Though the outsides look the same, the elves have been busy inside the AirForce sporting guns. By Tom Gaylord

Reach out to 100 yards with the new Condor from AirForce Airguns. An improved trigger and safety make it the best smallbore hunting air rifle ever. WHAT S NEW AT? Though the outsides look the same, the elves have been busy inside the AirForce sporting guns. By Tom Gaylord Where does the next good gun idea come from? Sometimes, it bubbles up from a genius like John M. Browning, who saw things in steel like no one else could. When his designs were perfected, they usually stood the test of time. His 1911 pistol, for example, is more popular today than it was when new, over a century ago. Other times, good ideas are pressed upon the makers by specific customers like the case of the M1 Carbine. The Army wanted a light carbine to replace several weapons then in service, and the famous carbine designed by Winchester was the result of a short competitive solicitation. True, the winning design contained a bit of genius borrowed from David Marshall Carbine Williams in the form of his short-stroke piston, but the essence of the gun was embodied in the Army s requirements document. Read that as, If you build something like this, we will (probably) buy it. And, finally, there are market-driven requirements. These are the things people say they will buy, if only someone will please make them. Was the giant Colt Walker one of those? The Texas forces said they wanted something bigger and more substantial than the dainty Paterson revolver, but the horse pistol that Sam Walker helped design wasn t quite the world-beater he thought it would be. It was too large and cumbersome, to say nothing of pushing the ragged edge of the performance envelope for the time. When Sam Colt scaled back the ponderous Walker to a more manageable size and reduced the powder charge to something less than a proof load, the Dragoon pistol that resulted was ideally adapted to the work it had to do. The world of airgun development parallels firearms to an extent, but sometimes there are sharp turns and blind alleys that can put a company in jeopardy if they follow too close. AirForce Airguns is a Fort Worth-based airgun manufacturer that has built a solid reputation for accurate, powerful precharged air rifles since the start of the century. They don t get a lot of government contracts to build specialized guns, but there are unique ideas that bubble up from within. They also listen to the marketplace. This is the story of the latest developments in their airgun line. AirForce Sporting Trigger The three AirForce sporting rifles Talon, Talon SS and Condor have been updated with a new, improved trigger and safety. The current trigger is a non-adjustable

The current AirForce trigger is a two-stage nonadjustable unit with an automatic safety. The redtipped wire in front of the trigger is the safety. two-stage unit that s sophisticated beyond most people s understanding. Where almost all triggers pivot on pins, this one has parts (like the sear) that also slide back and forth as the gun is cocked and the safety sets. The parts are machined to operate inside a narrow channel in the frame. As long as they re kept clean and dry, they function well as the 12-year-old trigger in my SS confirms. But some owners just cannot let well enough alone. They have to see the parts in operation, and that s where the problems begin. When they discover the parts are dry, they lubricate them with oil presumably for smoother operation. All that does is set up unbalanced friction and surface adhesion on those parts, plus it washes off the dry film lubricant that was put there by the factory. It also attracts and holds dirt. You re doing the same thing as spraying WD-40 into a fine watch movement! I worked for three years at the AirForce Airguns factory and saw thousands of these triggers assembled and shipped. It was my job to test every one of them. In all that time, I never found a bad one. As long as they re left alone after assembly, they work fine. But start fiddling with one, and you re headed for trouble! The current sporting trigger has a pull between 2.5 and 3 lbs., though it does seem to lighten a little with use. The new two-stage trigger is not adjustable, with an automatic safety that can be reapplied at any time. This trigger is free from creep out of the box. Many of them have a little creep in the beginning; but after a few hundred shots, it mostly disappears. This trigger has some take-up, so it can be classified as a two-stage trigger, but the first stage is very short. To most shooters, it ll feel like a single-stage trigger. The safety sets automatically as the rifle is cocked. This is another big reason