I recently added this neat little .22 Hyscore ‘Sporter’ to my collection in its original ABS case and complete with dummy silencer, unopened ’Hornet’ pellet tin, spare barrel and barrel removal key.

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As I’m sure most of us know, the ‘Sporter’ was a resurrection of the ubiquitous American Hyscore spring powered air pistol and produced by the Phoenix Arms Co for a short period between 1989 and 1991 at Sandwich in Kent following their purchase of all the associated tooling and spares.
The pistol is shorter than the USA made 700 & 800 models, but slightly longer than their 803 & 804 ‘Sportster’ models with which it is sometimes confused.
The ‘Sporter’ is finished to a much higher standard than the American version with a greater use of machined steel castings rather than steel pressings which were a deliberate feature of the original design.

The two main features of the pistol that stand out for me, are the trigger and the loading gate. The Hyscore is the only spring air pistol that I’m aware of that can be dry fired without risking damage. This is only possible due to an extremely innovative design using a two stage trigger with the first stage setting the trigger separately from the sear which only engages when the pistol is full cocked. The result is a nice crisp trigger release of somewhere between 3 or 4lbs due to the energy of the mainspring not acting directly on the trigger itself.

The second unique feature of the Hyscore is the loading gate, which uses a rotary shutter device turned anticlockwise to reveal direct access to the breech. Once the pellet has been inserted, clockwise rotation of the shutter hermetically seals the breech without the need for a breech washer.

I have just been testing the pistol for power and accuracy with the following results:

Chronograph recordings using .22 Hobby pellets (11.9 grns)
Average Muzzle Velocity = 336 fps.
Average Muzzle Energy = 3 ft lbs

I’m normally happy with a springer such as this if I can hold the black aiming area (60mm) of the NSRA AIR 4 target using a single handed stance at 10 metres. The ‘Sporter’ consistently achieved this fairly easily, with the best group surprisingly measuring just 35 mm C to C.

For some reason the pistol came with a spare barrel of the same calibre (.22) as that fitted to the pistol. So, If anybody out there has a .177 barrel they might want to sell or exchange for a .22 barrel please let me know.

Regards

Brian