Review Request Air Force Talon SS .25

Dan,

I tend to enjoy reading and seeing reviews from the average Joe shooter than by those made by industry professionals. How about you write up a review of the Talon SS .25 and post up here?

Scott

If you want Talon info got to the TAG forum. Those gents are on another level with Talons

I have one. Edited to correct... My rifle is a Condor... Not a Talon.

I just got it back from Talon Tunes. I have not really kicked the tires yet, but seems to be a decent improvement in accuracy. The trigger is still far from being great, but the tune improved it a lot. I have most the extras. Fancy hammer, top hat, trigger shoe, and a Maddog Hunter stock. I was underwhelmed with Talon Tunes service... Specially the long wait for the tune and communication. I had to ask the same questions several times, and still almost never received answers.

Before the tune accuracy was meh, holding it took fineness, and the lack of a cheek weld bothered me way more than I expected. Hopefully the Maddog stock will address the hold sensitivity. I bought a strap on cheek rest.

By the time I add up all I spent. I would have made a different choice. I'm not unhappy with the rifle, I piecemealed all the extras. Just would have gone a different way if I was spending it all at once.


The Talon Forum is a good source but IMHO they tend to be fanboys. I'd advise keeping that in mind as they gush about AirForce guns and upgrades.

I still have not put the Condor through the ringer, but I had it out at 50 yards and it was a marked improvement in accuracy after the tune. I bough a chrony while I waited for the tune. I'm averaging 920 FPS with 25.4 JSB, I filled to 3k and max FPS was 945. It's a bit faster than I expected, but I'm not touching anything unless I need to. I can't really say how many shots I got before but it seems like less now. My chrony revels ~ 17 shots before speed drops off. My tune instructions included "as accurate as practical, and shot count is the least of my concerns". I asked for a "critter getter". I saw on other forums that Steve who sells things through AoA will be selling a Super Sear for the new trigger style. The reviews on his current offering are quite positive, but I've never tried one. IIRC the claim is the sear is a drop in part, makes an honest two adjustable stages and something not much over a pound.

I also had and Airforce for a while. 
To keep it sort....to make them shot sort of decent you are going to spend a lot of money, especially buying the parts from here in the USA. I got my parts from here and saved a lot of money, but like i said above it is sort of decent groups....you might as well buy a cheap FX or Air arms or BSA and you do not need nothing to tune and they will shot better groups.

I got my parts from here www.airforcemodification.com this guy is also on ebay and has sold hundreds of parts and is a top seller and has great feed back.

"DKL"I also had and Airforce for a while. 
To keep it sort....to make them shot sort of decent you are going to spend a lot of money, especially buying the parts from here in the USA.

Click to expand...

not true(you may have gotten a sour apple, sorry), I have a condor ss, and it will place itself with the FXs and DAYSTATEs if I do my part. I shoot it out to 100 yards for fun, and now have been stretching it further with a new permission to hunt prairie dogs. If you want some gun that will take coyotes at 300 yards you will end up dumping quite a bit into that gun, but otherwise, it's very easy to work on by yourself. I would highly recommend the airforce line of guns to anybody. From stacking pellets to piling fur they get the job done.

I guess it is a matter of opinion and how lucky you are with the gun you got, I have had a Talon SS and Condor and neither of them could match my AAS410 , my BSA's or even my Pneuma's at 50 yards So it is a bit misleading to say what has been said is not true, all guns are different, even 2 made by the same maker may have a different feel and can shoot differently. So I would show caution when saying another's statement is not true, in his case it may well be true, Neil.

If you have never held an airforce gun do so before you buy one. To me the ergonomics are a deal breaker. It felt like an old school paintball gun.

I brought the Condor out Sunday. My plan was to see how well it did at 75 yards. I was hoping for minute of squirrel at that range. As I was about to move from 50 yards to 75 yards .20 cal from The Yellow shows up with a .20 Beeman springer and starts plinking 100 yard targets. I forgot all about the 75 yards. I was able to hit the 3" spinner pretty consistently. I still want to do 75 and 100 yards on paper, but I would have been lucky to hit that spinner before the tune.

