I ordered). I just got a shipping conformation about 2 hours ago letting me know that the pellets I ordered were in and that my entire order had been boxed up and was already out the door.

Heres the kicker, the tested, chrono'd, and sighted in my pistol. I cannot say enough good things about Airguns of Arizona. They have been incredibly helpful, courteous, and prompt with each question and request I have made of them. You can bet that I will be using them more exclusively in the future.

Thanks Airguns of Airzona!

(For anyone wondering, I have not been paid or compensated in any way for my words, I was just genuinely that impressed by AoA and their staff)

As always, stay safe and keep it classy!

5000?

Well it is my birthday; I have been insanely busy lately due to school and studying for my registry with K over at planning and foresight. I just checked my blog for the first time in a few months to find I hit over 5000 page views! Sure, its not much to some people but I'm pretty excited. Hopefully when my registry exam is complete I will be able to get back on here with some consistency.

2000 and counting

My little blog hit a milestone today. I hit 2000 views this morning. Its not much but hey, you've got to start somewhere!

As always, stay safe and keep it classy.

What to do with all these pellet tins?

I am going through a reorganization/ long term storage period with my pellets which involves me putting them into pill vials with oxygen eaters in them. In turn I have quite a few pellet tins hanging around now. I've been trying to come up with something to do with all of them and I think I just did. I made my first beer can alcohol stove tonight and was VERY impressed with the results. I had boiling water in only a few minutes using nothing but corn whiskey for fuel. I intend on making a few versions of these alcohol stoves from empty beer cans first and then I will start making them out of pellet tins.

The power in my area has a tendency of going out fairly often in the winter and I immediately thought how nice it would be to be able to have a hot meal when the power inevitably goes out in my apartment this year. The pellet tins are quite a bit thicker so they should last longer and be able to hold up pots and pans much more easily. I will post some pictures and thoughts as I go along. I hope everyone out there had a good weekend!

Stay safe and keep it classy!

Well... I didn't see that coming

I got the chance to go shoot the 1377 a little bit today. I didn't have a whole lot of time to shoot and it was quite cold so I just decided to see what it would do as far as penetration was concerned. I learned about the 1/2 inch pine test a few weeks ago and I was talking to K about it a bit. He asked me how a pellet gun would work against two legged predators. At the time I was fairly confident that only a fool would use a pellet gun for such a thing but I'm beginning to change my mind a bit.

I told K that I knew that with proper placement a high power pellet gun was capable of neutralizing such a threat, but it just didn't seem practical. Like I said, I didn't have much in the way of time today so I took a half dozen or so 4x6 pieces of 1/2 inch pine and set them up against a hay bale. I wanted to see how well the pellets did on the pine and I intended to use that information in determining wether or not the 1377 would be a decent squirrel hunting piece.

I shot each pellet at 10 yards and 15 pumps and I tested Barracuda Magnums, Crosman Premier Hollow Points, Gamo Lethals, Gamo Rockets, Gamo Coppers, Predator Polymags, and RWS Hyper Veloictys.  Overall the lead pellets did much better and just went to confirm what I've been saying for months about lead free pellets, they're trash and don't ever use them. I couldn't get a fully penetrated board but that didn't really surprise me seeing as how I was slinging pellets around 700fps and the required energy to piece the board is supposed to identical to the force required to pierce a human skull. Basically I could give someone a very bad headache with the 1377 but that was about it. Then I shot the RWS Hyper Velocity Pellets.

The RWS Hyper Velocity is a lead free sabot round. It is really just a novelty round used to make a slow rifle fire supersonic... or is it? I shot the RWS last as I thought that it was the last chance I had to make some progress on the board. This is what I found.

You can see the path the pellet left in the wood. It didn't quite come through the other side but it came insanely close.

