TargetTalk

Hello, my kids are just getting into air rifle moving up from BB gun shooting. Right now our club mainly shoots CMP sporter class which severely limits our choices. I would like everyones opinion as to which air rifle is best, yet affordable, for both sporter and precision classes.
Thank you for your replies.
Dakota Dad

PS - my son is wanting to hold out for an Air Force Edge but at this rate he may be old and gray before they are released.

My personal choice is the Daisy 887, inexpensive and very accurate.

2nd would probably be the newly approved Crosman, I had a shooter fire an early model a few months ago (out of competition) in our state match and it was also very accurate.

My personal distant last would be the Edge, mainly because the two above guns can legally be fired in a precision event, while the edge is not a legal precision rifle.

For a good deal on a P-gun, the CMP offering of the Anschutz 8002 is hard to beat

You got $0.08 worth there......

jhmartin, thanks for your reply I will keep it in mind. One problem with your recommendations is that they are both CO2 based rifles and our club does not use CO2. They use compressed air for a couple reasons, safety for one. There is posibly some concern of getting the two mixed up. I personally haven't worked with either as I am just getting into this from BB guns so I can't say beyond what I am told. I also am wanting advise on a good 10m pistol for a petite 11 year old girl.
thanks again
Dakota Dad

DakotaDad wrote:jhmartin, thanks for your reply I will keep it in mind. One problem with your recommendations is that they are both CO2 based rifles and our club does not use nor want anyone to use CO2. They use compressed air for a couple reasons, safety for one. There is some concern of getting the two mixed up. I personally haven't worked with either as I am just getting into this from BB guns so I can't say beyond what I am told. I also am wanting advise on a good 10m pistol for a petite 11 year old girl.
thanks again
Dakota Dad

I have to say it's impossible to mix up CO2 and compressed air, and would suggest 'compressed' air is perhaps more of a safety issue than CO2. That said if the club don't want it then it's their call.

Rob.

I have to agree with Rob's comment, it is a club call, but to say that it is a safety issue is somewhat disingenuous. I think it's more they don't want to bother or spend the money (a pittance) to have both. "What-ever", as my youngest says.

While air is much "easier" and simpler to fill, I do not let my younger youth fill those tanks ... at 2900psi you must handle them with more care than a CO2 tank. In terms of mixing them up .... pretty much impossible if using the standardized fill equipment ... now, if you cobble together something from Home Depot, then all bets are off and whatever you do there is a tragedy waiting to happen.

The new Crosman PCP rifle will take both CO2 and air. We tested it with air.

Again, my issues with the Edge are:
1) The front sight is too high to fire in a precision event.
2) I'm not convinced that the manufacturing costs will ever get below the limit the council has set for them. I know that the council had to make a chicken-egg decision on this rifle, but two years after the decision was made, not one production rifle has fired in a match that I'm aware of.
3) Not here yet

If you can afford a T200, then that is a great sporter gun (that is legal to fire in a p-gun match too). There are a LOT of JROTC teams that use this exclusively, even with bigger kids, although I prefer to use our Valiants for our youngest shooters.

A quick question to satisfy my curiosity ... is this a 4-H club?

RE: Youth Pistols .... call Bob Foth or Sergey Luzov at USA Shooting and ask them for info on the youth pistol deals ... cannot find it on the website anymore, but Bob had said they were expecting another shipment when I chatted with him in April.