Stoeger X3 tear down and review

[JR]

I have been going to my son-in-law's dairy banging at the large amount of birds. I take the 8 yr old grandson with me when I can because he like to shoot also. I use a break barrel and he has a pump gun, he does ok with it but spends a hellofa lot of time pumping for just one shot. So anyway yesterday I stopped in at a store for a couple things and they had a good deal on a Stoeger X3. I have been kicking around getting some kind of break barrel he can shoot and after looking it over I walked out with it. The X3 is rated at 450 fps with lead so I figured 400 fps'ish would be fine. We are shooting around buildings and I can't shoot inside or mine will put a hole in the roof, his won't. He's a good sized kid for his age but he's still only 8, he can cock and shoot my Webley Vulcan but it's just to big for him.

So I get the Stoeger home and play with it a little, it's not really a English quality gun, kinda gritty feeling, but short and easy to cock. The wood stock is just some wood from China with the paint/stain that a lot come with. The bluing look good over all and it has a metal trigger with plastic guard. The barrel joint feels tight and used a steel ball detent, breach and seal were good but the trigger feels mushy. The open sights seemed good and the front has a hood which all should have.  The X3 can de-cock so after working the barrel a few times and feeling all the grittiness I got the screw driver out and tore into it. This thing is a piece of cake to tear apart after dealing with Trail XL and Hatsan 125, this is nothing, spring compressor is your thumb. So I remove the trigger block assembly after the screw and retaining pin. You have to remove the barrel to get the cocking linkage out of the chamber, pivot screw and keeper screw which is nice. The sear is several plates pinned together like a lot of China guns and the piston looks like a shrunken down B26. The inside was nasty, I don't know if they use rusty grease or some type of copper based anti seize but it's not good. Pulled all the parts out and cleaned them up, the seal actually looked ok once cleaned up and was pliable so I used it. However....I checked it against a Trail NP seal, looks like the same thing so that's a option if I ever needed one. I de-burred everything and cleaned up the spring ends where they were cut, ends were already sanded flat. The cocking slot is really jagged, spent a lot of time on it. As you can see the spring has a little bow in it, the rear has a spring guide so it does keep it straight when assembled. It is real easy to cock, the spring has a little bow to it so I added a almost 3/16 shim inside the piston, about the diameter of the spring wire. Lubed it all up and put it back together, I cleaned the trigger up a little but didn't really mess with it to much. I took it out this morning and ran it across the Chrony with some Crosman pellets. Some Stoegers have had breach issues and pellet seating, this one didn't, it was finished just fine. I put a compact 4x Cp scope on and it looks at home on the small gun I shot about 25 or so pellets then took some readings, average was 480 fps for 10 shots with a ES of 22 +/- fps. I guess when it only has a chamber that long it isn't to bad and it's still nothing to cock. The shot cycle is more than a 760 pump but nothing that I would think would bother most kids. Shooting at a piece of wafer board at 20 ft it will sink a pointed pellet about flush. Crosman Wadcutters and Destroyers about half a pellet deep, some of the light Daisy wadcutters bounced off, I don't use them anyway. I think he will be ok with it and I don't have to listen to clack clack clack clack clack       and wait for 8-10 pumps, for what and where he's shooting I think it will do just fine. I'll get a pic of the whole gun as soon as the camera charges.

Spring


Piston


Breach and pivot bushings


X3 with CP 4x compact scope


X3 vs Trail NP


X3 vs Hatsan 125 Sniper

[robert w]

I have an x5 and its simple too. its shooting in the mid 600's but its a nice sized gun and is very accurate for the price. I was skeptical of it at first but now I realy like it. you did a great review on it too.

[JR]

Thanks...

The X5 is really what I was looking for but then I saw this X3 and I figured I would error on the smaller side. I'm sure he could cock the X5 but holding it up and shooting it are different, I know he can hold this one up. Maybe later this summer he can upgrade to something bigger. He doesn't even know I have it, I was going to sight it in today but it was 22 deg out so it's just sittin here for now. I messed with the "boss" a little and got a target out and put it on a piece of cardboard at one end of the house by the front door. She asked me WTH I was doing, told her shooting, it's just a little gun it's fine...what can happen..... went over just like flying my helicopter in the house by the TV went, she called me bad words.

[robert w]

women seem to have a poor since of humor.after 35 years I decided I don't know anything according to my wife . but I was very impressed at how nice a stoeger is inside except for the grease from the tractor grease gun. that stuff was nasty lookin to me. I think I could hrease my tractors with all I took out of my x5. say your son in law milks? I feel for him. I used to milk. I owned 200 cows and that is a 24-7 job. you cant hire help either.

[JR]

He tries to avoid the milking as much as he can, he does all the AI, heard health, farming, etc. They milk over 1200 a day, I think they have over 2000 total dairy cows, runs 24-7, 365 days a year, he owns about half of them. He's a good kid and a hellofa worker, misses out on some things be he does what it takes. It has advantages with lots of starlings and pigeons to blast when we have time.

[robert w]

i had a neighbors kid working for me. he was a great help. i did all a.i. and milked. the helper fed n cleaned up. we used to shoot pidgeons n starlings out of the free stall barn. i was always conserned with disease. jeromy n i wore out several cheep springers killing those nasty birds. i to this day kill them. i sold out 17 years ago. went back to truckinv. but i still farm my land too. but no milk cows . i had a lot of black cows . sold them to clear the fence rows n build new fences. i need to replace my cows by this spring as its all done and i seeded a lot more pasture .

[JR]

Just shot it a little, friggin cold! (22 deg) I adjusted the scope with a laser bore sighter just to get it close, was a little high and right. I was a little surprised, at 25 ft it would all but stack 3-4 shots then a flier, best was 6 shots. It's a new gun so the fliers might be the gun or might be the pellet, just plain crosman pointed is what I used. At that range with a sheet of wafer board most of the shots penetrated about half the pellet. That's enough umph to take a starling at that range and it shoots better than he can hold it so over all I'm happy with it. I shot my Trail XL about 20 times before the X3 so when I cocked the X3 I about ripped the barrel off, real easy to cock.

Would I buy another one for a small kid, yeah I would, kinda nasty grease inside but everything looked ok.  I think one of Mikes XS-12's would be a nice step up in size and power later this year, if it was a tad smaller I would have one now.

[robert w]

yes if I was doing it over again mike would be who I buy from. but I had 1 choice take the gun cause the pawn n gun store didn't have another of what I bought  that was bad ,store credit only after 10 days . on the clerks word I bought my x5. he was right they are pretty good guns for the price right out of the box

[JR]

Took the grandkid out a few days ago and let him try it out, once he worked out what was best for him cocking it he was fine. I tossed a pop can out 25 ft or so in the yards and he hit it maybe 7 out of 10 shots, so not to bad. Took him shooting at the dairy the other day with it and he did pretty good. His biggest problem was he thinks it's a break barrel like mine he can shoot farther which it can't. He did get a few birds with it, farthest was maybe 30 yds but it dropped like a rock. It seemed to shoot the pointed RWS and Crosman pointed and Destroyer pellets really well at 30 yds but he was shooting the RWS pellets. I put a scope on his pump gun which was good and bad, he shoots better but it's harder to load a pellet, BB's are no big deal but they shoot real bad, pellets were better. He can shoot this gun 3 times in the same amount of time it took him to pump and load the other gun once.

He likes the gun because it's just one cock, easier to load and shoot and it's a break barrel like the big boy guns. I like it because it suits him well, shoots good and I don't have to listen to clack clack clack clack clack....Now it just needs to warm up some so he can get more trigger time, really not a bad little gun for a kid.