#AirRifles

The Student Air Rifle (SAR) Program is a youth-focused shooting program aimed at helping school-aged kids in grades 4 through 12 get a basic grasp of basic air riflery keeping students on target at the range, and also in school. Today the Student Air Rifle Program announced its first step into the state of Kentucky, with 17 new certified SAR instructors being added to the BARI (SAR Basic Air Riflery Insctutors) list during the June 30th BARI training workshop in Nicholasville, KY.

Among the various rabbit holes that you can go down when it comes to punching holes with things that have triggers, lies an often underrecognized tool – the humble PCP air rifle. Benjamin Airguns has been in the business of producing high-quality airguns for target shooters, hunters, and casual shooters for over 150-years. Benjamin is now excited to offer its latest air rifle – the Benjamin Armada Semi-Automatic. An adaptation of the original Armada bolt-action air rifle, the Armada Semi-Automatic sports convenient features that make it an ideal choice for target shooting, varmint hunting, and pest control – especially in regions where traditional firearms are highly regulated.

Benjamin Airguns has just announced that they’ve come out with the most powerful PCP (pre-charged pneumatic) air rifle to hit the market yet – the Bulldog 457. The Bulldog 457 is the largest bore air rile to debut from Benjamin Airguns and boasts more than double the energy of the previously released Bulldog 357.

HatsanUSA’s PileDriver first appeared at SHOT 2020, the company describe the air rifle as “the market’s most powerful production PCP rifle.” With a 33in barrel and capable of producing 800 ft-lbs of energy, the PileDriver is available in .45 or .50 caliber. It has an MSRP of $1,199.99.

Crossman has just announced that in a salute to the flag and our nation’s heroes they will be launching their new Full Auto R1 Fallen Patriots rifle along with 6,000 rounds of BBs for free with each order. The promotion is both a great deal for customers and will also benefit the Children of Fallen Patriots Foundation by donating 7.5% of the proceeds to the cause.

Turkish gunmaker Hatsan is known for their widely varied line of Escort shotguns. In addition to scatterguns, they also make a series of air rifles – even one that shoots arrows. These airguns can serve as fun plinkers, teaching/training tools, or handle some small game hunting and pest eradication duties. If you’re tired of squirrels getting into your carefully-tended backyard garden, Hatsan may have a gun for you. Now with an August 4th press release, they’ve announced a new multi-caliber air-powered weapon: the aptly-named Hydra.

While, yes, the focus of our little endeavor here is “firearms” we also play nice with our other ballistic friends including air rifles, including showing some coverage love for the interesting developments in air rifle technologies. PCP rifles have been making huge strides, but fundamentally they all power the same ammunition, which has its limitations (relatively speaking).

Warning, if you like guns and click the link, you will spend at least a 1/2 hour of your life reading the article. No really, I am serious. The analysis and detailed breakdown of the operation of the air rifle is exhaustive, leaving no detail about the air rifle untouched.

Crossman airguns have released the Armada PCP air rifle with a special edition Multicam edition currently being auctioned on GunBroker ending November 2nd benefiting the Navy Seal foundation. Other sponsors of the air rifle include Zeiss, Surefire, Tarjac, and MagPul.

Many of us in the shooting community still shoot air rifles.  I personally use a .22cal air rifle for hunting pests and training at home.  I try to stay up with good hunting pellets, and their design to see if there is a pellet out there that my air rifle might shoot better, more accurately and hit harder then what I am currently using.