My friend TC posted this photo of his display. It looks clean and professional. What you are looking at is a DIY weapon display he made. It is just peg board that he painted silver. Fooled me. I thought it was metal sheets with holes. And to top it all off, those are not guns. They are airsoft. Look closely at the magazines.

Years of living in a state that does not allow the civilian ownership of silencers introduced me to the world of suppressed precision airguns. And if you thought the accessory market in the “powder burner” realm was stacked deep with must-haves, the airgun options are a close second. Case in point, in the woods, at the range or out hunting, you don’t want to be digging in your pocket for pellets. What you need is a Wilkins leather ammo pouch.

The idea is far now new: have a smaller-caliber gun to replace the real one for initial training so that you can achieve substantial cost reductions in the process. Simple as that. The formula has met with varying degrees of success (or lack of) in different countries along the years, and was also tried – albeit briefly – in Brazil thirty or so years ago.

This guy made a super Nerf dart gun. He uses metal pipe as a barrel and hooks up an air tank to it.

At the end of last summer I showed off a potato cannon that my father built 15+ years ago and went through some of the firing procedures. While launching spuds is both fun and satisfying, I’d be lying if I didn’t dream up ways to make tracers, flechettes and exploding shells. Sadly, acting on those dreams would likely put me in the purview of the Destructive Device sections of the National Firearms Act. So, until I’m licensed to manufacture exploding root vegetables, I’ll have to live through the scientists/experts on YouTube.

Umarex is now offering what it claims to be is the “most lethal air gun hunting ammunition ever created.” That’s a pretty big claim, so lets take a look at what the new Havox ammo is.

If you are at SHOT Show and ventured into the law enforcement section of the first floor, you likely came across Evike Manufacturing Group, EMG. They have amassed in one area probably the coolest collection of arms in all of SHOT Show. The only kicker is that they are all airsoft guns. So you cannot use anything they have as your next race gun or 3-Gun setup, but they are great training tools for law enforcement. 

Umarex announced new ammunition for airguns and muzzleloading. Utilizing PolyCase ARX technology the Umarex  ARX SpeedBand and SpeedBelt bullets are to bring a new era of terminal performance to the air rifle and black powder hunter according to Umarex.

SIG SAUER‘s Spartan models of handguns have been popular since their introduction a few years ago. While the guns are well built, I imagine most people appreciate the styling as much as anything. To match the centerfire handguns, the company is now offering an air gun based on the 1911 Spartan.

One of the more popular guns of recent introduction is the SIG P320. A lot of people have been raving about these guns since their introduction, and the company has been successful at getting these into the holsters of police officers at numerous law enforcement agencies. In fact, the sheriff’s office in a county next to mine recently traded all of their Glock pistols for the new P320 handguns and it seems the deputies are quite happy with the change.

Hackerloop posted a video of an amputee hacking a Nerf Speedswarm dart blaster and combining it with an Elctromyogram (EMG) reader.

Typically, firearms companies tend to shy away from air rifles and likewise, air rifle companies don’t take up explosive projectiles. The reasoning varies from completely different markets, legal implications, to the actual significant technical differences between the two propellant modes. Regardless, seeing cross-over is rare.

Our recent segment on the American Suppressor Association and the subsequent support of the Hearing Protection Act was well received. As a reminder, even though we are all feeling the positive vibes from a promising pro-gun political climate, now more than ever we all need to continue our support of the organizations who work hard to preserve our second amendment rights. So if you have yet to join, the ASA, please do so. Today I’d like to speak directly to a unlikely segment of our community – Airgunners.

This Korean guy built his own M2 styled machine gun that shoots Nerf Darts. He was very meticulous in replicating the action of the M2. Of course there is no gun powder to make the action cycle so it is an electric system with fly wheels to propel the darts and manipulate the action.

“I lube my gun with liberal tears” is a common phrase seen on tasteless decals and shirts. There is actually a brand called Liberal Tears Gun Oil.

SIG SAUER announced a 1911 style BB pistol that is modeled after the 1911 Max handgun used by Max Michel Jr. Michel is the captain of the company’s competition team: Team SIG. Michel is also a World Speed Shooting Champion and served in the US Army as part of the Army Marksmanship Unit.

