A Conversation with Fredrik Axelsson, Owner of FX Airguns – Part II
in Airguns
as air rifle, FX, pcp, pellet gun
Recently I had the opportunity to speak at length by telephone with Fredrik Axelsson, owner of FX Airguns. This is the second part of that conversation.
JE: So what happened next?
FA: In 2001, I called Ingvar Alm and asked him who should I deal with in America? He said try Airguns of Arizona. Robert Buchanan agreed to have one or two samples of the FX2000 and the Excalibur, and he was over the moon about them. The accuracy is fantastic, he said.
JE: How do you achieve that accuracy?
FA: When I set out to design an airgun or something for an airgun, I don’t look at other people’s stuff at all. When I made my PCP rifle, all the ideas came from myself, and what I came up with was a very small valve and very small striker. That makes a difference. When you pull the trigger, you have very little mass moving inside the gun, compared to other designs. Some of the others have very heavy hammers and valves, and they are almost as bad as a springer when you pull the trigger. As a result, you need to build a heavy gun to compensate for all the mass moving inside it. An FX gun can be relatively lighter because you don’t need to compensate for a heavy valve and striker.
JE: What are some of the other things that have happened during the evolution of FX as a company?
FA: One key event was that I got fed up with the Italian company that was supplying us with stocks, so we started making our own synthetic stocks. That was very hard; we had to select a material that would do the job and build the machines that would make the stocks. At the beginning, that was a big negative, because nobody wanted synthetic stocks, but I didn’t care because at last I had a reliable supply of stocks.
JE: What else?
FA: Later we came up with the power adjuster and interchangeable air tubes. I made the power adjuster for hunting. I wanted to do the ultimate hunting rifle, one that would be quick for reloading and that you didn’t have to shoot at the same power all the time. Here’s the basic idea: at 50-60 meters, you shoot high power; at 30 meters or so, medium power; and if you are shooting pigeons inside a barn at 15 meters and don’t want the pellet to go all the way through, you use low power. Because you’re simply changing the orifice that the air flows through with the rotation of a wheel, you don’t have to fiddle with all the adjustments that you do with some other guns.
JE: How important is the US market to you?
FA: The US market is getting more and more important for us. We look to that more than anything else right now. I think the attitude toward airguns in the US is changing, and the market is growing quite dramatically. I love America because you don’t have restrictions on airguns at all. That’s not the case in Sweden where we are based.
JE: What is your philosophy when it comes to designing airguns?
FA: I do things that appeal to myself, and they seem to appeal to Americans as well. I love to build guns that a harmonious. They are light, quick, and everything works together well. The guns you love are the guns that deliver great accuracy and handle well. If you turn up the power too much, it’s a completely different feeling when you fire it. If you aren’t happy with the power of a .22, you should go to a .25. If you’re not happy with the energy of a .25, you need to go to an even bigger caliber. If you go too fast, you ruin accuracy. I refuse to do bad rifles.
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
- Jock Elliott
A Conversation with Fredrik Axelsson, Owner of FX Airguns – Part I
Recently I had the opportunity to speak at length by telephone with Fredrik Axelsson, owner of FX Airguns.
JE: How did you get involved with airguns?
FA: I had my first airgun when I was five years old. I have been told that I had problems operating that rifle because I was a little too weak, but about a year later, I was an expert and a good shot.
JE: So how was it that you got into the airgun business?
FA: I started making things for the airguns at the end of 1989. I had purchased a .22 caliber English air rifle that was supposed to be a very good one, and I was very disappointed. I wanted to use it for shooting pigeons in a tree (I use a shotgun for flying pigeons but didn’t want to use it for sitting birds). After a couple of months of hunting, the spring broke, and I had done very little actually shooting – a lot of the time you spend sitting and waiting.
So I had the idea of making my own gas ram. I made it, and it was working quite well, but I didn’t like the recoil. So I started thinking about other kinds of air rifles. I did a lot of experiments with CO2 rifles that I made myself, including a 9mm rifle and a 20 gauge air shotgun with replaceable chokes. I also started doing pump-up rifles, then I moved to PCP rifles. I was very interested in air rifles, and it was a natural progression. I’m not Einstein, but I am very interested. Now I work with airguns every day, and I don’t get bored with it; every day that I get to work with airguns is a good day!
