Who here remembers the "fps wars" some decades back? In fact, it's only in the last 5 years or so that the core airgun enthusiast community really revisited the whole speed=success formula that drove manufacturers (for the US market) to keep upping the claimed velocity of their magnum guns. 1200 fps, 1400 fps, now even 1600 fps while still using diabolo pellets led only to instability in the flight path and larger POI groups. Now we read and hear "shot placement is the key" while reducing our pellet velocities to something more in line with the UK and mainland EU.
Point being, the market is nothing more than the people who comprise it, and people will always chase after the "next big thing". As it happens, improved barrel manufacture, air consumption efficiency, shot count, increased BC ammo in the form slugs, larger bores to legitimize taking larger game, and air sourcing have all been addressed across the airgun buying spectrum over the last decade. What became the next unicorn for the avid airgunner? Speed of repeatable, accurate shots. Side levers replace bolt actions... PCPs replace break barrels... semi-auto comes out of the shadows and storms into the major shows and events. Now we have Full Auto coming out of the brilliant minds of manufacturers around the world, with a side order of high-performance slugs added on.
Larger bores for hunting? Yeah, makes perfectly good sense from a wildlife conservation standpoint. Semi-auto without decreased accuracy? Yeah, for reliable follow-up shots in hunting and pesting situations. Plus they're just plain fun. Slugs instead of pellets? Same hunting/pesting reasoning applies. I'm all in for these innovations.
Full auto in anything more than a BB gun cannot be rationalized for me. Unlike Alfred Nobel whose development of dynamite was envisioned to be a boon to man in road building and other large projects, John Browning and his contemporaries had nothing but the neutralization of an enemy on the battlefield as their primary (almost singular) goal in developing high efficiency, man portable fully automatic weapons. There was no intent to enable conservationists to mow down whole herds of deer; it was always about laying waste to the massive concentrations of men lined up across the field under the enemy's banners.
Full auto air guns, when loaded with pellets or paired with proven slugs, are the antithesis of what brought me to airgunning. I came to airgunning because I wanted a safer version of shooting. I wanted to experience all of the satisfaction of mastering target shooting and sharing the fun of plinking with my kids and grandkids without requiring ear protection and hundreds of yards of open land with massive backstops. I wanted a hobby that allowed me to move my shooting indoors when it grew cold, and that had guys and gals at the local range turning their heads and smiling when they tried out my "little ol' BB gun" at 50 yards without any ear muffs on. I have found that my expectations in airgunning are shared by many others in the community. I am dismayed to see this escalation of the "Full Auto Airgun Race" and can't help but paraphrase Jurassic Park's Dr. Malcolm: you were so excited to discover you could do it that you never stopped to ask if you should."
