Sam Yang 909 Light Hunter .45

[Perry99]

How cool is it to shoot a big bore?

Very "dang" cool.

Look at the difference between a .45 ball, a .22 pellet, and a .45 pellet

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And I love that inscription "Super Gun"

Preliminaries

I ordered the Sam Yang from Pyramyd.  It arrived in a timely manner, well packed, everything in order.  I went with the package deal that included a bunch of extras like: bipod, case, pellets, scope.  Got an assortment of pellets/balls to try out.

I also ordered a Foster type fitting for the air fill probe so that I could use my Benjamin scuba yoke to fill the 909.

First thing I needed to do was degass the 909 so I could install the Foster fitting.  I degassed by dry firing it repeatedly.  I noticed right away that the cocking lever is HARD to pull.  After cocking it twice I put on a leather glove to finish the process because it was killing my hand.

Got my first feel of that heavy (8 lb. ??) trigger pull.  More on that in a sec.

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Installing the Foster fitting was pretty easy.  I'll do a separate tutorial on that so that the process is clearer to those contemplating doing this.

With the Foster fitting in, I aired the rifle up to 200 bar (3000psi) with the Benjamin yoke on the scuba tank.

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Time to go shoot.

Shooting the Beast

OK, It's not a 'beast'.  I'm just being silly.

I set a 2x6 out at 15 yards leaned up against a lawn chair that was already destined for the trash.

Using the bipod, I set up on my makeshift shooting bench and fired 3 Hornady 45 cal lead round balls (.457") and 2 Air Venturi .45 cal 200 grain round nose pellets.

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The scope was way off so the first shot missed the board completely; high and right.

I adjusted my aim point and let the next 4 rounds fly.

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I forget which rounds did what damage, but.....KAPOWIE!!!

Awesome.

Shooting Impressions

The gun feels very solid and well balanced in your hands.  I happen to love the looks of this rifle, and the feel is very nice too.  In your hands it feels much more trim and capable that it looks.

The receiver engravings and finish look like it's stamped in...not real high quality, a little cheezy, but certainly no deal buster.  I understand I have a low cost gun in my hands, I'm not gonna get worked up about cosmetics too much.  Fit and finish of everything else is fine.  It's a very cool looking gun to hold, and the feel is very nice.  Solid, trim, confidence inspiring.

Cocking the rifle is funky.  Its a very heavy pull to get the two-position cocking lever back to the full power position.  I could not cock it with the safety on, had to disengage the safety.  I didn't like that aspect very much.

The breech cover is another sorta cheezy aspect of the rifle.  It works fine, but just feels flimsy.  A moderately thin metal tube that slides back to reveal the breech.  With a scope in place its a bit awkward to get it open.  I bet that with some experience and practice this will become a non-issue.

Trigger Pull -  okay, it's heavy.  But workable.  You have to get a good amount of squeeze going and then you feel the trigger mildly 'break' from full forward.  From there back to firing the pull is smooth, and steady, and very nice.  I isn't too far from trigger 'break' to firing, so that's nice too.

I tried my best to be smooth on the pull, focused on my target, and firing came as a surprise, so good.  This is gonna be just fine!  Great trigger.

I had hearing protection on, but the noise is pretty much exactly what you hear in video reviews of the rifle.  A very nice, powerful feeling THOOOMPH!!!

And then, of course, the pellet goes and knocks the holy sh*t out of the 2x6.  Tee-hee-hee  (this is gonna be a fun rifle)

The Bug Buster scope that came in the package deal is fine.  Being a noob, I cannot understand why "bug buster" goes with .45 cal.  Go figure.  When I ordered it I assumed I'd get a much higher magnification scope for it and the Bug Buster would go on something else, or be sold.

Overall Impressions

Having only fired the rifle 5 times from the bench, I don't have a lot of experience to draw from.  What I can say is that I'm totally stoked.

I wanted to try out a big bore air rifle.  The whole idea of it is still pretty exotic to me.  And this thing is awesome.  You feel proud holding it because it is a nice looking, well made piece.  Shouldering it feels natural, nothing awkward, and nothing that screams "cheap" or "poorly made".  No, quite the opposite.  It feels like shouldering a powder burner because you just don't feel like you are hoisting a rifle with a big air tube on it.  I think that may be a result of my experience with the Mrod, which is bulkier, and heavier.

[EDIT]:  Hey, get a load of this.....I lied about weight.  Heh.  Perceptions.....perceptions......

Here are the lengths and weights of both rifles per Pyramyd's data:

Marauder:             42.5" ,   7.12 lbs.

909 Light hunter:  42.1" ,  8.15 lbs.

Ok, so what I "think" I feel with these rifles isn't what is true.  Interesting.  I'll juggle them both around more and then post about it later. 


[EDIT: ADDITIONAL DATA]:

I don't own a hi tech scale.  However, I have a digital bathroom scale that has checked very accurate in relation to my Doctor's office big scale.

So....with that big "BUT" in mind  (*chuckle*....I crack myself up....)

I weighed myself twice.  Then weighed myself twice with Mrod.  Then weighed myself twice with 909 (once with bipod on, once with bipod off).  I wanted two measurements to check variations.  There were no variations.

Here are the results (we're talking both rifles scoped; 909 is scoped with a smaller scope than the Mrod; 909 additionally has a bipod and bipod hardware mounted):

Mrod with scope:                        9.2 lbs.
909 with scope and bipod:          9.4 lbs.
909 with scope, bipod removed:  9.4 lbs.

VERY close!  And, as you can see, the scale is not sensitive enough to detect the bipod (removable portion) weight.  So take this with a grain of salt.

I really like this rifle and am thrilled to discover that I can have a big bore that is so well made, fun to shoot, easy on the eyes, fairly light in the hands, and accurate (well, my rifle hasn't really been tested in that department yet, so we'll see).

I can foresee getting this thing tuned sometime in the future.

Wont take me long to get a target out to at least 30 yards to see how the rifle does with accuracy.

MOST IMPORTANT PART

Without the reviews, discussions, advice, videos, etc from the good people here at GTA I could not have made such a confident and informed decision to purchase this rifle.  I had to plow through a lot of material to decide on going with .45 on a Yang....and to go with a Yang.  The fact is...the material is there to plow through due to the dedicated effort of you folks here. 

So HAT TIP to GTA for helping me look like I actually know something!  lol.

Thanks Guys!

oh.....a few more sexy photos

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[Ken13]

Nice review

[Nathan]

Do you have a chrono? I would be interesting to see the numbers when cocked to hi vs low power.

Nathan

[gene_sc]

Another fantastic review Perry. This kind of review sells air guns.... But honestly your review of the 900 light hunter is very thorough. Your pictures are candy to my eyes as well:)...The structure to your review is excellent.

Wish I could write a review half as good as yours. Thanks for sharing and congratulations on a very sweet looking big bore AG.
Gene

[dilip_vp]

nice write-up perry


regards,
Dileep

[Perry99]

Thanks Guys!  I appreciate the feedback.

Did some work on sighting in.  Had removed the scope then put it back on.  Then Took the 2x6 out to 20 yards for sighting, using "low" power.

First shot went high right, second shot wide right, rest of them kinda walked in towards zero.  More work to do, ran out of time.

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[Perry99]

Nathan,

I do not own a Chrono yet.  Guess I'm gonna have to get one sooner or later.  I hope they aren't too expensive, I like the one I see in the videos by EDgunusa.  (hope I got that name right).

[badredbird]

nice review , the trigger can be brought down to about 3 and half lbs   and the power can be upped substantially at saddle mountain by will piatt , he s done all my koreans and he does a fantastic job