March/April 1983 - American Handgunner

They hone cartridge shooting...DON'7KNOCKAI"PIS701S1A veteran 'hardball' shooter tries his hand andcomes up with a glowing first-hand report.By Len DavisMy boss, Ed,itorial Director JerryRakusan, calls me "hardball," for agood reason.For many years, both as a military andcivilian shooter, I've been a staunch-andvocal-advoca te of fu II-load, jacketedbullets, mainly in .45 caliber.As a police firearms instructor andmember of the Marine Corps Rifle andPistol Team at Camp Perry, for example,I've fired many thousands of full-powerloads; no pipsqueak loads for me'I even went so far as to fire hardball militaryammo in my National Match .45 inthe basement of our home-much to mywife's chagrin (it rattled some of her finechinaware upstairs, she claimed, and sheobjected to wearing ear protectors whilefolding the laundry),One day Jerry gave me an air pistol totest-fire, It was an inexpensive CO 2 type. Itook it home, set up a target in the garageand squeezed off several rounds. After afew sight adjustments, I was putting thelittle .\77 pellets in the 10-ring quiteconsistently-until about the 25th shot,when the point of impact suddenly droppedto the bottom of the five-meter target.You guessed it: I ran out ofcarbon dioxidegas.PFFT!After going through several CO 2 cylinders,each with the same experience, I figuredthere must be a better way to go withan air pistol- one that would helpdiminish the frustrations of all ofa suddenfinding that your called 10 ended up as amiss at six o'clock.Because I enjoyed shooting an air pistol(before I ran out of gas), I pursued thematter further. ."Again, you guessed it: a spring-pistongun.Spring piston air pistol for training duelists(Circa J750), left; Beeman M90, center,and Beeman M65, MKII, right. Antiqueis from Robert Beeman Collection.Jerry had one for sale: a Daisy PowerLine M717, I bought it.It was the best gun purchase I've evermade.So far, I've put about 500.\77 pelletsthrough it. Accuracy is terrific at a shadeover 16 feet. The only drawback is thegun's trigger pull: about eight pounds, ormore than twice as heavy as I'm used to,"Should I take it to a custompistolsmith?" I asked myself. No, he'd beinsulted if I dropped an inexpensive airpistol on his work bench and told him whatI wanted: a trigger pull in the neighbor-This Beeman / Webley Tempest is considered a sporting air pistol. Caliber is . J77;velocity, 470fps. It features compactness and superb, constant accuracy.AMERICAN HANDGUNNER· MARCH/APRIL 1983 41