Pneumatic toy or ... weapon?
Abundance of pneumatics
So what exactly is an air rifle? Who, when, where did it first make, and most importantly - why? According to some historical sources, this happened in England, in the county of Devonshire at the end of the XVIII century. One nobleman ordered his gunsmith to make an air gun so that it would beat a rabbit 60 yards (about 50 m). The gunsmith complied with the order. Unfortunately, I could not find drawings of this rarity. I only found out that the gun was about two meters long and weighed more than 10 kg. Two squires were transferred and prepared for the shot.
The rate of fire of this miracle, I suppose, was not high. Than it shot, what caliber and accuracy was also unknown. That's just the price of this unit was clearly such that not everyone could buy it. Today, fortunately, the picture is completely different - the shops are full of all sorts of pneumatics produced in different countries. It is rather difficult for an inexperienced person to understand this abundance, moreover, many sellers in stores understand in pneumatics, to put it mildly, rather mediocre. First of all, let's look at the types of pneumatic weapons. There are four of them: gas cylinder, compression, PCP - (pi-pi-pi), and spring-piston. So...
Gas cylinder pneumatics
Such weapons work on carbon dioxide (CO2), which is located in a steel cylinder bottle. Gas cylinder 12
This cylinder is inserted into a special slot and screwed in, the cylinder neck is punctured, gas enters the chamber, when the exhaust valve of the chamber opens, the gas from the chamber flies out into the barrel, carrying the projectile (bullet, ball, dart) under it.
Advantages: high rate of fire.
Disadvantages: when the ambient temperature is from 0 ° С and below, the gas is liquefied and the power of the shot drops. The cylinder inserted into the weapon must be worked out for 4-5 hours, otherwise the gas will go off by itself, regardless of whether you shot or not - the valves are not tight. By the way, the balloon costs an average of 30-32 rubles.
The disadvantages include the low power of such weapons - basically, these are pistols and revolvers of caliber 4,5 mm, which provide the initial speed of the bullet 120-125 m / s. Heavy 5,5 mm bullets on this weapon simply will not pull.
Compression Pneumatics
This type of pneumatics is most popular in the USA, Mexico and Canada. Under the barrel of the weapon is a tank in which the pumping system, valve and chamber for compressed air. The operation of such a weapon is very similar to wheel inflation using a hand pump. A few strokes are done, usually 8-10. The air, squeezed out by each roll, gets into the chamber, where it is more and more compressed, due to further injection. When fired, it all flies into the barrel and pushes the projectile.
Advantages: the weapon is more powerful than the gas balloon. Some rifles operating on this principle have 4,5 mm 240 m / s and 180-200 m / s with 5,5 mm caliber with a caliber of XNUMX.
You can always keep charged and inflated without fear that the spring will sit down - there it simply is not there. If the rifle is in this condition, then it should be on safety. Sure to!
Disadvantages: low rate of fire - no more than two shots per minute. After all, after the shot, you need to open the bolt, insert the bullet and perform the 8-10 pitches with the forearm. Rolling, by the way, is accompanied by a characteristic sound, which is heard on the 40-50 m. It is also susceptible to temperature, as is a gas balloon.
PCP pneumatics
Americans and the British classify home-weapon PCR (pi-pi-pi-pi) to the home weapon class, i.e. to homemade weapons. It is, in general, similar to compression and gas balloon, only more powerful. It has a much more capacious and durable compression chamber, which is designed for high pressure. The chamber is filled with a special high-pressure pump or from a pre-filled diving cylinder. The high pressure pump is extremely tight. V of one of my friends was 56 size of a suit. After a month of communication with this pump, the size became 52.
Many PCP rifles are equipped with shops and silencers, although, in my opinion, this is nonsense.
Many people pay attention to the lack of gas cylinder, compression and PCR weapons recoil, which can not be said about the spring-piston weapons. Yes, the last ones really have a return, but it is so insignificant that even teenagers with a very frail build do not pay attention to it. What then to speak to an adult?
As for the accuracy of the battle - yes, in some models of PCP rifles the accuracy is slightly higher than in spring-piston ones. I emphasize - only in some models. But this factor is absolutely insignificant, and this is why - ultra-high accuracy is necessary in sports, where the spread in the extra 0,2 mm will quickly turn the gold medal into silver or even bronze. When entertaining or hunting shooting, the accuracy of the spring-piston systems is excessive.
