Posts Tagged ‘review’

The Alecto comes in a nice foam-lined case.

This week, Dear Reader, I’m going to be telling on myself. When I first pulled the Webley Alecto out of its foam-lined black plastic case, I thought: “Oh cool, another single-stroke pneumatic air pistol.” Little did I know that I had a happy surprise in store.

The Alecto with the right hand grip.

I grabbed the Alecto, a container of Crosman Premier Light (7.9 gr.) .177 pellets, and wandered outside to punch some holes in a paper target at 10 meters. I was happily sending pellet after pellet downrange and enjoying the heck out of the Alecto when it started to sprinkle. So I packed up the gun, pellets, and pellet trap and scooted inside.

Back at my desk, I began wondering whether Airguns of Arizona had the Alecto up on its website yet. I found it at http://www.airgunsofarizona.com/webley.html and was idly scrolling down the page when the following jumped out at me: “Multi-pump Pneumatic Pistol” “1-3 Pumps.”

“HOLY SMOKES!” I thought, “this changes everything.” Right then and there, I decided maybe I should read the manual for this pistol to find out what the deal is. But manual is strangely reticent to reveal that the Alecto is, in fact, a multi-stroke pneumatic pistol. The only place that it is mentioned is in the CAUTION section on page 4. To whit: “If you require extra power, the cocking procedure can be carried out to a maximum of three times. Extra cocking strokes (presumably beyond 3 strokes – JE) will not increase power but will eventually damage the internals of the pistol.” Oh.

Clearly, the good folks at Webley have not truly grokked the significance of what they have created here, so let me lay it out for you. In the past, if you wanted a self-contained air pistol with an excellent trigger, low recoil, and worthy accuracy suitable for high-accuracy plinking or casual club competition, the obvious choice was a single stroke pneumatic pistol like HW75, HW40, FAS 604, or Daisy 747.

If you wanted a self-contained pistol capable of killing small game at very close range, you could choose pistols like the HW45 or RWS LP8 and deal with the recoil of their spring-piston powerplants. Alternatively you could choose a low-recoil pump-up pistol like the Crosman 1377 or the Benjamin HB17 or HB22 and do a lot of pumping to generate sufficient power for dispatching vermin or small game at close range.

But the Webley Alecto, it would appear, offers the promise of the best of both worlds: excellent trigger, low recoil, and excellent power (for a self-contained pistol) at only three pumps. Could it be true? We’ll find out in just a little while, but first let’s take a stroll around the Webley Alecto.

Available in .177 and .22, the Alecto stretches just 11 inches long and weighs 2.4 pounds. Shaped to look like a modern semi-automatic pistol, most of the Alecto is sculpted of a matte black engineering polymer. At the extreme back end of the pistol is a metal notch sight that is adjustable for elevation and windage. Just below the rear sight on either side of the upper cover of the Alecto is a lever. Both of these levers must be pulled upward to release the upper cover for cocking and loading. At the far end of the upper cover, near the muzzle is a blade front sight with a small red dot on it. This blade front sight can be flipped 90 degrees to reveal another front blade of lower height.

The trigger is highly adjustable, shown here with the safety in the "SAFE" position.

Underneath the muzzle, the lower half of the receiver is fitted with a Weaver rail for mounting accessories such as a flashlight or laser. Moving back, the trigger guard is molded of matte black polymer and encloses a silver metal trigger and push-pull automatic safety. The trigger is adjustable for left, right and downward movement; trigger position forward and aft; and trigger spring strength, from just under a pound to about 4 pounds. Moving back again, the Alecto features a match-style grip (available in left or right hand) with an adjustable palm shelf.

The Alecto with the upper cover in the full forward position, reading for loading.

The aft end of the barrel, where the pellet is inserted.

To get the Alecto ready for shooting, pull the levers on either side of the upper cover upward and then swing the aft end of the upper cover up and forward until the cover is completely open. Returning the upper cover to its original position charges the action, cocks the trigger, and activates the automatic safety. You can pump the Alecto up to three times, and the effort becomes stiffer with each successive stroke.  Before you complete the last stroke, insert a pellet into the end of barrel prior to returning the upper cover to its original position.

