Construction/Finish:
The construction seems adequate for the pricing, everything is finished well including the grips and metal surfaces. The ambi grips fit my medium sized LH somewhat well but they do feel a tad big and chunky. The majority of the gun is aluminum construction with a painted finish I believe, I would have preferred steel but that might make it a bit heavy, as it stands its well balanced to me. If nothing else they could have opted for an anodized finish which would last better than paint.
Powerplant:
The SSP powerplant is a bit underpowered only producing about 375 fps. It cocks quite easily but you pay the price when it comes to scoring targets, a lot of guessing ensues. I've been shooting cheaper american paper targets, German paper targets will help with the reduced speed. I'd much prefer a more difficult to cock gun that gets over 500 fps. Perhaps they should have a Junior model as is and beef it up for an Adult version.
Trigger:
To me this is one of the weakest parts of the pistol. It has 4 adjustments but there are a whole lot of bad triggers hidden in those 4 adjustments. I've finally got mine set where I want it and don't plan to tinker any more. I probably have it at about 2 pounds, perhaps a bit lower. If you try to go lower expect slam fires. The trigger break isn't mushy but isn't extremely crisp either. I would have preferred a better break with less adjustments. After seeing what a real match trigger feels like in my new FWB 601 rifle this pistol has a long way to go. Its more comparable to a average rimfire pistol than a match AP. I also have a Les Baer .45 and a S&W 41, both of which are far superior to this pistol but cost many times as much.
Sights:
The sights themselves are pretty good, the rear blade is all metal however I think the front "bead" is plastic. The problem lies in the adjustment, there is very little feedback when adjusting. Sometimes you turn it and get a click and sometimes you can turn a bit with no feedback. They need to work on a higher quality mechanism with a more positive system of feedback. This is easy to do but will just add some to the manufacturing costs.
Pellet Sensitivity:
I bought several types of RWS and JSB and all worked fine for my abilities except for RWS Hobby pellets, they simply won't operate in this pistol. I checked with Airguns of Arizona where I purchased and they have had the same issue. Hobby pellets are perhaps a bit too large for the chamber and weak powerplant to handle. I have recently been using inexpensive RWS Diablo Basic 7.0 grain pellets and they work wonderfully, they are what I shot the 557 with tonight.
Overview:
I think this is a great starter pistol at a fraction of the cost of a German made PCP. I would probably rate it an 8/10 taking cost into consideration, I would most definitely purchase again if given the opportunity. It doesn't feel cheap nor high end. If they improved the trigger, sight feedback and put a higher quality anodized finish on the aluminum it would be a 10/10 winner.
Here's a picture of the pistol along with a couple of the "prettier" targets from tonight.
