jkh@jade.UUCP (02/04/87)
Anyway, I would like to second the recommendation of the Beeman catalog as a source for information about all varieties of airguns. I've been buying from Beeman and getting their catalog for some years now. The catalog is not only a guide to their line, but also a good general introduction to the field of pneumatic/air-powered arms. I own several books on the subject, but the free (*) Beeman catalog is as good or better an introductory text than anything you can buy. I used to keep a spare back issue in my desk, but I think I gave it away; I'll bring in the address and post it tomorrow. (Though you can find Beeman ads in many gun magazines, so you might actually have the address at home already. Also it is in standard references like Gun Digest.) [(*) I say "free" because I haven't paid for any; they have cover prices, and sometimes the ads ask for a dollar or two, but usually you can get one just by asking for it with a postcard.] I'm not going to say that Beeman is the best source to buy from; if you know what you want, you can find the same airguns without the Beeman name on them at lower prices in Shotgun News ads. There are some Beeman dealers that will sell the Beeman-brand airguns at a discount, too. However, you do get good warranty and backup service from Beeman. I've bought most of my airguns from Beeman, and, on the whole, I've been satisfied. Note also that Beeman has a "used gun" list (which you DO have to pay for to get) and also sends out periodic "sale bulletins", which contain cosmetic blemished, new models, and closed-out airguns for reduced prices, plus special sales on pellets and accessories. I bought most of my stuff from such discount offers. What Beeman does is to go to the major European airgun manufacturers and have them make guns with the Beeman logo on them, meeting certain specs and having certain features. In many cases these are just the same as the makers' regular models, but they do go through an extra level of inspection and quality assurance to be sold by Beeman, plus they have warranty and repair-policy support here from Beeman. Companies doing this are firms like RWS and FWB (Feinwerkbau). Of course, there have been other mail-order airgun houses, most notably a place called "Air Rifle Headquarters", which went out of business some years back. (I think Beeman bought them out, but am not positive.) There are a couple other, newer mailorder airgun houses now, but I have no experience with them. Beeman is the biggest and has been operating the longest. So, what airguns are best? Well, it depends what you want to do. The original inquiry was for "backyard plinking". For this, a relatively low-powered spring-piston break-barrel-cocking .177 can be bought for well under $100 and give better accuracy than any firearm costing less than $500 (within the limited range of 33 feet or so). It can be an excellent training aid and something to keep your shooting skills honed when it is inconvenient or too expensive to go somewhere to shoot a firearm. If you want to practice formal target shooting, you may want to get a more expensive match-style gun, with better sights and adjustable buttplate and hand support features, probably sidelever action and recoilless (here you are talking $400 and up). If you are a hunter, you may prefer a higher-powered and scoped barrel-cocking model, some of which can shove a .177 pellet at 900+ fps and can be used for limited types of small-game hunting or pest control ($200 and up, plus scope). Note that all the above are spring-piston models. The common American airgun has been either the Daisy-type spring-action BB gun, or the Crosman/Benjamin/Sheridan style pump-up pneumatic. The pump-up guns have the capability of high power (there was a Japanese model called the Sharp Innova that could push a .177 pellet 1000+ fps some years ago, a level spring-piston guns only reached recently, and the 19th-century military and hunting airguns were pneumatic types), but they have certain inherent disadvantages. First off, they have to be pumped. This gets tiring after only a few shots. It takes about as much effort to make a single pumping stroke as it does to cock a spring-piston gun; for each shot of a pump-up model, you have to pump 6 or more times. (And the pumps get more difficult as you increase their number to get higher power.) This rapidly gets tiresome; for the same effort you could have fired the spring-piston model 6 times as many shots. Also, the amount of air compressed with each pump varies slightly, so you are always firing with a slightly different propellant pressure. This causes shot-to-shot variations which result in lower levels of accuracy. The spring-piston compresses identical amounts of air for each shot. I could go on but better stop here. I'll get Beeman's address and send it in ASAP. Regards, Will Martin wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA (on USENET try ...!seismo!wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA )
jkh@jade.UUCP (02/12/87)
In article <2417@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA (Will Martin) wrote: >What Beeman does is to go to the major European airgun manufacturers and >have them make guns with the Beeman logo on them, meeting certain specs >and having certain features. In many cases these are just the same as >the makers' regular models, but they do go through an extra level of >inspection and quality assurance to be sold by Beeman, plus they have >warranty and repair-policy support here from Beeman. Companies doing >this are firms like RWS and FWB (Feinwerkbau). I'm an avid competitive target rifle shooter. (To give you an idea of HOW avid, I've visited the Walther factory in Ulm, Germany twice, and I bought my current air rifle there. Incidentally, they welcomed visitors when I was there, taking me to lucnh, letting me shoot a couple of rifles -- including the one I bought and a fascinating elephant gun -- and making me feel like an extremely valuable customer!) From what I've seen of Beeman and their so-called special air rifles, I don't believe it. Beeman MIGHT give a better warranty; I haven't checked recently. Feinwerkbau, and Walther both make superb air rifles. (Anschutz used to make an air rifle; I understood it was a good one, though it apparently never sold well enough for them.) Diana, if I recall, also has a good one. At the major state and national air rifle matches I've attended, almost everyone was shooting a Feinwerkbau or a Walther, and very few of them bought them from Beeman. Now, Beeman has a very extensive line, ranging from plinkers to competition-grade guns. From everything I've seen, Bob Beeman is a good business man, is honest, and strives to give pretty good service. My feeling about the "extra level of inspection" if you're looking at a target-grade air rifle is that Walther and Feinwerkbau do a better job at the factory than Bob could in his shop, modulo shipping damage. -- Alan M. Marcum Sun Microsystems, Technical Consulting marcum@nescorna.Sun.COM Mountain View, California
