The Outstanding Gladiator Tactical – Part II
in Airguns
as air rifle, Airguns, FX, pcp
The Gladiator Tactical shoots as good as it looks.
To get the FX Gladiator Tactical ready for shooting, charge both reservoirs up to 200 bar. You can do this by inserting the charging adapter into the port on the front reservoir. Be sure to fill slowly and that it will take a lot longer than usual because there is a lot more volume to fill than on most PCP airguns. If you try to fill too quickly, you may get an indication from the gauge on the GT that the reservoir is full, but then the charge in the front reservoir will slowly bleed to the rear reservoir until the pressures in the two reservoirs equalize.
Put the safety in the non-fire position (full back). Pull the cocking lever full back, now pull the magazine release lever back. When the magazine release lever is fully back, the magazine will slide out the breech. Load it with the nose of the pellets facing toward the flat side of the magazine. Slide the magazine back in place and push the cocking lever forward. This slides the first pellet into the barrel. Now return the magazine release lever back to its original position, and the magazine locked firmly in place.
Now you’re ready to shoot. Take aim, flick the safety off, ease the first stage out of the trigger (13.2 oz) and squeeze gently on the second stage (1 lb 10 oz), and the shot goes down range. In stock trim, the high, medium, and lower power settings are for 32 footpounds, 24 fp, and 14 fp in the .22 cal version.
Pull the cocking lever back. You can push it forward again or you can simply let go of it and it will return to its original position on its own. Now you’re ready for the next shot.
Five shots went through those three holes. I love it when air rifles shoot like this!
Shooting JSB Exact Jumbo Express .22 pellets at high power, I put five shots into a group at 35 yards that I could cover with a dime. Then I decided to flip the power switch all the way down to low power. I put 5 pellets into a group that measures barely .5 inch edge to edge. That works out to just a bit over a quarter inch center to center.
Even better, the report was extremely muted, making a kind of “ching!” sound every time a shot goes off. The GT isn’t dead quiet, but it doesn’t sound like anything shooting either.
In the end, I liked the GT a whole lot. It gets a ton of shots per fill, has an excellent trigger, is a bona fide tack driver, and has a neighbor-friendly report. It puts all the good stuff together in one package, and I give it my hearty recommendation.
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
- Jock Elliott
The Outstanding Gladiator Tactical – Part I
in Airguns
as air rifle, Airguns, FX, pcp, review
Anyone who has read this blog for a while, or any of my other airgun writings, has probably figured out that I love – absolutely love – the way pre-charged pneumatic (PCP) rifles shoot, but I’m not so keen on the ancillary gear needed to charged them up.
I guess it’s a holdover from my summers in Vermont at my grandparents place. A buddy and I spent endless days roaming the woods and fields of the “Northeast Kingdom.” All we needed when we went out the door in the morning was our trusty BB guns and a tube or two BBs. It was freedom and glorious adventure.
So that’s why, even though my PCPs will shoot teensy groups at impressive range, you’ll most often find me packing for a day of airgunning with a self-contained air rifle and a tin of pellets.
But a rifle I tested the other day might change all that. The gun in question is an FX Gladiator Tactical (GT). It is an FX Gladiator fitted with the barrel, including permanently affixed sound moderator, from an FX Royale.
There are a bunch of things that I like about the Gladiator Tactical, but there are two things that really set it apart from all other air rifles that I have tested so far. The first is that the GT has two – count ‘em – air reservoirs that provide some 648 CC (500 cc rear, 148 cc front) of air storage.
That means that the number of shots you get between fills is absolutely staggering. For example, one of the guys at Airguns of Arizona (who supplied this gun for review), has a .22 cal GT set up for 28 foot-pounds of energy at the muzzle (on high power), and he gets – are you ready for this? – 180 shots from a fill, with a 40 fps spread between high and low.
The power adjustment lever is just below "FX 25059."
The second thing that sets the GT apart is a little lever on the side of the receiver just forward of the breech. That lever allows the shooter to choose among high, medium and low power settings simply by sliding the lever to one of three settings. There are no springs to adjust, no internal fiddling to be done, just throw the lever to the power setting you want. Well, you don’t have to be Einstein to figure out that if you get 180 shoots on high power, if you slide the lever to medium power, you’re going to get a lot more shots, and if you drop the power to the lowest setting, you’re going to get even more shots before you have to refill.
I don’t actually know how many shots per fill you get from a .22 on low power, but 200-300 seems perfectly plausible to me. And that, dear reader, would send me out the door with the Gladiator Tactical in one hand and a tin of pellets in the other!
The aft end of the GT is the rear air reservoir that is wrapped in an matte black engineering plastic cover that provides a cheek piece and an attachment for the adjustable butt pad. Loosen an allen screw, and you can move the cheek piece/cover back and forth and angle it from side to side to suit your preference.
