What you ask is impossible. All one stroke, one pump, one cock air rifles have a spring or piston. The fixed barrel air rifles overall are also heavy, heavy to the point you will not enjoy hiking around in the woods lugging one around. They are designed for target shooting from a bench. Any air rifle to actually enjoy using must be light enough to carry for a few hours, accurate and reliable and although I could bring into the equation several entry level PCP rifles, this gets into more expense with pumps, compressors, etc, etc.
I am 67 years young, I have shot air rifles for at least 40 years, both springers and pcp rifles, and I generally shoot at least 500 pellets a week and I have a nice 100 yard shooting range in my yard. (Yep it is a six acre yard Grin!!) So let me try to guide you a bit.
The majority of springers on the market today are simply JUNK......let me repeat, they are JUNK. Sorry about that but this is a simple fact and the so called Magnum Springers will cause you nothing but frustration, disappointment and may well destroy your desire to even enjoy the sport of air gunning.
Yesterday I shot a .50 group at 60 yards with my springer, OK Kit shut up and lets get to it and stop yapping. lol.
Forget everything for a moment and lets address the most important thing of all, The Trigger and trigger pull. Without a good trigger and a good trigger pull all other factors are meaningless. You want a light trigger and you need to develop what I call slapping the trigger. It is not hard and I can teach anyone to do this in about a two hour range session. First your trigger has to be light, at one pound or under and the technique is to take a breath, let half of it out, relax and concentrate and as the crosshair centers on the target you simply pull the trigger straight back and hold it as the rifle fires. Nope you do not gradually squeeze it while the rifle wanders around off the target, you simply take up the first stage, hold against the wall and take that breath, let some out, concentrate and when the crosshair is centered on the target precisely pull the trigger. It is called slapping the trigger. Learn to do this and you will become the Annie Oakley of air gunning.
Now lets recommend a rifle. I highly, highly recommend the Wiehrauch HW95 with the excellent Rekord Trigger. This is a fantastic air rifle, light enough to carry around, extremely accurate, has a wonderful trigger, will last for years and is quite adequate to hunt with at normal ranges up to and beyond 50 yards. It will produce around 17 FPE at the muzzle and carry between 9 and 10 fpe at 50 yards, and might I also recommend the 11.75 GTO pellet for this , with a close second being the 14.66 H and N FTT Power. A good cheap and accurate practice pellet is the Crossman 14.3 Ultra magnum. Unlike most springers you will find that almost all HW95 rifles like these pellets, there is no mystery to finding the right pellet, they shoot a lot of pellets well, and those I have named are the best of the best in this rifle and work well in all of them.
You can buy this rifle for around $450 dollars, a good scope will cost around $400 dollars, and you are all set.
The flip side Is my PCP, Daystate Wolverine.......2000 bucks, scope 1200 bucks, compressor 3000 bucks, etc, etc it adds up but if you enjoy air gunning you will eventually get there , so let that HW95 show you the way to an enjoyable lifetime hobby. A good first impression and experience will last a lifetime. One more hint to make this a good experience, when you get your rifle, whichever one you do choose, get a tube of non permanent lock-tite and put some on every screw you can find, and I mean every exposed screw on the rifle as springers have one common problem, stock screws do work loose, sight screws work loose, so simply fix that right away. Enjoy!!
Cheers
Kit
