My Experience With The Beeman Sportsman RS2

[cryptoad]

A few months back I purchased what was boxed as a Beeman Silver Kodiak X2 Dual Caliber (.177 & .22).  The barrels are nickel plated, not blued.  The first thing I did was switch out the .177 barrel for the .22 after cleaning it.  I put the 4x32 scope on and proceeded to sight the thing in.

I've tried the hunting assortment pack of 400 from Benjamin and found the pellets to be inconsistent in manufacture.  Some fit tight, some loose and none grouped well with this gun.  I took a chance on ordering a tin of 500 JSB Diablo Exact Jumbo Heavy from Pyramidair and wow, what a difference!  These pellets grouped very well and enabled me to finally sight the gun in.  I can get dime-sized groupings at 10 & 20 yards and this is as much shooting room as my backyard will allow.

I was getting short on the JSB pellets so I decided to go to Wal-Mart and purchase a tin of 500 Crossman hollow point pellets.  Terrible performance with this rifle!  These were worse than the Benjamin Discovery hunting assorment!  I would say it was $8 wasted but I wouldn't have known these to perform so poorly if I had not have purchased them.  I'm planning on getting a Crossman 2240 pistol for my wife and I will let her shoot these.

I've shot over 800 rounds through the Beeman and can tell you that having found the magic pellet, the rifle really is very accurate at least up to 20 yards.  I have a squirrel problem and can tell you this thing totally flattened 1 squirrel at a bird feeder.  Not even time to twitch after the pellet hit!  The scope has held up nicely but I routinely make sure all screws are tight.  A little pellgunoil applied to the breech seal has helped with the accuracy of this gun.  Does that make sense?

After a while, I got really curious as to how the .177 would perform so I took the .22 off and put the .177 on.  I fired 5 shots and none of them hit the paper target so I switched the gun back to the .22 barrel and I'm back to hitting the bullseye.

The 4x32 scope that the gun came with is adequate for 20 yards but not much further.  If I ever get the opportunity to shoot further than my own backyard will allow, I'd like to have a more powerful scope.

For $98 plus tax this was a fun buy.  A few dozen tin cans, twice as many paper targets and 1 squirrel  have been obliterated.  I only hope that squirrel was the one that had been gnawing on my porch and crawling around in my attic.

[robert w]

welcome to gta. I live west of you about 40 miles and another member lives just south of basspro. look him up. he goes by clip, he is a good ol boy but don't tell him I said that. some guns just do better in 22 as 177 and visa versa , pellets are the same too.

[john12865]

I have found through much trial and error that any type of crossman pellets not so good at any range beyond 15 yards, no matter what type. They have only been consistent at 10 yards or less in my pistol, but they are cheap pellets.
Try RWS Magnums Field Line  and Gamo Rocket lead pellets. The Gamo's are more expensive but wreak havoc on small game.
Both these pellets are heavy. I've found that if you stick with heavy pellets a break barrel springer will be much more accurate which I think is because of the forward and backwards recoil nature of these guns.
Don't give up on the .177 barrel because it has a lot of potential with the heavy pellets and .177 is my favorite caliber to shoot as it very accurate and less expensive then .22 .

[jmcgall1]

I have this same gun, recently picked it up for under $100 at wal-mart (price error?). I haven't used it too much past 13 yards but this week I go home and can open it up to 50 yards. I can't wait because at 13 yards i'm getting dime sized 10 shot groups with the JSB or Air arms pellets (both 18gr)  and yes, crosman pellets are terrible. I don't understand how people use them and think that they are good. The whole point of an air rifle is it is supposed to be accurate, not very slow underpowered single shot shotgun.

I do recommend the hawk sport hd AO MD scope for this gun. It suits the gun very well and is at a great price point, I just can't justify why one would spend more on a scope than on the gun unless you had a 150yd pcp rifle.

[Gertrude]

Most magnum class springers are known scope killers.
 It has more to do with the scope, than it does the rifle.
 It's just the nature of the beast.

 It doesn't matter if the scope costs $50 or $500... If it is NOT rated for magnum class springer AIR RIFLES,... any $150 springer will destroy it in very short order.

[nervoustrigger]

Every once in a while the Crosman pellets just agree with a rifle.  Doesn't happen all that often but when it does, it is sweet.  Cheap pellets for the win.  Just from my anecdotal experience, I've had two QB rifles that both liked them, a .177 and a .22.  These were shot with pellets from the tins, not from the single die boxes.

