Air rifles vs firearms

[JohnKSa]

Just a thought.

Firearms are containment devices. All of the energy in the projectile is provided by the chemical reactions that take place inside the cartridge. The firearm itself only has to activate the primer and contain the resultant explosion/reaction. It provides none of the propulsion.

Airguns are propulsion devices. All of the energy in the projectile is stored within the airgun itself. Either in the form of compressed air or a compressed spring. In many cases, the airgun also must incorporate a charging mechanism that allows the user to compress the air or the spring in a reasonably easy fashion.

In my experience airgun mechanisms are a good deal more complicated and involved to work on than firearms are. That makes a lot of sense when you consider the above.

Therefore, it is unreasonable to expect a high quality, relatively powerful airgun to be inexpensive. It has to do MORE than a firearm does.

 

[cgv69]

Therefore, it is unreasonable to expect a high quality, relatively powerful airgun to be inexpensive. It has to do MORE than a firearm does.

I think you need to define high quality and inexpensive? I haven’t personally seen an airgun made any place other than Germany or England that I would call high quality and I would not consider a high quality airgun priced at under $250-$300 as expensive. I do think it's kind of hard to directly compare the cost\value of an airgun to the cost\value of a firearm.

I think the problem is a lot of people seem to think of airguns as toys. They hear about somebody spending $500 on a good air rifle and say "Holy cow, you spent how much on what?!!!" but nobody thinks anything of spending $500 on a hunting rifle.

Typically speaking, a $500 air rifle will probably be of at least slightly higher quality and drastically more accurate than a typical $500 hunting rifle. Maybe even more importantly, which one will get used more and hold it's value better? I'd say in many cases, the air rifle will.

Here is a link to an Air Arms Ev2 which is pretty much a full out race gun for field target competition. It sells for $1800. Does that seem like a lot for an airgun? What would a firearm with the same level of craftsmanship, customization and accuracy cost? Even in .22LR, a rifle of equal quality, features and accuracy would cost you at least $1K more. Go to centerfire and the cost would sky rocket.

I guess what I'm saying is I do not think quality air rifles are over priced. They are a little more expensive then they need to be simply because of two reasons. A. Quality airguns almost exclusively come from Europe and the exchange rate right now sucks and B. The number of serious airgun shooters is miniscule compared to firearms enthusiasts so Airgun makers and dealers are forced to charge a little more per gun to recoup investment costs then the typical firearms maker\dealer has to. Even still I do not think they are unfairly priced.