TargetTalk

Just wondering if there are any thoughts out there about the new Air Force Edge that was discussed in a previous thread. That thread was more about accuracy comparisons w/ Crosman/Daisy. I'd just like to know if clubs are using the Edge and what the actual users (junior shooters) are saying. Is this a good investment for a jr club? Thanks! Coach Paula

No

ummm, can edge owner off any reasons? for the NO vote to the question posted? Specifics will enhance your cred.

Of the small number of rifles AirForce has delivered, how many of them will hold a group? For the price, the Edge should hold the 10 ring, mine won’t. In fact with average pellets, it will not hold an 8 ring out of a vice. We're being told that it takes a "special" pellet which is not commonly available, and this magical pellet will be much more expensive than anything else on the market. One gun smith I've talked to who is very familiar with the Edge says he has a couple of brand new, out of the box rifles that will require new barrels before they can hope to hold any respectable groups. Where was the Quality Control person before they were shipped?

In short, the Edge has taken way too long, to produce, it's not living up to any of its pre-production hype, and it's not clear that the manufacturer can resolve the serious accuracy issues.

Other than that, the kids love them.

Here in NM we have had an Edge in the sporter Final in the last two cup matches .position 5 or 6 in both. a few crossman M2000's as well.
Our cutoff for 8th in the Final are usually around 530

Might be the rifles are just too new to see a lot of them yet, but it certainly seems that there are some of these new rifles capable of shooting well.

However, I'm NOT a fan of their front sight iris's ... seem a bit el cheapo to me

My $0.02

Well, we thought it would be a reasonable upgrade to the Tau air rifles in our meager collection. BUT! I didn't realize that they are $700. Wow, for a sporter class? My personal preference would be to buy a used CO2 rifle, such as Walter or Steyr. Aprox same price point and better track record, it seems.

I think mine is a great shooter. The daisy's are great too. Which is more accurate?? I don't know.

I tried just a few different pellets. Very happy with ergonomics. The adjustable length of pull and forearm position adjustability I really like. Trigger needs some shimming IMO. What I like about these rifles is you can work on them yourself and the talon forum has loads of info on trigger work and such. Not all of the options would keep it sporter legal obviously.

Maybe there is an issue with barrels. Some good, some bad. If you have a poorly shooting rifle. Tighten down the bushing, test various pellets and inspect for obvious issues and if results are still not good get on the phone with airforce and ask for a barrel swap or something.

I have had a couple of poorly shooting rimfires that one I tightened or adjusted something they were great shooters.

WRC wrote:Well, we thought it would be a reasonable upgrade to the Tau air rifles in our meager collection. BUT! I didn't realize that they are $700. Wow, for a sporter class? My personal preference would be to buy a used CO2 rifle, such as Walter or Steyr. Aprox same price point and better track record, it seems.

You can get them cheaper for under $500, which is there club price. However, there are a few strings attached. Like we are a 4H club registered with the CMP, which lets us order the rifles at the club price. Joining the CMP is relatively simple and if you belong to a group such as the 4H costs nothing, except for filling out their annual reports.

If you are competing in sporter class competitions with the CMP or NRA the rifles must be available by the manufacture for under $500 and approved by the Airgun Council before they can be used in the sporter competitions. If you call AirForce they will give you all the information you need to qualify.

I just received one this week and I hoped it would be a nice replacement for the wore T-200 I was sadly very wrong..Mine just holds 8s also......LW

I don't have one, but read this, BB got impressive results after some seasoning of the barrel:
http://airgun-academy.pyramydair.com/bl ... ge-part-6/

His cleaning method with JB may help polish the barrel a little and improve accuracy. I wouldn't buy one, but maybe this will help those that did?

The best group that BB got was with Vogels in an 18 inch barrel. I have a couple of comments on that.

1. The group BB shot from a vise was very good but not outstanding. Our club has mostly 887s and a few CH2009s. All will shoot this size of group with RWS Meisterkugeln and R-10s out of the box. A few will shoot a group in which the CTC of a five shot group at 10 meters is unmeasurable (a scoring plug will not fall out of the hole.) These are shot from Caldwell bags on a bench. Over the last two years, we've had to return only one 887 because is did not shoot well out of the box.

2. The 18" barrel that BB used was not stock with the rifle. Changing the barrel on a sporter rifle to one that isn't stock is a gray area in the rule book. At the very least, it is against the spirit of the rules to limit the amount of tweaking to rifles in the class that could result in an arms race in terms of cost.

3. To get the performance that he got, BB has to clean the barrels with JB paste initially, and then with Hoppes No. 9 "after every 50 shots or so"! With our Challengers and 887s, we have NEVER cleaned the barrels. Some of the 887s are personal rifles that are shot exclusively with R-10s and two of them are on their third sleeve of pellets. That's more than 10,000 rounds without cleaning. The rifles will still shoot one hole groups from a rest.

To Quote:

"Since the gun was in a vice, it was easy to shoot and clean. That’s how it went. And you know what? There was a definite improvement in the accuracy of each barrel as things progressed. Even though I’d cleaned all three barrels before the start of the test, and despite the fact that the 12-inch barrel had at least 300 of my own shots on it when I began, accuracy continued to improve as I shot and cleaned. That’s not to say that you can’t just take the rifle out of the box and shoot it, but in the first thousand shots you would be advised to clean the barrel after every 50 shots or so."

4. Cleaning your rifle after every 50 shots to get the best performance you can out of them is not practical during a half course match where you shoot 60 shots plus sighters. I can possibly see doing this if you can get a level of performance that cannot be gotten by any other solution, but that is not the case here. The solution is to get another type of rifle that works right out of the box.

And no, I am not a shill for Daisy or Crosman. I like the Edge and feel that it would be a better solution for some of shooters that are smaller of stature as its ergonomics are superior in that regard. But I won't handicap them because of the inaccuracy of the rifle and I'm not going to spend time cleaning rifles after every practice session.

And neither am I going to source special pellets for the rifle. We use RWS pellets because our high school association bulk buys a pallet of pellets every year for all the high school teams in our area so that we can get a good price on them that way.

I suppose if a shooter wants to get one on his own, then that's okay. But he is more or less on his/her own. I have spare parts to support 753s, 887s and some for the CH2009. Our club does not have the financial resources to spare for a rifle that I can't recommend because of inaccuracy.

The rifle good for play but not for competition in its current form. Saw and tried it at 2 nationals...

Good:
the rear sights. The CMP still wont allow it's i\use with other rifles.
ergonomics

Bad:
The barrel is clamped at the front instead of free floating
100 shots per fill... maybe?
8 ring accuracy at best CH2009 and the 887 shoot 10's out of the box with any heavy pellet... in a ONE HOLE GROUP OF 5.
there is felt recoil from the hammer spring.

Worst:
no rebuttal from Air Force
never seen any "great" groups posted for a verifiable source.

my 2 cents

WRC wrote:Just wondering if there are any thoughts out there about the new Air Force Edge that was discussed in a previous thread. That thread was more about accuracy comparisons w/ Crosman/Daisy. I'd just like to know if clubs are using the Edge and what the actual users (junior shooters) are saying. Is this a good investment for a jr club? Thanks! Coach Paula

Just received two new Edges from AirForce, and John Promises me that they will shoot 10's, We'll see when we get them into a vice hopefully next week. If they will hold the 10 ring, we'll order more as they seem to fit our smaller athletes, if not, we'll be buying more Crosman CH 2009's.

I keep hearing that Daisy has a new Compressed Air Sporter coming out, but nothing firm yet...

Results when I can prove something one way or the other.

Roy McClain
(678) 772-8185 cell
www.OleMillRange.com