Rating of the best air pistols of 2019

This air pistol has become popular as a second weapon among the players of hardball teams, which is not surprising: of course, it does not look like any of the combat samples, and the “chromoplastic” of the frame is an amateur thing, but its assets include an economically consuming blowback gas, the possibility of long storage with a pierced balloon, a good “out of the box” speed of a shot at 130 m / s. And all this for quite budgetary money even after the crisis.

The pistol uses a moving barrel mechanism — moving forward when the trigger is pressed, it picks up a new ball on the return stroke and hits the valve, which gives minimal gas leaks: even with the blowback, the pistol can fire a dozen magazines, giving decent speed. The recoil of the metal shutter is quite weighty, which adds interest when shooting. The trigger is hidden, but control of its state and the Decock key are provided, which safely removes it from the combat platoon (approximately the same as it happens when setting the cocked PM on the fuse).

To the credit of the developers, the pistol has few diseases — this is, first of all, a sensitive magazine reset button, and the undersized plastic magazine itself sometimes has to be glued (but this is important first of all for hardball players, not everyone needs to rush with a pistol naked around the polygons).

Not everyone likes revolvers, but for fans of the Dan Wesson style, an eight-inch (actual length of the loose barrel is 181 mm) barrel will be a great gift. The pistol is available in two versions (Grey and Silver), uses false cartridges for firing balls that are inserted into the drum chambers, has good speed characteristics and excellent accuracy for a smooth-bore “ball thrower” (which is not surprising with such a long barrel). You can shoot both self-cocking and with a preliminary cocking, in the latter case, the revolver hits both more powerfully and more accurately.

In comparison with analogues from Gletcher and Borner (cheaper), this revolver is even more reliable — there is no such tendency to the rapid development of the barrel shaft, the mainspring sags not so quickly. So, despite the price, this is definitely the best long-barreled BB revolver you can find in stores.

This air pistol cannot be called an exact copy of the compact Walther PPS, which replaced the famous «James Bond pistol» — Walther PPK: instead of an automatic safety, there is a simple button on the trigger, a bolt blocking valve and a «peephole» through which you can see on the original whether the trigger is cocked , decorative. With the exception of the fuse, the pistol is structurally similar to the Umarex CP99 Compact, but it costs significantly less: this promises good reliability for sane money.

The frame of the pistol is plastic (as on the original firearm), the metal shutter is equipped with a blowback — the pistol not only sits well in the hand, it is also interesting to shoot from it. I really liked the implementation of the compartment for the cylinder: it is inserted into the back of the handle, and the hexagon itself for tightening is built into the removable cover, so now you don’t have to carry a separate key with you with the risk of losing it.

In terms of speed, the gun is far from being a champion, on the chronometer you will see the numbers 110-115 m / s. But power is not expected from such pistols: first of all, it is a convenient and compact “ball thrower”, which, moreover, “kicks” with the shutter in an adult way.

Despite the completely “toy” appearance due to the monolithic plastic case, this air pistol is loved by many for its power — not everyone can give out under 150 m / s “out of the box”, and even for such a price. The mechanics of Crosman itself has become an object for copying in many models — even if the barrel comes out funny when the trigger is pressed, but the power of the shot and economical gas consumption are achieved in this scheme the easiest way. If you see a pistol in the store with a characteristic fuse slider on the right above the trigger, you have another clone of this famous (without exaggeration) «balloon».

At the same time, the mechanism is quite reliable, which has been verified by the experience of hardball players and lovers of «shooting» in nature. So, if the similarity with real models is not important to you, the plastic case does not bother you, but you need power without modification with a file — Crosman C11 is just for you.

A bullet pistol doesn’t have to be a single-shot «blaster» — the Umarex CP88 in its long-barreled version of the Competition has a very traditional look, although not referring directly to any model, and is loaded using eight-shot clips. So, although outwardly it depicts an automatic pistol, in fact it is a revolver — we have implemented something similar in Kornet and MP-651KS.

The assets of the pistol are of excellent workmanship. Unlike the «younger» Umarex models, here the inscription Made in Germany is true, a Lothar Walther rifled barrel 141 mm long is installed, the sight is fully adjustable. The fuse is double-sided, which will be appreciated by left-handers.

Nickel-plated or black (depending on version) the gun is very weighty — 1150 g in running order. However, it has a good balance, and when shooting with a pre-cock, it provides enough accuracy to shoot bottles at 5-6 meters, as they usually do, it was just boring: its element is targets at distances of 25-30 meters , with good bullets, this is quite real.

It is possible to shoot self-cocking, but it is more difficult, because when you press the trigger in this mode, not only the trigger is cocked, but also the drum-clip is turned. The course at the descent by self-cocking is tight and long, it is not easy to maintain the barrel on the aiming line, especially for beginners.

Another Izhevsk long-liver is unique in its kind — it can be loaded both with a clip for lead bullets, revealing all the capabilities of a rifled barrel, or use a clip for steel BB balls, which are loaded not into the clip itself, but into an integral above-barrel magazine, which allows you to quickly determine number of shots left. Thus, the gun will give the opportunity to shoot both at targets, equipping the clip with eight bullets, and at bottles after replacing the clip and loading 23 balls into the magazine (you can use lead shot or Gamo Round balls instead). On the basis of this pistol, the “almost sporty” model MP-657 was also created — a single-shot bullet pistol with an orthopedic handle.

The unsightly appearance hides a good reserve for tuning — the “strangled” native valve is easily reamed, technologies for enlarging the expansion chamber and installing a long barrel have been worked out, with which the pistol turns into a full-fledged repeating rifle (especially since the long barrel is perfectly hidden in the pistol sold for this rifle body kit). Add to this the simplicity of design, ease of disassembly and budget price.

The famous revolver was copied diligently (up to the use of false cartridges), but with one caveat: a fuse appeared on it, which the original did not have. You can understand the developer who was forced to do this, but we will still reduce the score for copy. As well as for screws for an internal hexagon — where do they come from on a revolver of tsarist times?

Before us is a copy of the «officer» version of the revolver — the trigger mechanism can work with both a preliminary platoon and a self-cocking, which is tight and indistinct in Naganov’s way. It interferes with shooting, but we are talking about copying, right?

The pistol is also interesting in the version with a rifled barrel for firing lead bullets — this is one of the few models of a high degree of copying capable of this.