The wood is fairly old pieces of scrap so this will require some additional testing but it would seem as though the 1377 may very well surprise me after all. Im not suggesting anyone do anything here, this is merely an observation and it is one I intend on testing further at a later date, perhaps with a chronograph? Anyways, food for though.

As always stay safe and keep it classy.

Quick Tidbit

I got a chance to shoot the 1377 a little bit last night. I haven't got a chance to zero it at all and I was just shooting it in as the sights were when I put them on. At close range we were shooting spiders off logs and beetles off of 55 gallon drums, but when we stretched it out to 30 yards it became apparent that some adjustments were needed.

I was rather taken aback by how good the trigger was. It is actually so light with such little pull that the first time my friend shot it he missed the target completely because he had his finger on the trigger a little too soon. Another thing that surprised me was that it went supersonic. We got a legitimate crack out of it at 15 pumps. 15 pumps is the highest I am willing to go on this pistol but I never imagined we would get anything even close to the speed of sound out of this pistol. I will admit we were cheating a bit and using pba ammo, but still, the fact that a PISTOL went supersonic is quite impressive. We didn't get it to repeat the sonic crack when we tried a few more times which means the pistol is probably right on the borderline of 1000ish fps with the 7g pellets we were using.

I will take the piston out and tighten up the piston/ valve gap a bit since it seems to have gotten a little looser as we shot. Afterwards Im going to see if I can't borrow a chronograph and gets some real velocity figures from this pistol. Im actually starting to wonder if it may be a decent enough small game piece when I don't feel like lugging around one of my rifles.

Anyways, just thought I would share. As always, stay safe and keep it classy!

Thought:

I was sitting here reading a few comments from Tom Gaylord about the Gamo Hunter Extreme and how he thought they achieved the 1600 fps claims. It dawned on me that I had a supersonic emission because I had just lubricated the entire gun, not because it was shooting just insanely hard. The phenomena is known as dieseling. What happens is oil from the barrel, valve, where ever, makes its way into the barrel and behind the projectile itself. When the pellet travels down the tube it creates sufficient heat from friction (or compression) to ignite the atomized oil and basically turn the air gun into an honest to goodness firearm. That is why I got my crack, not velocity, I was dieseling. Fun stuff either way. 

The 1377

Ok, the 1377 and I have a bit of a love hate relationship. I posted a rage bit a few days ago and have since taken it off this site. I will say though that despite my mood there were several things in that post that I still agree with. First and foremost, Crosman has trashy screws. This wasn't a big deal through most of the build since I could replace them, but in the final steps the one screw I cannot find a replacement for stripped on me. That was the screw responsible for holding the breech and main tube together, so it was pretty paramount that I be able to easily remove that screw. I did manage to get it out with the help of a friend and now its resized to 1.5mm instead of .5mm. Its not an ideal situation but its the only solution I had until I can get a new screw in there.

The second thing I still feel strongly about is this; if you want a super nice air pistol, just buy one. I built this pistol from scratch as a project, I don't see myself doing it again. Its a fun pistol and I really like the way it turned out, but the headache involved just isn't worth it. I would recommend getting a Beeman P1, P3, or P5 if your looking for a nice air pistol. The next air pistol I get will more than likely be one of those three, a Webley Alecto, or a Weihrauch HW 75. The Crosman pistols do clean up nice and they are crazy accurate for the price, but they just don't use the same quality of materials that Beeman, Weihrauch, and Webley do.

I will be posting pictures of the 1377 and as much of the building process as I can muster, but don't count on many build pics until I can get a good reliable screw for the main tube/ breech connection.

Before

After

As always, stay safe and keep it classy

Update

UPDATE:
The Spirited Debate page is fairly complete; I did each section in tabs in an attempt to make it less intimidating to read. I will proabably come back and edit it as time goes on, putting things in, taking things out, as I gain new information, pictures, etc... Go on over and have a look, see what you think. Who knows, you might just learn something?

As always, stay safe and keep it classy.