Now you’re good to go. Take aim at your target, flick the safety off (you can’t help but notice the automatic safety since it blocks the trigger), and squeeze the trigger. At 1 lb. 1.4 oz., the first stage comes out. At 1 lb. 12 oz., the shot goes down range with a pop (The pop gets louder as the Alecto is charged with more pumps). At one pump, the Alecto launches 7.9 grain Crosman .177 Premier pellets at around 365 fps; at 2 pumps, about 480 fps, and at 3 pumps, about 560 fps. At three pumps, that’s very comparable to the power you would get from an HW30 rifle or the RWS LP8 pistol, and a bit more powerful than an HW45 pistol in .177.

It strikes me that the Webley Alecto delivers a whole lot to like in a handsome package: a virtually recoilless pistol suitable for high-precision plinking, casual target competition, or pest control at close range.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight,

–          Jock Elliott

To ready the P-rod for shooting, fill the air reservoir with a high pressure pump or SCUBA tank to 3,000 psi and load the magazine. For details on how to load the magazine, check out this blog: http://198.154.244.69/blog/2009/05/marauder-part-i.html Pull the bolt all the way back, slide the magazine into the breech slot from the right until it clicks, and push the bolt hand forward and down.

Take aim, push the safety off, and ease the first stage out of the trigger. On the sample I tested, the first stage required only 1 lb. 5.4 oz. At 1 lb., 14 oz., the shot went down range. The Crosman folks have done a wonderful job of designing an excellent new trigger for the P-rod, and I could find no fault with it.

Now here’s where life got interesting in the testing process for me. Check out the picture below. These were the shooting conditions on January 1, 2011 when I first shot the P-rod here in the wilds of upstate New York.

That white rectangle waaaaay in the distance is the pellet trap.

I had loaded the magazine with Crosman .22 Premier pellets. Look at the target below. The first two shots cut the inner most ring of the bullseye at 35 yards. The next shot was just slightly outside the inner ring at about 10 o’clock. At this point, I need to talk about something that I have never seen mentioned in the shooting forums: the psychology aspect of shooting groups.

The truth is that when I saw how tight those first three shots were, I started to get excited. I could feel my heart rate go up. I tried to calm myself by exhaling. Some of my breath landed on the eyepiece, which started to get a bit fogged up. My next shot landed to the right at about 3 o’clock, so I tried several calming breaths so settle myself down. That’s when the eyepiece got considerably fogged, with the result that the last shot landed near the outer ring. Unfortunately, I was under time pressure, so I had to accept the results I got. Nevertheless, I am convinced that .25-.375 inch groups are achievable with the P-rod at 35 yards.

The report of the P-rod, thanks to its shrouded barrel, is very mild. It is not as quiet as, say, a .177 Marauder rifle, but it is certainly no louder than a very quiet springer air rifle like the Beeman R7/HW30.  I think it is the kind of airgun that can be shot in the back yard without irritating the neighbors, but if you want something that is dead quiet for ultra-stealthy pest control, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

In factory tune, the P-rod will deliver around 30 shots from a fill, averaging about 660 fps, which works out to 13.8 foot-pounds of energy (average) with 14.3 grain Crosman .22 Premier pellets. For an actual string shot by Steve, owner of the “Yellow” forum, check out: http://www.network54.com/Forum/79537/message/1293414891/Forum+Owner%27s+First+Review+of+the+Crosman+Marauder+Pistol-+Graphic

Also, if you want to see how the P-rod can be adjusted for various parameters, check out this work by “Airgun Enthusiast: http://www.network54.com/Forum/79537/message/1294258894/The+Benjamin+Marauder+Pistol+At+Various+Fills+%26amp%3B+Settings

In case you haven’t figured it out already, the upshot is that I really liked the Benjamin Marauder Pistol. It is light, easy to handy, accurate, admirably quiet, highly adjustable and has a great trigger. I can see many airgunners starting with the P-rod as their first PCP airgun and being satisfied with it for a very long time.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

–          Jock Elliott

The Marauder Pistol comes complete with a plastic shoulder stock to turn it into a carbine.

I am convinced that the new Benjamin Marauder Pistol will shoot little tiny groups at 35 yards. I have pretty good evidence that it will, but I can’t prove it.

Why?

Because I breathed. Before we get into why breathing messed up a sizzling hot group, let’s start at the beginning.