JE: So then what happened?
FA: In 1994, I made the original design for the Independence rifle. I made five of them, I think, and Ingvar Alm had one of them. One of the first problems that I addressed was that with PCP air rifles, you need a diving bottle. Here in Sweden, there isn’t a lot of SCUBA diving. I came up with a three-stage hand pump that opened the door for everyone here to enjoy PCP airguns.
In 1995, I took my ideas to a company in the area where I live, and we started production of the hand pump. Then I took the pump off the Independence, and it became the Axsor rifle, and we sold it to Webley & Scott, and we also made the Timberwolf.
In 1999, I was so fed up with that company that one morning in May, I told the owner “I quit!” and I just walked away, leaving all my patents and everything . . . but I was convinced that air rifles were what I wanted to work on.
JE: Was starting FX Airguns the next chapter in the story?
FA: Yes. In 1999, I started FX Airguns, and I’m very happy about that, because I am in total control. I contacted Webley & Scott, and they said “We have 3,000 Axsor stocks, so whatever you make must fit into that stock. I made the FX2000, and it fit into that stock. In a sense, it wasn’t the rifle I wanted to make then, but it was the rifle I was forced to make by the opportunity that was at hand.
In 2000, I came up with a patent on a new pump and an electrical compressor that year as well. In 2001, we developed the Cyclone.
Next time: FX Airguns coming to America.
Til then, aim true and shoot straight.
- Jock Elliott
A “Primitive” Airgun
No one knows for sure exactly when it happened, or where. Some estimate it was sometime in the fifteenth century. Others say it was perhaps thousands of years earlier. Whenever it was, at some point in the mists of time, some intrepid innovator discovered what every kid who has blown the wrapper off a soda straw knows: if you place moveable projectile in a tube and quickly blow into the tube, the projectile will come zipping out of the tube. In an instant, our inventor had discovered the blowgun, the primitive ancestor to all airguns that we use today.
Your Humble Correspondent, shooting a .62 caliber blowgun in the darkest jungles of upstate New York.
The natives of the Malay Archipelago (Borneo) and the Indians of the Orinoco and Amazon river basins are generally acknowledged to be the heavy hitters in blowgunning. The South American blowguns range from 12 to 20 feet long, and there are those who claim the Jivaro Indians can hit a hummingbird at 50 yards with one. Blowguns are, or have been, used by Ninjas in Japan, various military units and by modern folks wishing to tranquilize wildlife. Blowguns have been used for sport and hunting by native people in North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe.
I first became interested in blowguns in my twenties when my Dad bought one, and we fooled around with it one weekend. I forgot about them until I saw them being used by research scientists on the National Geographic channel a few years ago. This piqued my interest, and I started looking into them. The bottom line: they are a lot of fun.
But first, a disclaimer: just because you are the powerplant supplying the energy in a blowgun, don’t make the mistake of thinking they are harmless toys. Even the least powerful blowgun I tested could, at ten yards, stick a pointed target dart into a block of wood with enough energy that it always required pliers to pull it out.
The blowgun is a very simple projectile launcher, but it has a lot to recommend it. It’s virtually silent and requires no movement that would reveal your presence. It’s mechanically simple, highly reliable, light and easy to carry. The only consumable items are the darts, which are inexpensive to buy or easy to make.
Today in North America there blowgun target shooters as well as enthusiasts who hunt with blowguns, taking birds, squirrels, rabbits, pan fish, and snakes. In A Sporting Chance Daniel Mannix successfully hunted a wildcat, woodchucks, and pigeons with a blowgun without the use of poison, and he killed a deer using darts with curare. By all means, check your local laws regarding blowguns. They are illegal to possess in California or Massachusetts.
If you poke around the internet, you’ll quickly discover that modern blowguns are generally made of aluminum tubing and come in various lengths and three common calibers: .40, .50, and .62. On the Internet, you’ll also discover directions for making your own blowgun from electrical conduit or (sometimes) PVC tubing.
At 13 yards, this mini-broadhead dart punched through both sides of this can.