Moving forward, the main receiver of the GT is also wrapped matte black engineering plastic. The pistol grip is nearly vertical and has finger indentations. The plastic wraps around to form a trigger guard that surrounds an adjustable trigger. Forward of the trigger guard is an air guage. Moving forward again, you’ll find the forward air reservoir.
The left side of the receiver, showing the magazine, cocking lever, and safety lever.
Above that is the barrel with moderator. Moving back along the barrel, you’ll find the receiver, which is handsomely finished in gloss black and has scope dovetails along its full length except for the breech opening. At the mid point of the receiver is the breech, where a removable 8-shot magazine slides into place (it only goes in one way, so you can’t get it in backwards). On the right side of the receiver is the cocking arm. Pull it straight back, and it cocks the GT and rotates the magazine so that the next pellet is in position. Also on the right side of the receiver near the back end is the lever for activating the safety.
At the back of the receiver is a lever that must be pulled back to remove the magazine from the breech. On the left side of the receiver is the previously mentioned power adjustment lever.
Next time, we’ll take a lot at how the Gladiator Tactical performs.
Til then, aim true and shoot straight.
- Jock Elliott
Powerplant, Pellets, and Footpounds
For years, I have heard things like “spring-pistons don’t like heavy pellets” and “CO2, pre-charged pneumatics and pump guns are more efficient with heavy pellets.” I guess I just accepted these truths as an article of faith and never really thought much more about them.
But recently I have been testing several .25 caliber – quarterbore – air rifles, and the tale that the chronograph tells is interesting. Put simply, when it comes to power generation – that is, foot-pounds measured at the muzzle – springers tend to like light pellets and pneumatics prefer heavier pellets. Of course, it isn’t always a straight linear function, because there are other variables, such as how tightly the pellet fits in the bore.
It all started when I was chronographing a trio of break barrel .25 cal. springers. I was using Gamo Pro Magnum 21.91 gr. pellets to chronograph them, because I had a plentiful supply of those pellets. One of the rifles was slinging the Gamo pellets at 565 fps average, which works out to 15.53 foot-pounds average. I mentioned this to the importer, and he suggested trying JSB Kings (25.4 gr.). Somewhat counter to the “law” about springers, the heavier pellet did better in terms of power but slightly worse in velocity: the JSB Kings averaged 555 fps for 17.37 foot-pounds at the muzzle. But the real surprise came with the lightest pellet. 19 gr. Milbro Rhino pellets rocketed through the traps at 667 fps for a sparkling 18.7 foot-pounds. In this case, the law about springers proved right: the lightest pellet did generate the most power in this .25 cal. spring-piston powerplant.
Okay, I thought, but what about the pneumatic airguns, do they obey the “rules” or not? It was raining when I thought about answering this question, and I usually need to do my chronographing outdoors, so I turned to the respected varminter Cliff Tharpe. Cliff, whose online handle is VarmintAir, is producer of the Airgun Hunting the California Ground Squirrel DVD. He has deep experience in hunting and clobbering vermin with air rifles.
Cliff has a factory stock .25 Benjamin Marauder that he routinely uses to pop prairie dogs at 50-100 yards. He sent me some data on his experience chronographing different weight pellets through the Marauder, with the following note: “These were all shot at the factory settings, whatever those may be. All velocities were taken with the start screen 12 inches from the muzzle. I use a CED M2 Chronograph set up indoors, with the infrared screens. Two mags, for sixteen shots with each pellet. All pellets were weight sorted. This is with a 3000 psi fill. “
And here’s the data:
- JSB .25 Quarter Bore, 25.4 grain – avg. vel. – 881 fps – fpe 43.8
- Benjamin .25 dome head, 27.8 grain – avg. vel. – 845 fps – fpe 44
- Beeman Kodiak .25, 30.8 grain – avg. vel. – 821 fps – fpe 46.1
Here we have a straight linear relationship – the heavier the pellet, the lower the velocity, and the greater the power that is generated.
Now, having said all that, what’s the most important thing?
Accuracy, of course. A firearms expert once said, “A hit with a .22 beats a clean miss with a .45.” And he was right. If you can’t reliably hit what you’re aiming at, it doesn’t matter how much power you are generating. The first thing you need is sufficient accuracy to hit your intended target at the range at which you plan to shoot. If you are planning to hunt, once you have the accuracy, then you need sufficient power to humanely take whatever game you are after.
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
- Jock Elliott
Benjamin Trail Nitro Piston .25 caliber
in Airguns
as air rifle, Airguns, Benjamin
Until this year, I had never shot a .25 caliber air rifle. To be honest, I felt .25 was at the fringes of the airgun world, a caliber that was enthusiastically embraced by a small group of shooters, but wasn’t really “mainstream.” Perhaps I was wrong in that assessment, but when Crosman Corporation announced early [...]
