Beeman Mach 12.5 RS3, your thoughts, experience, impressions ?

[Gertrude]

Hi Guys,

A buddy of mine said he had picked up his first air rifle, and asked me if I'd take a look at it for him.
 Now I'm certainly NO EXPERT by ANY means,... but he knows I enjoy airgunning. His niece and nephew's are in my 4H shooting project, and I suppose I know a little more than he does about airguns, so I said sure, let me see it.

 As he pulled it out of the box, and from across the room, I thought it was a RS2 Ram model like mine. Then he handed it to me, and I immediately thought to myself, "Holy COW, What a Big Beast and WOW this thing is Heavy !"
I looked it over and read the receiver,... Mach 12.5 Sportsman RS#3.
 OK,... so now I know what it is.
 So I broke the barrel to feel for any slop, looked at the breech seal, and went to give it a half of a pull to see what the cocking  cycle felt like.... GOLLY-GEE-WILIKERS-BATMAN !!! Are you Fruit-Caking Kidding me Does this thing come with a Trebuchet cranking winch, or factory supplied Silver Backed Gorilla to cock it ?

 He looked at me and said, "Is that good or bad ?"
  I replied, "Well,... I suppose it's all how you look at it, and what you intend to do with it"... "but you might want to think about starting doing some chin'up's and some push-up's in your spare time, cuz' this thing is a BEAST !

so I told him I'd take it home, clean the barrel, check all the screws, mount the scope, and do a little research on it... so here I am, ready to hear from anyone who has some experience with this monster.

I've looked it up on PA, YouTube, and done a bit of searching/reading on it here.
 60 LBSCOCKING EFFORT ? ? ? Holy Cow !
 I've also read it is considered to be a clone of the AR-2000/TF Jet.

I've not yet mounted the scope, and I've fired it only one time into the ground.
 Cocking did take a surprising amount of effort, and as I pulled it, I was thinking to myself, "Make sure you hang on to that barrel Ron, while chambering a pellet !"  Cocking cycle did not have any excessive "Grinding" sounds, but i'm confident a moly lube and tune would not hurt it either.
 I placed a CPHP in the breech, shouldered and fired it, and WOW! that thing has some KICK !

 I'm kind of afraid to mount the cheesy factory scope on it and try to sight in in!
 I'm thinking this thing might be a real Scope Killer, within the first few shots ! What say you guys ?

 I did already tell him that the scopes that come on these "big box combo packages" are ALWAYS about as cheap as it gets, and for him to be prepared to replace it sometime in the future.
 I don't want to try and get it set up for him and then have it blow apart, before I even give it back to him.

 Am I being overly cautious here ?
 Is this a better scope than I am thinking it is ?... or should I just tell him to head over to Wally World now, and get a 4-16X40 now,... (and add yet another couple of lbs to this heavy beast).

 And what about the rifle itself ?
 Does anyone here care to rehash some of the things you may have found and already discussed with this rifle ?
 Tell me any/all you care to,..... 'The Good - The Bad - and The Ugly".

Hheck, I can only imagine what someones arms are going to feel like, while trying to get this thing broke-in, barrel leaded, and sighted in.
 I'm guessing you don't want to sit down a try to take 100 shots in a shooting session with this thing ! 

Thanks for any replies guys,
I'll be showing him what your comments are, and introducing him to the GTA.

He told me he and a few friends had decided to give airgunning a try, after hearing that his brother and I were doing the 4H thing, and after he saw some pics of my GS  kills at the dairy farms.
 He was getting excited to join in the fun. Hopefully he and his buddies will get the "bug", and get active in the sport too.
 I just hope he does not get discouraged, starting off with a big boy 60lb cocking / kicking magnum, as a first time airrifle !

 

[Paul68]

That's a tough rifle for a new shooter. Definitely not one I'd recommend. BUT, if he doesn't get overcome by it, he'll be able to shoot anything;)

Yes, the action is almost identical to the AR2000 Jet. Its a 25-30 FPE gun sitting at the top of the pile along with the Hatsans for most powerful springers. It has significant recoil as you've found, and considerable cocking effort. First and foremost, I would not mount the scope until you put about 100 or so rounds though it. By then things should calm down a bit, and the shot cycle wont be quite as harsh.