Among commercially manufactured blowguns, forty caliber is the most common. The widest ranges of darts are available in .40 and .50 cal. If you would rather purchase a blowgun, I have had good luck with those from Cold Steel. Cold Steel offers several different models of .625 cal. blowguns as well as an assortment of ammunition. I have never hunted with blowguns, but I found that a Cold Steel mini-broadhead dart would penetrate both sides of a tin can a 13 yards.
When experimenting with blowguns, select your targets with care. A pizza box is the right size but must be backed by something more substantial such as an archery target. I like taping small balloons to the target and trying to pop them at the greatest possible range.
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
- Jock Elliott
The HW70A Pistol – What fun!
in Airguns
as Air pistol, review, Weihrauch
A very simple pistol that is very pleasant to shoot.
Okay, I’ll admit it; I was prejudiced. Before I explain why, let’s back up for just a moment. At the heart of the word “prejudiced” is the notion of “pre-judging,” and that carries with it the underlying concept of forming an opinion without sufficient facts to back it up.
We certainly see prejudice at work sometimes in interpersonal relationships, but we also observe it in airgunning. Some years ago, I got into a conflict with a fellow on one of the forums because had formed the opinion that a particular air rifle that I had reviewed highly had to be a certified piece of dung because he had once owned an air rifle made by the same manufacturer, and he thought not very highly of it. Now, in point of fact, he had never seen, handled, or shot the particular model that I had praised, so he had no basis on which to form that opinion. He was prejudiced. It would be as if I condemned all modern Chevrolets because I once had a nasty experience with a Chevette. That’s prejudice.
Nevertheless, I was just recently guilty of pre-judging an airgun . . . in this case, the Weihrauch HW70A. I remember that the first time that I saw a picture of the HW70A. It was in the 1999 Beeman Precision Airgun Guide. On Page 27 the HW70A appeared, along with its brother the HW70S. My very first impression of the wooden-stocked HW70A was that it looked crude, like someone’s first attempt at building an airgun: “Hey, look, I made it myself!”
So I continued on my merry way, thinking those kind of thoughts about the HW70A, never having handled one or shot one, until a sample of the HW70A actually arrived at El Rancho Elliott just the other day. When I pulled the it from its box, it didn’t look so crude after all. In fact, it looked pretty nice.
It is a breakbarrel spring-piston air pistol. The receiver, breech block, barrel, front sight, and trigger are all metal, finished in a black satin finish that is really very nice, and the rest of the pistol – the “stock,” pistol grip and trigger guard – are all molded out of black polymer. The pistol grip is ambidextrous and has molded-in checkering on either side. Above the pistol grip on the left side is the safety. It activates automatically when the HW70A is cocked, and you slide it toward the muzzle to click it OFF.
The polymer “stock” which embraces the lower half of the receiver has molded-in wood grain on either side. I find that a little silly, but it doesn’t detract from the appearance of the pistol. Ahead of the pistol grip is the trigger guard, which is molded from the same polymer. Inside the trigger guard is a black metal trigger which apparently can be adjusted for weight. The manual, however, says “The trigger pull setting as it comes from the factory is usually best for the airgun in question and should not be lightened.” So I didn’t mess with it.
At the far end of the “stock,” you’ll find the breech block. Attached to that is the barrel, at the end of which is the blade type front sight which is surrounded by a nice smooth metal hood. More about that in just a moment. At the extreme aft end of the receiver is the rear notch sight which is click adjustable for elevation and windage.
To ready the HW70A for shooting, grab the pistol grip in one hand and the front sight hood in the other, and pull the barrel down and back toward the pistol grip until it clicks. This takes around 30 lb. of effort and cocks the action and opens the breech for loading. What’s make this particularly nice is the smoothly finished hooded front sight. As you break the barrel, the sight doesn’t dig into your palm or cause any discomfort; instead it functions as a “cocking assist handle” and makes the process easier. Slide a .177 pellet into the breech and return the barrel to its original position.