people go into the trigger. They try to disable the automatic safety by removing parts. This often ends up contaminating the trigger with dirt that soon causes a malfunction. The New Trigger and Safety The new sporting trigger operates a little differently. It s still two-stage, though the first stage is now long enough to be felt by everyone. On my test rifle, stage two releases at 1 lb., 10 oz., and the break is glass-rod crisp. That can be attributed to a very precise angle between the trigger and sear, so stoning those surfaces can only degrade it. Once the sear releases, the trigger blade stops. Although there s no overtravel adjustment, it seems like there is. The trigger blade doesn t appear to have changed, at least externally. A shooter used to the current models will feel right at home with the new one. When he fires the gun, however, the new trigger s crispness will be immediately noticeable. By redesigning the parts, this new trigger can be manufactured to a lot closer tolerances, giving a much tighter range of performance when new. Stage two is noticeably crisper and requires no break-in. The new trigger is also not adjustable but is so nice that I doubt anyone could want it to be much different. It s light enough to maintain a stable gun platform but not so light that safety is affected. New Safety With the new trigger comes a new safety, as well. Instead of a thin wire, a wide flat blade sits in front of the trigger and sets automatically when the rifle is cocked. Push the blade forward to take the safety off, very much the same as the safety on an M1 Garand except for how easy this one is. This safety can be released by the trigger finger alone, and represents an improvement over the older wire-rod safety. Sometimes, the older safeties would smooth up to the point they can be released with just the trigger finger, but they often require a thumb to push them off. Hunters complained about having to take their hands off the pistol grip to release the safety. With the new safety, that will never happen. They can keep their sights on the quarry and release the safety without losing concentration. The new safety is entirely silent in the field. The way it s made lets the shooter grab both the front and rear of the blade and advance it to the off position without making a sound perfect for those 10-foot shots on unsuspecting game! Regardless of whether or not the rifle is cocked, the new safety can also be reapplied at any time. The old one could only be reapplied by cocking the gun again, which owners found cumbersome. On the other side of the coin, the new safety doesn t allow the bolt to be safely uncocked without firing the rifle. The old safety did allow you to uncock the gun at any time and ride the bolt back down. So, if you learned on that system, the new one takes a bit of getting used to. Most people don t worry about such things. Since I handle guns all the time, it s a feature I use a lot. For example, when you connect the air reservoir/buttstock to one of these rifles, it s best to cock the gun first. The new trigger was designed on a CAD workstation that allows the engineer to experiment with different designs in software rather than models. The old trigger and safety (top) has five pins and more internal parts than the new design on the bottom. The new gun has a much larger safety button.

The new Spin-Loc tank is a reservoir with both a pressure gauge and a quick-disconnect nipple for rapid filling without the need for tank removal. That gets the bolt out of the way of the air valve when the tank is being screwed in. Then, when the tank is on the gun, you want to uncock the gun, unless you plan to shoot it right away. Owners will wonder if their existing guns can be upgraded to the new trigger and safety. That won t be possible because not only are the parts different, they are held on by just four pins, where the old parts are held on by five pins. And the changes in the new guns do not stop there. New Air Reservoir Attachment One feature for which many owners have asked is a pressure gauge on the air reservoir. Other precharged airguns have them, and it does help with managing the air fill. Until now, owners of AirForce rifles had to count their shots to know when to fill. That s not difficult if you re doing a lot of shooting; but if the gun sits around awhile, you can easily forget where you left off. AirForce responded with a gauge on a new type of reservoir called the Spin-Loc tank. Not only does it have a gauge, but on the opposite side of the tank neck there s a Foster quick-disconnect nipple that allows you to fill the reservoir without removing it from the rifle. This is necessary because of how the reservoir screws into the rifle. The