Air rifle recommendations

Rimfire bolt action rifles, lever action, pump action and self loading rifles. Air rifles.

Air rifle recommendations

Post by Ham » 18 Jan 2019, 10:22 am

Hey all, looking at an air rifle for some plinking/target fun. Have a crosman1077 looking for a single shot.(dont wanna waste a cylinder for 1 or 2 shots 200-400 buck range (preferably scoped if its at the higher price end)

Can any one comment on the norica phantom grs?
Love to hear your opinions thanks
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Re: Air rifle recommendations

Post by Gaznazdiak » 18 Jan 2019, 1:25 pm

G'day Ham

I've had no contact with the Norica, but I do have a .177 BSA Meteor that I've had for about 40yrs.
It hasn't had constant use, but would have thrown several thousand pellets.
The dovetail is all worn from mishaps so I'm back to open sights, but I put new spring and seals in last year and it's good as new.

So I can't help with your suggestion, I can certainly vouch for the BSA.
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Re: Air rifle recommendations

Post by Sawyers » 18 Jan 2019, 3:44 pm

You can pick up a Diana 250 with a wooden thumbhole stock for around $300 even cheaper. At that price I have a feeling there Chinese made and not German but they might be worth a look.


I have a Diana Ntec 350 and it works perfectly, but its heavy and not exactly for the small framed or children
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Re: Air rifle recommendations

Post by Dossa456 » 18 Jan 2019, 3:50 pm

Have the norica mod 73 - Dunno how old it is but bladeracer maybe able to tell you, look at the active post air rifles are weird, the norica shoots very accurate. Have a stoeger x10 which is great but I tend to grab the old Plinker out the safe. Wouldn’t have a clue about the phantom but if they make em like they used to u should be laughing. Let me know what scope you end up with I am in the market, just bought the eBay special for $8- hahahaha there is active thread with some good reviews on them:
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Re: Air rifle recommendations

Post by bladeracer » 18 Jan 2019, 5:42 pm

Dossa456 wrote:Have the norica mod 73 - Dunno how old it is but bladeracer maybe able to tell you, look at the active post air rifles are weird, the norica shoots very accurate.


I can only tell you that I bought my Model 73 new in 1980, other than that I know nothing about them, but I am looking :-)
I did see that people make spring and seal kits for them still.
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Re: Air rifle recommendations

Post by bladeracer » 18 Jan 2019, 5:47 pm

Ham wrote:Hey all, looking at an air rifle for some plinking/target fun. Have a crosman1077 looking for a single shot.(dont wanna waste a cylinder for 1 or 2 shots 200-400 buck range (preferably scoped if its at the higher price end)

Can any one comment on the norica phantom grs?
Love to hear your opinions thanks


I was intending to get a scoped one so I wouldn't have to research air-rifle scopes as well, but I don't think it's worth it.
The Gamo G-Magnum 1250 I was planning to get I've heard already that the OEM scopes are garbage.
The Crosman Slayer I did get also had a garbage OEM scope on it - the horizontal crosshair is a double image about 30mm wide at 30m.
And by garbage, I mean that the Chinese 4x20 eight-dollar Ebay scope is noticeably better :-)
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Re: Air rifle recommendations

Post by Dunxy » 21 Jan 2019, 12:18 pm

Buy an old Gecado(they are pre 80's Diana's) and are extremely well made accurate little rifle's.A bonus is they seem almost unknown/undesirable here. Ive picked up 35's as cheap as $50! My personal favourite plinker/small game is my model 27, which are smaller and lighter than a 35 but when tuned are amazingly accurate for a springer,35's are a bit buzzy and in testing ive not found a 35 that actually shoots faster than this particular 27 of mine. Build quality on new diana stuff is not the same and value is not even close.
Parts are easy to aquire aside from open sights, which appear to be rocking horse poo, so if youre not going for glass, make sure what you buy has them intact.Pre 70's models had plastic/bacolight rears which are mostly brittle with age, later units far better metal stuff.
If you want to shoot bigger game look for an 80's 50t01, mine drops bunnies with ease.
If you like orgasmic groups, try (good luck!) finding a model 60, i shot my best ever springer group with one just the other day! 0.18" for 5 shots at 10m of a front bag only outside in the wind. Couldnt even better it with fwb300, which are supposedly the holy grail of springers.
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