[Nail Gun]

My .22 RS2 loves the CPHP's. It is nearly capable of stacking them at 25 yards. The factory stock is horrible.  The design is also tough for a noob to safely tune.  Otherwise, it is a heckuva rifle considering the cost.

[jmcgall1]

Most magnum class springers are known scope killers.
 It has more to do with the scope, than it does the rifle.
 It's just the nature of the beast.

 It doesn't matter if the scope costs $50 or $500... If it is NOT rated for magnum class springer AIR RIFLES,... any $150 springer will destroy it in very short order.

I agree completely, and the Hawke is airgun rated with a lifetime warranty, so even if it breaks they will replace it. The glass looks just fine to me.

And on crosman pellets, if they work, they work. I haven't had the pleasure of shooting a single gun that shot them well. They also seem to have a sizable spread in head diameter which creates more flyers than i'd like, but hey, if your gun likes them at usable range they are a good deal and easy to find.

I think it was Jason who did an excellent review on pellets with their regards to consistency to head size, i can't seem to find the post anymore but i'm sure with a little digging it can be found.

[jmcgall1]

yeah his name on the site is nervoustrigger "Pellet head sizes - sharing my spreadsheet" is an excellent post regarding pellet consistency. not out of guns, based on pellet consistency from manufacture.

[HatsanPhantom]

i like my beeman kodiak rs2

[cryptoad]

I put the .177 barrel back on to see if I could manage to finally get it sighted in.  I took an old, large foam archery target and pasted 6 10 meter air pistol targets on it to cover the whole thing and aimed at dead center.  Aha!  With the .177 barrel on and the scope previously sighted in to the .22 barrel, the shot was very high, about 10.5".  You go from shooting an 18 grain pellet down to a 8 grain and that's what happens.  I need to get hold of some JSB .177 pellets to see if they will be as accurate as the .22 JSB.  The Crossman pellets I have aren't grouping as well.

Anyway, it takes more than "just a few clicks" of the turrets to make the scope adjustments when changing barrels!  (at least on this rifle!)

[jmcgall1]

yeah i had to shim the scope for the .22. I use one piece mounts and I have another scope laying around it could be cool to have one scope set up for the .22 and one set up for the .177 and simply swap out the one piece mounts whenever I change barrels, if that ever happens...

And do you have issues with barrel swapping damaging the breech seal? it did shave off a little rubber when I swapped mine at the beginning, didn't damage it's function but still it seems like you won't want to be swapping back and forth everyday without keeping a few extra seals of the correct size on hand.

[cryptoad]

No damage to the breech seal as of yet.  The 4X32 scope that came with it is holding up okay, so far.

[nervoustrigger]

Just a simple suggestion you guys may want to try which really helped out the accuracy of my RS2.  The upshot to the Beeman dual-caliber rifle is that you get two chances of receiving a good barrel.  In my case, pushing a pellet from breech to muzzle in the .22 cal resulted in some initial resistance for the first 3 or 4 inches, then it would freefall (muzzle pointed down) until it got to within an inch of exiting.  The .177 cal barrel, on the other hand, gave a nice uniform resistance all the way down the barrel.

Let me back up just a bit.  I had shot the .22 for months, ever since day 1, and was never impressed with its accuracy regardless of how much I practiced different holds and experimented with different pellets.  Being new to shooting a springer, I figured it was just me.

Then I installed the .177 barrel and it transformed the rifle.  0.5" groups on average at 25 yards with some tiny 0.2" to 0.3" groups mixed in.  Granted, mine is probably an extreme example but I wish I'd had the sense to try that simple experiment before I spent lots of time trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

[palonej]

Hey Jason!!
Can you remind me where you posted that awesome spread sheet you made up is??
Forgot to bookmark it.

[nervoustrigger]

I loaded up on pellets a while back so I haven't made many new entries lately but here is a current copy.

By the way, below the table are 3 little calculators that some may find useful:

• pellet calculator - enter up to 20 head measurements to get average, standard deviation, etc.
• fpe (energy) calculator
• efficiency calculator for PCP air usage (fpe/ci)

[jmcgall1]

Once i'm back home i'll be able to experiment with this gun a lot, I have found the pellets the .22 barrel likes and will see to what extent this gun can be stretched out. The .177 should also be fun to  use because in my idiotic quest to make a powerline 880 accurate i purchased every pellet under the sun. It did end up shooting alright, at least.