Ruger Impact Max

My neighbor just got one last weekend as an impulse purchase. Despite cleaning the barrel, trying about a dozen different pellets, trigger adjustment, etc. I can't get this rifle to shoot better than 1" at 20 yards. Since it is not mine, I'm not going to open it up and try to do the normal "home" tune, but that's what I would do next. Did not have the opportunity to chorny it, but that would be my next step. 

I’m new to airguns, but I’ve been shooting high power rifle for 28 years and for what it’s worth I really like the Ruger Impact Max. I got it at Walmart to deal with a large squirrel problem and have continued target shooting with it at home. At 50 yards I get consistent .5” ten round groups with H&N Sniper Magnum 17.90 gr pellets. It also does ok with the Crosman Premier 14.2 gr pellets, but only when they actually seat and don’t fall out when closing the barrel and there’s always at least one flyer that just does its own thing. It does not like the Gamo Rocket 14.5 gr or the Gamo Platinum PBA 9.7 gr pellets. 

I have not setup the chronograph, but I’ve seen a lot of bullets in flight and the advertised velocity is high. There’s no way it’s pushing 1050 FPS. But it is quiet and accurate enough for it to be fun. 

I replaced the included scope the first day. I had a Leupold VXR 4-12x50 without a home, so I used that. The biggest improvement I made was to oil the trigger group. It was bone dry and felt like striking a match. A few drops of oil made a huge improvement. It’s advertised as having a two stage trigger, but it’s really a single stage with a very long pull, the first portion being simply the resistance of the spring, not moving the sear. The only other thing I did was to slightly enlarge the stock mounting through holes so the action was fully seated to the rear of the inlet. There’s a weird plastic cover over the rear of the gas spring tube and it was floppy and buzzed when the gun fired. The cap appears to be entirely aesthetic, but it drove me nuts. 

After tax the rifle cost less than $200 and after well over 2000 rounds I’d have to say it was a great deal and I’d buy another.

I really like the Impact Max. It is very similar to the Umarex Forge (which I also have) - both have the silencair moderator and they share the same trigger group, but the impact max does not have the nucleus rail system. The one complaint I had was the 6.5# trigger pull it had out of the box. But I replaced the spring on the middle sear with a lighter weight one and now I have a repeatable 1lb 10oz trigger - it's actually pretty fantastic now. Bumped it around a lot to make sure it was safe at that light pull weight and had no issues.

Mine likes H&N Terminators, Beeman Devastators and Predator Polymags - so the sweet spot seems to be 16 grains. It shoots the CPHP and CPUM ok, but really gets accurate with the 16 grain pellets. Deadly accurate - I took a chipper this morning at 29.5 yards with a shot to the head with it using a Terminator. I'll post it in the hunting gate.

I encourage you to replace that sear spring with a lighter weight one - it cost $0.40 online for the spring

You guys with these tack driving Chinese springers need to come out to some field target matches and show us how its done. Apparantly we have just been wasting our money on these high end German and English guns. The Ruger Impact I tried wasn't even soda can accurate at 20 yards with any pellet I tried, I did a basic tune on it with no improvement and threw it in the garbage.

Cm shooter... the Impact Max is not a Springer. Threw it in the garbage? I would have bought it from you.

Hi everyone sorry to jump on this post but i just bought a ruger impact max and the breach chamfering doesnt seem right. Any advice? 

It’s definitely weird. Mine has(d) the same dull chamfering but it was centered on the bore. Is the off center appearance really there or is that an illusion?

If the bore is not off center I’d just use it. The chamfered edges will soften up pretty quickly. About the time the rifle is broken in the chamfer will be gone(ish). 

If the bore really is off center you should return it. 

What I think is really odd, is that the chamfer was done with a handheld chamfering tool. You can see the varying angles of contact and pressure. It’s a pretty dumb way to go about it. 

Im not sure if you are able to see the pictures or not. To me its off centre but im relatively new to airguns so wasnt 100% sure. Can you see my attched picture? 

I can see the photos. I was just making sure it simply didn’t look off center in the pictures. Parallax makes things look weird. 

I just scanned mine with our Faro and concentricity is 0.0018” - 0.0016” That’s not super impressive, but it’s still smaller than your eyes can resolve. 

Cm shooter... the Impact Max is not a Springer. Threw it in the garbage? I would have bought it from you.

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WAKE UP!!! it is a springer, dude,

My neighbor just got one last weekend as an impulse purchase. Despite cleaning the barrel, trying about a dozen different pellets, trigger adjustment, etc. I can't get this rifle to shoot better than 1" at 20 yards. Since it is not mine, I'm not going to open it up and try to do the normal "home" tune, but that's what I would do next. Did not have the opportunity to chorny it, but that would be my next step.

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Hard to judge the accuracy of any given airgun based on the results of one individual. IMHO.

I really like the Impact Max. It is very similar to the Umarex Forge (which I also have) - both have the silencair moderator and they share the same trigger group, but the impact max does not have the nucleus rail system. The one complaint I had was the 6.5# trigger pull it had out of the box. But I replaced the spring on the middle sear with a lighter weight one and now I have a repeatable 1lb 10oz trigger - it's actually pretty fantastic now. Bumped it around a lot to make sure it was safe at that light pull weight and had no issues.

Mine likes H&N Terminators, Beeman Devastators and Predator Polymags - so the sweet spot seems to be 16 grains. It shoots the CPHP and CPUM ok, but really gets accurate with the 16 grain pellets. Deadly accurate - I took a chipper this morning at 29.5 yards with a shot to the head with it using a Terminator. I'll post it in the hunting gate.

