Air Venturi Bronco Review

[mulveyr]

Hi All:

   After not having shot a gun of any sort for at least 20 years, and having two kids ages 9 and 11, I got the urge to get back into the sport.

  I did a lot of research, and decided to try out the Air Venturi Bronco.  I was looking for a break-barrel with decent accuracy, low power ( for garage/basement shooting ), and not a lot of plastic.

   I'm 5'5" myself, and always shot "youth" guns, so theoretically it would fit everyone in the family.  ;-)

   My order from pyramydair showed up in a couple of days.  The packaging of the gun in the box was indifferent, to say the least - a couple of pieces of mostly broken foam - but the gun itself was fine.

   I'm generally pleased with the overall fit and finish.  There are some very minor blemishes on the barrel, possibly from bouncing around in the box, but nothing that's a deal-breaker.  It's a nice, solid-feeling rifle, especially compared with some of the mostly-plastic guns I had previously checked out at local stores.

   After doing some basic instruction, we set up an 8-yard range in the garage.  Unfortunately, my 9-year-old daughter's arms are just a bit too small to be able to hold the Bronco properly, but she'll grow out of that.  :-)  It JUST fit my 11-year-old son.

   I shot a couple of groups offhand to check it out, and then did some sighting in from my Olympic-class sawhorse, and ended up with around a 1.5" group.  Yeah, I know, I need to work on that.

   Then I let my son at it.  His first few shots were way off the mark.  Then he started drilling them in dead center, with one run of 6 shots in a less than dime-sized hole.  I honestly had to start digging pellets out of the bottom of the pellet trap I had made - I couldn't believe he was doing it, and assumed he was totally missing the target.  Nope.  Just drilled them on top of each other, time after time.

   Kids really know how to embarrass their parents, don't they?

   We've been practicing in the evenings the past few days.  The gun has performed flawlessly.

   The only real "issue" is that my son can't quite cock it himself, and it's slightly too heavy for him to hold steady for offhand shooting.  But from the sawhorse, he's having a ball.  

   So, as a "youth" rifle, I'd say that it might be better suited for someone slightly older and stronger.  

   Now if only I could shoot as well as my kid...

[jonnnyboy]

Great first post, Rich (?).  Anytime you do a nice review, you will make lots of people on our forum very happy.  There's nothing we like better than hearing about another gun.  It's that addiction thing that so many of us have.  Teaching the kids to shoot safely is a great 'Daddy' thing, too.  Good job.  I'm looking forward to more of your posts.

Welcome
joe

[EMrider]

Give it a few hundred shots and the cocking effort will diminish a bit.

My kids shoot the bronco a lot and I enjoy it too.  It is an amazing value, accurate and quiet.

R

[SAADE]

Bronco is a great shooter, you got a good rifle there.

[mulveyr]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

Yeah, I think that the cocking effort is going down the more that we use it.  It's a little convoluted when we shoot, since I cock it, my sons loads it while I'm holding the rifle, then I hand it over to him after closing it up, etc.  So he's not getting as much of the safe handling skills that I really want him to learn first.  On the other hand, we're both having a ball, and you can't beat that.

I'm thinking that if he continues to show interest, we might get something like an IZH 60 that he should be able to handle completely by himself.  As someone who grew up on wood-and-steel Daisy and Crosmans, any gun with a lot of plastic just feels "wrong" to me, but I guess I have to go with the times.  ;-)

Another thing that has surprised me is the difficulty in finding an outdoor range to shoot at.  We're in the suburbs of Rochester, and are literally less than a mile from a nice range.  Unfortunately, they have a 12-and-over policy, and I haven't gotten any positive feedback that they might accidentally choose to ignore the fact that my son is not quite that age yet.  Liability concerns, I'm sure.

- Rich

[longislandhunter]

Enjoyed your review.  Thanks for taking the time to share with us

Jeff