I would also highly recommend you chrony the rifle two or three times to get a good idea of what the powerplant is doing. Like a lot of the Chinese rifles, seal condition is hit or miss. A bad seal can result in significant piston slam and cause permanent damage if bad enough. Mostly because of the power the spring in the thing has and the very heavy piston. If you chrony, look for FPS numbers around 880-925 with 14.3 pellets, and look for the numbers to hold steady in that range. If they start dropping during shooting, or have a very high spread and significantly lower numbers, the chances are good the seal is bad. If they are in that range and hold steady, you should be able to just proceed with breaking it in. I would also strongly suggest you get some 16 to 18 grain pellets with the larger skirt diameters (5.53) as they will provide much better performance than the Premiers and help to smooth the shot cycle. 

Look for the cocking effort to lighten just a bit as you break it in. Listen and feel for any grinding. The 2000's and their clones really can benefit from a piston buttoning as sometimes they will grind the receiver at the rear upper end of the piston.

The trigger is a good one and with a basic cleanup and smoothing gives a really nice two stage with a clean break.

The barrel crown can really benefit from a cleanup.

These guns can be a lot more accurate than you would expect with all the violence they produce, and with a full cleanup and tune are as solid as a tank.

The piston has a screw on seal button, and with an adapter you can use the Air Rifle Headquarters Turkish/Falcon Hunter seal for the Hatsan 125's, which I would highly recommend.

I did a pretty full test of an AR2000 jet I had awhile ago which might be of use to you. Keep in mind, this gun had a basic lube tune and muzzle recrown performed by Mike Melick. I later did a full tune, which made the rifle even nicer.

   http://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=34372.0

[sabrose]

This one of my favorite air rifles. Its easy to swap out the relatively short muzzle brake for a longer one to reduce cocking force. I have two 22's- one of which I converted to Nitro Piston with the crosman XL ram with little appreciable loss of power and a smoother stroke. The stock is beautiful and the trigger IMO does not need modification. It is the AR 2000 with a different stock. It is more powerful than the Crosman XL 1100 and fairly close in Ft pounds to the Magnum Hatsans but with more refinement, a lighter trigger and a smoother action than the Hatsans provide.
   I have not chronied them but Its likely a 900 ft/sec rifle with  14.3 grain pellet.It likes the J and B Diablo heavies and is decent with the lighter Diablos too.
    Some say Shanghai Barrels are not consistent but I have not seen that on these two .They are very accurate. They are 16mm barrels as opposed to the 15mm sized rs2 barrels.

[SouthBender]

The piston has a screw on seal button, and with an adapter you can use the Air Rifle Headquarters Turkish/Falcon Hunter seal for the Hatsan 125's, which I would highly recommend.

Paul, I see the Turkish/Falcon/125 seal at ARH, but can you please explain more what the screw on adapter is?

Also, what’s your opinion on detuning the Mach12.5 to something a little less potent?

[SouthBender]

Ach. I used the quote function above incorrectly. Sorry about that. Paul, could you check my questions which I accidentally added to the quote above?

[avator]

You realize this thread is near 6 years old, right?

[lefteyeshot]

I've had one for years. It's a beast. DP & Company has some for $80. I paid $200+ for mine. Pretty gun. Scope comes with it will break before you zero the gun.

[Toxylon]

The Mach 12.5 is one of those guns that I surely would've snatched, had a .22 cal made its way to my sights, with a reasonable price (and not the 400 bucks I once had a .177 cal offered). Being a pretty finely crafted, wood-stocked super-magnum it doesn't have too many competitors.

I've yet to experience a coilspring gun that was too heavy to cock, or too heavy to carry. The Mach 12.5 would fit right in my arsenal, as a sole Chinese specimen.

[lefteyeshot]

With mine after you shoot you have to wait till your eyes refocus and your teeth stop rattling before you can look and see if you hit anything.

[Toxylon]

Yeah Tim,

I remember your lively description from years (?) back. But hey, the 12.5 can't be worse than my Baikal MP513M, as far as the shot cycle goes - at least the Chinese gun has some heft, whereas the Russian gun is a featherweight. The message it relates to you is: "It's probably really not a good idea to continue shooting this gun." And that's when the Baikal works as it should.