gauge and fill nipple will not clear the rifle s frame unless it goes in straight and is tightened by turning a new rotating captive locking nut that s retained in the frame. It s possible to use the old type of reservoir on the new gun; but to use the new Spin-Loc tank on an old gun, the rifle must be modified. The old threaded bushing needs to be exchanged for a new bushing that has a castellated end for a special wrench. This modification is done at the factory, after which both the new and the old style tanks can be used on the same gun. Performance The new Condor performs exactly like the old one making it one of the most powerful smallbore air rifles in general production. The Condor was the first precharged air rifle to break the sound barrier with a.22 cal. pellet, and AirForce sometimes demonstrates this power by showing a 2x4 board that has been neatly punctured by a pellet. Actually, the Condor will do that in each of the four smallbore calibers, but it was the.22 that stunned the world when it was introduced in 2004. Some PCP rifles from Korea will equal the Condor s power for their first couple shots after a fill of air, but then their power drops away rapidly. The Condor typically gets about 20 full-power shots before needing a refill. And, if full power is not used, it gets even more. On the Range The proof of the pudding is on paper at the range, to mix metaphors, so that s where I took the new rifle. The old Condor was no slouch, and quite frankly the new one cannot beat it for accuracy at 50 yards. But what the new trigger can and does do is make it easier to shoot the rifle accurately. Sometimes, that s all you need. This day at the range was dead calm, a condition not that common here in north central Texas, so I took full advantage of it by shooting 10-shot groups. Where 5-shot groups are good for bragging rights, they re also just a good guess at what a rifle can really do. Ten-shot groups tell you the actual accuracy of a gun, because they include ammunition anomalies, true standard deviations and, yes, even the consistency of the shooter s skill. It s the latter that makes a 10-shot group such a challenge with anything other than a truly accurate gun. You fight your own abilities every time you pull the trigger, and doing it 10 times in a row without making even one small mistake takes skill and nerve. But a good 10-shot group is an order of magnitude more convincing than a good 5-shot group. The pellet I used was one of the Hungarian premium domes from JSB. The Exact Jumbo Heavy weighs 18.1 grains, and in the.22 cal. Condor, I like to shoot it with the adjustable power set to No. 4. That gives about 900 fps at the muzzle, which is where this pellet likes to be. Use the special wrench to tighten the castellated bushing on the tank, then secure the bushing with a lock screw. The tank is filled while on the gun. Once the rifle was sighted in, it was a simple matter to put 10 of these aerodynamic missiles into a group that measures.508" between the centers of the two holes farthest apart. Try doing that with your factory 10/22! Of course, such accuracy with a pellet rifle can only be achieved in dead-calm air, but it s a confidence-builder when you can see every pellet flying into the same tight cluster half a football field away. I could have tried other premium pellets in the rifle at 50 yards now that I knew what it was capable of on this day; but because the air was still, I decided to pull out the stops and advance to the 100-yard range. A hundred yards with an air rifle is a challenge similar to 500 yards with a centerfire. Even on a dead-calm day, it strains your shooting skill to put 10 shots into an inch. This time, I was concentrating so much on shooting that I miscounted and put 11 shots into the group instead of 10. The group is lower on the target despite adjusting the scope up several inches from the 50-yard zero, but the group is still well centered on the aim point. Did the new trigger help with these groups? I have to admit it did, though the trigger on my old Condor is so broken-in that it releases almost as crisply. But the difference in overtravel between the old trigger and the new one is quite noticeable. The new trigger feels much more like a match unit. [Cont. to page 88] The.22 cal. JSB Exact Jumbo Heavy pellet weighs 18.1 grains and rivals the best target.22 rimfire ammo, when fired from a Condor set to low power. Ten pellets made this.508" group at 50 yards. You don t get groups like this unless the rifle cooperates and the wind conditions are perfect for shooting. Here are 11.22 cal. pellets in 1.003 inches. Gaylord can t do this every time, but the Condor is certainly capable of doing it when the wind is right.

