Hello from Maine - newbie question(s)

[GreX]

Welcome to your childhood. You are certain to have fun.
1st how close are you to the nearest Club? Or other airgunner, There are some somewhere in your Stat, You would learn more at an FT (any) airgun match/shoot (note: club shooters Never own 1 airgun then again most airgunners own more also), in a day than reading forever.
Low dollar -could well be money well spent just don't put double the price in modded "searching"- just know the Umarex Gauntlet's. Smooth easy cocking and very accurate (would shoot FT with my .177) is is long and fairy heavy.
Love the Benjamin Marauder. (wrong cal. but the model , adjustable cheek BP2564W Walnut is on sale right now for $375- Watch for a good deal in .22. Mirror copy of the theoben 4 (?) trigger a true two stage good down to 6ish ounces with current barrels know the shoot well. Have you seen/searched airgun revisions yet? An extra dollar but nice work for the dollar.
Personally love RAW. Best trigger period. Purchase directly from Martin (does take more than one day) and have it your way, great heirloom piece. Good deals sometimes from known shooters on classifieds also.
The Gamo Urban has very good user reports & reputation (BSA barrel perhaps) , budget priced light good for 50-70 yards.
And so many more your new "airgun friends" may point out.
Find another airgun owner if you can.

John

1 - I'm not sure there are any clubs in Maine, I tried doing a few Google searches, but only thing that really pops up is gun ranges and gun clubs (non-air). Is there a member map somewhere on the forum? One of the car forums I'm on has a map showing approximately where members reside.
2 - Gauntlet looks pretty slick although from the video of the Gauntlet 2 (couldn't find any originals in stock) it seems like a pretty loud rifle?
3 - The Marauder looks like a really nice "budget friendly" option - seems pretty quiet, and for a small up charge you can get it in .22 - now on my radar - thanks
4 - just did a search for "Airgun Revisions" - their website is awful, lol, but they have a ton of options, any suggestions?
5 - those RAW rifles look sweet, but are in the same price range of the FX Impact, which those speak to me personally a bit more
6 - the Gamo seems like another good budget friendly option, they another one for the radar

Thanks,
Greg

 

[GreX]

Welcome to AGN! The rabbit hole is deep! I suggest filling your rifle from a tank. Easier to manage. I also suggest .22 caliber. .22 pellets start around 13 grains and go all the way up to 33 grains. Tons of choices. Might want to look at a Daystate Wolverine, they are very similar to the FX Royale rifle.

Spray paint your targets with flat white, let dry. Spray paint them with florescent orange. Visibility increased times ten!

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Compared to this:

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Thanks for the suggestion on the targets, didn't even think about that portion of the shooting, was just going to use paper targets, but I'm guessing that becomes wasteful if you're shooting a lot, where a reusable system like you've posted would be better in the long run.

And yes, I just started to drop into the rabbit hole, and already feeling overwhelmed with the options, I guess that's why many of you have more than one air rifle

 

[JimD]

I had pumped my first PVP, a Benjamin Marauder Pistol - which I shoot as a carbine. But my second was an Avenger and it was not fun to hand pump. So I bought a Yong Heng and have used it for several years. It is noisy but that is my only real complaint. I filled the guns directly at first and then got an expired SCBA tank (used firemans tank) and a fill set. I prefer to fill from my bottle because it is very quick and virtually silent. But you cannot fully fill 300 bar rated guns with a 300 bar filled bottle. So you get less shots. That's OK with me.

I have 6 PCPs at this point and only one cost more than $500. I got my one higher price airgun, a Air Maks Caiman, less than a month ago. It needed a bit of work when I got it for an issue apparently unique to the Caiman plus a poorly assembled Huma regulator. But that is over and I'm warming up to it. But I still like my less expensive guns too. The Caiman is noticably better machined but it is not more accurate to the best of my cheaper guns nor is it easier or more comfortable to shoot. I like little bullpups and my favorite are my 3 Snowpeak (SPA) P35s. The Stoeger Bullshark is almost the same thing and available in the U. S.. They are baffled, so they are reasonably quiet, and light (5 lbs for the P35 and 6 lbs for the Bullshark). Power is fine, the 177 and 22 can push even heavy for caliber pellets as fast as you want them to go. I had to add a power plenum to my P35-25 to get 34 grain to 800 fps so I would say they probably work best in 22 but some really like their bullsharks in 177 and shoot JSB knockout slugs accurately in them.

177 pellets move noticably more in the wind but are the cheapest. I've killed 10 squirrels with my P35-177 and at 20-30 yards they work fine. But I would not want to shoot even small game much further away or target shoot at 100 with my 177. Slugs have higher ballistic coefficient so they would be OK a bit further away. I think 22 pcps are the best choice for most of us. They are fully adequate for small game as far away as you can hit them in the right spot and can shoot targets at 100 yards. Ballistically bigger calibers are better but they work. You use more air as you move up in caliber so you get the most shots with a 177. Noise also is greatest for larger calibers. No free lunch. But 22s get a decent shot count (about 60 in my P35-22 and about 100 in my Caiman), have enough power, and enough wind bucking ability they can be used at longer range and are pretty quiet with good baffles in the shroud and/or a moderator.