In a move that will most likely resonate deeply around the entire NRA precision and rifle competition folks if fully approved in January of 2017, the NRA sponsored Civilian Marksmanship Program High Power matches will be moved from their traditional location in Camp Perry, Ohio where they have been held since 1907, to Camp Atterbury in southern Indiana. The move was apparently prompted by the director of NRA Competitive Shooting, and will face final approval by the NRA Board of Directors in January 2017. If enough support is garnered among the competition community by then, it could be feasible that it would be reversed, but we doubt that is the case. It appears that the decision had alot to do with location, in that shooters at the Smallbore Prone Championships in Bristol, Indiana would have more time getting to the High Power competition.

I saw the video title and nearly popped out of my chair. Considering that shooting 760 yards is well outside the realm of a majority of shooters, using the “lowly” .22 LR to shoot that far might was well be impossible…. but its not. Where Eric from IraqVeteran8888 has shown that .22LR can “kill” well past 400 yards, shooters Mark and Sam take it a bit further.

It has been awhile since we have had an airgun post, so let’s fix that with something truly worthwhile. Professional air gunner and social media personality, “Ted” from Ted’s Holdover has a relaxed style that can get almost anyone interested in to the world of air gunning. He is an ethical hunter and a true marksman, making long distance shots with pellets seem truly easy. To top it off, Ted’s scope-cam videos are well put together, often catching pellets in flight and documenting seemingly impossible shots.

H&N Sport announced a new pellet design that promises unmatched expansion for increased lethality on small game. Called the Terminator, these expanding lead pellets combine a tapered tip with a partitioned hollow tip to provide significant expansion and penetration through thick hides and fur.

The Olympics are in full swing in Rio, and Team USA brought home their first gold early on. The first medal of the 2016 Olympics was also the USA’s first gold and went to 19-year-old Virginia Thrasher in the women’s 10-meter air rifle event. Not only did Thrasher get the gold she made a new record, outshooting more seasoned Olympian Du Li of China. Thrasher finished with a score of 208.0; Du Li finished with a score of 207.0. It’s worth noting she was up against experienced Olympians including Du Li – who took home the gold in 2004 – and Serbian Andrea Arsovic, who was ranked No.1 in the world but who failed to make it to the final round of the event.

Birchwood Casey designs and manufactures some of the greatest steel targets – and targets in general – on the market. Whether you need something for your air rifle or are interested in some up-close-and-personal trigger time on steel plates with frangible ammo, they’ve got you covered. They recently expanded their line to include a couple new tree stands: Birchwood Casey Dueling Tree Targets.

Daisy Outdoor Products (aka Daisy) is one of those iconic brands in American culture. The Red Ryder, along with dozens of other models through the years, have been made by Daisy.

If there’s one thing I enjoy changing up when I head to the range it’s my targets. And if there’s a company out there with a wide variety of targets available, it’s Birchwood Casey. If you have access to a shooting spot that allows steel targets, Birchwood Casey has quite a few options in that category. There’s one in particular that’s fun for use with everything from airguns to centerfire, though, and that’s their Shoot-N-Spin.

NightHawkInLight shows how to convert a leaf blower into a high capacity cheeseball machine gun. It is basically an airgun using similar concepts from Paintball and Nerf.

Vantac International has posted up some videos of a father and son doing some indoor training. Looks like rudimentary room clearing.

HatsanUSA announced a new bullpup style air rifle for the United States market. It is called the BullBoss.

Saw this on social media. Peter Alaric made a device that uses ultrasonic pulses to detect an object’s distance. It is installed on a Desert Eagle Electric Airsoft pistol. When the sensor is tripped, a relay disengages the battery connections in the pistol. Thereby deactivating the electric pistol.

Even if you have zero interest in airguns, you could still spend an entire evening watching the Ted’s Holdover YouTube channel and not get bored. Not only that, but you might also learn a lot about range estimation, bullet drop and windage adjustment from watching Ted’s videos. The light weight and subsonic velocities of airgun pellets make for interesting ballistics and trajectories. Some of the shots that Ted takes on pigeons, squirrels and starlings are quite dramatic. How about a 140 yard shot on a pigeon with a crosswind using a .22 caliber air rifle? Yep, it’s in there.

When I was living in an NFA-unfriendly area I found comfort in my suppressed pre-charged pneumatic (PCP) .25 caliber air rifle. While the max efficient range was about 125 yards or less, the gun was super quiet, deadly accurate and could be shot safely in areas where it’s powder-burner cousins could not. I even put the old Paladin “Have gun, will travel” motto to use dispatching pests for local farmers.