The nice folks at Crosman sent me a sample of the new Benjamin Marauder Pistol for evaluation. There are a lot of things I like about this pistol, starting with the packaging. As you can see from the three picture below, the gang at Crosman has designed the packaging so the pistol will arrive in excellence condition.

The Marauder Pistol (known on the Internet by the shorthand P-rod), is an eight-shot, bolt-action .22 caliber pistol. It stretches 18 inches end to end and weighs 2.7 lbs. It is equipped with an 8-shot self-indexing magazine and a 12-inch choked and shrouded barrel. It also comes with a plastic shoulder stock that, when the pistol grips are removed and the stock mounted, turns the P-rod into a slick little carbine that measures just 30.25 inches stem to stern. Even with a Hawke 10X tactical scope mounted, the P-rod carbine weighs only 5 lbs, 12 oz.

Let’s take a tour of the P-rod. At the back, the ambidextrous black plastic pistol grips are textured a bit for better gripping and are marked with a “B” for Benjamin. There is a screw on either side of the grips. Undo these screws, the grips come off, and the shoulder stock slips on. Re-attach the screws to keep the shoulder stock securely in place.

Just ahead of the pistol grips is a black metal trigger guard that is part of the pistol frame. Inside the trigger guard is a black metal trigger that is adjustable for weight, first stage, second stage, and overtravel. The trigger can also be adjusted to become a single-stage trigger. A push-button safety sits between the trigger and the grips. When the red stripe is showing, the trigger is set to fire.

Ahead of the trigger assembly is a black plastic forestock, which has an inset for a pressure gauge. Beyond the end of the forestock is the air reservoir. It has a black plastic cap snaps off to reveal a male foster fitting for filling the reservoir up to a maximum of 3,000 psi.

Above the air reservoir is the .22 caliber shrouded barrel, the aft end of which is connected to the P-rod’s receiver. The black metal receiver is inscribed on the right hand side with “Marauder” in white scrip just the rear of the breech and has dovetails for mounting a scope along the full length of the receiver. At the extreme back end of the receiver, you’ll find the bolt handle which is set up at the factory to work from the right hand side but can be switched to the left hand side if the shooter prefers. Below the bolt handle is a port through which fill pressures and velocities can be adjusted by changing hammer spring pre-load and stroke.

Next time, we’ll look at the performance of the Marauder Pistol.

Til then, aim true and shoot straight.

–          Jock Elliott

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

Earlier this year Airguns of Arizona announced that they would be importing the Weihrauch HW35E. The HW35 has been in continuous production for over 50 years, and the “E” version is the Export version of this gun. The HW35E is available in .177 and .22 caliber, stretches 43.5 inches from muzzle to buttplate and weighs 7.8 pounds.

At the aft end of the HW35E, you’ll find a brown rubber butt pad which is separated from the walnut stock by a black spacer and a white spacer. On the left side of the buttstock, there is a modest cheekpiece. The comb on the buttstock is quite low, which aids shooting this air rifle with iron sights. Underneath the buttstock is a swivel for attaching a shooting sling.

Moving forward, there is a pistol grip, which is checkered and trimmed with a white spacer and a black cap. Forward of that is a black metal trigger guard which houses the silver-colored metal Rekord trigger and its adjustment screw. Forward of that, the forestock is relatively unadorned, with the exception of finger grooves on either side and a screw that secures the action in the stock. At the forward end of the forestock, there is a cocking slot that provides clearance for the action with the break barrel is opened.

If you look at the HW35E from the right side, it looks pretty much like any break barrel air rifle. But from the left, you’ll notice something unusual: a semi-circular cut-out on the right forward edge of the forestock. This cut-out provides clearance for a breech latch that is secured to the breech block. The breech latch makes sure the barrel and breech always return to the same position after loading for greater accuracy.

Forward of the breech block is the barrel, and about halfway to the muzzle, another sling swivel is attached. On top of the barrel at the muzzle end is an R1-style front sight with interchangeable inserts, and a typical metal rear sight is mounted on top of the breech block. Moving further aft, you’ll find the receiver is equipped with dovetails for a scope and three holes for anti-recoil pins. At the aft end of the receiver is a push-button safety.

