[P95Carry]

I was reminded of this from following the ''Which airgun to wound'' thread ......

Mention was made of firing cleaning felt wads or similar .... but it reminded me of one very major ''no-no'' with spring powered air weapons ..... NOT firing them empty. In fact I wonder whether these cleaning wads give quite enough resistance.

Ok .. probably shouldn't even mention it cos pretty sure most will know ..... but just in case .... throwing it in in case someone has not thought it out.

The reason is pretty obvious but ... if no pellet .. and thus no resistance to release of air pressure, the piston can slam home so hard on end of chamber, that damage occurs. It has no decelerative buffering, as you get when pellet needs expelled.

Once or twice may not be too bad but repeated empty shots sure will create damage. Only mentioning - ''just in case'' :)

[El Tejon]

Have been using them for nearly 20 years in the same weapons. No adverse impact to date.:)

RWS M34 und FWB 127.

[berto]

You are correct.Firing spring piston air rifles without a pellet will damage them....but you CAN shot felt cleaning pellets,provided you use the proper number for your given gun.
for example,in my Beeman R9,the manual indicates I need to used 3 (I think) felt pellets to get the required resistance-a b#tch stuffing them in there,but it's a 1000fps rifle.:D
With my Tempest pistol,just one felt pellet does it.

[mtnbkr]

I use 3 in my BSA Supersport.

Chris