The Challenger Arms Corporation Plainsman (pneumatic) air pistol...

[DT Fletcher]

"It appears that the rifle might also have been designed to be used with a CO2 bulk fill cylinder too although I am unable to physically verify this."

The bulk-fill versions of the Plainsman rifles do exist but are rare. I have one of the shotguns setup for bulk fill. These came late in the life of Plainsman, after the move to Pennsylvania, as mentioned.

Although there is no real way of verifying it, I believe that my Goodenow Plainsman bulk-fill CO2 shotgun, with only a single known example, to be one of the rarest of all vintage American airguns.

"The barrel is finely rifled steel and was available in .177 as well as .22 caliber's...."

I have been told by US Plainsman expert that no example of the .177 pneumatic pistol has ever been found.

"There are various rumours of what happened between the closure of Challenger Arms Corporation and the rebirth of the Plainsman by the Goodenow Manufacturing Corporation in 1954."

Yes. I entirely agree, there is no reliable information on the Goodenow operation. One interesting piece of information discovered by Larry Hannusch and confirmed from mine and other's experience is that the Goodenow guns invariably had walnut stocks.

To add an interesting side story, early on in my collecting of vintage airguns, I picked up a bulk-fill CO2 Plainsman rifle and called Larry H. about it. He was adamant that no such Plainsman model was known to exist. Larry did some remarkable investigative work on Plainsman/Apache so it was hard to doubt his word, but, he was indeed wrong. What had happened is that Larry's knowledge came exclusively from his sources in Los Angeles. The bulk-fill CO2 models didn't come about until Goodenow which Larry had and has nothing on.

Note: the Plainsman CO2 rifles tended to badly rust with use, so, almost certainly many of those made eventually found their way to the dump because of the rusted condition. The single shot described to Larry was covered in rust. The shotgun I have looks likes it has never fired a shot, so, it's remarkably clean.