To ready the HW35E for shooting, place your left hand on the barrel just forward of the breech block. With your left thumb, pull the latch release toward the muzzle, then pull down gently on the barrel. The action breaks open about an eighth of an inch and stays there. Now, slide your left hand out to the front sight and pull the barrel down and back until it latches. The cocking stroke is incredibly smooth and noise free, and the cocking effort is definitely moderate – I estimate it to be in the mid to high 20-pound range. Insert a pellet in the breech end of the barrel, return the barrel to its original position, and you’ll hear the breech latch click into position.

Next, take aim, click the safety off, ease the first stage out the trigger and squeeze just a bit more. The action goes “tunk,” and the shot goes down range. There is no twang, no vibration, and very little recoil. In short, the sample that I tested cocked and shot like a professionally tuned air rifle. The report is also very neighbor-friendly.

I found the .22 caliber HW35E launched 14.35 grain JSB pellets at 626 fps average (about 12.4 footpounds of energy).

The accuracy of the HW35E was excellent. I found it was really easy to put 5 JSB pellets in a group at 30 yards that I could hide with a nickel. A skilled springer shooter could probably do even better.

Straight out of the box, the HW35E is easily the nicest to shoot unmodified spring piston rifle that I have shot to date. I give it my hearty personal recommendation.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

– Jock Elliott

Back in 2004, I had an assignment from SHOT Business magazine to do a profile on Crosman Corporation. As part of putting that together, I had the opportunity to speak at length with Ken D’Arcy, CEO of Crosman.

When D’Arcy arrived at Crosman, the company had been coasting for eight years. Management had not brought a serious new product to market in years, and it was not looking for ways to reduce costs to remain competitive.

“The company was dead,” D’Arcy said. “It just didn’t know it yet. Like many companies that have been around for a long time, it had forgotten what drives the business. Consumer products companies are about just that–consumer products.”

“Clearly the answer is to bring new offerings to market that consumers will want to buy,” D’Arcy said. We’re a consumer products company. Our responsibility is to introduce new products. You become stale if you are only changing the cosmetic appearance of existing products.”

In some four decades of writing for a living, I’ve found that CEOs love saying stuff like “We’re taking the company in a bold new direction,” but it’s not so common for them to actually get it done.

But D’Arcy certainly appears to be making good on his promise. During his tenure at the top, Crosman has introduced dozens of new products including the Discovery rifle, which shattered the price floor for PCP rifles, and, last year, the Marauder PCP rifle which had all the goodies on most airgunners’ Christmas list: quiet, wickedly accurate, excellent trigger, repeater all for about $500.

Among the new products being introduced this year by Crosman is the .25 caliber Marauder. Outwardly the .25 cal Marauder is nearly identical to the .177 and .22 versions. It stretches 43 inches end to end and weighs 7.5 lbs. What’s really interesting is that this is, apparently, Crosman’s first venture into .25 caliber.

The new Marauder is equipped with a .25 barrel manufactured by Green Mountain. The slot in the breech for the magazine is deeper to accommodate the new 8-shot .25 cal rotary magazine, which in turn is deeper to make room for larger .25 pellets. Those are the major differences from the .177 and .22 Marauders. To accompany the new Marauder (and a new .25 cal gas ram rifle to be introduced later this year), Crosman is also introducing Benjamin .25 cal domed and pointed pellets.

I had the opportunity to shoot one of the very first production .25 caliber Marauders. It was my first experience shooting .25 caliber, and I didn’t know what to expect, but I was very quickly delighted. At 35 yards, shooting Benjamin .25 domed pellets, I was easily able to put five shots into a tiny group that you could cover with a dime. Even better, the report was remarkably quiet, and the trigger was well behaved (1 lb 10 oz first stage, 3 lb second stage).

Cliff Tharpe, producer of Airgun Hunting the California Ground Squirrel, has shot similarly tiny groups at 50 and 65 yards with his .25 Marauder, and he routinely hunts prairie dogs at 50-100 yards with it. He finds he can get 16 shots (two magazines) before he has to recharge the air reservoir. Shooting Kodiak pellets, his Marauder generates about 46 foot-pounds of energy at the muzzle. He says of his Marauder: “I’ve got a lot of expensive shiny rifles, and when it comes to accuracy, this one shines with the best of them.”

