Welcome! And, ah... the ever returning "PCP vs springer" question. The coincidence is that I did some testing today at 25 meters with two FX PCP's and one Weihrauch springer. Regulated PCP's (especially those from brands like FX) are known for their accuracy due to the lack of recoil and their shot consistency. Springers are violent. There's a lot of movement going on inside of a springer. A heavy metal piston slams against a wall, compressing air and moving a projectile forward. With springers the hold needs to be consistent in order to shoot them as accurate as a PCP. Proof is in the eating of the proverbial pudding, so here it comes;
Number 1): the FX DRS Tactical (out of the box, 41 joules shooting 18 grain .22 JSB's at 25 meters from a bipod).
Number 2): the FX Dreamline GRS (medium settings, 31 joules shooting 16 grain .22 JSB's at 25 meters from a bipod).
Number 3): the Weihrauch 97 (stage 2 tuned, 21 joules shooting 7.87 grain .177 JSB's at 25 meters from the bench on a pillow, rested on my hand).
So are springers accurate. Well, you be the judge of that. My guess is that they are according to these 10-shot groups, shot from the prone position, on 50-meter ISSF visuals shot from a distance of 25 meters.
Is a springer good enough for ethical headshots? This 21 joule (15.5 ft·lbf) most definitely is, at least up to 45 / 50 meters. The HW97 has set me back (unscoped, but including the new stock and internal tuning) around €1400 euro's, which is more than the average PCP by itself, but lacks the air tank, compressor and other stuff you need to keep a PCP going. In other words, you can shoot all day without running out of air. But please do invest in a good quality springer like a Weihrauch, because the Rekord trigger alone is worth the extra money, and it will last you a lifetime if you take good care of it.
Sidenote: I'm not trying to be a showoff here. This here was a personal test case, just to see how my top leisure airguns are tuned and do at the moment.
EDIT: getting a lot of questions about the HW97, so here are some answers:
- the stock is a "LP Gunstocks UK" (Lukas Parsley) Stutzen Stock (
https://www.lpgunstocks.co.uk/). Not cheap, but absolutely worth the money!
- Internal tuning by AirJoe Germany (
https://airjoe.de/en/), full piston, sleeve, spring, the works tune.