Is The Springer Dead? Pyramyd Air’s 2020 Top Selling Air Rifles

Pyramyd Air has announced its 2020 top selling air rifles list. And for the first time EVER, there’s no spring/piston airgun in the list!

Given Pyramyd Air’s status as the world’s largest online airgun dealer, this is a clear indication of the way Internet shoppers are buying air rifles. It looks as if online, mass-market sales for spring/piston air rifles has gone away.

But this is not a sudden change. As our chart above shows, in 2017, half of Pyramyd Air’s top selling air rifles were spring/piston powered. That proportion had dropped to 20% by 2017. In 2020, it was precisely Zip. They were gone!

What we see instead is a rise of PCPs and CO2-powered guns. In 2020, half of the company’s 2020 top selling air rifles were PCPs. Fourty per cent were CO2-powered.

That’s a seismic change in the US online airgun market. It looks as if volume sales of spring/piston air rifles are now the preserve of the big box stores, where the “Zillion FPS for $100” style of Value Proposition still lures walk-in buyers.

Pellets or BBs?

When we look at the ammunition these air rifles use, we see another interesting change.

The seemingly-inexorable rise in the proportion of BB-shooters in Pyramyd’s top selling air rifles list has been reversed. At least for now. In 2020, 70% of the top-selling rifles fire pellets – if you consider the Crosman M4-177 to be a primarily pellet-firing airgun.

Even if we rank the M4-177 as primarily a BB shooter, the pellet gun proportion is still 60%. Either way, it’s a big reversal from the year before, when 60% fired BBs.

Why the change? Just possibly pandemic lockdowns made more people more interested in plinking and informal target shooting, rather than the selective-fire fun that the DPMS, MP40 and Tommy Gun represent, even though 6 out of the 10 2020 top selling air rifles are centerfire lookalikes.

Manufacturers Rankings

Then there’s the change in winners among the manufacturers…

2020 was a huge success for Velocity Outdoor. Its Crosman and Benjamin brands took no less than four out of the top 10 places. In 2019, the company only placed once.

Umarex dropped slightly to hold three of the top ten positions. But the big looser has been Gamo/Daisy – these brands are owned by the same company, of course.

Gamo and Daisy have held at least two top ten places ever since HAM began tracking Pyramyd’s data back in 2015. From  2017 to 2019, they consistently held three out of the top ten slots. In 2020 – nothing! So, a big hit for Gamo/Daisy. It will be interesting to see if they can recover from this setback in 2021…

2020 Top Selling Air Rifles

1. Crosman DPMS SBR

Pole position in Pyramyd Air’s top selling air rifles 2020 list is the Crosman DPMS SBR. This held first place in 2019, too. Hard Air Magazine is not surprised by this. We tested the very similar Bushmaster MPW (also from Crosman) and it earned a HAM Gold Award.

BUY FROM PYRAMYD AIR
Crosman DPMS SBR Full-Auto BB Air Rifle 0.177

2. Air Venturi Avenger

Another HAM Gold Award winner! It’s a The HAM Team believes that this is a game-changing product that will revolutionize the $300-level PCP market (and possibly beyond) for those enthusiasts who want to use a variety of regulator pressures in their PCP air rifle.

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Air Venturi Avenger, Regulated PCP Air Rifle 0.177

3. Umarex Gauntlet

Pyramyd Air’s top-selling PCP for 2019 was also a HAM Gold Award winner! This is it’s second year as the top PCP in this list and has now clearly replaced the Benjamin Marauder as Pyramyd Air’s top-selling PCP air rifle.

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Umarex Gauntlet PCP Air Rifle, Synthetic Stock 0.25

Finally, here’s the complete list…