Suggestions for "practical" Co2 pistol

[Geezer]

I'm with Baz on the 651. Much underrated. Grip like a 1911, very low bore line, decent trigger. I do have the "carbine" bits that turn it into something from Blakes' Seven, but they are basically useless from a shooting point of view.

[Barison82]

As you might guess from my post count, I'm new here - and trying to learn and understand what UK IPSC is all about. If I was to get involved with any form of sports shooting, the IPSC Pistol discipline would be the one I'd go for. However I've just downloaded a PDF of the UK IPSC 'Action Air' Handgun rules and I'm confused by rule 5.1.2 - 'Approved Action Air Handguns are those which fire projectiles of 6mm diameter' - which surely means airsoft pistols only?

However from what I read above suggests that .177 BB/Pellet pistols are also accepted disciplines at certain clubs? I have an Umarex Colt CO2 1911 A1 .177 BB pistol and have the Webley 'Accu BB' lead/full copper jackets for it, and it would be great to have a go with this at an IPSC match, if allowed. Otherwise it's an airsoft 1911 variant that I'll be getting to use instead - which is ok I guess as they are very realistic gas blow-backs as well. But less accurate I thought for target shooting.

[eyebull]

When I did Practical Pistol, almost everyone - including me - used Tokyo Marui Hi Capa 5.1's in 6mm bb, using 'green' gas (actually we tended to use higher pressure 'black' gas), modified to one extent or another. A few people tried CO2 but generally it was expensive in caplets, a bit of a hassle, and most of the time ended up smashing the guns to bits. TM hi capas have a vast aftermarket spares industry and are easy to work on. Priority modification is a metal slide because the plastic one will crack if you are using black gas. I liked to keep mine fairly stock-looking (although I did short-stroke it), but some people spent....a LOT of money. A lot. TBH you don't have to, a lot of it is in the mind; Reliability is the most important thing.
At one place I shot practical you could have used a pellet pistol, but if you had done so you would have been at a distinct advantage when it came to speed reloading and pace of fire. BB guns are plenty accurate at the range and for the size of targets you shoot in practical.

For IPAS I used an Umarex S+W 586 - perfect if you have a slightly larger hand. Also a slight advantage in that it is 10-shot. Most other people used a mix of CP88s and 586s, with the odd Umarex 1911 thrown in. Again the Umarex pistols have been around for years so there are plenty of spares available.
Only went to a couple of IPAS matches where BBs were allowed. If outside they suffered greatly in the wind and at longer targets, semi auto was not a massive advantage as far as I could see.

Doing something like IPAS or practical sorts the men from the boys when it comes to pistols. You'll put a hell of a lot of shots through in one day or evening, equivalent to months of normal plinking duty. Anything with reliability issues quickly falls by the wayside. The above will work, a lot of guns won't.

[Alakar]

At our club we do I.P.A.S
We do not allow bb's of any sort due to ricochets .
Whilst blowback pistols are great fun, we find that most people use the Smith and Wesson revolver, the Walther CP88 competition or the Colt 1911 .
Most of all , enjoy it !

[eyebull]

At our club we do I.P.A.S
We do not allow bb's of any sort due to ricochets .

We did find that with black gas/CO2 and plastic BB's, the BB's shattered on impact so ricochets were not an issue. It may depend on your plate set up though.

Most of all , enjoy it !

Hear hear. IPAS and Practical is probably the most fun I've had airgunning. Unfortunately I have very little time to shoot these days and no longer have a vehicle.
I really, really miss it

[Barison82]

We did find that with black gas/CO2 and plastic BB's, the BB's shattered on impact so ricochets were not an issue. It may depend on your plate set up though.




Hear hear. IPAS and Practical is probably the most fun I've had airgunning. Unfortunately I have very little time to shoot these days and no longer have a vehicle.
I really, really miss it

Yes I thought that there are ways to minimise/stop ricochets with BBs. I was curious about the Webley Copper BBs and how effective they are in this regard for 4.5mm, and if they are suitable at all for use in Umarex air pistols. Big shame that you are not as involved with IPAS as you'd like to be. Not having a car is a big barrier in this sport. I'm in London and probably quite fortunate as there seems to be quite a few clubs within easy travelling distance by public transport, however I'm struggling to find one that offers IPAS. The airsoft range in Camden is looking like my best bet at the moment.

[Alakar]

Hi,
I'm a bit far away from you I think .
We are in Blackburn Lancashire.
We had a fun shoot this morning and included I.P.A.S
The quickest time was 3.13 seconds for 5 plates !

[eyebull]

Yes I thought that there are ways to minimise/stop ricochets with BBs. I was curious about the Webley Copper BBs and how effective they are in this regard for 4.5mm, and if they are suitable at all for use in Umarex air pistols. Big shame that you are not as involved with IPAS as you'd like to be. Not having a car is a big barrier in this sport. I'm in London and probably quite fortunate as there seems to be quite a few clubs within easy travelling distance by public transport, however I'm struggling to find one that offers IPAS. The airsoft range in Camden is looking like my best bet at the moment.

