Good starter pistol for 10m?

[Snookered]

Hello. I’ve been shooting skeet competitively and want to get into another shooting sport that’s a bit cheaper. I found this Air Venturi V10 for around 380cad and was wondering if it was decent for the money as most other pistols I’ve found for 10m start around 1k.

[PirateJohn]

I bought one and it was awful. I had to return it because the cocking mechanism stopped working after only a few weeks. The replacement they sent did the same thing. I have to cock it about five or six times just to get the air cylinder to properly fill.

Plus, there is no way to dry fire it. You don't want a pistol you can't dry fire.

[Rover]

I know of NOTHING useful and cheap. Buy a TOP used SSP or CO2 gun. Even if it needs repair, you'll be way ahead of the game.

[atomicgale]

if it was decent for the money as most other pistols I’ve found for 10m start around 1k.

Buy M1963's LP10 for $1,200 on the buy forum here: Near-new cylinders.

Anything like that P.O.S. shown above - may as well flush your money in the toilet; if the p.o.s. does happen to work - you're still wasting your time & pellets, wasting effort on a high-centered/off-balance platform; while developing bad habits that will prove to be hard to un-do.

[kevinweiho]

I found this Air Venturi V10 for around 380cad

You're from Canada?

Had a Gamo compact, the equivalent to the Air Venturi V10. It's a pistol that is fine to "plink" around the house.
The plastic used in the frame of the pistol that houses the firing mechanism is brittle, and will break with repeated dry firing.

I would also recommend a second hand match pistol. These usually tend to maintain their value should you decide to upgrade in the future.

[kevinweiho]

Plus, there is no way to dry fire it. You don't want a pistol you can't dry fire

It is possible to dry fire the pistol by just unlatching the lever and slightly pushing it forward to cock the sear without pre compressing the air.

Like I said, repeatedly doing so will damage the plastic housing of the firing mechanism.

[Gwhite]

If you are mechanically handy & don't mind tuning them up, the Chiappa FAS 6004 is a big step up (no plastic) for not much more money than the V10. There are several posts here on getting a bit more performance out of them than they typically supply out of the box.

The Air Venturi Comp10 is another option (basically a Snowpeak PP20), but they don't have much of a track record yet to assess quality and support. In fact, the delivery date keeps slipping. It used to be they were supposed to arrive in the summer sometime, then September, and now by the end of the year. The Snowpeak PP20 has been around for a while, so my suspicious nature wonders if the Comp10's are having issues meeting Air Venturi's quality requirements. If so, I expect a price jump when they finally start showing up...

[smalm21]

I’m also just getting started and was on this same search recently. I ended up finding a veteran shooter who was willing to sell me their used Hammerli AP20, which was their started pistol from which they had since upgraded. I’m receiving it at the end of the coming week so I can’t give you any hands-on feedback yet, but I settled on this one because the overwhelming consensus I found in online resources praised it as a great starter pistol. It’s a little pricier than some other starter models I had seen, but it may be worth looking in to on your search, especially if you’re able to stumble across a used one that can bring the price down.