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Not just powerful, this gun is accurate, consistent, high shot count, ergonomic and has a fast action! Jim Chapman Hello all, I’ve just returned home from the SHOT Show, and leave tomorrow for a week in Europe. I wanted to drop a quick note on the status of the Hatsan Piledriver before departing. My production gun arrived a couple days before I left for Las Vegas so I haven’t been able to start shooting and testing it but will do so on my return home. Some news from the SHOT Show, the first production run of the Piledriver .457 has arrived in the USA and will be used to fulfill current orders and ship to primary dealers. So, I’d expect to see guns in shooters hands soon. The .50 production run is in progress with first shipment expected before end of March. I believe Pyramyd Airguns will be the first to have them at listed price of $1179.00. A couple things I’d not mentioned in that first video: the Piledriver uses the 2-stage adjustable Quattro trigger. Onboard air storage is a 480cc carbon fiber tank that fills to 300 BAR. Though the barrel is 33″ in length, the bullpup design allows for a more compact LOA. This configuration sets the action back into the stock and keeps most of the weight centered which I’ve found great for offhand shooting. The black polymer stock is a fully adjustable thumbhole design. This rifle received a lot of attention at the show, andRead More →

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I was out in Texas on a multi-day hunt, and at the end had been invited to the TM Exotics and Whitetail Ranch to hunt Aoudad, also known as Barbary Sheep. TM Exotics along with Operation Pay It Forward had set up a hunt for veterans, and the opportunity to hunt with this group was one I looked forward to. Come along and check this hunt out, it was a really good hunt, and my AirForce Texan saved the day for me. I had a prototype custom .457 that had a technical problem right before the hunt, and had to switch from a 700 fpe .457 to a 170 fpe .308 at the last minute….. you need to check out the result!Read More →

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This is not a review, but more a reflection on my Quackenbush Big Bore Rifles, and why they mean so much to me. I’m often asked what my favorite big bore airgun is, and that’s not an easy question. I have several, shoot many more, and find that my answer is constantly shifting based on the most recent experience in the field. I really like my Bushbuck .457 carbine that was built for me by Airguns of Arizona and set up with bullets cast especially for the rifle by my hunting buddy Kip Perow. It’s accurate, very powerful, rugged, compact….. but it is also very heavy, which may or may not be an issue depending on where and what I’m hunting. I’ve been using the AirForce Texan a lot lately, in a variety of calibers including ,257, .308, .357, and .457, and find these guns very efficient and powerful hunting guns, and truth be told I probably use these more than any other big bore right now. The Texans are accurate when set up properly, they are very powerful, and the carbines are compact. There are several other big bores from Hatsan, Seneca (especially with AirBolts), Profesional Big Bores, and others that I like and use. Depending on the shooter and the intended use, any of these is a viable hunting gun….. maybe the perfect gun for you. But the big bore airgun that generates the most emotional response from me are the Quackenbush rifles. I have long stated thatRead More →

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I’ve been using the AirForce Texan quite a bit lately to hunt everything from Turkey to Whitetail. I have rifle and/or carbine versions of the .257, .308, .357, and .457, and have found myself gravitating more to these as my go to guns for bigger game, finding that across the board they offer the right balance of accuracy, power, shot count, and tactile response of the trigger. I also have come to appreciate the ability to dial in the optimal power setting for a specific bullet, which I think of as the airgunners equivalent of powder burners hand-loading for their rifles. I’ve had several of my rifles barrels cut down, re-crowned, and set up with a suppressor to quiet them down for shooting in areas that might be noise sensitive. The addition of the suppressor not only quieted the gun down, but brought it back to about the same overall length. But with my .457 carbine, I didn’t care about noise, instead wanting to have the most compact and powerful brush gun I could come up with. As a disclaimer, I will do a video and a write up later to go into the range work and optimizing the performance, in this short post I’ll just tell you about a couple of simple things I did to optimize it for my use. The first thing I added was the Covert Clutch Universal Tactical grip sleeve, which is a rubber sheath with a raised pattern that provides a solid grip thatRead More →

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In 2017 I was back in South Africa for a couple weeks of hunting with Rob and Andrew (Hounslow Safari’s), and on this hunt took the Ataman .30 caliber pcp air rifle into the field after a springbok, one of the small African antelope that are the perfect blend of size, wariness, and speed to make for a very challenging hunt. Andrew and I patterned this herd and set up an ambush along a ridge they regularly traveled. A couple groups passed by, but I couldn’t get a shot. After a couple hours of stalking and setting up, the chance finally came!Read More →