I encourage you to replace that sear spring with a lighter weight one - it cost $0.40 online for the spring

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Can you point a guy in the right direction to get this lighter spring? Web URL?

Hi Ryan, from the Jones Spring catalog, I use spring 154-C, the oem spring is something like the 156-C and a super light spring would be something like 157-C. I bought them in an assortment off Amazon for about $11, but you can go to the Jones Spring website (or maybe Grainger or McMaster) and get just the one you want. Here's some pics I sent to someone else awhile back.

I just got an impact max, I've had it for about a week. 109.99 @ walmart.

I have about half a tin of cphp through it. it is a nail driver at 20 yards so far, .750 10 shot groupings.

i have a feeling with a lighter seat spring, better scope and ammo it could be getting .300-.400 at 20 yards and .500-.750 at 50 yards.

I grabbed one as an impulse buy while shopping for xmas at Walmart 140. I cleaned the barrel that was it. Started shooting cphp just to help lead up the barrell and I have a bunch and for breaking in a gun they work well. The initial chrono after 25 shots was 1150. The gun was diesel ing pretty bad, had a good bit of smoke coming out the barrel. Didnt feel like tearing it down so kept shooting. After about 300 shots or so its settled down to around 750fps. So nothing crazy about 17.5 fpe with cphp. I got it just for plinking target shooting.

I am surprised by how accurate it is especially with the cphp I can group 5 shots at 30 yards where they are all touching the other holes. I have one of those spinner that you shoot one and it flips em up onto a bar and then you shoot the top one and they all fall back down. They are about 1inch round sterl. At 30 yards no stbding I can hit those pretty consistently. I am a terrible off hand shooter but working on getting better.

Only thing that suck on this gun is the trigger. It's really heavy and gritty and mushy all st thr same time. I loosened the screw on the trigger it made the pull a little longer and made it break more consistently but I will def be breaking the rifle down and working on the trigger.



Oh the end you put the pellets in it is cut in at an angle and slightly off center like the bore pictured above. I assume the angle is to help make loading easier? The gun shoots to the right pretty good so I really had to turn the scope setting in a good bit. But since it's just a cheap Springer and performs I am not too worried about it. 

I am somewhat new to airgunning. As a teenager 50 years ago I shot a Benjamin .22 and it was quite impressive for it's power and accuracy. Recently I decided to purchase a Ruger Impact Max .22 at my local Wal-Mart. I never realized a break barrel airgun could deliver the speed and accuracy of this one. I do however have a few issues I would like to correct with this gun. First is the trigger. The long pull took some getting accustomed to however the hard squeeze at the end of the pull is another thing. I read on this forum that a lighter spring will correct this problem however finding the spring is another matter. I looked on Amazon for one that was recommended (154-C) There is nothing currently available there so I went to Jones Spring Co. There the springs are .65 each but I have to place a minimum order of $35.00. Does anyone have this spring that is willing to sell them at a more reasonable price? Second: I see in many reviews that scopes must be designed for airguns to withstand the recoil. I have scopes for my high powered rifles, can these work? If not, what scopes are considered a better choice than the one that comes with the rifle? My gun benched and using a RWS Superdome pellets 14.5 groups nicely, touching holes. I find however that I need to keep readjusting it to keep it on the bullseye. I have already re-tightened the mounting screws so I don.t feel this is the problem. I think a better scope might be the answer. Does anyone have any ideas on either of my questions?

Since most of you have an issue with the trigger on this rifle another suggestion besides changing out trigger springs would be an after market trigger from www.charliedatuna.com. He makes great after market triggers for Chinese springers. I'm very happy with the one I bought.

I am somewhat new to airgunning. As a teenager 50 years ago I shot a Benjamin .22 and it was quite impressive for it's power and accuracy. Recently I decided to purchase a Ruger Impact Max .22 at my local Wal-Mart. I never realized a break barrel airgun could deliver the speed and accuracy of this one. I do however have a few issues I would like to correct with this gun. First is the trigger. The long pull took some getting accustomed to however the hard squeeze at the end of the pull is another thing. I read on this forum that a lighter spring will correct this problem however finding the spring is another matter. I looked on Amazon for one that was recommended (154-C) There is nothing currently available there so I went to Jones Spring Co. There the springs are .65 each but I have to place a minimum order of $35.00. Does anyone have this spring that is willing to sell them at a more reasonable price? Second: I see in many reviews that scopes must be designed for airguns to withstand the recoil. I have scopes for my high powered rifles, can these work? If not, what scopes are considered a better choice than the one that comes with the rifle? My gun benched and using a RWS Superdome pellets 14.5 groups nicely, touching holes. I find however that I need to keep readjusting it to keep it on the bullseye. I have already re-tightened the mounting screws so I don.t feel this is the problem. I think a better scope might be the answer. Does anyone have any ideas on either of my questions?

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I had the same problem locating a replacement spring. Mine has a 5+ lb trigger pull but I would like it to be a little lighter. The best place I found for springs was Tacoma Screw Products, Inc. I bought 2 of the 154-C springs and am awaiting their arrival. The only thing I'm not sure of is the spring is 1.75" long so do you have to cut the spring down to the approx. 0.6" length ? I assume that you do, but you know what they say about assuming. Maybe prfsslee wil chime in if he's still around.

Were you able to tune your trigger? I got my spring from Tacoma Screw, cut it to length and installed it. The trigger pull is excellent, very smooth and light. I just got a Tasco airgun 3-9 power scope. Waiting for better weather to shoot it in. The Tasco scope (TASCO 3-9X40 AO Air Gun RS Black Fully Coated, Rings, Truplex) from Amazon

makes the one that came with the gun look like a toy. My son also got the same model so I tuned up his trigger too with the same results.