{"id":2347,"date":"2013-02-25T01:00:44","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T08:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/?p=2347"},"modified":"2013-02-25T01:04:04","modified_gmt":"2013-02-25T08:04:04","slug":"some-friendly-advice-for-outright-newbies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/some-friendly-advice-for-outright-newbies.html","title":{"rendered":"Some friendly advice for outright newbies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The business of getting into a new hobby is a curious one. I should know; I\u2019ve started enough of them to have some experience.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of a new field of endeavor, it looks appealing, and you\u2019re curious: what\u2019s airgunning all about? What\u2019s fun about it? What are the interesting activities that you might get involved in? And you begin to think about perhaps purchasing your first airgun.<\/p>\n

It is precisely at this point that the trouble arises. If you have had any experience at all with starting new hobbies, you know that there are two potential traps you could fall into. The first is buying a really cheap piece of gear because \u201cyou\u2019re just trying to get a feel for the hobby without spending too much.\u201d The trap here is that often inexpensive gear often has some deficiency that seriously interferes with enjoyment. With airguns, specifically, that might mean a nasty trigger or a harsh firing cycle.<\/p>\n

The other trap is going full-out and buying a really expensive piece of gear that is not the right fit for what you ultimately want to do. In airguns, this might manifest itself in buying a rifle designed for 10 meter Olympic competition or field target competition when ultimately what you want to do is plink in the back yard. On the online forums, occasionally someone will pop up requesting advice on buying an airgun. Often a forum participant will respond, \u201cWhat do you want to do with it?\u201d It\u2019s not unusual to have the reply come back: \u201cI\u2019m not sure.\u201d It\u2019s a problem: how do you know what you want to get when you don\u2019t know what you want to do with it?<\/p>\n

So, having said all that, this blog is an attempt to help those outright newbies who might not know what they want to do with an airgun and don\u2019t want to make a dumb (donkey) mistake in buying their first one.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

If you like the idea of pistols and think you might like to plink in the back yard or maybe even get involved in some competition down the line, but you don\u2019t have a need to kill pests in the garden or defend the bird feeder, I have one solid recommendation for you: the Daisy Avanti Triump 747<\/a>\u00a0. This is a single-stroke pneumatic air pistol that is wickedly accurate out to about 20 yards, doesn\u2019t generate a lot of power (It is completely unsuitable for pest control), and easy to shoot and maintain. All you need is one of these, some pellets, a pellet trap and targets, and some eye protection, and you\u2019re set for years of fun indoors and out.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Benjamin 392<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Webley Rebel<\/p><\/div>\n

But suppose you\u2019d like to dip your toe in the waters of airgunning and need to remove pests from the garden or defend the bird feeder, and you don\u2019t want to spend a lot of money? In that case, I would recommend a multi-stroke pneumatic air rifle. These rifles are easy to shoot well and require multiple strokes of the pumping lever before each shot. The power can be adjusted by the number of strokes. If you want to shoot with iron sights, I would recommend the Benjamin 392<\/a>\u00a0 with optional Williams peep sight. If you would rather have an air rifle with a scope, I would suggest the Webley Rebel<\/a>\u00a0 with an optional scope.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The HW30S<\/p><\/div>\n

But let\u2019s suppose that you really have no clue what you want to do with an airgun but you want something that is fun to shoot and of decent quality to get started with. In that case, I would recommend the Weihrauch HW30S<\/a> in .177. \u00a0It\u2019s easy to cock, easy to shoot well (for a spring-piston powerplant) and generates enough power for pest control at short range (say, within 50 feet as a rough guideline). You can fit an HW30 with a peep sight or a scope, and with the right pellet, the HW30 is accurate enough that people (me included) have shot them in field target competition with some success. (You won\u2019t be able to compete head to head with the high powered guns, but you\u2019ll still have fun.)<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s my friendly advice for outright newbies. Remember, all of these airguns will need a selection of pellets, a pellet trap, targets, and some eye protection. And remember the Number One rule of gun safety: never, ever, point your airgun at anything that you don\u2019t want to see a hole in.<\/b><\/p>\n

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jock Elliott<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The business of getting into a new hobby is a curious one. I should know; I\u2019ve started enough of them to have some experience. At the beginning of a new field of endeavor, it looks appealing, and you\u2019re curious: what\u2019s airgunning all about? What\u2019s fun about it? What are the interesting activities that you might…»<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,20,211,29,121,32],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2347"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2358,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347\/revisions\/2358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}