 This is my first post on airgun nation ( go easy on me) About 6 weeks ago I purchased a condor ss in 22 cal. This was my first pcp gun that I have owned. At first I was some what satisfied because accuracy at 50 yards was fair. I tinkered with the top hat, did the o ring thing ect. I was able to get where I was shooting 1 1/2" to 2" groups at 75 yards. I shot around 2000 pellets over the time I owned it, both jsb 16 and 18 gr. worked the best at around 900 fps. The biggest problem I encountered was the fact that the groups although decent would not stay centered on bullseye I.e. The group would shift. The gun really had no sweet spot. It was not accurate enough for hunting past 40 yards. I sold it. I figured to cut my losses instead of dumping a bunch of cash to fix it ( not even sure how it would turn out ) as I write this my brand new daystate huntsman regal in 22 is on its way. I am a hunter, I need accuracy and range, I will post a review after I shoot it some. For me the Air Force condor ss was not good enough. Fingers crossed on the daystate.

Welcome Arbull. I see you ditched the Camaro for a Lotus, good move The Regal is a fine rifle. I’m curious, If accuracy and range are paramount, why did you opt for a .22 and not a .25?

My go to gun for long range pest control is a custom built ( by me )savage rimfire with a silencer ( they are legal in my state )shooting a 40 grain pill at 1050 fps. 200 yard shots are pretty easy to accomplish with this setup. This gun is capable of 2" groups at the 200 yard mark. So to answer your question; I wanted the regal for medium range work, hoping for up to 100yards with it. I do a lot of pigeon and starling killing this time of year and am sick of not being able to find the match ammo needed to run my savage. That's how I ended up here. After the disappointment with the condor I was a bit skeptical spending a small fortune on an air rifle but I figured what the heck. Tomorrow I will have my daystate regal. Hardest part for me even with all the youtube videos and forums on the regal, all of my questions still were not answered. The guys at air guns of Arizona pointed me in the direction of the regal. So I'm going to give it a shot. I think I might start a thread so others can follow along with my progress and info, accuracy, shot count, ect. Stay tuned.

I own a condor .25 cal SS. 
I have the slap mod and the high air flow top hat that I got from this guy:
http://talontunes.com/shop/condor-hammer-with-slap-modification/
http://talontunes.com/shop/quick-change-top-hat/


Overall I really like it. I will comment and post a few things on it as time goes by. There have been some interesting points made by folks so far in this thread. Let me see if I can address them.

1. how accurate is it (e.g. grouping performance between shots from the same condor)?
2. how consistent is Airforce as manufacturer at consistently producing this standard deviation in their equipment (e.g. grouping performance between one condor vs a population of other condors)?
3. how comfortable is it to shoot?
4. how easy is it to work on?

Question1: I can say that I can constantly knock down 12ga empty shot shells at 75 yards with a 4-5mph cross wind all day long. I have yet to do an actual grouping with this rifle. I set out to, but when I found myself hitting everything I was shooting at, then I lost interest. same hole at 50 yards is typical when im siting this thing in. It does shoot better and a lot harder with the aforementioned mods above. I can see about 90ft-lbs using a 70gr "black-mamba" round. I have to tone it down to about 50 ft-lbs for the Benjamin pellets 28gr? im using. Don't bother with the power wheel that comes with it. tune up power wheel near about 8, set it, and leave it alone. constantly dialing the power wheel around creates unacceptable variation in my mind and isn't worth fooling with. get the heaver hammer and top hat and use the flow nozzles to adjust power (see link above).

Question2: I will not attempt to address question 2. as I only own one unit and a study of this kind isn't valid until you have a sample size far more significant and uniform than anything the I can provide. 

