Blog

I suppose that “wheelgun Wednesday” is the most appropriate day of the week to write an airgun blog on the coolest revolver we’ve ever made. Bold claim? Yes. One of our license partners, Smith & Wesson, has been the go-to manufacturer of high quality revolvers since the 1850s. In a mere 30 years they will be celebrating 200 years of the S&W brand! That is quite something else, indeed. In these passing generations of manufacturing and development Smith & Wesson has made some very enduring handguns. The venerable Model 10 comes to mind as the service weapon of choice for hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officers going all the way back from the turn of the 19th century. Many agencies continued to use the Model 10 until the turn of the 20th century, too.

Not all of us are fairweather shooters or hunters. Some of us will push the envelope and go out and play in all sorts of less than hospitable weather conditions. Whether you like to get out and shoot when it's hot, fair, or freezing you want to know if your equipment will perform, right?

Needless to say, ammunition has skyrocketed in the past few years, and that’s only if you are lucky enough to find what you are looking for. Couple that with busier than usual ranges and practice starts to feel more like a chore than a hobby. Those that don’t want to put up with it have an option that has been there all along, except now with enhanced realism.

Sometimes it works out that the first and most obvious use for a product is not the only use for it. Afterall, one trick ponies are only good for one trick, right? To focus directly on a case in point, Axeon Optics recently released a cool little prism sight. Obviously this unit is most at home on the popular “black rifles” found in so many gun safes across America, but on a recent trip to the POMA (Professional Outdoor Media Association) Shooting Sports Showcase in Talladega, Alabama, fellow Umarex Marketeer, Breanna, and I slapped this new optic on top of our new AirJavelin Pro PCP air archery gun and really liked what we saw!

In one way or another I’ve been floating around in the world of firearms culture seemingly all my life. Some of my earliest memories are of my dad’s (unsecured) wall mounted gun rack in our home. On that rack rested three guns: a shotgun whose make is lost to my memory, a Marlin 336 in .35 Remington and a Nylon 66 .22LR. These guns captivated my attention from time to time as a youngster and even more so when I was old enough to tag along on squirrel hunts, and my favorite, coon hunts. My brother, being nearly 5 years older, had by 13 years old developed quite the knowledge base for guns. It was evident early on that his interests were heavily favoring military style arms. He was kind enough, or maybe just out of sheer necessity to share his books and knowledge with me.

It’s that time of the year again! Everyone has adjusted to the recent time change, the days are getting longer and the mercury is climbing higher on the thermometer by the day. Yes, it's springtime here in North America. A time to get outside and get active in all those fun gun-related outdoor activities. If you’re looking for another excuse to get out for some trigger time, hang on for a second, and let’s see if we can stir one up for you. Not only that, there is some other news in the airgunning world to attend to as well!

The Umarex Hammer is a .50 caliber hunting airgun that brings a lot to the table. Before we get too deep into this article, let’s address the elephant in the room. Is the Hammer the “most powerful” big bore airgun on the market? No, it’s not, at least not any longer. Is it the most practical? We think so. There’s a lot more to the makeup of an effective hunting airgun than just power. It’s an important factor, and the Hammer produces more than enough energy to get the job done, but you also need ease of use, accuracy, and portability. In these critical areas, the Hammer takes the advantage over the other big-bore airguns on the market.

I literally could not have picked a better day of the year to write this blog entry on the newest addition to the Gauntlet line. Here on 3.08 day, I get to tell our fans about the .30 caliber Gauntlet. Notice I did not write “Gauntlet 2”. There’s never been a .30 caliber Gauntlet before, so, and in spite of some of the visual similarities shared with the .22 and .25 caliber Gauntlets, the .30 caliber version is brand spanking new and will be issued sans the “2” designation. With that bit of explanation out of the way, let's peruse some facts about this new PCP lead flinger!

While at the Safari Club International’s convention early this year myself and our other staff in the Umarex Airguns booth spent a lot of time talking about our air archery products. Of course the big Hammer .50 caliber PCP and the newly announced Primal 20 slug gun got their fair share of blabbing, but the items that gained the most interest from the attendees were our air archery guns. Why? Well the reasons are a few. The most common reason for interest we heard was how intriguing the AirSabers and AirJavelins are.

Sharp-eyed Umarex Club readers noticed in our first February e-mail that we now have a PCP adapter device for the original AirJavelin. This is coming on the heels of our announcement that the AirJavelin Pro PCP was available. For those of you with the original CO2 version, you can now upgrade your AirJavelin to high-pressure air and gain some performance as well!