Being a complete Noob to Air Pistol shooting and shooting in general I have decided to give it a go make it my goal to try and get good at it. I wanted to start right from the simplest set up and set myself of a budget of £150. This needed to include Pistol, Pellets, Case, Safety Specs and a small target/pellet trap. All these things aside it was the gun choice I want to talk about the most. Nipping along to my local Airgun Shop I had my eye on a second hand HW70 I'd seen on their website however it wasn't available so I asked to look through new pistols and start out at £100 and see what I could get (Don't get me wrong I wasn't expected anything mind blowing, just something to get started).

I got my hands on the new SMK XS26. It was bigger than Imagined a pistol would be however I jumped in with two feet and managed to get the Pistol, 500 Biseley Practice Pellets and a Pellet trap within £100.

Then it was off for my first visit down the local Rifle range. After a bit of sight adjustments at 20 yards on a Bulls Eye Target we got to the point we where shooting pretty straight. The trigger is smooth but you couldn't say it was light however with practice you got the feel for its break point. We where pleasantly impressed with its performance, straight out the box. At 20 yards we had some groupings between 4-5inches within the black (Please remember this is my first time with a pistol of any kind and was happy to just be hitting the paper) The fibre optic sights work well however if shooting with two hands you find the front sight doesn't fill the foresight fully and the pistol is quite heavy to be shooting with one arm stretched out (Which does fill the fore sight).

I should of gone for a .177 pistol instead of a .22 however that lesson was learnt after my purchase unfortunately. All in all it is a fun pistol. Shoots relevantly straight for now and as got me in to the world of Air Pistol Shooting. I'm only going to use it down at the rifle range as it is a bit to much to power in my 18 foot back yard.

I'll probably give it 3 months max, when I will start needing to invest more in a better more suitable target pistol, however if I can master the SMK XS26 then hopefully this will of given me the surprise on how a pistol of higher value will be.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask.

Scott