A New Page for the Site

I've put up a new page in the page tabs. It was inspired by a conversation I had with a friend on the bus. The entire page is devoted to 22lr vs. Pellet guns in the eyes of a prepper. If you don't agree thats cool, I encourage debate, just be intelligent about it, site YOUR sources, not something someone else told you  or some ridiculous crap you read in a magazine (hate to say it but these have become completely unreliable as sources, I can only think of one magazine that doesn't get paid by big name manufactures to write glowing reviews about their next best thing. You use that magazine as a source and I'll give it to you, otherwise find me something a little better than Guns and Ammo to dispel my arguments).

Heres a quick link to the page, its not finished yet but I figured I would give you guys something to read while I work on the last few sections.

As always, stay safe and keep it classy.

Its Been A Long Time

Well it has been quite a while since I threw a new post up on the blog. I have been insanely busy these past couple months with school, work, clinic, an extra class, etc... etc... etc... but you don't want to hear about that Im sure. The good news is that at least for the moment, I am back. I will try to post once every week or two but we will have to wait and see how that goes.

I never finished the 1377 project and thats actually the reason I got back on tonight. Last night I made a call to Crosman and I got in touch with Sid over at airgunsmiths.com; I went ahead and ordered the rest of the parts I needed to complete the project. You know how every once in a while you have something that pisses you off so bad you just have to put it down for a few months and come back to it? Well thats been the 1377 in a nut shell.

I finally got to the point where I had picked it up, fiddled with it, and mulled it over enough to go ahead and finish the project. Ive calmed down a bit and my girlfriend ordered me the last couple pieces I needed as a belated birthday present. So hopefully we will see the project complete and I will share plenty of pics in the next couple of weeks.

Its good to be back.

Stay safe and keep it classy

If Its Not One Thing...

Ok so as anyone who has read this blog with any regularity knows, I have a Crosman 1377. What you may not know is that its fairly heavily modded at this point and more mods are rolling in daily courtesy of my significant other. So my project with it is nearing completion and I have got to tell you, if its not one thing it has always been another with this pistol. I guess I pissed it off when I dipped it in acid and from that point on it was out to get me.

On the acid note, I would highly recommend anyone who acid etch a Crosman gun clear coat that joker. I didn't initially since so many of the parts available for it are polished (polished off the blueing) that was a mistake. I noticed some rusting and had to strip the gun back down, sand it all down, polish it again and then clear coat it. On a positive note the etching looks even cooler, almost like ghost graffiti all over the main tube. While I had it apart I decided to polish my valve stem, also a mistake, I took off a little too much material and now it doesn't seal. This isn't huge deal since I planned on putting in a flat top valve anyway but the discovery that the pistol no longer seals was followed by the discovery that I had lost a very important rubber grommet in my haste to disassemble the parts and get them stripped and clear coated.

This project has fought me every step of the way which is why I haven't posted any pictures or how to's at all as was my original intent. Oh well. It will come together come hell or high water. I will show you the end product and then elaborate from there if need be.

As always, stay safe and keep it classy.

My First Acid Trip

I said the other day that I had acid etched my 1377, I figured I would post a pic or two. It turned out really well. I used Ferric Chloride to do the etching. I will admit it turned out a bit different than I originally expected but hey, it still looks pretty cool in my humble opinion. I'll do a step by step how to but it won't be until my breech come in.

Before:

After:

Another interesting note was that the acid affected the rifling quite a bit. I plugged the barrel but evidently the fumes from the acid were enough to eat the metal. Originally I was quite upset about this since my accuracy on the Crosman Premier Domes, I did the review with, went to complete crap. I mean I went from pellet on pellet to a group over 3 inches center to center. My best theory was that the acid had increased the depth of the rifling groves so I decided to try and find a pellet it liked in my stash of 177. As it turns out the 1377 went from a rather picky eater to a buffet pistol. I could put 5 shots in a quarter with most any of my pellets, there were some that weren't so good and some pellets that did better than others but the best two were JSB Diablo Exact Jumbos and Gamo Tomahawks. I will be feeding it the Tomahawks as they are MUCH cheaper and easier to get.

