Air Pistol Shooting by John Bezzant

Author:John Bezzant [Bezzant, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crowood
Published: 2013-12-09T22:00:00+00:00

The slide – as with the firearm version – cocks the hammer in the rearwards part of the blowback cycle, allowing for true semi-automatic fire to be delivered.

This pistol operates like the firearm version in respect of the movable slide that, in response to blow back, cocks the hammer. The magazine feed, however, is an entirely different type to that of the firearm version. The rotating drum on top of the stick magazine used in the PX4 is like the rotating cylinder of a revolver in that the mechanical force for its rotation is derived from the squeezing of the trigger, and the pellet is fired from its housing in the drum much as the bullet in a revolver is fired from the chamber in the cylinder and not from the breech; the pistol performs no loading function. The mechanism whereby the trigger rotates the drum on the end of the magazine is well engineered so that it operates very lightly, offering an insignificant level of increased load to the trigger pull.

If you have this pistol set up with an empty magazine and no CO2 capsule in place, and you thumb-cock the hammer, point the ­pistol in a safe direction and very gently apply pressure to the trigger, you will hear a click when the trigger has completed its first stage of travel and then, as you take the trigger to the full extent of its pull, the hammer will drop. That first click is the drum at the head of the magazine being rotated by the trigger, with almost imperceptible pressure required. Consequently, if you have the pistol aimed at a target when you carry out this experiment you will see that during this first stage of the trigger’s travel there is no perceptible disturbance, and hence no deviation from the sight line. You have just operated the pistol in single-action mode; that is to say that the hammer was cocked by a means other than trigger action.

Now carry out another experiment with this pistol. Again have it set up with no CO2 capsule loaded and an empty ­magazine in the magazine well. This time have the hammer down and again apply gentle trigger pressure. The instant you apply pressure you should feel a more marked resistance; work against that resistance until you again hear that first click as the drum rotates, then increase pressure on the trigger until it raises and then drops the hammer. You have just operated the pistol in double-action mode; that is to say that the hammer has been cocked by means of trigger pressure, and you should have noted that more pressure is need with the trigger squeeze to overcome the work that the trigger now has to perform.

Operating most CO2 pistols’ double action creates a degree of movement off the sight line, but if you aim the PX4 at a target the size of a 5p coin and establish a sight line you will note that even when operated double action there is no perceptible drift off the sight line.

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