Spring or Pneumatic

What now ??? having decided to get into Air-Rifle shooting ..now what ? Do i have to have a Scope ?....do I have to have a Pneumatic ? the answer is simple ....its up to YOU. Spring guns are great ...they have come on in technology in recent years and are under-rated.....everyone I know started with one . They have their advantages and dis-advantages like any other gun .....for instance the big thing is  RECOIL. They do have recoil ..because of the movement of its spring and piston , and obviously the more powerful the spring the more recoil your going to get ....although that does not necessarily mean more power.    They have various methods of cocking , be it underlever, break barrel or side lever...all of which use physical force from YOU.They tend to be a bit on the heavy side. They also tend to make a bit more noise than a pneumatic ( unless the pneumatic is not silenced!) The Pneumatic on the other hand is virtually recoilless, no physical force is needed from you to cock it ....althouhgh you do need to be able to carry its resevoir of compressed air!( a divers air tank), this however is not necessary for a field trip. It is generally good for about 80 shots or so in most cases between fills , they are lighter and some can be turned up/ down in power with ease.They DO need to be silenced...yes a pneumatic AIR-RIFLE if un-silenced makes a loud crack when fired  and will scare potential quarry in nearby fields !

Here it is ...another of my own personal choice FAC rated Air-Rifles .Yes its a pneumatic.........and .177 (the air resevoir is under the barrel)

The AIR-ARMS S310....what a gun !

Spring guns tend to favour LIGHT weight pellets as opposed to the Pneumatic which favours HEAVY weighted pellets. I tend to use in my pneumatics the old faithful Bisley Magnum ..for my Theoben

And for My Air-arms its Crossman Powapell, for most Spring guns my choice would perhaps be the old faithful Eley Wasp....but its through trial and error that you find the best pellet ...NO two guns are the same .

A Scope? whilst most new guns nowadays come with scope rails and NO open sites , its up to you again , you decide , it takes a lot of hard work to set up a scope ....and even harder if it has BDC(Bullet Drop Compensator) or target type turrets with parallax adjustments ! Its a hornets nest out there.with companies like Simmons and Tasco dominating the market. Buy what you can afford ....and give it a try .Leupold and Swarovski are for those with plenty of money and are more serious about their shooting at competitave level.