Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Air Guns Blow back CO2 pistols?

About 5 years ago I bought a blow back CO2 pistol, it was a copy of a SIG 226, I think it was pellet in .177. It was fun to shoot, felt more like a .22 rim fire with the air feature, big all metal gun. Also bought a Colt non-blow back in BB CO2 Model 1911 pistol, the magazines on the Colt had mostly plastic and the load feature kept breaking, Umerex was nice enough to send me a spare magazine as the gun was under warranty. I think the SIG was all metal with the magazine in construction.

Decided the Colt would nickel and dime me financially with the poor plastic magazine design having to be regularly replaced, not cheap. And when the last magazine broke I tossed the pistol into the recycle bin. Not long after that I was shooting my SIG and every time I put in a CO2 canister it would just leak out the gas, pretty disappointed as I believe the warranty was expired. Threw it away too. The only CO2 guns that have worked for me was Crosman's single shot all steel pistol, and their Vigilante CO2 revolver. The Vigilante model (.357 Magnum model in 1981) is one I bought in the 1980's and it served me well until the seals went bad after 7 years of hard use, sold it for parts. Did not know that you had to use pell gun oil on the CO2 cartridge to lube it and preserve the seals. Also, it can be repaired with new seals.

This morning I received another Crosman .357 magnum (Vigilante) revolver shipped to me, if this one works like my last one I should be OK. Was looking at getting a blow back semi-auto CO2 pistol but at $100.00 plus am nervous after my last two bad experiences. Also, these CO2 guns are not made of steel, how long will that slide and frame hold up with all that banging back and forth? Are these blow backs any good, seems people buy them?

Thanks.