Donation

All Springer/NP/PCP Air Gun Discussion General > Air Archery

Latest Air Javelin review

(1/1)

Arkmaker:

      I brought the Javelin over to my young friends house. I knew he needed a break from life, if only for an hour or so. As soon as he saw it, he immediately said, "you have to let me shoot it". I also brought the target block and we set it up at 25 yards. He hit a few inches low with the first shot. It was game on from there. The next four arrows were all touching each other. In fact, one of the arrows had split another! He was apologizing, but I was laughing and practically dancing. I told him I'd been trying to do that! Here is a pic of the split shaft. I wish I had brought my camera to show some of these groups. It was truly as much fun watching him shoot this puppy as shooting myself. Maybe even more fun since he is so adaptable to any weapon so quickly. All of his shooting was offhand. Did I ever mention that I hate going people with steady nerves? Just kidding, I was young once.... I think?


     I knew that this thing would be deadly in the right hands! He shot a couple more groups and then he backed it up to 50 yards.... and he said something like "got it zeroed in". By that he meant he had his Kentucky windage figured out. It is sporting the stock peep site and he did no adjustments to it. Just hold over. Now, I'm ok with small holdovers, but at 50 yards, he was holding over about 5-6 feet. He said he was using a tree in the background as his guide. At 50 yards, his first shot was an excellent guess.


      The next four arrows hit within 2" of each other on the thin side of the block! The guy can shoot! Full disclosure: he is a marine (once a marine, always a marine) and he did a couple of tours in Afghanistan. He is used to long range shooting. 50 yards is considered close work to him. But then a 150 grain arrow at 300 fps will add to the challenge!


     What's funny is that he and another guy just spent a couple of weeks designing an AirBow. I bet It gets built now 😀  At any rate the Air Javelin won over another heart today. I left smiling and thinking that I'm glad he is not married. His wife would label me as a bad influence for sure 😇


      The Co2 cartridge was just about empty from shooting at my friends house. It actually got 33 good hard shots. I might have had one more in there, but when I did shoot out the remaining gas, the sound was a very noticeable drop. So today, as I said, I shot the gun down to empty and installed the adapters for refilling. One into the rifle and the other onto the empty tank. It was pretty cold out today and my 20lb Co2 tank is in my un-heated shop. I knew from experience that I get my best fills when the 20lb tank is warmer than the tank being filled. Some people actually put the tank they are filling into the freezer before filling. I have not tried that yet, but may next time. This time around, I knew immediately that My 20lb tank was way to cold and I didn't get a good fill. I confirmed it by shooting a couple of arrows over the chrony. I could tell without even looking, that the reading would be low, and it was.... 288 fps and the next shot fell to 262 fps. I'll try again but first fire up the heater and warm up shop for a few hours. I'm sure once I'm in the right temp range, all will be good.
       For those of you on the fence about buying one, here are some things to think about.
              - Co2 costs? I can refill the empty tanks. This is not recommended to be done and even I will only refill a tank 5 or 6 times before replacing with new. You need to figure on 33 cents a shot if only buying new 88 gram tanks, a little less if buying in bulk.
              - Hunting ability? Yes, it does have mid sized game hunting capability, but if you truly wish to hunt with an arrow, I suggest stepping up to the pcp version Air Sabre. This is just my opinion and you all already know what is said about opinions. For me, I'll only be hunting targets. For someone like my friend, mentioned above, with nerves of steel and a keen eye, then I say go for it. Also, something to think about is that these are rated for 35 fpe. I'll leave that to your own viewpoint.
              - Feasibility? Let's face it, if you are going to hunt with this rifle, fine. Costs will be limited to sighting in and shots taken while actually hunting. Minimal. For someone like me who is going to shoot targets and is used to sitting down on my bench and putting 60-120 shots consistently during each session, it is just not going to be feasible. Even though I can refill the tanks, I figure that 30 shots every couple of weeks will become the norm. My pellet rifles have nothing to worry about. I'll break this out every now and then, shoot 5 arrows at a time until I empty a cart and get a little exercise walking to pull arrows. That's how I see it working out for me.
                - Fun Factor?  I stand by initial "smile maker" statement. This thing is pure joy! It is surprisingly accurate, gives you a good kickback feeling when fired and easy peasy to use. The trigger has a long pull, but a clean break and the creepy spots mentioned earlier are already gone. The arrows are 5 bucks each and should last for many many shots. Now that I've seen how it will group, I will be shooting one arrow to one bull until I can afford more arrows. I can't find carbon fiber tube to match so I can make my own, but that isn't a show stopped for me. It shouldn't be for you either.
                - Conclusion? Upgraded to 5 out of 5 targets after seeing what someone that can really shoot great can accomplish with the Air Javelin..... 🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯

Acapulco:
Nice review. Will be picking one up soon.

oldpro:
 Well written and thx for taking the time to be so thorough!!! Awesomeness

Navigation

[0] Message Index