Air Weapons

All of our members at present shoot sub twelve foot pound air rifles, a weapon with an accurate kill range for vermin up to forty yards (dependant on the shooter). In our opinion this enables the shooter to be able to shoot more vermin such as rabbits, squirrels and corvids as the backdrop is not as essential as live round as the pellet does not travel for hundreds of meters. By using air weapons and a single shot kill the quarry can also be eaten and therefore will not be wasted (rats of course being the exception!).

There are a few variations of air rifles available to shooters and below is a brief explanation of the weapons along with pro's and con's.

Springers

This type of air rifle is the most common due to the fact that the original air rifles were powered by compressed spring and that they have been around the longest. They are also amongst the least expensive to purchase (model dependent) and least expensive to run! Basically a spring is compressed drawing a piston down a chamber which fills with air. The trigger mechanism holds the spring in place and when the trigger is pulled the spring is allowed to decompress which in turn sends the piston down the chamber forcing air down the barrel driving the pellet towards its intended target. There are three types of springers, Break Barrel whereby the barrel is used as a lever to compress the spring (most common); Under-lever whereby a lever under the rifle is used to compress the spring or Side Lever which strangely enough uses a lever at the side of the rifle to compress the spring.

Gas Ram

Similar in operation to the springer in as much as the barrel needs to be broken or lever pulled but instead of compressing a spring a gas at the rear of the piston is compressed and when released it forces the piston down a chamber pushing air down the barrel and the pellet onwards towards its target. Theoben holds the rights to this system though some companies such as Weihrauch do produce a gas ram powered rifle under license from Theoben.

CO₂ Powered

Technically these care not air powered as they are CO₂ driven, liquid CO₂ is stored under pressure then released into a chamber providing gas pressure driving the pellet down the barrel once a measured amount is released. These rifles are popular as they are a low cost bolt action rifle that produces up to the legal 12ftlb limit and are available in multi-shot variables.

Pre Charged Pneumatic

By far the fastest growing area of rifle sales as many shooters like the idea of recoilless actions and multi-shot capability. More consistent than the CO₂ actions the pre-charged pneumatic rifles are pre-loaded with a charge of compressed air from either a special fill bottle or a purpose built stirrup pump. The rifles are normally charged up to 200 bar and can deliver up to 250 accurate shots (80 being the average) before requiring a refill. These rifles are easy to moderate as the action is only a small hammer hitting a release valve where a small charge of compressed air is released down the barrel driving the pellet towards its intended target. Generally believed to be more accurate then the springer rifles and more consistent than the CO₂ rifles these recently developed PCP rifles are topping all the sales figures. They of course or no more accurate than a springer rifle shooting at the same power level but due to the lack of recoil they probably are easier to shoot more accurately, but that is down to the shooter!