Comment on HAM Posts

Today, we’re shooting the Umarex Primal 20 big bore airgun. It’s an air rifle – or if required – an air shotgun. All you do is use different ammunition and change the barrel’s choke. We covered most physical and operational details of the Primal 20 in this previous Hard Air Magazine post. So this time, we’ll concentrate on the shooting experience… As a reminder, the Primal is a 20 Gauge PCP which – in its shipping configuration – is a .625-Inch caliber big bore hunting rifle. It shoots dedicated 395 Grain pointed sabot slugs from a two-shot magazine. At 44.25 Inches long, the Primal is a large air rifle. Fitted with the Sightron S-TAC scope, the rig weighed-in at 11 Lbs 5 Oz. So it’s heavy, too. That HPA tube up-front makes it...

2025 Extreme Benchrest is coming soon! In fact, the dates are October 9th to 12th. So there’s just three weeks to go! Here’s an update with the key information for this year’s event… 2025 Extreme Benchrest – Overview First, EBR will be taking place from October 5-8, 2025. It’s the 14th annual event and both organizers and competitors are gearing-up, ready to go! EBR features no less than six shooting disciplines. That’s more than for any other major US airgun competition. As follows… – The headline Extreme Benchrest event, with the finals shot at 100 Yards. – 50-Yard Benchrest, – Extreme Field Target – Extreme Bigbore – Speed Silhouette – Steel Scramble (NRL22-style shooting) As usual, the venue will be the Rio Salado...

Benchrest shooting competition is very exciting for the competitors. But it’s less so for spectators. So this is where Longshot Camera Systems delivered at the 2025 Pyramyd Cup. See those little white things at the lower left of our heading photograph above? Those are Longshot cameras. They allow competitors and spectators to have the sort of target view that can otherwise only be achieved 100 Yards down range after a “cold Line” has been called. Below we have a close-up of a single Longshot camera. One is pointed at the target, sending its signal back to the firing-point area. In the case of the 2025 Pyramyd Cup, Longshot company Founder Clay Rhoden and his team set-up a 48-camera system at the Cardinal Center range in less than...

To continue from a previous post, here’s more new airgun news from the 2025 Pyramyd Cup. In fact, I have to say that – from an airgun perspective – the Pyramyd Cup is almost as full of new product news as the annual SHOT Show! Today we’ll cover JSB/Predator International, JTS, Saber Tactical and Macavity Arms… All attendees at the Pyramyd Cup were given a card – that’s mine below – with 21 squares on it. Those 21 squares corresponded with the number of exhibitors. When you visited an exhibitor’s table and checked-out their products, they placed a sticker on their square on the card. If you visited 15 or more tables, then Pyramyd gave you 20 free raffle tickets for the post-banquet draw on the Saturday night. Free is good, right...

Alongside the 100 Yard Benchrest competition, Pyramyd Cup Field Target is the other highlight of the event. Indeed, Field Target was the original core of “The Cup”, going back a number of years. The FT course here at the Cardinal Shooting Center is almost entirely in the woods. That makes for a beautiful competitive environment. This event is still continuing as I write this, but we’ll have the full results after they are announced at the banquet this evening. But what on earth is that red and black FT rig in our heading photo above? Somewhere under the bling, Otis is using a Daystate Alpha Wolf with a Kahles scope and probably the most extreme hamster I have ever seen. WOW! Just to show the huge variety of equipment used by...

The 2025 Pyramyd Cup Benchrest Competition remains a highlight of this event. Shooting targets at 100 Yards makes maximum demands from competitors, airguns, scopes, pellets and shooters! Join me as we take a look down the firing line to get a feel for the event… First off, we need to say that there’s no less than 48 targets. This is a BIG competition, with the event being shot in two stages. Four groups of shooters took part in two separate cards over two days, Thursday and Friday. Then there was the two-card final shot consecutively on Saturday morning by the high scorers. Each target has 25 bulls, with one shot being made on each bull. There’s sight-in bulls as well, across the foot of the target – as you can see from our...