Take aim, slide the safety off, and squeeze the trigger. At just over 3 lbs., the first stage comes out of the trigger; at 4 lbs. 15 oz. (on the sample I tested), the shot goes down range. There is a bit of recoil, but not much, and the muzzle report is very subdued. While the HW70A doesn’t buck like a bronco when it goes off, neither does launch pellets with blinding speed. JSB Express 7.87 gr. pellets averages 399 fps, which works out to 2.8 foot-pounds of energy at the muzzle.
The recoil, however, makes a difference. That means you’ll have to work to master this air pistol. From a Creedmoor position, I found I could put four pellets in a group you could cover with a dime at 10 meters, but then the fifth shot would get away from me. The Beeman catalog claims accuracy of 0.32 inch CTC. I believe it, but I wasn’t able to achieve it.
In all, I found the HW70A was incredible fun to shoot . . . easy to cock, mild recoil, pleasantly quiet, and well built. I think it would be the perfect pistol for a pleasant afternoon with a friend, plinking at targets and spinning yarns.
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
- Jock Elliott
A conversation with Stefano Gervasoni, Export director of Daystate
In May, 2009, Daystate was acquired by the same group that owns Marocchi Arms. For the past two-and-a-half years, Stefano Gervasoni has been Export Director of Daystate.
JE: How did you get involved with airguns?
SG: In my last job, I was sales manager for Minelli an Italian company that made wooden stocks for airguns and firearms, so I was familiar with airguns because we supplied some of the components for them. Now that I am at Daystate, we make everything!
JE: Philosophically, how do you approach Daystate moving into the future?
SG: Daystate was already at the top of the airguns market when I joined the company. It was already the leader in PCP air rifles, thanks to the continuous development that had been done in the past.
Moving forward, Daystate needs to stay at the top end of the market and be the most advanced company in terms of new products, experimental work on airguns, which means research and development. Daystate is where it is because of the genius that was put in its air rifles in the past, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.
JE: How important is the American market to Daystate?
SG: The American market is very important to Daystate. US sales constitute about 20% of our total sales, and American sales represent 50% of our exports, so financially the American market is important to us. But there is another season why the US is important to Daystate.
JE: What’s that?
SG: The US is an airgun marketplace that is very sophisticated. The customers are very experienced, and they know what they want. The general culture of the customer is very high, and the competition is strong, which is good. That means the American market obliges Daystate as a manufacturer to continually improve and innovate.
It’s challenging, but it is good for Daystate. The US market pushes us to do our best.
JE: Speaking of innovation, do you have anything new and exciting coming along?
SG: At the SHOT Show this year we displayed a new model, a .30 caliber (7.62mm) big bore air rifle. We expect that it will produce 100 foot-pounds of energy at the muzzle.
It is a new way to think about air rifle design. It is a pre-charged pneumatic, and it uses the air that would normally be wasted to index the magazine. It is a very efficient design. While it is not simpler to manufacture, it is simpler to operate.
At the SHOT Show, there was a lot of interest in this air rifle, and people in the US are waiting for it to come to the market. We expect that we will have product available in the US in April or May.
In addition to the .30 caliber version, we also expect to bring out .177, .20, .22, and .25 versions of the Wolverine, as well as 12 foot-pound versions for the UK market. We’re very excited about the Wolverine, and we think that the basic underlying principles of its design will help us to maintain leadership for the next five years or more.
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
- Jock Elliott
Airguns of Arizona – the International Connection
If you think that Airguns of Arizona is content to rest on its laurels, quietly baking in the Arizona sun, think again.
Recently I spoke with Robert Buchanan, president of AoA, about the company’s international connection. “At least once a year, I go to Europe. Frequently, it is to visit the IWA Fair, which is the European equivalent of the SHOT Show. All the major manufacturers display at IWA, and we have important meetings.”
“Some of the time is spent talking about how we can work together better,” Buchanan says. “The airgun manufacturers usually have some things they would like AoA to do better, and we usually have some requests of them. We try to work through those issues and find out what going on for the next year in terms of product, pricing, and so forth.”
He notes that the American market appears to be rising in importance for the European manufacturers. “Things appear to be worse in the European economy than they are here in the US, and the European airgun manufacturers are apparently looking to us for growth. Right now, AoA is on a track for very good growth.”