I know a man who, with 90 and the first shot, hit the frog's head sticking out of the water. He fired a Hatsan-125 rifle, caliber 6,35 mm, with 3-9x40 optics, a Barracuda bullet weighing 2 g. The air temperature was + 22 ° С. Normal combat accuracy?
Advantages: power is higher than that of compression m / s up to 290 with caliber 5,5 mm. You can always keep ready to shoot.
Disadvantages: the very high cost of a rifle, a scuba diving cylinder and a high-pressure pump - all together exceeds the threshold in 100 000 rub. Terrible transportability - after all, taking a rifle with you, you still have to take a balloon or a pump - all this is very heavy and large. Very sensitive to temperatures from + 5 ° C and below.
I heard that if you don’t pump a rifle with special air (where can you get it?), Over time, the air ducts of the intake and exhaust valves will inevitably become clogged and the entire valve system must be changed, which is very expensive and troublesome. It is impossible to clean them technically, since the air ducts are made in the form of very thin tubes with seals. Well, to maintain the most powerful combat, the rifle must be pumped up every 5-10 shots.
I can also say that about 5-6 years ago, when the fashion for PCP rifles appeared, many of my friends bought them, but quickly became disillusioned with them and switched to spring-piston “breaks”. And very satisfied so far.
Spring piston rifles
This class of rifles is divided into two groups. The first includes rifles with a fixed barrel, in which the cocking lever is located under the barrel or from the side, usually on the right side, along the forearm, and the second is a rifle, where the barrel cocks the lever. In common language they are called “breaks” (similar to our IL-38).
Let's start with rifles with a fixed barrel. They, as a rule, have greater weight and less power than “breaks”. Very often they do not have a so-called “soft descent” mode, when a rifle ready for a shot can be switched to a free state without a shot. This is done as follows: the cocking lever is moved to the rearmost position and firmly held. After which the other hand is pressed the trigger. The hand that holds the cocking lever gradually reduces pressure until the lever returns to its original position. As a result of this manipulation, the pellet in the barrel was both left and the spring returned to its free state.
Advantages: survivability, unpretentiousness, high power, accuracy and rate of fire, good maintainability. It is not very difficult to upgrade - to increase the weight and stroke of the piston, to install a more powerful spring, etc.
Disadvantage: due to the design, it is impossible to clean the barrel from the breech, and when cleaning from the end of the barrel the ramrod will inevitably slide along its cut, which will lead to deterioration of accuracy over time. This, by the way, fully applies to gas, compression and PCP weapons.
"Breaking". In the class of spring-piston rifles, the most powerful models are exclusively “fractures”, since only their design allows the longest and, therefore, capacious compression chamber to be made and the most powerful spring to be installed. It would be extremely difficult and inconvenient to coil such a spring with a sub-barrel or side lever, and the barrel is longer than these levers and when it is used as a lever, it has a different shoulder, thanks to which the rifle cocks with a completely acceptable force.
All companies that produce pneumatics (spring-piston), for the reasons given above, the most powerful models make “breaks”. Here are just a few examples: England - "Webley Scott" ("Patriot"), Spain - "Norika" ("Marwick Gold", "Dragon", "Storm"), El Gamo ("Henter 1250"), Germany ("Diana 350 ”), Turkey (“ Hatsan 125 ”).
Features "breaks"
Above, I called only those firms and models that immediately came to my mind, but there are still many others. “Stager”, for example, they have all the “breaking” rifles, “Comet” - as far as I know, the picture is similar.
There are still very good production of pneumatics in Australia, America, North and South Korea, the company "Vector" in South Africa and "Samson" in Israel - and there "fractures" also dominate confidently. They are structurally simpler, which means cheaper, lighter and more powerful than rifles with a fixed barrel. Indeed, it is technically not difficult to invest in such a “change” in a power that is simply unbearable for a rifle with a fixed barrel.
