07 November 2010

Merle seeks airgun recommendations...

Merle in the comments to the post on the value of practicing at home with an airgun when you can't get to the range asks:
Well, that pretty much does away with my last excuse to not buy an air pistol.

Does anybody have a preferred brand, perhaps one with a better trigger?
I want to give his question maximum exposure so I'm bumping it to it's own post.  By all means, do your research (Caveat Emptor, baby!)   Though you might have better luck on a specific air gun forum. A quick search turned up "the new Crosman forum" and surely as the Sun will rise in the East tomorrow, there are more out there.

I bought the Crosman 1377 pistol because it looked like what I wanted (a target airgun) and the price was right (~$50).  So if you have a favorite airgun recommendation, Merle would like to hear from you.   Consider the comments section open to recommendations.

I also complained about the trigger in the comments but I'm wondering now if I've been overly harsh. It's heavy and it has a bit of creep. Or does it...

My fish scale shows the trigger break at about 3# with a full 10 pumps, 2 1/2# empty. Nothing wrong with that. It may feel heavier because it's a thinner trigger than my other pistols (1/8" vs 1/4").  BTW, the Crosman forum mentioned above includes a step by step procedure to carve a trigger "shoe" out of PVC pipe to improve the ergomonics by spreading trigger load on your finger .  TBS, I'm thinking Bea would appreciate this mod.

I think the trigger creeps a bit but I'm not sure how to accurately put a number on it. 

Also, it's a $50 pistol. The trigger group is almost certainly constructed of stamped metal parts and they probably don't spend a lot of time cleaning up the mating surfaces.  A nicer trigger is going to require more careful machining and that will drive the price up.

The real question is what do I expect for $50? I'm calling the 1377 a fair deal.
Surfing the interwebs turned up some posts suggesting it may be possible to improve the trigger but I need to do more research before I start grinding metal.  I'll start with carving the shoe.

2 comments:

USCitizen said...

I've read a lot of good things about the 1377. What about mounting a holographic sight on it?

David aka True Blue Sam said...

The Crosman looks like the right deal. A Benjamin pistol is nearly three times the price. I see the air gun website you mentioned has Daisy Model 25 pump guns for $45, which is $5 cheaper than Smokey Mountain Knife Works has them in the current catalog. That used to be a good BB gun, and I bet it still is. I bought one around 45 years ago and slaughtered a boatload of English sparrows around the farm. Cats followed me around when I went out with that gun. Back then it had a plastic stock, and now Daisy has a wooden stock on that model. You can empty the 50 round magazine pretty fast with the pump action. I ought to order one...