Buchanan sees a change in the way the Europeans are approaching the American market. “For most of our history in working with them, when they designed a new gun, they would first design it for the 12-foot-pound European market and then later they would see about boosting the power to meet the demands of American consumers.”
“Now, however, we’re starting to see some companies look first to the US when designing a new model. The Daystate Wolverine is an example. It is a big, powerful air rifle, two years in the making, and it was designed clearly for the American market. Sure, it will be sold in Europe, but its first market is the US,” Buchanan says.
Among frequently discussed topics on Buchanan’s overseas visits to manufacturers are customer service and parts. “We have tens of thousands of dollars in parts inventory at Airguns of Arizona, but we don’t have all parts at all times. I usually press manufacturers to be quicker about responding to request for parts, because American customers are pretty much accustomed to ‘instant’ customer service. And of course, we always stress the need for the highest quality products and quality control,” he says.
He adds that visiting the factories helps AoA to understand how and why some of the air rifles and air pistols are made the way they are. “Some of the top end elite air rifles are every bit as exotic as a Ferrari,” Buchanan says.
Every other year, AoA sends some of its employees overseas to train at the factories to learn how to service and repair the air guns that AoA imports. “We learn how to service a particular gun in a particular manner that is quicker and more efficient and also less stress on the components. Sometimes there are specific torque values on individual bolts that will bring out the best performance,” Buchanan says. “It’s no longer good enough to tighten everything until it is snug. You have to get it right.”
Sometimes the international connection works the other way. “Fredrik Axelsson of FX visited us a couple of months ago and was extremely helpful. Stefano Gervisoni of Daystate came over for the SHOT Show. It was educational for all of us.”
The bottom line for Buchanan, though, is that the international connection has helped, and will continue to help, Airguns of Arizona to deliver better airguns and service to its customers.
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
- Jock Elliott
In which Mr. Murphy and I do a dance, and I invent a new game
It all started innocently enough. My wife noticed me staring into space with a distant look in my eye and asked what I was doing.
“Well, I’m trying to come up with a topic for the next blog,” I said.
She replied, “Why don’t you go for something that is just pure fun?”
I looked out at the growing twilight. January in upstate New York and still no snow on the ground . . . hmmm . . . I know: a BB gun, some BBs and some tin cans! Tomorrow I’ll go outside and see how much fun it is to bounce some cans around the yard. With steel BBs, I don’t have to be concerned about capturing lead pellets. I bet it will be a blast!
At this point, if I had been listening carefully, I could have heard Mr. Murphy sniggering in the background. Who’s Mr. Murphy? Why, the owner and originator of Murphy’s Law. Murphy’s Law was explained to me some years ago in a concise volume entitled The Official Explanation. Published by the Murphy Institute for the Codification of Human Behavior, it explains, in pithy aphorisms, why things so often turn out so badly.
Here’s what you need to know. Murphy’s Law: If anything can go wrong, it will. Murphy’s Law 1st Corollary: Even if nothing can go wrong, it still will. Murphy’s Law 2nd Corollary: When it goes wrong, it will do so at the worst possible time and place. There are a lot of other corollaries, but those are the basics.
So by now I rather imagine you are ahead of me. Do you know what awaited me the following morning when I went out to knock some cans around with a BB gun? Of course you do. Snow, about an inch of it. Murphy clearly had me in his sights. Undeterred, I set up the cans and a margarine tub as you see them below.
I then shot at them with two different BB guns: a Daisy Model 25 Pump Gun and a Model 105 Buck. I chose those two BB guns because there is a substantial velocity difference between the two (the Model 25 launches BBs at around 350 fps and the Model 105 manages a more sedate 275 fps), and I wasn’t sure which one would work better to get good “action” out of the cans.
The cans (and margarine tub) ready to be "danced" around the yard.
The answer, it turns out, was . . . neither. Try as I might with either gun, I could not get the cans to dance merrily about the yard. In fact, it was a bit of a struggle to even knock them over, a task at which the Model 25 did better than the Model 105. Both guns punched holes in the margarine tub but it wouldn’t dance or bounce around at all.
The cans, resolutely refusing to dance.