Often I heard the myth that the “breaks” due to the design during long-term operation the trunk loose. Complete nonsense! This can occur only from poor-quality soft metal (which is typical only for domestic producers), but not because of the design. That's why: the axis behind which the trunk is dressed, and the lock bolt are strictly perpendicular relative to each other, thanks to which the razbaltyvanie excluded even theoretically! Take, for example, the front door of your apartment - did it get very loose? But we use the door much more often than a rifle. And in the entrance door the axis on which the hinges are located is perpendicular to the tongue of the lock, just like in the rifle the axis of fastening the trunk to the bolt of the lock.
Advantages: it seems, I have already set them all out in detail.
Disadvantages: I did not find over the years of operation "fractures" over 35.
Calibers "change"
Now, I think it's time to talk about calibers. The question is, why did they make so many calibers - and 4,5 mm and 5,5 mm and even 6,35 mm, and even 9 mm were done - is there really nothing more to do? Would make all the rifles in one 4,5-mm caliber, as we have in the USSR and now everyone would be happy! But not everything is so simple - in our country (as in the USSR), pneumatics is considered only a sports-training and recreational weapon and all that was required of it is to precisely make a hole in a paper target no further than 25 m or knock over a tin figure in dash from a distance 5 m. Powerful pneumatics is designed to hunt small animals and birds and, therefore, completely different requirements are already placed on it. In our country, as you know, there was no hunting with pneumatics, and no. It is prohibited by law. Although why in this case it is not clear, it was necessary to create an MP-513, considering that there was no release of domestic 5,5 caliber bullets, no, and, most likely, never will be.
Standard bullet weights in calibers are: 4,5 mm - 0,45 g; 5,5mm —1,1 g; 6,35mm — 1,5 g; 9 mm - I do not know.
As you can see, the 5,5 caliber bullet is more than twice as heavy as the 4,5 mm bullet bullet. Consequently, the stopping power of the 5,5 mm caliber is completely different. The difference between a passenger car and a truck. In general, European and American gunsmiths had been in search of the optimal fishing gauge for airguns for several years. Numerous tests were carried out - they shot with different bullets, in different weather conditions, at different distances at targets from materials of different density, elasticity, viscosity, hardness. After that, all the affected targets were investigated in the most meticulous and painstaking manner. The results were analyzed, summarized. Finally, they all agreed unanimously that for pneumatics the fishing gauge is the only possible - this is 5,5 mm. Since 4,5 mm is too light a bullet, only 0,45 g is, and its braking speed is inversely proportional to the speed of flight. 6,35 mm - on the contrary, too heavy, whole 1,5 g. To make such a bullet normally hit - that is, pierce the fur, feather, skin, subcutaneous fat and penetrate deep into the tissue, creating an amazing effect, it must be given an initial speed of at least 300 m / c - and for pneumatics, even the most powerful, this task is beyond our means. Here we need powder gases. But the caliber 5,5 mm was ideal and only suitable for hunting rabbits in England, pheasants in southern Europe, marmots, rabbits, partridges, beavers in the US and Canada. Some American and Mexican farmers successfully use such pneumatics to shoot jackals and coyotes.
In principle, the caliber 6,35 mm could be effective when hunting for small fur-bearing animals (sable, squirrel, marten, etc.) - where the main thing is not to spoil the skin. After all, if hit, such a bullet will not tear the skin, but only cause a strong knockout blow, and the hunter will have 10 with to run up to the trophy. The caliber 9 mm for the above reasons, the more can not be used as a hunting. You also need to remember to pick up the most suitable bullet for your rifle in shape and weight. This process should be approached very carefully and responsibly, since a correctly selected bullet significantly increases the accuracy of the shot and its penetrating power. The picture is similar to a firearm.
Butts and lodges
Material of the lodge (butt + watering can + fore hand): usually in pneumatics wood or synthetics are used. The tree is a tribute to the tradition and, in my opinion, does not give anything but a purely aesthetic pleasure to the owner of the rifle. Another thing - synthetics. Unlike wood, it does not swell, does not crack, does not dry out, besides, plastics are very strong - much stronger than any tree and lighter. Significantly easier! For example, the Turkish concern "Hatsan" on the 125 model puts a bed of polyferritic glass-carbon-plastic - it is an incredibly durable and lightweight material. In the US, it is widely used for the manufacture of boxes. In addition to “Remington”, “Winchester”, “Mosberg”, “Rüger”, “Marlin”, this company also makes Vazerby’s lodges, including for African-made carbines, and this company, as you know , makes weapons of increased power, in which the requirements for the strength of the lodge are higher. By the way, from the same material "Glock" and "Heckler and Koch" make the body and bolt frames for their pistols. A resource for the "Glock" about 500 000 shots.