In the end, the Marauder has a whole lot going for it for hunting and pest control: outstanding accuracy, enough power to deal with anything you might reasonably want to hunt with an air rifle, and a very neighbor-friendly report.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

– Jock Elliott

A couple of years ago, I had a BSA SuperTEN with a bull barrel. It was a really neat air rifle and accurate as the dickens, but there were a couple of things about it that really drove me to distraction: you had to remove the “bottle” (the air reservoir) to recharge the gun, and there was no way to tell how much air pressure was left in the reservoir.

The new BSA R10, available in .177 and .22, is an evolutionary step forward in the SuperTEN concept. The R10 is a so-called “bottle” gun because it has a removable 200cc air bottle at the end of the forestock. It is a multi-shot repeater with a fully shrouded barrel and an excellent trigger.

The R10 is 43 inches long and weighs 7.3 lbs before a scope is mounted. Length of pull from the trigger to the end of the butt pad about 13.75 inches. At the extreme aft end of the R10 is a soft rubber butt pad that is adjustable vertically. Just loosen a screw and slide it up or down as needed. On either side of the stock, near the butt pad, the stock is laser engraved with the BSA logo. On the underside of the butt stock, about two inches from the butt pad, the stock has a fitting for attaching a sling. Forward of that the walnut stock is distinctly right-handed with a pronounced cheek piece and comb on the left hand side of the stock.

The pistol grip has sharply cut checkering on both sides and a nice dark wood cap with a lighter colored spacer. Just above the pistol grip is an indentation is an indentation that the shooter can use as a thumb rest. Forward of the pistol grip is a black metal trigger guard which houses the two-stage adjustable match trigger. The forestock has checkering on both sides and underneath.

Ahead of the trigger guard is a screw that secures the action in the stock. Forward of that is a white-on-black pressure gauge, next to which is a quick-fill port. Beyond that you’ll find another attachment for a sling, followed by dark wood at the end of the forestock with a lighter colored spacer. Beyond that is the air reservoir.

Above the air reservoir is the fully shrouded bull barrel with a ported thread protector at the end. Moving back along the barrel, you’ll find a magazine retaining catch on the left side at the front end of the receiver. The full length of the top of the receiver has a 10.8 mm dovetailed scope rail. About halfway back along the length of the receiver on the left side there is a slot for inserting the 10-shot magazine.

At the rear of the receiver on the left side is a lever-type safety. Push it forward to ready the gun for firing, and pull it back to “safe” the action. At the extreme aft end of the receiver is a large chrome bolt. In all, I find the R10 a handsome air rifle, but I think the finish on the receiver is not quite as nice as I remember on the SuperTEN.

To ready the R10 for shooting, you first have to charge the reservoir, which can be done in two ways. (1) Remove the bottle, and using an optional filling adaptor, charge it to 232 bar with a SCUBA tank or high pressure pump. (2) Insert the filling adaptor supplied with every R10 into the quick-fill port and charge it using a SCUBA tank or high pressure pump. The quick-fill port has a restrictor screw that should be screwed down tightly if you are using a SCUBA tank. BY ALL MEANS, READ THE MANUAL!

There are detailed instructions in the manual for loading the magazine, and it is a pretty straightforward process. Once you have accomplished this, slide the magazine into place and push the bolt forward to slide the first pellet into the barrel.  Take aim at a target, flip the safety off, and squeeze the trigger. At 10.3 oz, the first stage comes out of the trigger. At 1 lb, 14.2 oz, the shot goes off. The trigger is extremely crisp and clean with no creep, very much like the trigger you would find on a 10-meter match rifle.

The .22 caliber R10 sample launched 18.2 grain JSB Exact Heavy pellets at 832 fps (27.98 foot-pounds), and when the shot goes off, you quickly discover where BSA has dropped the ball in the design of the R10: the fully shrouded bull barrel offers no acoustical advantage. There are no baffles in the bull barrel, and, as a result, this gun is loud.

On the other hand, the accuracy was outstanding. At 35 yards shooting from a casual rest, I was able to put 5 shots into a ragged one-hole group that you could easily cover with a dime.

In the end, I can happily recommend the BSA R10 on all fronts – it operates smoothly and efficiently, is commendably accurate, and has a superb trigger. The only exception to that is if your shooting requirements demand a neighbor-friendly report.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

– Jock Elliott