Okay, I said to myself, what I need is a lighter, more responsive target . . . I need to go shopping! So I took myself to the local big box store and wandered the aisles with a wild gleam in my eye, looking for Things to Shoot. Ten minutes into the mission I found it: a mesh wire basket containing 48 foam practice golf balls. They were even brightly colored so they would show up against the snow. I bet these would dance when given the Daisy treatment! With a fiendish chuckle, I headed for the checkout line.
My purchase.
The gray haired gentleman at the register greeted me. “You’ve got the right idea,” he said.
“Whaddya mean?” I asked.
“Golf practice,” he said, “I can’t wait.”
Glancing furtively about, I said, “You know what I’m going to do with these? Shoot ‘em . . . with a BB gun.” “I’m a writer,” I added, as if that explained something.
He gave me a dubious look and rang up my bucket of balls. Still eying me somewhat suspiciously, he handed me my purchase. “Your targets, sir,” he said.
I raced home, tore open the package, and a thought occurred: I would spread some of the practice balls on the ground, lay the empty bucket on its side, and try to shoot the balls so that they would bounce into the bucket. What a great idea! I could call the resulting game “BB Gun Golf.”
Well, the theory might have been great, but the execution was not. No matter what the angle, hitting the practice golf balls with BBs did little more than drive the practice balls deep into the snow where they burrowed like groundhogs waiting for spring. I said several of the more interesting short words. Clearly Mr. Murphy was still hot on my trail.
Shooting the foam practice golf balls on the snow covered grass only drove them into hibernation.
Maybe my idea would work on snowy concrete front walk at El Rancho Elliott . . . and it did. The practice balls would indeed leap into the air when struck by a BB. I even managed to bounce one into the bucket.
On the snow-covered sidewalk, I managed to pop one of the balls into the bucket.
Even better, a couple of days later what little snow we had melted, and I found the balls were even more responsive when there was no snow to restrain them.
It worked even better without the snow.
So I give you, for your earnest and prayerful consideration: BB gun golf. Get yourself some practice golf balls, a bucket, and see if you can knock the balls into the bucket by shooting them with BBs. Make sure everyone involved wears eye protection because the BBs can bounce at crazy angles. For that same reason, you probably shouldn’t play next to your uncle’s newly restored vintage Ferrari.
Here's what you need for BB gun golf. Enjoy!
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
- Jock Elliott
FX Royale 200 Synthetic .25 caliber – Part II
The left side of the FX Royale 200 .25 caliber
To ready the FX Royale 200 Synthetic .25 caliber for shooting, attach the filling probe to your high pressure pump or SCUBA tank and charge the reservoir to 200 BAR.
Now it’s time to load the magazine. Begin by turning the transparent lid to the magazine counterclockwise until it stops. Put one pellet in the open slot on the rear (black) side of the magazine so that the tip of the pellet is pointing out of the hole. This locks the magazine spring in place.
Next, turn the magazine so that the transparent lid is facing you. Turn the lid clockwise one slot at a time and fill the slots with pellets with the tip of the pellets facing into the hole. When all the slots have been filled, slide the lid back into its starting position.
The left side of the receiver.
Pull the bolt lever all the way back and insert the magazine, black side toward the muzzle, into the breech from the right side. Helpful hint: make sure the scope mounts are high enough that no part of the scope interferes with the magazine sliding fully into place. If you are purchasing a FX Royale 200 Synthetic .25 caliber and scope from Airguns of Arizona, they can recommend the proper height scope rings.
Now you are ready to go. Push the bolt forward, flick off the safety, and squeeze the trigger. The first stage required only 11.1 ounces of pressure on the sample that I tested. At 1 lb. 5.3 oz., the shot went down range. This is an excellent trigger that is a pleasure to shoot.
NOTE: The section below has been corrected. I had the wrong shot string. JE
FX Royale 200 Synthetic .25 caliber launches 31.1 gr. H&N Barracuda pellets at average of 800fps, or 44.20 foot-pounds of energy at the muzzle and will deliver 35 usable shots from a fill. Even with the shrouded barrel, there is a significant POP when the shot goes off, but it is not nearly as raucous as one would typically expect from a .25 caliber PCP generating this kind of power. This is clearly not the best choice for stealthy plinking in the back yard without disturbing the neighbors, but for a hunting gun it is just fine.