Question3: this is the most uncomfortable air gun I have ever held in my hands. In contrast, my favorite so far is the fx boss (lefty model). the tank is too sort as a rifle stock and I feel like im shooting a kid's gun. the hand grip is very un-ergonomic, and the trigger is hokey. But we are talking comfort not trigger control. The trigger has a very manageable release point and weight to it for very accurate and consistent shooting so it is uncomfortable as hell, but does perform just fine. I will note the mounting rail along the top and bottom are nice, but seemingly proprietary and converting to pickatinny costs again more money. 

Question4: I have taken this thing apart, and read about all the mods one can do to this thing including shooting .257 bullets from it at 100+ ft-lbs. I have yet to experiment with this but I intend to. if I can make this into a 200+ yard gun I will. very simple design, swapping barrels, and other parts is pretty simple. If one owns a machine shop, this thing would be a dream to mod up and change around (aftermarket parts seem pretty prevalent too).

I have a slo-mo camera hooked up to it and I have been hitting a 2" metal fence post at 133yds in my back yard pretty consistently. As soon as I can figure out how to post and edit these I would be happy to share. I will give a few photos as well if anyone is interested. I have some jsb pellets on order I want to see how different they perform.

OVERALL: this air gun is a very strong performer (exceeded my expectations for the price point). very versatile (low price point but tones of things you can change about it, including barrels, calibers, power settings etc.) that being said, there is so much to add to this thing you can make it a 1500$ gun pretty fast. If you want something that you can change around for different purposes and like to tinker, I would say get one you wont be disappointed. If you are looking for a out of the box hunting appliance that you just pick up and use, I would not recommend it at all.

hope this helps...

EDIT:
added link to me making 133yd shot at a metal pole.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqtK5XB6xaA

I have a Talon, have had it for a couple of years now. Great gun, I wish I had looked at them before buying two Marauders. The gun is simple, rugged and reliable. It will also out shoot the two Marauders I currently own. For a gun having only a 10 in barrel tucked away in a pretty efficient shroud, the gun is amazingly accurate. It easily puts 5 shots onto a penny at 25 yards with CPHPs. It doesn't seem to like the JSBs much. The only thing I did to it that isn't stock was to add the Condor hammer weight. It seemed to stabilize the velocity very well. Great guns, rugged, reliable, easy to tinker with and if you have the money and time, you can have several guns off of one platform. Can't say enough good about them. I'm selling both of my Marauders to get a Condor. They are THAT good.

Jamie 

I know this is a old post but if you buy a airforce gun just try to enjoy in stock form.....dont put $700 into a $650 gun that shoots good from the factory. The AF gun is very predictable so if you have any clue on shooting then the stock form rifle will work.

I have a Condor SS in .22 that I was able to pick up used with a maddog stock, tophat and hammer mods. I added a regulator (highly recommended) and currently have less in it than a new Condor. Granted if I had to drop what is actually in the gun ($1250) on a new one all at once I would probably pass, but I would say that about most anything in that price range. So definitely peruse the classifieds and there is a good chance you will find a good deal, because yes the cheek wield is different from a normal gun and not everyone can adapt to that. Raising the scope helps a bit, and if you can simply learn to hold your head slightly different you don't really notice. That said this is a utilitarian gun. It is not a bench rest or HFT rifle. It is accurate once you learn how to shoot it. Even with the aftermarket stock and regulator I wasn't getting the groups I wanted. Then I added a scope bubble level and it all changed. I found that because the scope rides so high above the barrel that if you don't hold it pretty much perfectly in the same spot relative to the gun then shots tend to wander. If you are scoped 3" off the barrel and cant to one side or the other it makes a significant impact on the poi/poa, and due to the design of the gun cant errors slip in easily. Also the gun is very light and has a lot of power. These two things together give the shot a bit of a jump so finding the right hold is also something you gotta figure out. If you can overcome those inconveniences then you have a platform, much like an AR-15. That is one of the big selling points for me. I will be getting a second tank and valve along with a .357 barrel and with about 5 minutes of time will be able to swap back and fourth from birds and squirrels to hogs and ungulates. The FX Impact is the only other setup out there right now that can come close to doing that but it can't match the power of the Airforce, and the FX would still cost close to $600 more.