questions on various Olympic air pistols

Ulrich Eichstädt · Post by **Ulrich Eichstädt** » Tue Jan 07, 2014 3:33 am

Hm, because I have been the author (and one of the testers) of almost all VISIER airgun tests since 1988 (estimated 200-250) and I am now spokesman of the Walther/Umarex-corporate group, I am so to speak standing in two boats.

At first let me say that the VISIER test scheme is regarded as one (if not the only) transparent one for gun reviews in the world. And it's completely independent from any advertising companies - in contrary for example to a lot of UK and US magazines (I know a lot of editors there...), where they even show the test results to the manufacturers prior to printing. And, sorry, VISIER is not available in english yet.

The best air pistol with the best trigger in all recent VISIER reviews has been the Steyr LP 10E - not german, but austrian (but if you already put "german-speaking" companies together, that makes no difference). But in the latest tests the Feinwerkbau P44 and the Walther LP400 run up to the same result (98 out of 100 points), and you can also a find a lot of critics about the LP400 in the review, for example that one needs an allen key for clicking the rear sight and some dirt in the valve obviously blew off the tank at one time.

The success of the Steyr air pistols LP10 and LP10E coincidents somehow with the results of the top-shooters in the world both at world championships and olympic games - funny, isn't it? No Feinwerk, no Walther, although I would have been (now) happy about that. And surely neither a Pardini K12 or a Morini CM162E, sorry, and no Baikal 46 either.

So there are surely no prejudices against "italian speaking" manufacturers, as william implies - for example: The CM162E has no adjustable rear sight (in width and depth) like almost all other air pistols and it has a fixed grip angle because of the electronics inside, both (in our opinion then) important, but missing features. The Match Guns MG 1E suffered from the extremely high price in germany in comparizon to others.

The chosen six air pistols in VISIER 4/2012 have been the most successful ones at that time - because space in print magazines is limited, we then decided to take only this six pistol. The newest air pistols from Pardini and Match Guns have been reviewed seperately before or shortly after that comparison test - until I left the editorial staff we had tested every air pistol (and air rifle!) which could be called "match quality" on the market.

Here is the (not actual) ranklist of tested air pistols:
http://www.all4shooters.com/de/Zeitschr ... ftpistolen

Here are the criteria for the test scheme (sorry, german)
http://www.all4shooters.com/de/Zeitschr ... tpistolen/

And there has surely been no conspiracy to suppress only the trigger diagram of the Walther LP400 - I've checked no the pdf from two different sources, both work.

David M's excellent remarks about his trigger conversion have been forwarded to the Walther engineers - you never know...

In general: there will always be space and ways to improve a match gun, and we surely are not satisfied with some inconsistencies of the LP400 trigger. That does not happen to all pistols, but to a lot of them - sorry. That was also the reason why we send little trigger springs to places abroad worldwide. But to put it also back to the ground: The difference in the trigger characteristics can be felt by some experienced shooters. But there surely is also a kind of "placebo" or "phantom" feeling just be reading it somewhere, that the trigger has maybe some problems. Not every shooter benefits from a second stage lower than 100 grams.

therider · Post by **therider** » Tue Jan 07, 2014 3:46 am

William, I too was amazed that Visier has ignored pistols which are usually considered to be at the very top and in some cases superior to some of the "remaining 5".

There is a very clear explanation for that (I am ironic, obviously). In the first lines the author is clearly stating the objective: are London medaills going all to LP10e? Or will the "hot 5" get them?
Obviously the Author thought that there would be no shooter shooting with a Morini (just as an example) in London! Or that Morini shooters had no chances against the hot five....

Would be interesting to see how the hot five performed in London!

therider · Post by **therider** » Tue Jan 07, 2014 3:54 am

Ulrich, I was not implying conspiracy regarding the diagram.

By the way I found out what the problem is. My iPad 3 is consistently erasing the diagram of P400 only!!!!
My iPhone 5 shows it without any problems! So it was Apple conspiring! :-)

Tycho · Post by **Tycho** » Tue Jan 07, 2014 4:29 am

The CM162E has no adjustable rear sight (in width and depth)

Well, that statement is obviously wrong. Morini rear sights have been adjustable in width for years, when Walther still saw rear sight blades as a significant source of revenue.

In general, I find VISIER hugely entertaining, especially when they come up with really important criteria like how much force is needed to cock an AP, or when they do everything possible (as they did for years) to keep the Walther GSP at the top of their Standard Pistol list. But I certainly wouldn't base any buying decision on what those guys write.

conradin · Post by **conradin** » Tue Jan 07, 2014 5:34 pm

Ulrich Eichstädt wrote:Hm, because I have been the author (and one of the testers) of almost all VISIER airgun tests since 1988 (estimated 200-250) and I am now spokesman of the Walther/Umarex-corporate group, I am so to speak standing in two boats.

At first let me say that the VISIER test scheme is regarded as one (if not the only) transparent one for gun reviews in the world. And it's completely independent from any advertising companies - in contrary for example to a lot of UK and US magazines (I know a lot of editors there...), where they even show the test results to the manufacturers prior to printing. And, sorry, VISIER is not available in english yet.

Here is the (not actual) ranklist of tested air pistols:
http://www.all4shooters.com/de/Zeitschr ... ftpistolen

Here are the criteria for the test scheme (sorry, german)
http://www.all4shooters.com/de/Zeitschr ... tpistolen/

I saw in air pistol there is a LP10 UMT, I have never heard of it, what is that and what does UMT mean?

Ulrich Eichstädt · Post by **Ulrich Eichstädt** » Wed Jan 08, 2014 3:27 am

It was a customized Steyr, promoted by Gerd Männel, former CEO of Steyr and then with his own company (http://www.maennel.at/ ). Don't ask me about that abbreviation UMT, the M is certainly Männel, T target or so. It had a different grip, a different trigger (with more than 600 g out of the box :( ) and some other technical features, but it didn't perform as excellent as the original LP 10 in the VISIER test.