PCPs Everywhere at the IWA Show 2016

If there had been any doubt in your mind about where all the latest developments in airguns are headed, it’s high pressure air. There were PCPs everywhere at the IWA Show 2016!

Our heading photograph above shows Karl Egger, the General Manager of Austrian manufacturer Steyr, holding the interesting – and expensive! – Steyr Hunting SA air rifle. This five-shot semi-automatic air rifle can put .177 or .22 caliber pellets downrange as fast as you can pull the trigger. Moreover, Herr Egger says that this is accomplished with great accuracy and up to 29.5 Ft/Lb of muzzle energy.

Steyr also had a good range of PCP precision target pistols displayed at the show.

At the other end of the PCP spectrum, Crosman showed the new Benjamin Maximus air rifle. This is based on the Discovery with modifications to bring the price down even further. It should be available soon – maybe May 2016.

Another company with high end PCPs everywhere is German manufacturer Anschutz. Below we see President Jochen Anschutz proudly displaying his company’s Model 9015 precision target rifle.

Pardus is a Turkish airgun manufacturer that has a range of PCP air rifles (and some springers also). Here we see Agah Umut Guzel – Pardus’ Export Chief, showing the Pardus BPA bullpup model.

Hatsan also had PCPs everywhere at the IWA Show 2016. The wide new range of Hatsan PCP air rifles was covered in our 2016 SHOT Show report. Just to add a little color, some of these new models were shown at IWA with colored stocks as an alternative to the ubiquitous black.

The only major manufacturer I saw really pushing break barrel air rifles hard was Gamo. Their range is still dominated by spring/piston and gas ram air rifles, with only the Coyote as a PCP offering. But it is fair to say, however, that Gamo’s British subsidiary – BSA Guns Ltd – does have a strong range of PCPs, as we reported yesterday.

Another company with PCPs everywhere at the IWA Show 2016 was Feinwerkbau. Although we covered their guns in an earlier report, it was interesting to look at these two engineering cutaways showing the actions of their 800X air rifle and an air pistol.

And German manufacturer Walther had PCPs everywhere too at the IWA Show 2016. Just look at this rack of PCP target rifles!

With so much PCP development obviously happening with almost every airgun manufacturer, it was interesting to note that I saw very few new products to create and store the high pressure air PCPs need. The first company to commercialize a simple, low cost, reliable, high pressure air filling device that’s practical to use and – preferably – not a hand pump is going to really clean up in future!