The Pneuma is a new rifle that is being imported and distributed in North America by UMAREX. I had a chance to look at this compact hunting rifle at the SHOT Show this year, and arranged to have one sent out as soon as the first shipment hit our shores to see what it could do. The gun looked promising on the exposition floor, had a rich feature set, and was priced to allow positioning in the sparsely populated sub $500.00 range of guns. All in all it looked to be an interesting gun in our market, though looks would not be worth the proverbial hill of beans without the requisite performance.
But before getting into a discussion on performance, let’s take a look at the standard gun. The Pneuma I received was dressed in a black synthetic thumbhole stock, with a textured pistol grip and an adjustable butt plate. I am a left hander that shoots right handed, but I have enough dexterity to shoot left handed, albeit far less accurately, and can attest that it is a truly ambidextrous stock. I like the bilateral shelf on the pistol grip which cradles and supports, but does not restrict, the trigger finger. Overall the stock is quite compact and with the ability to adjust the elevation and angle of the butt pad comes nicely to the shoulder.
The gun comes equipped with Truglo open fiber optic sights (red in the front and green in the rear), which gives a good target acquisition even in marginal lighting. Both the front and rear site are adjustable and I found them very usable, though I do prefer a scope on my hunting rifles. And to this end, the incorporated rail allowed me to mount a 3-9x32 scope using low profile rings that offered up a good sight alignment. I think a clever design feature is that the grooved receiver accepts is both 11mm and 22 mm scope mounts, which was especially nice when I realized that I had no 11 mm mounts for a 30 mm scope available but had some 22mm that worked fine.
The trigger is a two stage adjustable that came set up with almost no creep in the first stage, and a crisp second stage break at just less than 3 lb. While the ergonomics and tactile response of the gun is pretty good, I don’t really care for the aesthetics of the gold plated trigger, though that’s a pretty minor complaint. The safety is mounted at the rear of the reservoir tube below the receiver and is the push pull type seen on the recent model Webley Patriot rifle. Pull it back to deploy and forward to shoot. The safety does not automatically set when the gun is cocked and must be manually deployed, which is my preference in a hunting gun.
The air reservoir is mounted under the barrel and can be filled via a filling port on the distal end, and the reservoir can also be dismounted. This configuration would conceivably allow a hunter to carry an extra reservoir in the field, which would have value in some field situations. The reservoir fills to 200 BAR (2900 psi), and the fill pressure is monitored by a manometer positioned just forward of the loading port. The gun is shipped with both the filling probe and a bleed valve for use when the reservoir is removed from the gun. I did not use the supplied probe, as I found the probe from my Webley Raider worked fine.
The barrel is threaded and capped with a synthetic muzzle cap, which allowed mounting of after-market accessories. The barrel is 20” in length, and attaches at the receiver and by two barrel bands located at the distal end of the forestock. These bands not only stabilize the barrel but also serve to guide and cradle the reservoir when being removed or remounted.
So the gun looked good, felt good, the mechanics and ergonomics were appealing, the trigger functioned well if not meeting my sense of aesthetics, and over all left me with a good impression. The next step was the one that counted and would determine if I brought the gun out hunting or not. I moved down to my indoor 10 meter range to shoot groups with a selection of pellets and velocities over my Pro Chrony set up.
Shooting Characteristics
I mounted the scope, and then using my bore sighter to get the gun on paper grabbed some JSBs to see where it printed. The first three shots punched a single hole in the bullseye, the shoot placement was luck, but the group size was not! As I went through the first session shooting several 6 shot groups with five different pellets, the accuracy was really pretty impressive yielding several one hole groups. The next day when I moved out to shoot on my covered 25 yard range I obtained groups of less than .25” with all brands of pellets shot (RWS Superdomes, Beeman Kodiak Extra Heavies, Beeman FTs, Wielrauch Magnums, and JSB Exacts). As I often point out, I am a fairly good shot but not one of these bullseye shooting machines. I’m pretty sure the rifle can outshoot me, but I’m a field shooter and the Pneuma provided what I want in a gun.