 

[bubbapearson]

Thanks for the detailed post and a thoughtful response. Good insights and something for me to ponder on - seems like if I can score a good deal on a PCP, then I should also consider something like you've mentioned. Since I'm not a competition shooter, nor do I need to hit a target several times in quick succession (I'm not planning to hunt), something like this would actually force me to become a better shooter, given you have to move and adjust the rifle every shot.

Again, thanks for the thoughtful response Cheers!

My pleasure. I'm pretty sure you're really going to enjoy yourself, so have fun with the airgun(s) you choose; in my book, it's a great hobby. Your description of the area in which you'll be doing your shooting reminded me of the place we bought out where MD, VA and WV (Knoxville, MD) meet up. We'd like to still be there, but before my wife retired, she found herself on the verge of dozing off at the wheel a few times on the way home (she had an evening shift job at Alphabet org), so rather than deal with the possibility of a horrible accident at two or three in the morning, we decided to sell our beloved country home and found ourselves a new crib in a northern VA city, much closer to her job. :-( It really was the only decision possible at the time, so it wasn't exactly tragic or anything, and city life does have its perquisites. Anyway, when we still lived out there, it seemed like any time we had company, invited folks over for a cook-out, or just about any outdoor activity at all going on, people seemed to materialize out of thin air if I eventually brought out one of my airguns. ;-) Loved that. The guy farming the land up against our backyard sometimes would stop by for a break from his daily grind and we'd gossip, or he'd gripe about how awful the farm was doing (yeah, right <grin>), have a beer and join in a little friendly backyard target shooting. Very good times! Thanks for the short trip down memory lane, and as I mentioned, I'm fairly confident you'll be creating great memories of your own, plinking and target shooting outside your place. It'll be awesome.

 

[GreX]

My pleasure. I'm pretty sure you're really going to enjoy yourself, so have fun with the airgun(s) you choose; in my book, it's a great hobby. Your description of the area in which you'll be doing your shooting reminded me of the place we bought out where MD, VA and WV (Knoxville, MD) meet up. We'd like to still be there, but before my wife retired, she found herself on the verge of dozing off at the wheel a few times on the way home (she had an evening shift job at Alphabet org), so rather than deal with the possibility of a horrible accident at two or three in the morning, we decided to sell our beloved country home and found ourselves a new crib in a northern VA city, much closer to her job. :-( It really was the only decision possible at the time, so it wasn't exactly tragic or anything, and city life does have its perquisites. Anyway, when we still lived out there, it seemed like any time we had company, invited folks over for a cook-out, or just about any outdoor activity at all going on, people seemed to materialize out of thin air if I eventually brought out one of my airguns. ;-) Loved that. The guy farming the land up against our backyard sometimes would stop by for a break from his daily grind and we'd gossip, or he'd gripe about how awful the farm was doing (yeah, right <grin>), have a beer and join in a little friendly backyard target shooting. Very good times! Thanks for the short trip down memory lane, and as I mentioned, I'm fairly confident you'll be creating great memories of your own, plinking and target shooting outside your place. It'll be awesome.

Hopefully you're able to enjoy a little less winter than you were up in New England? I have to say 6 months of winter, 5 months of rainy/humid crap, and one month of okay weather doesn't come easy in Maine.. I miss Colorado hot and dry - but like you, had to settle for what the misses wanted.

 

[GreX]

@bubbapearson you'll be semi-happy to hear your advice pushed me in the direction of a human operated rifle. I gave the Daisy 753S (single pump) a try, and while fun to plink, it seemed dangerous after it ricocheted two rounds back at me from a simple aluminum can.. dangerous, I then replaced it with a Gamo Swarm Fusion 10x Gen 3i in .177 (not the magnum as I don't care about the power, more so the quiet) and I kind of dig it, the break-barrel is easy enough to cock and it has a magazine with 10 rounds, which makes it a bit of work and a bit of fun, so you're not reloading every shot manually.

I also picked up two PCP's, just for good measure, @Spyguy is a solid dude (if you see his listings, he is a great seller, so buy his stuff), and treated me to two different rifles - Umarex Gaunlet .22 and a Taipan Veteran Long .25. Both rifles are fun in their own way, and can't wait to play around with them more, given the amount of tuning you can do with PCP's, which I may never get to, but good to know it exists.

I took deliver of all three of these this week, so not a lot of time with them, but I can see why most of you have several different rifles, and continue to look for what's next - I've only shot ~100 pellets so far and can see how this can become a new hobby.

One last note, I did get the Vevor air compressor, and only done a fill on each PCP, it's quiet enough to be next to (I wasn't confident in the auto-shut off), shuts off when needed, and requires nothing but a push of a couple buttons (no oil or water-cooling needed). Given it's my first CO2 compressor, I can't say if its better than others, but it sure does the trick and seems very low maintaince.

I lied.. one more last note, some of the reading on here, as well as watching youtube videos, I did make a rubber mulch tote/indoor target, and wow, all three calibers (.177, .22, and .25) have successfully been captured in the trap and seems to be the right thing for indoor and outdoor target traps. Can't remember if it was on here or in the comments of a youtube video, but someone suggested using bags that onions come in, "self-healing", to contain the rubber mulch, and they seem to be holding up well.

Cheers,
Greg