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All Springer/NP/PCP Air Gun Discussion General => Air Guns And Related Accessories Review Gates => Air Gun Review Gate => Topic started by: longislandhunter on October 08, 2011, 12:43:24 PM
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Last week I received the Diana 5G .177 cal pistol that I ordered from Cabelas for $99 bucks. This is the preliminary review after doing quite a bit of shooting and pellet testing with the pistol. I have not done any chrony testing as of yet, plan on doing that soon and will post the results in the second part of this review.
The quality of the pistol is excellent. The metal work is very nice and it has a nice matte finish bluing that is very even and consistent and the fit and finish is nice. In short this is a very nicely built pistol that is clearly a quality build. I must say that I was really impressed with the quality of this pistol.
The pistol is rather long, 18 inches, but it has a nice balance to it and comes up on target very nicely. Using a two handed grip the pistol is very easy to keep on target and shoot. I tried shooting one handed but I found it difficult, the pistol was just to large for me to hold steady on target. This is not a problem for me as I prefer a 2 handed grip when shooting pistols anyway, but if you plan on shooting 1 handed I think you may have a problem.
The fiber optic sights are very nice and work very well. I usually have a hard time using open sights due to my eyes but these sights work very well for me and I don't have any problems using them. The sights are clear, bright and large enough that even my tired old eyes have no problems getting a good sight picture. This is a good thing since the pistol is not equipped with dovetail grooves for a scope. I've read that for around $80 you can send it to RWS and they will modify the pistol so as to accept a scope, but since this pistol is discontinued I'm not sure if RWS still offers this option.
The cocking effort on the pistol is not bad at all and the barrel is long enough that it provides you with enough leverage to cock the pistol easily. The barrel lock up is nice and tight and secures with a solid "click". The trigger on this pistol is very nice. It breaks crisply and cleanly and is really very smooth. It's an adjustable trigger so you can lighten it up if you feel the need, but right from the box my trigger was so nice I have no plans on messing with it.
The molded, plastic grip is attractive and made very nicely but the thumb channel on the left side of the grip is just a bit to narrow for my fat thumb and after 30 minutes or so of shooting I found my right thumb was getting a little sore and irritated from being wedged into the tight thumb channel. It's not extremely painful, it's more of an annoyance but it's something that I plan on addressing, perhaps just widening the channel with my dremel tool may work.
Firing behavior is very nice. The pistol fires with a quick, solid "thump" with no vibration or twang at all. Noise level upon firing is very low, just a quick pop and I would classify this pistol as extremely neighborhood friendly.
As for pellets, I tested every .177 cal pellet on my shelf, around 18 different types. Out of all those pellets I found 4 or 5 pellets that shot "OK" and 3 pellets that performed very well.
The 3 that performed the best were the RWS Superdomes, JSB Predators and JSB Exact Express Domes in that order. The Superdomes gave me dime sized groups, the Predators and the Express domes gave me quarter sized groups. These groups were shot from a seated position at 10 yards and with no rest being used. Interestingly enough, when I first got the pistol the JSB Express domes were giving me dime sized groups but now that I've put several hundred pellets through the gun the groups for the Express domes has opened up a bit. Just the other day I made a large pellet order from P.A. and I ordered a few new pellets to try out in the pistol, namely the RWS R-10's, RWS Hobby and RWS Meistergrukeln match pistol pellets. When doing research on this pistol I read that those 3 pellets often performed very well in the gun so I figured I'd give them a try. Time will tell.
I bought the pistol for the expressed purpose of taking it with me into my bow hunting tree stand so I could harvest the squirrels that are always all around me as I wait for the deer to appear. All my shooting from the tree stand will be from 15 yards or less so this pistol should work out very nicely. With the accuracy I'm getting with the superdomes, predators and JSB Express domes, combined with the power that the pistol seems to have, it should perform nicely in taking out nutters at 15 and 10 yards.
Well, can't report on anything further until I do some chrony testing so I'll end this part of the review. When my pellet order arrives I'll test out the new pellets and do chrony testing on the pellets that the pistol likes. I will end this part of the review by saying that I am really very impressed with this pistol and very happy with my purchase.
As I stated, this pistol has been discontinued by Umarex but it's my understanding that the pistol that replaced the 5G , the Diana LP-8, uses the exact same power plant so a review of the discontinued 5G should be of some use to those thinking of getting an LP-8.
OK, that's all for now. More to come............
Jeff
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Very nice review Jeff.
I agree with everything you wrote 100%. I feel exactly the same way about the 5G which I only got about a week ago. Like you the only negative thing I have to say is that my thumb starts getting sore after a few minutes of shooting. I found myself taking a 1min. break every few shots and rub my thumb before I reloaded and started another 5-shot group. Otherwise the 5G is a high quality pistol with a nice shot cycle and trigger.
I did put about 7-8 different pellets through the Chrony. I got good results with most of them, meaning the SD was very low as was the ES. The highest Extreme Spread was 9fps. The 5-G exhibited surprisingly good consistentcy. Several 7.9gr domed pellets (and CPHP's) I tested were mostly in the 545-560fps range. I also tested the 8.3gr Superdome and 8.4gr JSB Exacts. These were between 520 and 530fps. The Superdomes and JSB Express 7.9 had the best accuracy for me as well, but I have a tin or two of Meisterkugelns somewhere I need to dig up and try them. I have a feeling these pellets will do better, because they are designed to be accurate in low to mid-powered guns. I only have the 8.2gr Meisterkugeln. Something tells me the 7.0gr Meisterkugeln will perform better. I am hoping there is a reason RWS calls it "Meisterkugeln pistol" :)
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Very good reports gentlemen. It sounds like a real nice pistol for taking to the tree stand.
Richard
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Well, I got in my pellet order from P.A. and mixed in with all the other tins were the RWS Hobbies, R-10's and Meistergrukeln Match Pistol pellets that I ordered specifically to test out in the 5-G. All 3 of these pellets are 7.0 gr.
I still haven't done chrony testing but I'm happy to report that all 3 of the above pellets shot outstanding groups. The Meistergrukeln Match Pistol pellets gave the tightest groups (dime size at 10 and 15 yards) followed by the Hobbies and the R-10's ... those groups being just tiny bit wider... but not much :)
The superdomes shoot well in the pistol, as do the predators and JSB Express but the Meistergrukelns, hobbies and R-10 are the hands down winners when it comes to outstanding accuracy.
Harry, try these pellets, you won't be sorry :)
Now that I have the pellet diet set for my pistol I'll sit down and do the chrony testing, which I'll post in the next review update.
Jeff
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I am definitely doing that Jeff. Thanks for reporting on those pellets I don't have. I knew there would be more accurate RWS pellets out there for this pistol.
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nice review