Airguns At The SHOT Show 2016 Day 3 Report
Today I rushed straight to the Air Venturi booth looking to see one of the most exciting new airguns at the SHOT Show 2016 – the Air Arms Galahad bullpup PCP air rifle.
This Air Arms Galahad will soon be available in a variety of different models. There’s beech, walnut and black “soft touch” stocks. The black stock is actually not synthetic, but is beech, sprayed with a tactile black rubberized surface. The cheek piece of all models is finished in the soft touch material and this feels good against the face.
Below, Sheila Cooper from Air Arms shows off the beech stock model.
177 cal, .22 and .25 calibers will be available and there is the option of a regulated action, the primary benefit being a significant increase in the shot count per fill.
Although final US pricing is not yet set for the Air Arms Galahad, Air Venturi told us to expect pricing in the $1,800 range. Claire West, the Managing Director of Air Arms, said that production guns should be available around the May timeframe.
The Galahad is cocked by an unusual forward-rotating lever. See the photo above. This felt very convenient and easier to use than the normal “cocking lever in the ear” feeling of many side lever bullpups. The cocking lever can easily be swapped by the user from the left side to the right – making it truly ambidextrous.
There’s a carbine version, too, as you can see below. This was even easier to handle and point than the standard version, due obviously due to the short barrel. US spec versions of the Galahad will feature a silencer, of course. There’s also a choice of Weaver/Picatinny and airgun rails for scope mounting.
The Galahad’s butt pad is adjustable vertically. Spacers can be fired between the stock and the butt pad to increase the length of pull.
Looks are, of course, a very personal decision. My view is that the Air Arms Galahad is a very attractive bullpup air rifle. The subtle curves of the Italian Minelli stock combine with gentle curves of the breech/receiver to make an airgun that is very different from the standard “blocky” looks displayed by many other bullpups.
Close to the Air Venturi booth at the SHOT Show is Predator International LLC, the US importers and distributors of Predator Polmag and JSB pellets. New JSB pellets being shown at the show were .30 caliber version of the Polymags and a giant, new .457 caliber, 234 grain JSB pellet.
Many people may not know that JSB is actually a family company. Here the new pellets are being displayed by two of the owners, Hana Polednikova and her son-in-law Pavel Kolebac. They had travelled from the Czech Republic to attend the SHOT Show.
Among the unexpected new airguns at the SHOT Show 2016, was this Kar 98K air rifle lookalike, seen on the Diana booth.
Herr Zedler, the Managing Director of Diana, is shown above holding this model. He reminded me that Kar89k-type air rifles had been made in the past as military trainers, so this is not an entirely new concept. He said that this new gun will be marketed as a Mauser (of course) and that it is actually based on the Diana 460 underlever air rifle.
Although I planned to cover the Ataman PCP range being carried in the US by Pyramyd Air today, shortage of space means that we’ll cover these very interesting models in our next report on new airguns at The SHOT Show 2016.