Truth be told I actually stopped testing about half way through. I was getting such good results constantly that I just didn't really see the need to continue. 

As  always, stay safe and keep it classy!

Working Extra Hard

In the words of Ace Ventura, "Wellll... Alllllllllllrighty then!" I just finished the latest segment in my Power Plants series. If your interested you can click the Pellet Pushing Power Plants! tab up top and go to Multi-Pump Pneumatics or you can be lazy and click that link, what ever works. This should be a fairly entertaining lesson, Im tired and its late, that tends to do wonders for my perversions. Hope everyone out there is having a good week thus far.

OH YEAH! By the way, I spent my time tonight acid etching the 1377. It turned out better than I could have imagined. Expect to see a tutorial coming up soon now that I actually know how to do it!

As always, stay safe and keep it classy!

New Look for the Blog

Hey guys, I've been working on reformatting the blog a bit. I wanted to make it in such a way that people didn't have to read every stinking thing I posted. I now am doing all my reviews, back to basics, and power plants posts as pages; I am then hiding each individual page and linking them to main page tabs. This lets everyone find exactly what they want without having to fish through a bunch of crap to get to it. If you want to know about powerplants, click on the tab and read away, if reviews are your quarry then hop to it. I hope you like this format better because its kind of a pain in the ass to set up.

Any and all feedback is always welcome!

Oh almost forgot! I did a review of the bone stock Crosman 1377, you can find it here if your interested, if not you wont be bothered by it.

As always, stay safe and keep it classy!

A New Horse in the Stable

I have been itching for a pellet pistol for quite some time now. I love my rifles but with the 48 I really have to stretch way out there in order to get much of a challenge going on. This has been my main motivation in getting a pellet pistol; I want a challenge again. Now, being as how I'm doing a series on different power plants, I decided I would branch out a little bit past my typical piston guns this time.

I had earned myself a new toy this summer through a series of favors for my significant other and she had every intention of buying me something nice. I originally was looking at a Beeman P1 or a P2. From what I understand both are amazing pistols and I fully intend to own both one day, but I got to thinking. I really enjoy tinkering with things and there are few pistols which have the same aftermarket parts support as the cheaper old school Crosmans. The 13xx, 22xx, 24xx, etc.. etc.. series of pistols not only share many parts with one another but also have after market and cult followings that would make L. Ron Hubbard green with envy.

Now I had a decision to make, should I go CO2 or Multipump? Typically Im all about a self sustaining platform but the C02 concept was sounding nice, no pumping, no priming, no pushing or pulling? Hmmm.... I gave it some serious thought and ultimately went with a Crosman 1377. Heres why, as previously mentioned I like self sustaining platforms, there was another reason though. The other big one was for you guys. I created this blog/website/wtf ever to help people like me who can't really afford to shoot anymore. Now sure, my girlfriend would have bought me the P1 or P2, and truth be told she was rather set on it (she's pretty awesome by the way if you hadn't got that already), but that wouldn't do you guys any good would it? That wold really just make me an asshole; bitching about expensive bullets but plinking with a 400 dollar air pistol. Hypocritical much?

So heres what I've decided to do. Im going to review the 1377 in its stock form. I'm going to give you the ins, the outs, the good, the bad, and probably some ugly. Afterwards I'm going to go full bore ape shit on it, chemical etching (look for a how to guide for this coming up by the way), flat top piston and valve, new sights, new grips, spring guides, steel breech, the works. I intend to not only show you how to do these things but explain some of the motivation behind why I'm doing them as I go along. My kick ass lady woman decided that she would get me parts for my new pistol instead of buying me an expensive one... sooo... I still get a super nice tricked out pistol, just in a bit of a round about way.