This is the new Condor SS that s so quiet it must be experienced. All you hear is the click of the rifle s action. Its muzzle is tucked inside the frame. [Cont. from page 86] I would have to recommend the new rifles with the new trigger and safety just for the ease of use. But AirForce didn t stop innovating there. New Condor SS the Quiet One The really big news at AirForce is so quiet you won t even hear it. To every AirForce Condor owner, the thought that a Condor can be quiet is like thinking a snub-nosed revolver in.454 Casull can be recoilless. Condors are noisy, plain and simple! Many owners think their discharge sound rivals that of a.22 Long Rifle, though there are still a few decibels separating them. But now, alongside the big booming black rifle, there will also be a quiet Condor. The new rifle borrows its design from the well-established Talon SS. But it goes even farther in the quest for quiet. How quiet is it? I once wrote that the discharge of a Benjamin Marauder, with its shrouded and baffled barrel, sounds about like a ballpoint pen falling on a thick carpet. The new Condor SS is just as quiet. But, where the Marauder produces about 25 foot-pounds of muzzle energy, the new Condor SS makes nearly 60! For that kind of power to be quiet too is a real breakthrough! The new Condor SS has an 18-inch Lothar Walther barrel, where the unsilenced Condor barrel is 24 inches. The velocity with a given pellet will be less in the new rifle but according to the tests done by AirForce, the difference isn t that great. The new gun can still pump out a 14.3-grain.22 cal. Crosman Premier pellet at more than 1200 fps. And, if it shoots heavier pellets that don t break the sound barrier, it can shoot them in complete silence. The unsilenced Condor with a 24-inch barrel will still be offered in the lineup for those who need the last footpound of energy. Like the other two AirForce sporting rifles, it has power that s easily adjusted. When the power is adjusted all the way up, the long-barreled Condor will shoot Crosman Premier pellets at 1250 fps immediately after a fresh fill of air. By shot 20, the velocity has dropped only to around 1190 fps. The new Condor SS with its 6-inch shorter barrel will have similar performance since the rifle s valve has not been changed, but the starting and ending velocities will be correspondingly lower. When I heard (a term I use loosely) the new rifle at AirForce, it was so quiet that all I could hear was the soft click of the striker hitting the valve stem. Now, my old ears are the analog type from the 1940s. They run on tubes, and they ve been used a lot, so I m not the best instrument for evaluating anything that s quiet. But the AirForce designers who created this system are still 20-something guys whose digital ears still work. Even these kids think the new gun is so quiet that they use a chronograph to tell them for sure that it s doing what it s supposed to. In fact, a hot topic of discussion among the entire AirForce development team is how they re going to make the rifle action quieter, now that it s the loudest sound the gun produces! It reminds me of the old Rolls Royce ad that claimed the electric clock was the noisiest part of the car. Technology is Involved All of these pneumatic rifles can be loud I ll give them that. I have had a bloop tube installed on my personal Condor and Talon SS rifles for several years. It s just a hollow 13-inch tube of aluminum and Delrin that s the same outside diameter as the frame of the rifles. It replaces the rifle s muzzle cap; and from a distance, you can t see that it s an add-on. It gives the rifle an odd, stretched look that many people dislike; but until now, it was the best legal way to quiet the loud crack of these powerful air rifles. However, when compared to the new system that AirForce has made, my bloop tube now sounds loud! What they ve done is lengthen the aluminum frame of the Condor and installed an 18-inch barrel that ends many inches short of the actual end of the frame. In the space in front of the real muzzle, yet still inside the tubular frame of the gun, are three Delrin baffles that turn around the direction of the compressed air, reflecting it back toward the rifle s interior not unlike a modern firearm silencer. A muzzle cap serves as the final part of the new silencing system, and it performs a similar function by restraining the excited air though, by the time it s reached that point, it s pretty tame. Each baffle is separate and a coiled spring pushes the column of baffles from the rear to keep them all tight inside the frame, so there s no rattling as the gun is moved. I ll go on record as saying this new rifle is as quiet as any precharged airgun I ve heard, which is saying a lot for a Condor because it s also the most powerful of all the smallbore air rifles in regular production. And, although With the 18-inch barrel, the new Talon SS gets over 970 fps with 14.3-grain Crosman Premier pellets. It s just as quiet as the new Condor SS, says Gaylord. the new Condor SS has a shorter barrel, it ll still deliver between 50 and 60 foot-pounds of muzzle