Out of curiosity what's the name of the Camden range?
I did some IPAS at East Barnet Shooting Club, not sure if they still do it there though.

[Barison82]

At our club we do I.P.A.S
We do not allow bb's of any sort due to ricochets .
Whilst blowback pistols are great fun, we find that most people use the Smith and Wesson revolver, the Walther CP88 competition or the Colt 1911 .
Most of all , enjoy it !

Hi Alakar, where is your club based? I know that the CP88 is excellent. However the 1911 is my favourite pistol design, the classic A1, Series 70 and MEU etc and I just love the way it looks, and I may well end up having to get the .177 Pellet version from Umarex, to give me more choice as to where I can shoot if I want to practice .177 targets. Full Copper Jacket lead BBs by Webley are supposedley low ricochet, but not low enough for 10m target evidently? I've found a dedicated indoor 6mm airsoft range near where I work so it looks like I'm heading in that direction to start off with. At least it's a start as I've got zero experience under my belt as I speak. At the very least, I can learn and practice safe gun handling disciplines and etiquette, and I really do want to practice this until it becomes second nature. My other half is Australian and we have family that we visit out there every year. IPSC with a 9mm (and .45 I think) pistol is still allowed out there as a discipline and there's a local gun shop which stocks 1911s. Handguns are Category H firearms in Oz and there are many hoops you have to go through to get one but at least it's something I could have a chance of doing in the future, if I end up living out there. So IPSC with airsoft might be the best form of practice in this regard. And yes - I do want to enjoy it, above all else, otherwise what's the point!

[Aimstraight]

Looks like a decent S&W 586-6 in sales at the moment. These are very good, reliable and accurate....if you like revolvers.

[eyebull]

Looks like a decent S&W 586-6 in sales at the moment. These are very good, reliable and accurate....if you like revolvers.

The best Umarex pellet replica IMO. They are all revolvers after all, but at least the S+W isn't trying to be something it isn't.
Most accurate, best sights, best trigger, best build, most shots, and most reliable.

[Aimstraight]

The best Umarex pellet replica IMO. They are all revolvers after all, but at least the S+W isn't trying to be something it isn't.
Most accurate, best sights, best trigger, best build, most shots, and most reliable.

I agree, and the one for sale is the more desirable original gloss finish and from a long term bbs member (I have no connection with the sale).

[Geezer]

The best Umarex pellet replica IMO. They are all revolvers after all, but at least the S+W isn't trying to be something it isn't.
Most accurate, best sights, best trigger, best build, most shots, and most reliable.

I agree. But the trigger, on DA, is sometimes annoying.

A real S&W, after the slack is taken up, gives a smooth pressure at a constant pull weight, this unlocks the cylinder, starts rotating it and lifting the hammer, keeps doing that, locks the cylinder, lifts the hammer a bit more, and then releases it, seamlessly. At constant pressure.

The older real Colt DA, by contrast, is different. It "stacks" - gets slowly heavier (doing all that stuff above) and then releases the hammer to fire. With experience, one can pull through quickly to the end of the "stack" and then (fractions of a second later) allow the piece to settle on aim before adding a tiny bit of pressure to fire. But you can not use that technique as quickly and accurately as the S&W without that small pause.

The real S&W is better for very fast DA work. The real Colt is inferior, but, with practice, a user can feel when it is about to fire, and pause there for a micro-second before pulling through to fire, with good results. At least on a range.

The Umarex S&W trigger is smooth, raising the hammer while unlocking and rotating the cylinder, but near the end of the pull it often needs a slight additional pressure to finally rotate and lock the cylinder, which can disturb the aim, before immediately getting slightly lighter and releasing the hammer. This is impossible to manage with complete smoothness and therefore accuracy. Not all of them do this, or if they do, they do it to different degrees. But the inherent timing issues are palpable.

But, for emphasis, the Umarex S&W remains the best of the Umarex pellet guns for accuracy, and for fast accuracy. It is closely run by the CP88 (and to some extent the 92) in both categories in DA, and by most Umarex pistols in slow-fire accuracy (though it still edges them, as a result of better sights, balance, etc - but don't discount a CP99 in single-action, despite its small size and poor sights). The Desert Eagle, with good trigger control by the user, beats it in the "high speed, moderate accuracy" stakes, as it can fire about 50% faster, but with lower ultimate accuracy and much more noise - and it is very gas inefficient.