This way, I win, you win, and she already won a few times so everyones happy. Look for a review coming up, oh! I bought a digital camera too, it was on clearance for dirt cheap and I couldn't pass it up, so hopefully you'll be getting some better pictures from me once I get the little devil figured out.

As always, stay safe and keep it classy!

Big News for My Little Blog

I'm pretty excited at the moment. The fine people at The Gun Blog Black List  were kind enough to grace my humble blog with a place on their black list. If you haven't checked the Black List out it definitely worth your time. I have a link to it on the side of my page as well. Basically the Black List is a huge compilation of firearms and shooting community related blogs. If your into shooting (and I'm assuming you are if you have found your way onto my site?) then its certainly worth a gander. My good friend K over at Planning and Foresight is on the list as well.

One of the things that GreyLocke mentioned when he added me to the list was that he would like to see some more pictures; rifles I shoot, modifications I've done, etc.. I think thats a more than fair request so I've spent the past few hours taking pictures. Now, I will forewarn you, my camera is on my phone and my phone is a piece soooo.... the quality of the photography leaves something to be desired. Eventually I will upgrade my electronics and will be able to provide some better pictures but until then Im giving you guys the best I have to work with.

The top rifle is the Gamo Bull Whisper Extreme in .177 (the scope killer)

The next down is the Benjamin Trail NP in .22

Third is my favorite the Diana RWS Model 48 in .22

Lastly is the loner rifle the Gamo Hornet in .177 

Those are all the pellet guns I have at the moment; I'll cover each one individually as time progresses. 

ALSO keep your eyes peeled for a few upcoming subjects. Im going to do some posts on general terminology, pellet design, and power plants. If you would like me to cover something just ask, I like the feedback! 

School... Cramping My Style...

So I'm not sure if I've mentioned it or not, but I'm in college (2nd try) and it tends to put quite a strain on my social and trigger life. I hold out knowing that one day it will all be over and I can go buck wild at airgunsofarizona.com and just have a freaking ball for a few years killing cans, paper, and any squirrel unlucky enough to cross my path. I guess I'm posting at the moment out of a sense of obligation. Its been a bit since my last post and I don't see any good posts coming up until sometime next week or after. I've got a big ACLS test on saturday and its eating up most of my spare time.

I would also like to take a brief second to clarify something that has been bugging me. I've read over my last post a few times and while I did intend to poke fun at my father it almost seemed a little derogatory. I haven't decided how to go about changing that. I may change the wording a bit at some point who knows? For now though, just know he's a pretty stand up dude. He's done a hell of a lot for me and is the primary reason I've been able to develop a love for shooting sports. Truth be told I wish I got to spend more time shooting with him out there in the country with that break barrel Stoger poking fun at him all the while. Such is life I suppose.

Also, this may sound like I'm kissing ass a bit. To one extent or another I am, he has the link to my website and I don't want him to feel like I'm bashing him because that is far from my intent.

As always stay safe and keep it classy.

Pfftt... Its clearly not 100 yards!

So tonight Im in a good mood. The past week or so my father and I have been testing out our small armada of air rifles (all piston guns) to see just how much you get for you money. I guess the better way to explain is like this. I have always "treated my hobbies well" is how my brother puts it; my father on the other hand hasn't had a hobby (other than his working?) that Im aware of... well... ever? So the money I spend on air rifles is QUITE a bit more than what he spends. I have mentioned previously that I own an RWS 48. To date this is my most expensive rifle at 375 to 425 depending on where you buy it, it ain't cheap, especially when you consider that it doesn't come with a scope, rings, pellets, a sling... anything! Take that model 48 and toss on a Hawke 2.5 to 10 power scope and a BKL 1 piece mount and your looking at 600+ quick fast and in a hurry.