One other thing I notice while shooting the FX Royale 200 Synthetic .25 caliber is that this air rifle is generating enough power that you can actually start to feel some recoil when the shot goes off. Not some heavy-handed slam in the shoulder, but a gentle push that reminds you that Sir Isaac Newton was right: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. You don’t put .25 caliber pellets down range with the kind of power that this rifle generates without getting some push in the opposite direction.
Like all FX air rifles that I have tested, the FX Royale 200 Synthetic .25 caliber delivers the goods when it comes to accuracy. At 30 yards from a casual rest with JSB Jumbo pellets, I put 5 shots into a group that measured just .625 inch edge to edge. That works out to well under half an inch center to center.
The FX Royale 200 Synthetic .25 caliber is a powerful, handsome air rifle that does everything well. I think any air rifle hunter would be pleased to own one.
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
- Jock Elliott
FX Royale 200 Synthetic .25 caliber – Part I
in Airguns
as air rifle, Airguns, FX, pcp, review
The FX Royale 200 Synthetic .25 caliber is handsome and powerful.
FX airguns enjoy a well-deserved reputation for excellence and accuracy, and the FX Royale 200 Synthetic in .25 caliber is no exception. It is a big airgun – 45.5 inches from end to end – that weighs just 6.7 lbs. and delivers a tremendous wallop, nearly 44 foot-pounds at the muzzle.
The butt pad is adjustable vertically.
Starting at the extreme aft end of the .25 Royale, you’ll find a black rubber butt pad that is adjustable vertically. Just loosen a screw and slide the butt pad up or down to meet your need. The butt pad is attached to an ambidextrous matte black synthetic stock that has a raised comb, cheek piece on either side, and a pronounced thumb notch.
Here's the trigger, breech, and magazine.
Forward of the butt stock, the pistol grip is flared at the end and has ribbing on either side. Moving forward again, the matte black synthetic material of the stock forms a trigger guard that surrounds a black metal trigger. The trigger is adjustable for first stage length of pull, second stage weight of pull, and, if you have tinkered with the trigger adjustments, the safety catch adjustment. The manual warns that “Failure to adjust this screw (the safety catch adjustment) after altering the trigger can result in a non-functioning safety.”
Just ahead of the trigger guard is an allen head bolt that holds the receiver in the stock, and forward of that is a black and white air pressure gauge that is about 7/8 of an inch in diameter. Beyond that, the forestock is relatively unadorned, except for ribbing molded into the polymer on either side.
The air reservoir protrudes nearly a foot beyond the end of the forestock. At the end of air reservoir is a port into which a filling probe is inserted for charging the reservoir. This is the only thing about the .25 Royale that I didn’t like. I personally prefer that air reservoirs be equipped with male Foster fittings. In my experience, they work pretty well, providing a quick and secure connection for filling PCP airguns. I don’t understand why a special filling probe was required but then again I am not an airgun engineer, just an airgun shooter.
Above the reservoir is the fully shrouded barrel. The shroud stretches 25.5 inches from muzzle to where it meets the receiver, but the specifications say that the .25 caliber barrel itself, which is inside the shroud, measures 23.6 inches.
At the aft end of the shroud is the receiver, finished in shiny black with white lettering. On top of the receiver, forward and aft of the breech, are dovetails for mounting a scope. In the middle of the receiver is the breech, which is just barely deep enough to allow loading single pellets by hand and which allows the 11-shot self-indexing .25 caliber rotary magazine to be slid into place.
On the right hand side of the receiver, you’ll find the toggle-action bolt. You cock the action and ready it for the next shot by pulling it full back and then sliding it fully forward again. It’s smooth and easy. Just below the aft end of the cocking lever is the safety.
That’s all there is to the FX Royale 200 Synthetic in .25 caliber. It’s a handsome air rifle with a utilitarian and purposeful look about it. As a .25 caliber, it is most likely to be used as a hunting rifle, and I like that there is no wood to worry about scratching or damaging with moisture. This is a serious tool designed to withstand inclement conditions without serious concern.
