Air rifles???

[BillPa]

I'm dumber than a blacksmith's anvil when it comes to air rifles. I only had one, a Daisy BB w/open sights when I was five or six and only used it to shoot sparrows and my sister. http://www.huntingpa.com/forums/images/graemlins/default_dark/grin.gif

My son bought his two offsprings each a Stoeger X20 17 cal pellet rifle w/scope for Christmas. Well, the first time out one scope took a hike, its a baby rattle. The best I understand(?) it, a X20 uses a air piston not a spring to launch pellets so can I put one of my CF rifle scopes on his boomer or must Pop spring for a air rifle only scope?

Bill

[sharpshooter]

Air rifle scopes are made to take recoil both ways and usually have a glass reticle. The sudden jolt and learch forward seems to have an ill effect on wire reticles. I once thought a good centerfire scope would be sufficient for a spring piston air rifle, but after 5 shots my 36 Leupold gave up. It would be best to have one rated for air rifles.

[scope eye]

Here you go.

http://www.thesportsmonkey.com/products/Swift-Premier-Airgun-Rated-Rifle-Scope-3%252d9x40mm-CAO.html

http://www.thesportsmonkey.com/products/Swift-Premier-Airgun-Rated-Rifle-Scope-6.5%252d20x44mm-CAO.html

Dean

[mikein]

If your son bought a "package deal" of the Stoegers and scopes, the company he bought them from owe him or them a replacement scope. As said by other responders to this post, an "air rifle specific" scope needs to be used because of the unique recoil characteristics. Even a high quality scope designed for use with a center fire rifle will rarely, if ever, hold up to the pounding the pellet guns will give them.


I'm dumber than a blacksmith's anvil when it comes to air rifles. I only had one, a Daisy BB w/open sights when I was five or six and only used it to shoot sparrows and my sister. http://www.huntingpa.com/forums/images/graemlins/default_dark/grin.gif

My son bought his two offsprings each a Stoeger X20 17 cal pellet rifle w/scope for Christmas. Well, the first time out one scope took a hike, its a baby rattle. The best I understand(?) it, a X20 uses a air piston not a spring to launch pellets so can I put one of my CF rifle scopes on his boomer or must Pop spring for a air rifle only scope?

Bill

[barrel-nut]

Air rifle scopes are made to take recoil both ways and usually have a glass reticle. The sudden jolt and learch forward seems to have an ill effect on wire reticles. I once thought a good centerfire scope would be sufficient for a spring piston air rifle, but after 5 shots my 36 Leupold gave up. It would be best to have one rated for air rifles.

^ this, for real. Powerful spring-piston air rifles are brutal on scopes. My old RWS has made more than one "baby rattles" as you described, before I became convinced of the necessity to put a true airgun-rated scope on it. I have a Swift 6.5-20x44 on it and it's held up pretty well so far. I think it's the one Dean linked above, but his link didn't work for me so I can't say for sure. Also have an adjustable, airgun-rated mount for the scope on mine, and it is a big help. Still, with these specialty optics and mounts, true precision has been elusive with mine. I feel it's due to the severe vibration and back-and-forth motion generated by the piston mechanism. Very hard to keep a large scope zeroed with all that going on. Sounds hard to believe, being "just an airgun" and all, but true.