Today we’ll look at the Air Venturi new products at the 2025 Pyramyd Cup. Yes, “The Cup” is a shooting competition, but it’s also a trade show, with a lot of new products to be seen for the attendees. Let’s take a look at what Air Venturi has been showing… For reasons that everyone understands, there’s a number of Chinese-manufactured airgun products that have been announced, but availability has been delayed. But they’re still coming and today I talked to the Air Venturi team about progress. Below, Cody from Air Venturi showed me the new Air Venturi MicroStrike. HAM readers have read about this before. However the Air Venturi MicroStrike is really getting close and availability should be this year – 2025. It’s easy to say that the...

Today was registration day for the 2025 Pyramyd AIR Cup. And what should we see but a first sighting of the new 2026 Benjamin Marauder! Our photograph above shows the designer John Solpietro (left), along with Shawn Pragel, who runs the Crosman/Benjamin PCP assembly operation. If you want to see two key players in this new product, here they are… Now it’s VERY important to say that what we are seeing here is a PROTOTYPE of the 2026 Benjamin Marauder. There almost-certainly will be differences between the gun – actually there are two samples here – and the final production version. Basic details include availability in three calibers – .177, .22 and .25 cal. There’s a side-lever action, as you can see, combined with a substantial...

The new Alpha Wolf Shadow is the latest version of the electronic-action Alpha Wolf PCP air rifle. Designed specifically for hunting and pest control use, it’s just announced today! The company says that the Shadow is available now in 12 Ft/Lbs form in .177 and .22 calibers for the UK home market. High-power models are in development for the US and other countries. The Alpha Wolf Shadow is compact, just 28 3/4-Inches long, while incorporating a 17-Inch Lothar Walther barrel.That makes it ideal for pest control duties, especially in confined spaces like farm buildings, vehicles and hides. The weight is low, at about 6 Lbs 11 Oz, plus optics, flashlights and any other accessories that may be desired. As a part of the compact...

How old is my Benjamin Marauder air rifle? That’s a common question that I am asked frequently. So today we’re re-publishing a HAM article that answers that question and was originally published back in March 2021. Here it is… Some time back, I was talking to Phillip Guadalupe, the Product Manager at Velocity Outdoor. He told me the secret to understanding the build date of my Marauder, so I’m sharing it with you here. Like most airguns, Benjamin Marauder air rifles are allocated a serial number during assembly. This number is recorded on the air rifle itself using a laser engraver. In fact the characters are made up of a series of dots, rather than as “solid” letters or numbers. That serial number holds the key to understanding...

Black airguns are so yesterday!!! As if to prove this, Pyramyd now has in stock the Reximex RP and RPA models in a huge variety of colors. Both guns are PCP sidelever-cocking air pistols that are available in .177 and .22 calibers. However the RP model is configured with a synthetic pistol grip and detachable buttstock extension. The RPA has a wood target grip only. You have read about the Reximex RP and the RPA in Hard Air Magazine previously. Now they’re in stock and also available in a HUGE range of colors! The RP is available in – wait for it! – Bronze, Desert Wind, Flat Dark Earth, Gold, Safari Camo, Silver, Titanium and Turquoise. Oh, and there’s plain old black, if that’s what you prefer… The RPA can be had with...

The special, limited edition HW50 Jubilee Model is a one in a thousand opportunity! It’s produced to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the introduction of Weihrauch’s longest-running air rifle. In fact, Weihrauch produced it’s first air rifle, the HW Model 50V, in 1950. This airgun had a smooth bore because of Allied Occupation Government rules. Eventually, the the production of rifled barrels was allowed, resulting in the HW50S that we know today. This exclusive model features a striking blue-grey laminated wood stock, adorned with unique checkering and laser engraving, including a “75” on the pistol grip to commemorate the milestone. The “75 Years” theme is repeated on the compression tube, together with the serial number of...

Today, Doug Wall explores how the hammer affects PCP performance. It’s the final part of his Barra 1100z tuning series. In this post, he replaces the hammer from the Gen 1 gun with that from the Gen 2 model and finds a significant improvement. In fact, Doug’s work shows up to a 52% increase in regulated shot count and up to 50% increase in total Muzzle Energy for those regulated shots. WOW!!! Compared to other tuning methods, changing the hammer has generally received less interest. Doug’s work shows that the hammer affects PCP performance. It’s much more than many of us have thought. Read on to find out… How The Hammer Affects PCP Performance – Planning In the last installment, I tested the regulated Barra 1100Z, and one of the...