Shooting the same group of pellets over the chronograph the highest velocities were obtained with the RWS Superdomes, however the Superdomes, Beeman FTs, and JSB Exacts all hovered around an average velocity of 940 fps with Magnum and Kodiaks coming in at 820 and 836 fps respectively. This is no surprise as these are the heaviest pellets as well.
I did a couple sixty shot strings; the Superdomes yielded a maximum velocity of 999 fps and a minimum of 678 for an average velocity of 887 fps with a deviation of 84fps. What I found impressive was that while measuring velocity all sixty pellets went into a twenty five yard group that could be covered by a dime.
In this one session I put approximately 500 pellets through the Pneuma from the bench and had a pretty good opportunity to get acquainted with its shooting characteristics before heading out to the woods.
Hunting!
On a cold and dizzily morning I loaded up my hunting gear and headed down south to hunt on a buddy’s farm. I was after the last of the season’s squirrels before settling in to wait for warmer weather and my next trips out west where the season never ends on jackrabbits and rockchucks.
Of course I was taking the Pneuma along, and for this hunt I’d swapped optics and was now using the Leapers Acushot scope with a 30mm tube, a great scope for low light hunting. This is where the versatile mounting options on the Pneuma paid off. The only rings I had for a 30mm tube required a 22 mm mount. . I had never thought about it before, but it is strange more manufacturers don’t configure their guns for either 11mm or 22 mm mounts. The pellets I selected were the Beeman FTs, figuring this gave a good balance of velocity, accuracy, and terminal performance. I’d also thrown my range finder, binoculars, and shooting sticks into the pack, and was ready for a morning slosh through the cold, wet woods.
As I stepped out of the car, the first thing I heard was a squirrel barking off in the distance. I pulled out my glasses, and there in a tree about a hundred yards away spotted two squirrels running up and down the branches of a large walnut tree. I made my way towards the spot using the surrounding trees to cover my approach. At 50 yards, I slipped around a big oak and spotted one of the squirrels sitting up in a fork in the branches about 20 feet up. I slowly sat down and perched the forestock of the pneuma on my telescoping bipod and placed the crosshair just a tad high on his head. I pulled in a breath of the freezing air, let half out slowly, and squeezed the trigger. The bushytail slumped forward and dropped out of the tree. I sat waiting for about ten minutes, giving the second squirrel an opportunity to put in an appearance, which he never did.
I spent a couple more hours spot and stalk hunting, and collected a second fox squirrel and the first gray of the day before calling it quits. I get to hunt quite a bit, and do a lot of big game and predator hunting, but still think a day out in the woods after squirrels with an airgun is about as good as it gets. The skill required to move in on a squirrel in the woods, offers a lot more challenge than you might expect if you’d never tried it.
So how would I rate this gun as a hunting rifle? It carried well, and I found it to be compact and light. If it hadn’t been a loaner gun and I could have mounted a sling, it would have been even better. The stock is very ergonomic and I was able to shoot well standing, sitting, and kneeling with and without shooting sticks. I thought the gun cycled smoothly and quickly, and was easy to load without taking the gun down from my shoulder. The gun was of average loudness for a moderately powerful pcp, which is still a fraction of the sound signature experienced with a rimfire. On the way back I stopped by the house and asked if they’d heard me shooting, and though I’d only been a hundred yards away for one of the shots nobody had heard me. I liked the Pneuma a lot; I’d expected a decent level of performance but found the gun performed at a level I’d expect out of a more expensive product. In a way, the feel of the gun was reminiscent of the Webley Raider, very shootable and easy to mount. I am glad to see more pcp guns becoming available in this price range, and think it will only help to grow the ranks of airgun enthusiast. At under $500 I believe this gun offers a good value for money, and should gain a following amongst hunters that want a quality performer at a reasonable price.
