There is a part of me that never got over being ten years old, roaming the summertime woods and fields of the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont with my BB gun and the neighbor kid and his BB gun. Those were golden times. It was Big Time, Big Deal to walk over to the general store in Evansville (it was, in fact, the only store in Evansville) with a coin in our pockets to buy a fresh tube of BBs and maybe a Popsicle.
Those were golden times. I’ll never forget them, and they left me with a distinct soft spot in my heart for BB guns. Recently, the folks at UmarexUSA sent me one of the most unusual airguns that I’ve seen in my career as an airgun writer – the Morph.
The Morph in pistol configuration.
What’s a Morph? It’s a CO2-powered repeater BB pistol that morphs – changes – into a rifle and while it does that, it gain some speed and power and gets quieter. Neat trick, no?
The Morph is quite a stylish piece of goods. The heart of it – the pistol, fashioned to look like a semi-automatic – has a kind modern, semi-futuristic look to it that reminds me of a firearm I saw once, but I can’t recall the name. The entire Morph pistol is just 11.5 inches from end to end and appears to be constructed mostly of a matte black engineering polymer.
The piercing screw at the bottom of the pistol grip.
At the top back end of the receiver is a notch type rear sight with a green fiber optic dot on either side. Below that, on the back of the “slide” is a soft rubber flap that can be opened to access a velocity adjustment screw. The pistol grip is nicely tucked under the rear of the receiver and slanted. The rear of the pistol grip – the backstrap – can be removed to insert a 12-gram CO2 cartridge and the front of the ambidextrous pistol grip has finger indentations. On the bottom of the pistol grip is a piercing screw. More about this later.
On the left side of the receiver is a slot for loading BBs. Forward of the pistol grip, a black polymer trigger guard surrounds a non-adjustable black trigger. Forward of the trigger guard, the bottom of the receiver is fitted with a Picatinny rail for mounting accessories such as a laser or flashlight.
The front sight.
At the front of the pistol you’ll find the muzzle and above that, a red fiber optic front sight that is mounted on a dovetail on the top of the receiver. Behind the front sight is a long Picatinny rail that can be used for mounting a red dot, scope, or whathaveyou. Finally, on right side of the Morph pistol, just above the trigger guard, you’ll find a switch type safety.
You remove the backstrap on the pistol grip to gain access to the chamber for the 12-gram CO2 cartridge.
To get the Morph pistol ready for shooting, remove the backstrap by pressing the backstrap release button and sliding the backstrap down. Slide a 12-gram CO2 cartridge into the slot and tighten the piercing screw until you hear a hiss. Squeeze the trigger once and you should be rewarded with a loud POP. If you don’t hear a pop, try tightening the piercing screw to make sure the cartridge has been pierced and is releasing CO2.
You can see the BB loading slot on the left side of the receiver just below the top rail.
Next, put the Morph on SAFE and slide the BB follower (in the BB loading slot on the left side of the receiver) all the way toward the muzzle until you can push it down and lock it in the retention slot. Pour up to 30 BBs into the loading hole and gently release the BB follower when you are done.
Take aim at your target, flick off the safety, and squeeze the trigger. At about 7 lbs of effort on the trigger, the shot goes down range with a pop, launching BBs at around 418 fps average. That’s enough speed to punch through the side of a soup can at 7 yards and split the other side. Keep squeezing the trigger and the Morph pistol will keep sending BB down range until the magazine is empty. I estimate that you’ll get about 40-45 shots per cartridge.
As a repeater BB pistol in and of itself, the Morph acquits itself well. It’s a lot of fun to shoot for bouncing cans or whiffle practice golf ball around the yard.
But the Morph isn’t done. As they say in the informercials: “But wait, there’s more!”
The Morph also converts into a long-barrel pistol or a rifle.
The Morph with the forearm in place.
There are actually two ways to convert the Morph into a long-barrel pistol. The “Official” way is to slide the red fiber optic front sight out of its dovetail on the pistol, slide the forearm over the front the Morph pistol (the forearm has its own fiber optic front sight), and then slide the long barrel down the hole in the forearm and screw it into place.
The Morph with forearm and long barrel mounted.
The unofficial Uncle Jock way of creating the long barrel pistol is to skip removing the front sight and mounting the forearm and simply screw the long barrel into the muzzle of the Morph pistol. The result looks like some sort of assassin’s pistol with the world’s baddest silencer. (A little voice in my head kept saying, “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.”)
The Uncle Jock version of the Morph long barrel pistol.
Whichever method of creating the long barrel pistol you chose, the effects are the same: the loudness of the report goes down, and the velocity goes up, to around 584 fps average. As you might imagine, with the rise in velocity also comes a rise in penetration. The Morph now easily blows through both side of a soup can at 7 yards.
The Morph fully morphed into a rifle.
Finally, you can remove the backstrap on the pistol grip and attach a shoulder stock, fully converting the Morph from a pistol into a rifle.
The bottom line: I think the Morph is a whole lot of fun. I believe the Uncle Jock version of the long barrel pistol is the cat’s meow for hunting hornets in the back yard. The Morph combo would be a fun gun to use to teach a youngster to shoot. Just make sure that everyone is properly supervised (you have to be close enough to re-direct the muzzle if necessary) and that everyone wears eye protection (because BBs tend to ricochet more than pellets).
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
- Jock Elliott