The range of Longshot Target Cameras is now becoming available at Airgun Depot. These sound like a great addition for the long-range airgun shooter and benchrest competitor. Ideal for practice for the Pyramyd Cup! Longshot systems are designed to provide an easy way to see and record your shooting accuracy at significant distances. They link to your phone or tablet for display at the bench, allowing you to see your downrange impacts in real time. There’s a LongshotHD app for both Android and iOS that can be downloaded for free. Longshot explains that this app transforms your phone or tablet into a live feed monitor when used with their wireless cameras. This means you can instantly view your shots and make adjustments without...

The new Umarex Avera air pistol was first seen at the 2025 IWA OutdoorClassics show in Germany. Then HAM readers learned more details in our post in March. Now we have one in-house and can bring some first impressions of this CO2-powered gun. As we can see, Umarex has invested in a good-quality, colored retail box for the Avera. That’s important for attracting sales in a “big box” store environment, where the box is the salesman for the product. The box also shows wadcutter pellets as the preferred diet of the Avera. Sensible advice. Umarex wisely includes an additional two 8-round magazines (for a total of three) with the gun. That’s a great move as multiple mags can be pre-loaded for shooting or in case of inadvertent loss...

The Airguns of Arizona Labor Day Sale is now running! This time there are reductions on multiple Brocock and American Air Arms air rifles. For example, there’s savings of $200 on the new Brocock Sonoran. Fitted with a Sub-MOA barrel and in .30 caliber, the Sonoran is currently on sale at $1,695.99 – including 480cc HPA bottle and case. But wait, there’s more… For more shots in a smaller caliber, the Brocock Sahara is available for as low as $989.99 in .22 and .25 calibers. That’s 10% off. If you’re a big bore shooter, there’s $200 off the Western Airguns Bushbuck 45 too…. This offer expires through Labor Day, 2025. However the available stock may well be gone before then. If you’re interested in one of these Brocock, American...

In Part Two of this review series, we’re looking at ATN X-Sight 5 daylight image quality. Read on, because there are some big surprises along the way! Today’s post follows-on from Part One where we made a general overview of the product. Specifically, the precise, full, product name is the ATN X-Sight 5, 5-25 Smart Day/Night Scope. It’s positioned primarily as a hunting tool. As a “digital riflescope”, it’s a completely new concept to me and – I suspect – many HAM readers. Actually, I had never actually even looked through one before! So, before diving deep into a feature analysis and all that exciting nighttime stuff, I wanted to start from a simple baseline: “What’s it like to look through in daylight?”. In order to do this...

Today we’re taking a first look at the ZAN Pellet Sizer. HAM readers first saw this product in our March 2025 report from the IWA OutdoorClassics Show in Germany. Now it’s here in the USA and you can buy it from Pyramyd. The product itself looks to be almost identical to that Zan showed me several months ago. I am interested because it’s an innovative, interesting tool that has the potential to enhance the consistency of both head and skirt diameters. Zan is displaying some exciting thinking in the airgun ammunition world and this is part of his obviously fertile imagination. Now it’s clear that this is not a mass-market product. The average Joe is never going to buy one of these – particularly at the not inconsiderable cost of...

Well, you certainly cannot say that Nate is resting on his laurels. Following rapidly-on from the original NateChrony, he introduced the SteadyShot shooting training tool. And now there’s a NateChrony SmartTarget! Nate is a very smart, creative guy. Now that he has three products announced, we can see something of the way his mind works. It’s clear that he is focused on value-priced, shooting-related products that help every airgunner improve the accuracy of their shooting. All NateChrony products work by detecting and reporting movement. He does this using an innovative combination of technologies: 3D printing, electronics, sensors and software. But the main component is his outstanding creativity! That’s what really impresses me...

Today Doug Wall conducts some initial testing with his regulated Gen. 1 Barra 1100z in .177 Caliber. This follows-on from the regulator installation in the previous part of this series. Background In this article, we’ll explore the performance of my newly-regulated, 0.177 gun. The reg. was set to about 1,700 PSI, so I’ll be doing tests to see what kind of velocity I get. With different hammer spring settings, I’m expecting to see some differences in air usage. Based on what I was seeing as I was installing the regulator, there may be some hammer free flight below about 5 turns in, which should increase shot count. When I started doing the testing, I noticed that the velocity has crept down a bit. The testing right after installing...