Back to my point, so my dad thinks I'm pretty crazy for spending that much on an air rifle. "Why spend 600 on an air gun when you can buy a 22lr for half that!" has always been the argument and up until recently its a true and very valid one. I don't know about any of you but the last 500 count box of Remington I actually held in my hand had a sticker for 89.90 on it... I buy 500 count tins of 22 pellets for about 7 bucks. It doesn't take long for this whole pellet gun thing to start making some damn good sense when your actually comparing apples to apples. So why an RWS 48? I have a history with RWS, I shot and loved an RWS 75 in high school when I was on our MCJROTC rifle team. I will own one of them one day but they are scarce and expensive so I settled for a 48. The mechanism is nearly identical, the weight is quite similar and it just made me smile to be reminded of the old girl I used to shoot so many years ago. So yeah, nostalgia, get over it... the 48 is also a renown hunting rifle, and as mentioned, I do very much enjoy squirrel hunting with an air rifle.

Thats enough dreaming back on days long past, back to the point (man add is a bitch!), I shoot a 600 dollar air rifle, my dad shoots a 180 dollar air rifle that I bought him for father's day last year. Its a Stoger and a mighty fine rifle for the money, but it will get its own post later on down the road. We put the RWS head to head with my (newly tuned) Benji for accuracy and penetration (phonebook) and guess who won? The RWS, no big surprise Im sure, (it made it through the whole phone book btw...) but I told you all of that to tell you this. The accuracy of the rifle makes it almost boring. I was shooting pellets with pellets (yes thats right, Robin Hooding that shit) with it at 20 yards and I was getting a little disinterested. (Ok to those of you who aren't familiar the regularly accepted max range on a spring powered air rifle is 50 yards so pellet on pellet at 20 is usually considered pretty damn good) So I decided to spice things up tonight. I have a mil dot scope, might at well use it! I took our spinner targets (a 4 inch disk and a 2 inch disk) and put them out at what I estimated was around 100 yards. I walked back, ranged with my mil dots and it was well within 5 yards of 100.

So I grabbed my chair and set to figuring out my hold over, it ended up being 4 mil dots, at 100 yards each mil dot is 3.6 inches to the next. This means my pellet drop was about 14.4 inches. I am zero'd at 20 yards and 55 so this is a pretty significant drop for 45 yards. Anyways, I spent the next several rounds figuring out my "windage" as it were on my scope. Then when I was finally ready I moved to the two inch circle. At 100 yards I was about 1/8 inch off dead center. I decided this was one of those "quit while your ahead" times and set my rifle down. I sent my dad a text with the picture of the bullseye in it with a caption that read something to the extent of "I guess you really do get what you pay for." He arrived home a few minutes later (I shoot at his house since its out in the country) and asked me "holy crap! whats the range on that thing anyway!?!" ... its clearly not 100 yards!

So I guess the "50 yard rule" for spring guns I've read about on other forums doesn't really apply as much when you start going up the ladder of quality.

My goal is to one day make it into the 200 club with a spring powered air rifle... We shall see

As always, stay safe and keep it classy!

The Benjamin Part Dos

Well I got in a good afternoon of shooting and I decided it was about time for another post. The last time I left you with The Benjamin Trail Np and told you I had fiddled with it a bit. Tonight we will get into the why and perhaps the how? Who knows? I may even throw two posts up tonight, I had a pretty amazing night at the range and Im really excited and looking to share.

So why did I tune my TNP? Well as it comes stock the TNP is a great rifle for the money, 200 bucks buys you one hell of a squirrel rifle and since it uses a nitro piston it is incredibly quite and recoil is pretty much nil. The recoil issue is quite important when it comes to air guns.

(Wait wait wait... hold on... RECOIL... from an AIR GUN!?!? I must be on something right? Well no, not really. As a matter of fact, air guns recoil so violently that they require special scopes made specifically for them. A spring powered air rifle will recoil twice, forwards as the piston slams forward and again as it compresses and comes to a stop. This combined with the torsional forces of the piston and spring wreak havoc on a scope. Don't believe me? Try putting your Bushnell on a RWS 34 and see how long it lasts, don't say I didn't warn you though!)

