A bit more on my 1377
a) I think the original version of the same pistol were stocked with genyoowhyun wood; current ones are a heavy plastic in a color that makes 'em look a bit like wood (from a fair distance). The plastic works fine for me -- what can I say, I've never been romantic about wood on rifles, tend to prefer black synthetic, personally.
b) On precision equipment vs. adult toy, I think the Crosman 1377 falls into a third category, which is "no-pretenses plinker"
The trigger is nothing for the Olympic games, but it's far better than I remember on any of the handful of BB guns I ever fired as a kid. Lots of people use the same model for shooting at small pests, and claim good success at it, so the trigger can't be so bad that it prevents aiming with some precision.
c) It really does take some effort to pump -- a lot more than I'd anticipated. I could see hating it, if I had a sore elbow
However, that said, even 3 pumps (the recommended min.) is enough for all the power I need for basement plinking. And many people shoot it with a single pump -- one of my first three shots was one one shot, as an experiment, and it shot just fine.
d) It has a clever combination rear sight -- can be inverted for a peep sight, or left as delivered for a notch-and-post.
e) The prices are all over the place; while I paid just under $50 delivered, I found the same gun at prices close to $80 PLUS shipping (and, I guess, you could do all that and pay tax -- at a Gander Mountain location near home, they were charging full retail ...).
f) Here's a little article (about halfway down the linked page) that I think does a good job of describing the utility of the gun as experienced by one user (incl. winning a bet against a real competition gun):
http://home.att.net/~jjaxelrod/air.html
I only wish I had more chance to shoot mine -- must go home to use it, because the Big Brother that is the Philadelphia City Council doesn't trust adults, never mind children, with air guns.
timothy