energy with heavy.22 cal. pellets, which puts it in the top 5% of all smallbore air rifles for power. A New, Quieter Talon SS, Too! After hearing (or, rather not hearing) the Condor SS, I asked if there will also be a new Talon SS. And there will. The standard Talon SS with its 12-inch barrel will get the new baffles that fit right into the gun. They quickly built one for me by installing three baffles in a Talon SS frame and shooting it. Like the Condor SS, this new Talon SS is also very quiet. I can t say it s quieter than the Condor, though, because the only thing that s now audible in either rifle is the striker hitting the valve. We re talking about the relative sound of ballpoint pens falling to the carpet. The advantage of the new Talon SS is the number of shots it gets. Where the Condor will get about 20 fullpower shots in the 50-60 foot-pounds range from a full tank, the new SS will get about 40 full-power shots in the 22-25 foot-pound range. You can still shoot tight groups at 50 yards after 30 shots have been fired, so those final 10 shots are truly useful. A Non-Standard Prototype? After testing the new, quieter Talon SS, I asked them to test a prototype Talon SS with the 18-inch barrel in the new longer Condor SS frame. This model isn t in the works as of now, but any Condor SS owner can make the same gun by simply swapping the Hi-Flo Condor tank for a standard Talon SS tank. Essentially, what you then have is a new, quieter Talon SS with an 18-inch barrel. Six additional inches of barrel boosts the power without using any more air. You get those same good 40 full-power shots that are now up in the 30-40 footpound range. We were all curious about the performance potential, so they shot it through the chronograph for me. A Brief History of Modern Shrouded Air Rifles In 2001, when the Talon SS first came out, there was nothing like it on the market. It was the very first precharged air rifle to have a shrouded barrel. And everyone noticed the reduced report right away. It worked so well that everyone wanted one! [Cont. to page 90]

[Cont. from page 88] The market was quick to copy the shrouded design, and today it s almost unthinkable for a new PCP not to have one. In comparison with other silenced rifles today, however, the original Talon SS now sounds loud. The new Talon SS is going to turn things around, again. Other PCPs are going to pale in its presence until they, too, get technology like this. Talon SS Owners Can Upgrade to the New System AirForce prides itself on maintaining compatibility across its models over the years. They go to great lengths Once on the scuba tank valve, the Swing-Line clamp rotates in a full circle for greater filling ease. There s no need to align rifle and scuba tank. to make it possible to upgrade their rifles to whatever new standard comes along. Owners of the old Talon SS will be able to retrofit their rifles with the new baffles and be just as quiet as the new rifle. Their power will be what it has always been with the 12-inch barrel, but they don t have to make noise any longer. Best of all, this upgrade will be user-installed. When shooters do decide to upgrade, the change in the rifle s report will make them take notice. Just like the two new rifles I heard, an old SS with the new silencing system installed is ultra-quiet. I imagine that AirForce will be selling a lot of upgrade kits to the owners of existing rifles around the world. I know I want one right away! Swing Line Fill Clamp Finally, the folks at AirForce have decided to make the lives of PCP owners a little easier with their new Swing Line fill clamp. It attaches to the K-valve of a scuba tank, then swings freely around a 360 circle until the clamp is secured with the large knob. How much easier this will be than using a fill clamp that requires the rifle to be placed in a specific and often inconvenient position for filling! The novelty of this clamp is that it can swivel a full 360 while maintaining airtight integrity. Other fill clamps have only a few degrees of motion before either the reservoir being filled or the tank doing the filling has to be moved. Either way, you find yourself in an awkward situation. The new clamp features a large pressure gauge that s easy to read, a convenient handwheel that s easy to grasp and a knurled bleed valve knob. The hose is a convenient length of about one foot. It can be that short because the design of the clamp means the hose doesn t have to be so flexible. The whole clamp can be swiveled to make the connection. Unusual Report I spent a lot of time testing the new trigger/safety system and only briefly got to see and hear the new line of SS rifles in action. But it s the new quietness of the AirForce line that s the bigger story. However, both features will be found on the same rifles. AirForce is showing this new line at the 2013 SHOT Show in Las Vegas. If you re there, stop by booth 2036 and see them for yourself. I thank AirForce Airguns for the opportunity to test the new trigger and safety system in a new Condor. I also thank them for allowing me to see the new Condor SS and Talon SS shoot.