Next time, we’ll take a look at how the FX Royale 200 Synthetic in .25 caliber shoots.
Til then, aim true and shoot straight.
- Jock Elliott
How Airguns of Arizona preps guns before you get them
I came upon the subject for this blog quite by accident, and it was all my fault.
A while back I had been whining to Greg, my chief contact at Airguns of Arizona, about how winter was coming in big, bad upstate New York, and if the winter was anything like last year, there was going to be a period – maybe a long period — when I would be unable to test airguns. So would they please – please, please, PLEASE! – send me some guns to test in a big hurry!
Here's the reason for the whining: this is what El Rancho Elliott looked like after the first storm in January 2011.
And just to prove that I am not psychic in any way, here is approximately the same view on Jan. 2 of 2012.
Greg, being an excellent fellow, in great haste dispatched a large package containing several guns, which I then proceeded to test. When I got to the last gun, disaster struck. The bolt would not cycle properly, after which I could not get the fully loaded magazine out of the breech.
So here I was with a fully loaded, fully charged PCP air rifle that I could not unload. This makes me really uncomfortable, and I was borderline freaking out when I called AoA and got Shane on the line. He immediately gave me the procedure for getting the magazine out of the breech. I tried it, and it worked. Next, Shane wanted me to run a cleaning rod down the barrel to make sure that that there wasn’t a pellet jammed in there.
Dutifully, I slid the rod down the barrel and a mashed pellet and a machined brass cylinder came out. I reported this to Shane (we were doing this in real time on the phone), and he said, “Oh, you must have a gun that wasn’t prepped.”
“Wasn’t prepped,” I said. “Whaddya mean?”
“We prep almost every air rifle we ship,” Shane said. “You need to talk to Darren. He’s our primary prep guy.”
So I interviewed Darren, and what follows is the real and true story of how Airguns of Arizona preps air rifles before you get them.
When it comes to prepping precharged air rifles, the first is the removal of any special fittings that are attached to the gun for shipping. Some PCPs have a barrel plug and a special restrictor screw that are fitted so that the gun can be legally exported from the country of origin. (The barrel plug is what I ran into when the magazine jammed in the gun.)
After any shipping fittings are removed, the gun is visually inspected for any dings or pressure marks in the stock, any rust, signs of damage, any molding issues on synthetic stocks.
Here's Darren prepping a gun for a customer.
“After that,” Darren says, “we test most precharged guns for accuracy and velocity.” (There are some exceptions to this: there are some models that come shipped in well-sealed factory packaging, and AOA allows the manufacturer/distributor to deal with any quality issues on these models. It is too easy for a customer to confuse AOA’s testing with supplying of a used gun due to the torn packaging.)
“We’ll mount a scope and benchrest the gun at 18 yards,” he says. “If the customer is purchasing a scope with the gun, we’ll mount the customer’s scope and sight it in. We’ll test up to five different pellets to find the best pellets for that gun, and we’ll generally test with a heavy pellet to make sure that it is generating the proper amount of foot pounds.”
If there is a problem with the accuracy of the gun, AoA investigates why – looking for problems like perhaps a bad barrel or clipping issues. AoA will also hold up shipment on a gun if there is a dramatic spread in velocities. When everything checks out properly, Darren will print out chronograph receipt and the test target, sign off on the gun, and include those with the gun as it is shipped to the customer.
All spring-piston air rifles are tested for velocity, usually for 5-10 shots to make sure that it is consistent. “We don’t generally test for accuracy,” Darren says, “but if a customer buys a scope with their springer, we will mount it, sight it in, and shoot a five-shoot group with it.”
He adds, “I test so many airguns that very often I will know if there is an issue with a gun simply by the way it sounds and feels when I shoot it. Sometimes when we’re shipping several of the same model gun, I’ll test them side-by-side to give me an additional check on quality and consistency.”
With the exception of a few isolated models, Airguns of Arizona routinely preps the air rifles it sends to customers – at no additional charge. “It makes sense to do that,” Darren says. “It ensures customer satisfaction, reduces hassles at our end, and, if a gun arrives at a customer with a problem, we know that something happened to it between here and there.”
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
Jock Elliott