Anyways back to my original point, the recoil in a gas gun is pretty much zero, the nitro pistons, co2, pump up pneumatics, and the pcp guns all have significantly less recoil (if any) than a spring piston gun. This is not only good for scopes but it also makes keeping a nice tight group much easier. The TNP comes in a little heavy at nine pounds but again, this works to your advantage when your putting pellets on paper. So whats not to like? It has accuracy, its quiet, and its CHEAP! Well... there is one thing... the trigger is about as smooth as a walrus's balls... or at least how smooth I would extrapolate walrus balls being. Suffice it to say that it is pretty God awful. Some of the wretchedness of the trigger can be overcome by pulling it about half way and then letting off, getting back into firing position and continuing that trigger pull. This is a very imprecise and inconsistent method though.

Up until replacing the piston seal I just lived with it, now... No more! I already had the stock off, the piston out, and the trigger assembly off of the gun so I figured ehhh.... what the hell? I polished the surfaces of every sear on my DMT diamond bench stones. Yes... The set of stones I use to sharpen knives. They made pretty quick work of the steel used in the sears. I started with 600 grit and worked my way up to 1500. It doesn't take much, so don't get crazy! Its ok to have some of the original "coating" still on the sear all you want is a perfectly even and smooth surface on the contact point. I have 2 areas that still have some of the original black on them but they are smooth as glass. Any who so  I got the trigger back together, put it in the gun and HOLY CRAP!  SOOOOOO smooth. I will also mention, I originally left the trigger spring out because thats what is done for the GTX trigger sold for this rifle, Ill get back to this. Now Ill save you some time and me some typing. I spent roughly 5 hours getting the trigger juuuuust right. I used washers (which were polished on the stones as well as with rouge), I made 6 different trigger springs out of different thickness music wire with different bends and points of contact, etc.. etc... etc... So what ended up working the best, was a polished washer on one side of the trigger placed on the "rod" that is held in with an e-clip, a music wire spring made from .015 thickness, and a 10mm socket head bolt to replace the one that comes in the trigger for the second stage adjustment. This makes one of the nicest triggers in my gun safe. Seriously, its the cats ass.

SOOOOO now I had a TNP with a new piston seal, a new trigger, and a new lease on life. As it was with the first break in, the TNP was pushing pellets faster than a Russian race horse at the Kentucky Derby getting chased by a glue truck. Its calmed down a bit now but I can say with certainty that it is shooting much harder than it was before. I know this for a FACT because of the giant depressions its leaving in my brass targets and the number of pages in the phone book it went through before and after.  The trigger also allows me to get some amazing groups with this rifle now. At 20 yards I was making 5 shot groups that were .20 inches ctc, not bad when you consider its a .22!

So lets recap, the TNP
pros: inexpensive for new shooters, powerful, accurate, backyard friendly, tons of fun
cons: holy sweet baby Jesus that trigger is powerful bad
best 10 dollar fix: a music wire trigger job, if you have hobby lobby near by get some sand paper (600 to 2000 grit), a pack of .015 music wire (1 dollar), and a set of jeweler's round pliers (these are about 6 bucks).
best 10+ dollar fix: hmmm.... a piston seal when the factory one wears out (11 bucks @ pyramidair.com)
final thoughts: I have 1200 dollar tuned revolvers I enjoy shooting less that this rifle. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that I CAN shoot this rifle. If you can afford 44 magnum shells right now then more power to you, but I can't. If I do take one of my big girls out to play at the range by round 10 Im just watching rolls of quarters punch holes in a paper target and Im not having fun anymore. A good air gun lets you finish shooting when your ready to be finished shooting and makes sure you have a smile on your face when you do! Any questions just ask!


As always, stay safe and keep it classy!