What is good about this material is that it can be given any color to make it — a good expensive walnut, black, dark green, gray, camouflage — which is very good, as the camouflage coloring allows the rifle to merge with the surrounding landscape.
Butt forms today are made the most diverse. There are butts with a separate pistol grip, like the AK-47, in the form of a frame, as in the SVD, and of the classic “Monte Cristo” - like most hunting rifles. Of course, only Monte Cristo is suitable for hunting and high-speed shooting offhand, which is clearly proved by the stand-up athletes. Often on the butts of air rifles you can see rubber butt plates-shock absorbers. Don't let that scare you. Pneumatics do not have strong recoil, which this shock absorber is designed to extinguish. The impact of the "fracture" is completely imperceptible, as I wrote above, and the rear shock absorber performs a completely different function - it does not allow the butt to slide on wet clothes. This is very important if you are exposed to rain.
Compensators
Often on a powerful spring-piston pneumatics at the end of the barrel, you can see a large oblong thickening - this is the compensator. It serves as a counterweight. When fired, thanks to him, the rifle almost throws up, which makes shooting more comfortable and accurate. He also protects the tip of the barrel if the rifle accidentally drops the barrel into the ground, since the end of the barrel is about two centimeters deeper inside the compensator than its front cut.
It is believed that the compensator improves the accuracy of the battle. It is said that tests were conducted where rifle shooting results were compared with and without a compensator. V rifles with a compensator battle turned out to be really noticeably smoother. I personally did not check, but I consider it quite possible. Recall previously produced domestic small-caliber rifles TOZ-17 and TOZ-18. Remember how they have turned the trunk? At the end made a noticeable thickening. It is designed to match the vibrations of the barrel, which creates a bullet when passing through it. If desired, such a compensator can be ordered to any turner. At the end of the barrel (approximately 15 m) make a thread and a nut with a length of 25-30 mm for this thread. The outer diameter must be equal to or slightly larger than the outer diameter of the barrel. It makes sense to make a knurling on the nut so that it is comfortable to turn it. It makes sense to glow it red hot and put it in engine oil. Do this operation 3-4 times, then the nut will get a nice dark color and will look harmoniously on the trunk and will not rust. This effect can be achieved and bluing.
Crosshairs
Now about the sights: usually air rifles are available with a frame sight - a front sight and an aiming frame, equipped with screws for manual adjustment in the vertical and horizontal directions. In recent years, Turkey and Spain began to make night frame sights. What it is? On the sighting frame, to the right and to the left of the slot, light-storage devices are installed. On the fly, too, just a different color. They are arranged in the same way as the wristwatch hands. From the direction of the arrow, they look like dots.
This is very convenient when shooting at dusk, when the frame and the front sight are not visible against the background of the target. It is quite another thing when you point a bright red point at a target, position it between two equally bright green points and calmly shoot. There is no mistake.
Dovetail is a plate or milled grooves for the legs of the bracket, which is designed to hold the optics, collimator, health facilities. Usually it has a transverse stop, which can be fixed anywhere in the "dovetail". This stop is needed so that when fired from a powerful spring-piston rifle, the legs of the bracket do not move along the grooves. Sometimes, for better fixation of the paws, pieces of adhesive plaster are placed under them. If the shooter decided to use optics (LCC, collimator), then the bracket should be chosen monolithic, high, having a clearance in the racks, so that you can use the frame sight too. I often wonder where you can find a good sports rifle sincerely believing that this is the best choice for hunting and entertaining shooting. This is utter absurdity and that is why: sporting rifles are a very weak weapon (caliber 4,5 mm; - 140 - 150 m / s), heavy 4-5,5 kg, completely unsuitable for carrying and very expensive. For example, some rifles from the Swiss firm Hemerli have a price of more than $ 10000, They also have a very soft trigger (12 g). In general, such a weapon was created only to make a hole in a paper target with maximum precision from a distance of 25 meters at t of air 20 ° С. Competitions on pneumatic shooting are held indoors.
Well, I hope that I managed to create in readers the correct idea of what air guns are.
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