Air rifle for vintage rifle training...

[BunnyPuncher]

Hey gang,

I am looking for an affordable, reasonably accurate pneumatic air gun that will be a reasonably good trainer for open sight vintage military rifle positional shooting (in my case a Swiss K-31).

So far the one that I have found that would best meet the criteria I need is the Daisy Powerline 953 TargetPro

I am trying to avoid spring-driven guns as apparently the recoil and necessary hold is bizarre even though there are some nice, accurate, heavy wood stocked guns that appeal to me.

I am also looking to avoid spending a ton of quid as that quid could be put towards reloading components for the K-31.

So the criteria:

Decent indoor paper punching accuracy.
Open sights.
Costs in the 100 - 200 dollar range.
Edit: pneumatic

I am tempted to just grab the DAISY M853 from CMP. But I do not want the peep sight. If someone can figure out a way to put open sights on that gun let me know.

Seeking feedback from rifle folks.

 

[benzy2]

Isn't that Daisy a spring rifle? I thought precharged pneumatics all had a large reservoir to hold the air where pump operated rifles cocked a spring which drives a piston when the trigger is pulled?

 

[TimRB]

Probably the best (and clearly cheapest) way to train yourself to shoot your K31 would be to dry-fire. That said, I have been shooting a Weihrauch HW55 for years as practice for NRA high power shooting. It's a spring-piston rifle, which I know you said you would like to avoid, but if you have found some that appeal to you, you owe it to yourself to check them out.

The warnings you have heard about how to hold an air rifle may have been overstated (at least in my experience) but in any event you will find shooting an air rifle good training because they are quite unforgiving of error. For my money, so is a K31, but that's another story.

Tim

 

[BunnyPuncher]

Isn't that Daisy a spring rifle? I thought precharged pneumatics all had a large reservoir to hold the air where pump operated rifles cocked a spring which drives a piston when the trigger is pulled?

I think I have the terminology wrong, it is classed as a pneumatic, I think I threw the precharged in there incorrectly. But yeah, it is not a spring driven one like most of the Gamo rifles for example.

Probably the best (and clearly cheapest) way to train yourself to shoot your K31 would be to dry-fire

I have to admit my discipline is lacking as dry firing is so durn boring and since I can spend hours at the range practicing with a .22 I figured I could do the same at home with the air rifle. I'll check in to the HW55 prices on gunbroker and broaden out to consider the springers as a whole. Thanks.