Cometa Indian and associated thoughts

[drmarkway]

I used bb guns and pellet guns as a kid but very quickly was moved on to standard fire arms. I am partly disabled ( walk like a goof, back injury), can no longer hunt or compete, so have begun to shoot pellet guns out of my garage at a range in my back yard.

I have had a lot of trouble, some self-induced, in finding a pellet pistola that I like. I know that you all are mainly into competion, but I would like to share a couple of items.

First, the best deal that I found was the Archer QB-57, with the Archer package. These guns are essentially one off at the factory. Archer adjusts and tests, a cool guy, and you get a great gun at a ridiculously low price. It's a very airgun short carbine, sort of a bull-pup design. Very handy, well made and accurate. You get a whole extra front assembly for about $35, so a 2 caliber capability. Really love these.

There are almost NO decent air pistols made unless you go to huge expense or use one of those pieces that uses a scuba tank to charge the bugger. The problem is that Americans like air pistols to look like a 1911A1 or a p99 Walther. I found only three pistols that I could recommend.

First is the Beeman P3. It costs way too much and makes an identical model in China that cost literally 10% as much but tends to self-destruct because of poor workmanship. Beeman sucks!

Second is the Webley-Scott Tempest. The gun is not made anymore, but the darn things are available for about $180 at Gun Auction. The come up pretty often. They are springers and a bit difficult to control, but feel like a powder pistol and a quality firearm capable of high accuracy.

Third is the IZH-Baikal 46M. This is one heck of a fire arm. Very well made and designed, very accurate and probably useful in competition. I've written about this elsewhere, so won't go on about it.

There is another, but it's very rare in this country and should not be. It's the Cometa Indian. It was sold in the US briefly with a Diana name. It's powerful, a springer with low torque. It has minimal sights but intrinsically accurate and very dependable.

The IZH 46M has a wooden grip. Some of you may not know this trick. It is not unusual to get blisters from using firearms and tools with a high gloss finish. Take some fine steel wool to the varnish, lacquer, whatever, get it down to where you see some bare wood and then apply some paste wax. Wax protects the wood and it's appearance but does not draw blisters.