Action Airgun Endorsement

I’ve been shooting Action Airgun for a month now – and I’m pleased to say that I can now throw my full support behind it, and offer an unconditional endorsement of their game.  Up until this most recent week, they had an issue with scoring system, which was extremely frustrating for a guy who is described as “hyper competitive” by his own wife.

However, it appears that the scoring issue has been fixed, so now after a month’s worth of shooting let me offer my review of Action Airgun, starting with the kit that I was sent to shoot the game.  The kit itself comes with the following items:

  1. Gun
  2. Targets and Stands
  3. Safety glasses
  4. Ammo
  5. CO2 cartridges
  6. Holster
  7. Timer

The central piece of the kit is of course, the gun.  The gun itself is pretty light, right up until you insert the magazine, which adds a lot of heft to the gun.  While the balance isn’t exactly the same as on my Para 16-40 Limited,  it’s close enough that the Action Airgun pistol makes a reasonable simulacrum.  Because it’s so heavy, there is no recoil whatsoever, although the slide reciprocating does throw your sight picture off in between shots.  At the distances required to shoot the game, the pistol is more than accurate enough to hit the targets that are provided as well.

The targets themselves are small foam blocks, with about the same frontal surface area as a playing card.  One side has a gold marker for use as a “shoot” target, and the other side has a red marker to indicate when that target is being used as a “no-shoot”.  The target stands are two large cardboard tables with a grid layout indicating where the targets will placed for each corresponding stage.  One of the things that makes the sport so much fun is the size of the targets – even the gun has no recoil and is accurate, hitting a playing card at 16 feet is a lot harder than you’d think, especially if you’re trying to do it in a hurry.  There have been more than one string where I’ve been smoking fast on the draw and first shot, only to see my BB sail past the target and into the backstop.

The safety glasses pretty standard fare, I actually stopped using the included ones in favor of my own glasses because my glasses are more comfortable.  But they do the job of stopping bounce-back BBs from doing any damage to your eyes.

The ammo provided are .20 gram plastic 6mm airsoft BBs – after a month of use I’m not even halfway through the jar they provided.  The CO2 cartridges on the other hand are something you’re going to use a lot of.  I buy bulk packs of 25 cartridges from Gander Mountain, that way I can save some money on the cartridge.  The reason why the cartridges are consumed so quickly is because the CO2 has to both power the BB and operate the slide of the gun, which unfortunately uses a lot of juice.

The holster is unremarkable – a standard nylon sausage wrapper, but it does the job of retaining the pistol.  When I’m using the gun to practice for IDPA, I use my competition rig, as the pistol fits quite well.  I do use the standard Action Airgun holster for all AA Courses of Fire.

The final item is the timer.  It’s a CED 7000 timer, which has been tuned up a bit to be sensitive to the sounds of the airgun going off.  This is actually the neatest item in the kit for me, because it allows me to practice centerfire shooting as well.  The dual use utility really makes this a steal.

Action Airgun is fun – and it’s easily shared as well.  Mrs. Ahab is shooting with me, and having a blast doing so.  The dual use of shooting in a weekly competition along with my ability to practice for centerfire matches would certianly make the purchase of this kit worth it for next season.  If you’re shooting this game and not uploading your scores, you should start recording and uploading!

In the season standings, I’m currently in 3rd place – 20 seconds out of first.  I’ll need to put together a strong rest of the season to get into 1st place, as the current leader LaVaca has been tearing through the courses of fire.  With 9 weeks left to go, I’ve certainly got my work cut out for me.

3 Comments

  1. How about making this a topic on Gun Nuts some time? I’d like to hear more about it.

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