I haven’t been with an air rifle since my teens when Friends and I had great fun with the .22 Benjamins and .20 cal Sheridans and have often thought of getting something in the decades since. But in my semi-rural neighborhood I found CCI CB Longs at ~ 700 fps and a 29-gr bullet out of my Anschutz rimfire (and with a good scope) filled the niche very nicely if a bit strongly. And they feed from the magazine.
The other day I walked out of a LGS with a long box that held the Ruger Impact .22 “pellet gun” knowing only that Ruger made it; Burris made the 4x scope on it which I expected to be akin to looking through a toilet paper tube capped with a piece of dirty window. Though the box had a picture of the rifle with a stock resembling wood and some other details, I expected the cheapest plastic stock and no sights — I had done no research. But it [/i]was[i] cheap.
It’s nice to be quite pleasantly surprised — the stock is (again, for the price) quite nicely finished wood; there are better open sights than on some centerfires; the 4x scope is pretty clear and reliably adjustable! The trigger is adjustable for “creep” or travel but not for weight though it is fairly heavy. This is a break-open air rifle that I would guess is in the 25-30 lb (?) range regarding the cocking weight.
The box says “1000 fps with an alloy pellet and 700 fps with a lead pellet (14.3 grs)” so it matches the CCI CB’s with 1/2 the bullet weight though I haven’t chrono’ed it, but to my ears it is about as loud. This would be plenty for the max 20-30 yard shots at small pests on my yard. Additionally, though I haven’t determined this completely, it seems acceptably accurate at least to the ten and then 20 yards I’ve casually shot it with the lead pellets.
Maybe this is no surprise to other users but in a world of massed-produced junk I was surprised.
All told at the price of ~ $130, on a scale of 5, I’d give it a 4+.