jkh@jade.UUCP (02/24/87)
Just a quick note to respond to Alan Marcum's comments: What I was describing about Beeman having an extra level of inspection and warranty was in comparison to buying air guns via mail or phone order from Shotgun News ads. You can save on the price if you know exactly what you want and carefully search Shotgun News for ads from distributors who will sell to non-FFL-holders and pick the very cheapest combination of cost + shipping. However, you are probably on your own if there is a defect or a problem. You are paying for a level of backup and dealer servicing when you buy from Beeman or a similar retail-level source. This is really something entirely different from having a specific gun selected out for you by the factory. Also, remember that my posting was in response to someone who was interested in airguns for "backyard plinking" or the like. A competitive airgun target shooter is several orders of magnitude up the scale in interest, committment, and involvement with this field. I doubt if there can really be a valid comparison made between such disparate requirements. However, we'd like to hear more from you about the field. From where DO the competitors you mentioned buy their airguns, if they don't go direct to the factories (which I would assume most never could do; that must be a rare exception)? Are there firms known only to the elite that cater to this select customer base, or do these people do their own customizing and maintenance, accurizing and tweaking ordinary airguns bought from those Shotgun News sources I mentioned? Regards, Will Martin wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA (on USENET try ...!seismo!wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA )
jkh@jade.UUCP (03/03/87)
In article <2592@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA (Will Martin) wrote: >However, we'd like to hear more from you about the field. From where DO >the competitors you mentioned buy their airguns, if they don't go direct >to the factories (which I would assume most never could do; that must be >a rare exception)? Actually, a fair number of competitors buy from the factory, either directly or through a friend travelling over. The service and attention I received was a real trip, by the way. > Are there firms known only to the elite that cater to >this select customer base, or do these people do their own customizing >and maintenance, accurizing and tweaking ordinary airguns bought from >those Shotgun News sources I mentioned? I know little about plinking guns, I'm afraid. I've bought seven target rifles in my day: - Anschutz Mark 10D [smallbore] - Anschutz Model 64 (I think) [smallbore] - Anschutz 1407 [smallbore] - Feinwerkbau 300S [air rifle] - Walther GX-1 [smallbore] - Walther LGR Match Universal [air rifle] - Schultz & Larsen [int'l bigbore] The three Anschutz rifles were purchased through a local dealer (in Syracuse, New York, where I grew up). They were in the normal Savage- Anschutz catalog and price list at the time; it was simply a matter of talking with the dealer (a sporting goods store), and plunking down the bucks. The 300S was purchased from Blue Trail Range, if I recall; the GX-1 came through Interarms (Walther's importer). I bought both of these while in college; our shooting club (for alums, students, faculty, and staff; separate from the varsity teams) had an FFL, so it was easy. The LGR was purchased at the factory, as I previously mentioned. One HUGE advantage of buying an air rifle vs. another sort of rifle was that BATF didn't care about it, so all I had to do was pay the duty. Finally, the Schultz was purchased used, in an intrastate transaction. Many active competitve shooters maintain contacts that lead us to good dealers, good gunsmiths, good suppliers. Locally (in Mountain View, California -- SF Bay Area), for example, Eddy's Sport Shop is one of my favorites. Jerry, the owner, is a competitive shooter; we met at an air gun match. He understands the needs of competitive shooters (rifle, pistol, and shotgun, air and otherwise), stocks a number of different target and match grade smallbore ammo, for example, yet also caters to non-competitive and non-target shooters. Jack Foster (Accuracy International) is another competitive shooter in the supply and gun business. Jack has medaled in the World Championships, and is in partnership with Malcolm Cooper in England, who took the Smallbore Three Position gold in the '84 Olympics. They cater specifically to the competitive trade. Blue Trail Range in Connecticut is a wonderful place. I've had good dealings with Freeland's in Rock Island, Illinois. Oh, and my gunsmith, Creiton Audette in New England (and an NRA director -- remember to vote!!!) is another target shooter I met at matches. Generally, the advice is to go to matches, and start asking around. In part because of the limited audience, most of the "advertising" is word- of-mouth, and catalogues available at matches and such. Incidentally, I've done NONE of the major work on my rifles. My GX-1 is glass bedded, and has a new barrel (I shot the first one enough to put a ring in the chamber, which Creiton noticed when he bedded it). I do, however, make sure I know how to do all the non-major work, including stripping the rifle down, and changing and adjusting triggers. (I'm amazed, incidentally, at the number of other people's rifles I've shot with very poorly adjusted triggers! And these are rifles with FABULOUS triggers, just poorly adjusted!) I know many people who have done their own glass bedding, accurizing, and such, though. Happy to answer other questions! By the way, who else out there is a serious competitor? -- Alan M. Marcum Sun Microsystems, Technical Consulting marcum@nescorna.Sun.COM Mountain View, California