Originally Posted by
air-tech
The peak of springer development, a very distinct one, was when the true recoilless ones were in production - whatever the means to achieve that aim, although all involved a counterweight of sorts to the piston and spring's movement.
As for the rest - as long as the laws of physics are unchanging all that can be done is the airgun equivalent of fitting lightweight alloy wheels to one's car, but leaving everything else unchanged. In the grand scale of things, a minor improvement on the car's performance.
In effect, as, as far as I know, there are currently no true recoilless springers in production, let alone all springers being built to this design, we have actually regressed, and are well off the peak. Sort of like the full takeup of multipoint fuel injection and multivalve engines in the '90's, but imagine that today we had to be back to carbed sidevalves.
There are valid reasons of course. Springers are airguns, but airguns aren't springers. Airguns are anything that can propel a pellet by air pressure, so PCPs built at a third or less of the price of a complex recoilless springer, fundamentally do the same job. Secondly achieving power in a springer one again challenges the laws of physics, let alone in one that is built as a recoilless one.
So, no, we are not enjoying the peak of springer development, that has come and gone, but have actually taken several huge steps backwards.