[Barison82]

When I did Practical Pistol, almost everyone - including me - used Tokyo Marui Hi Capa 5.1's in 6mm bb, using 'green' gas (actually we tended to use higher pressure 'black' gas), modified to one extent or another. A few people tried CO2 but generally it was expensive in caplets, a bit of a hassle, and most of the time ended up smashing the guns to bits. TM hi capas have a vast aftermarket spares industry and are easy to work on. Priority modification is a metal slide because the plastic one will crack if you are using black gas. I liked to keep mine fairly stock-looking (although I did short-stroke it), but some people spent....a LOT of money. A lot. TBH you don't have to, a lot of it is in the mind; Reliability is the most important thing.
At one place I shot practical you could have used a pellet pistol, but if you had done so you would have been at a distinct advantage when it came to speed reloading and pace of fire. BB guns are plenty accurate at the range and for the size of targets you shoot in practical.

For IPAS I used an Umarex S+W 586 - perfect if you have a slightly larger hand. Also a slight advantage in that it is 10-shot. Most other people used a mix of CP88s and 586s, with the odd Umarex 1911 thrown in. Again the Umarex pistols have been around for years so there are plenty of spares available.
Only went to a couple of IPAS matches where BBs were allowed. If outside they suffered greatly in the wind and at longer targets, semi auto was not a massive advantage as far as I could see.

Doing something like IPAS or practical sorts the men from the boys when it comes to pistols. You'll put a hell of a lot of shots through in one day or evening, equivalent to months of normal plinking duty. Anything with reliability issues quickly falls by the wayside. The above will work, a lot of guns won't.

Hi eyebull, thanks for your feedback. I have just purchased another pistol which is an A.W.E 1911 MEU 6mm airsoft - with full trades (Springfield Armory). It is part-by-part compatible with Tokyo Marui, and is full metal, using green gas. I also have a few mods for it (6.03mm tightbore barrel, slide spring, wood grips etc) Reliability is the main thing as you say and this looks like it does 'what it says on the tin', and is easy to maintain. I can't justify spending serious amounts of hard-earned on an airgun, as long as the basic thing is sound and works properly, everything else is a luxury to make it more like 'real steel' but has no real practical purpose. I've seen those Japanese Inokatsu 1911s and whilst they are stunning replicas, some of the prices I've seen (over $2,000 in one case) is insane, for a pistol which fires plastic BBs - a real steel firearm counterpart can cost well under that. Other than making it feel more true to the real thing, it has to my mind, little other practical use.

IPSC/IPAS is the only discipline that really interests me, and I'm a huge fan of the 1911 in all it's incarnations, so I would get more much more enjoyment out of having a 1911 airgun replica as a sidearm for competition shooting, rather than a 'true' air pistol for 10m Olympic target discipline with .177 pellet. Still on the fence about the 1911 pellet variant. The Umarex/KWC 1911s are great because of the availability of parts and they are interchangeable. As you mention, there seems to be little application for 4.5mm BB, which relegates this medium largely to back garden plinking etc. But it's interesting to hear you mention their accuaracy if used on the range, as I've read other comments where it's said BBs are not accurate. I'd love to shoot indoor IPSC/IPAS at 10m with 4.5mm BB as well, which means I can use a GBB pistol and I feel that in this environment, tight groupings could be achieved. But it doesn't seem like it's an accepted standard generally.

[eyebull]

IPSC/IPAS is the only discipline that really interests me, and I'm a huge fan of the 1911 in all it's incarnations, so I would get more much more enjoyment out of having a 1911 airgun replica as a sidearm for competition shooting, rather than a 'true' air pistol for 10m Olympic target discipline with .177 pellet. Still on the fence about the 1911 pellet variant. The Umarex/KWC 1911s are great because of the availability of parts and they are interchangeable. As you mention, there seems to be little application for 4.5mm BB, which relegates this medium largely to back garden plinking etc. But it's interesting to hear you mention their accuaracy if used on the range, as I've read other comments where it's said BBs are not accurate. I'd love to shoot indoor IPSC/IPAS at 10m with 4.5mm BB as well, which means I can use a GBB pistol and I feel that in this environment, tight groupings could be achieved. But it doesn't seem like it's an accepted standard generally.

Sadly while the Umarex 1911 (pellet) looks much like a 1911 in pictures, it doesn't really shoot like one. It feels quite 'fat' in the hand and the trigger is an odd two-part affair. So I'd try before you buy if possible. It's probably the least accurate of their replicas.

Yes 4.5mm BB is a bit useless if you want to take it places. Nothing wrong with their accuracy at IPAS and IPSC ranges however.
TBH you're much better served in the airsoft world though - massive variety of models that have been around for years, lots of people shooting them under rough conditions so plenty of feedback if it doesn't stand up. A Tanfoglio Witness 1911 despite being a very faithful replica doesn't bear any comparison to a TM 1911 for reliability or aftermarket support - try getting 7 or 8 mags for a Witness!

It's a shame that IPAS and IPSC ended up being somewhat segregated when it came to guns. As niche sports I felt they could both have benefited with a wider variety of pistols in use. There were times in IPAS when a true semi-auto would have been blisteringly fast, and times in IPSC when the accuracy of a pellet shooter wold have made all the difference.