Thread: Air rifle

Really You need to know your budget, and need to work out what you are shooting. But here are my views on this subject.

1. If you just want plinker and do not care for quality and accuracy, then all brands under 300 bucks are about the same since they are all quite well established anyway. For plinkering I dont think the improvement going from $300 to $600 is meaningful.

2. If you want some quality and accuracy, and good knock down power on rabbits and possums, you will be spending about 600-900 on a new rifle. Diana 350 N-tech is a fine example of this price range - it has a lot of power, a high end trigger, and reported very accurate for a hunting air gun. I am a believer that if you do not have a good trigger you cannot have pleasant, let along accurate, gun. It is only at this price range you start to have some good triggers, like the Diana T06 trigger.

3. if you want decent quality and decent accuracy (and let us not worry about energy and reach for the moment), air rifles are considerably more expensive than 22LR. You have only 3 choices for high end non-pcp air rifles: Air Amrs TX200 (3 variants), Weihrauch HW97K, and Dianan 54/56. They cost from 1150 to 1500 depending on features and stock. You will get build quality similar to a 800 dollar 22LR bolt action rifle (say, CZ 455 American for example), but less accuracy (without tuning work), less energy, less velocity, not too different noise level (if you go with a 22 cal 900 fps air gun), more weight, more recoil, more picky with scopes and rings. And non-pcp air rifles are very hold sensitive, meaning they are harder to shoot well than firearms. The only thing you may save is ammo cost if you went with 177. But good 22 cal air rifle ammo are close to the price of 22LR ammo.

4. only high end Air rifles are worth tuning. Tuning air guns can cost a lot of money because a lot of work is involved: re-crown, change spring, polish internals, change grease, etc. After a professional tuning you may get a air rifle that is on par with a 800 dollar 22LR rifle (out of box) in terms of accuracy within 40 meters. But the rimfire will always win further out because the inherent better BC of of the projectiles.

5. High end PCP are comparable to 22LR in accuracy and reach. Some people can make their 25 cal PCP shoot as good as 22LR rifle. But they cost way more. 2000 will get you an average one. 3000 will get you an above average one. As much as I admire good pcp rifles I feel they only have limited appeal - unless you routinely shoot upward, say for example shooting birds on roofs and trees. otherwise I do not see any application where 22LR RF will not do.