Stoeger X20 Wood .177 Break Barrel Air Rifle Review

It is not very often that I go and buy something that I haven't researched thoroughly, but sometimes, these things happen. A gal will go out window shopping and come back with bags and bags of new stuff, or a guy will go to the local Best Buy and come home with a GPS and a new PDA. Heck, my Dad pulled one on my Mom years ago, when he went out and bought a new vehicle and she was surprised to see this new butt-ugly gold minivan in the driveway.

I am not that bad, but I suppose I have inherited a bit of my Dad's occasional spontaneity in terms of shopping habits. Surprisingly, what I ended up buying was something that I would normally read a lot about. Good air rifles aren't exactly cheap and with Canadian firearm licensing laws, there's a bit of an administrative hassle in purchasing an air rifle, so you would think I would exhibit a bit of research when I bought my Stoeger X20 Wood .177 Break Barrel air rifle very, very recently.

I am sure I am not the only one who has noticed that the X20 looks very nice asthetically - frankly, this was the first drawing point for me - which is no surprise, since men tend to be visually-oriented; case in point: there is a Diana air rifle (50 or 60-something that is like, over $550.00), but it is the most butt-ugly thing you have ever seen - for that reason alone, I would not buy it. But the Steoger X20 that I bought has a hardwood montel-carlo style stock with checkering (also comes in camo as well as synthetic), has a modern look to it, has an onboard muzzle break, and the inclusion of a 3-9x40mm scope seems to make the price tag of $250.00 more palatable, especially during the cash-strapped Christmas period. Truth be told, my finances took a dive this year, as was the same with most people's pocketbooks, but with the cost of guns and ammo rising this Fall and the expectation that it will continue to rise with an Obama (yech!) administration come next year, it was a good time to buy it.

Having to break the news to my wife that I was planning on buying myself a Christmas present was, I assumed, the hard part. She is not big on guns, but tolerates them enough to respect my interests. To my surprise, she offered to come with me to the gun store to pick it up, our baby daughter in tow.

The fellow I deal with at the gun shop said that I came at the right time - there was only one wood one left. They had received about 15-20 the week before and they went like hotcakes. That, to me, was a good sign. Of course, he said, these are still relatively new offerings and Stoeger isn't really a known brand for airguns (unlike established brands like Gamo, Crosman, Daisy, Beeman, RWS/Diana, etc.) In fact, he hasn't even had a chance to check them out since they've gone so quickly. Since I had the day off work and had another hour before I had to pick my son up from school, I said to him, he can feel free to open the box and check out the look and feel of the gun if he wants - I'm in no rush.

OK, some specs on this gun. It is a .177 caliber break barrel, advertised velocity is 1000FPS with lead, 1200FPS with light alloy (ie. the Gamo PBA ammo). Obviously, due to its velocity, one would need a firearms licence to buy the X20 in Canada. The only Stoeger air rifle that shoots under 500FPS (no gun licence required) is the X5 series. Anyway, the X20 features fibre optic sights, a rear safety like my Hammerli 850 which I like (not a trigger-type safety), two-stage trigger, and the aforementioned muzzle break and wood. The weight is around 7lbs. I mentioned the scope already and the first thing I noticed about this scope is that it was not mounted like the Stoeger marketing material said. My buddy at the gun shop had to double check the marketing specs to confirm it came with a scope and then subsequently realized that the scope was included, but separately in a small box with the package (the scope was not padded in any way). The box itself was a standard air rifle box - flap opened and the packaging / insulation was nothing to write home about (unlike my Hammerli 850 which has perhaps the best packaging of any airgun/air rifle I have seen).

There obviously isn't much testing you can do in the store itself, and upon confirming that everything seemed to be in order, I bought the thing, with my wife standing beside me, looking at the mounted deer head in the gunshop as well as the the Remington marine magnum 12-gauge that I was racking when she walked in. My little daughter seemed mesmerized by all the rifles sitting in the racks, but even she had her fill of sitting in the gunshop with me, listening to my buddy and I talk all manner of firearms.

Took it home and mounted the scope, which did not take too much effort since it came with the rings and mounts and all. Also read through the manual, which is considerably thicker than it needed to be, since it has the same 10 or so pages in a number of other languages. With the scope mounted, I took the air rifle in my hands it was pretty heavy (remember, I'm only around 5' 5", 140lbs), and the rifle is about 7lbs without the scoope. Since I had some vacation days, I decided to use a half-day to run some errands, not the least of which was going to a local range to try out the X20.

Now, I can tell you a few things definitively. One is that I found it difficult to cock this rifle - probably my size and lack of upper body and arm strength no doubt, but as this was my first 1000FPS+ air rifle, maybe that had something to do with it. I also own a Gamo Viper Express air shotgun/.22 cal break barrel that shoots around 750FPS with .22 cal pellets, and that is nowhere near as hard to break as this one. The spring is either very strong, or I am not. Anyway, that surprised me a bit. Anyhow, I sort of sighted in the X20 and went to work testing it. I used standard Crosman .177 wadcutters as as Crosman .177 Premiers, and also Gamo Master Point .177 pellets.

I can also tell you that when I used the Crosman pellets, the X20 was considerably loud. Now, at the range, I am mandated to wear ear protection and I had on a pair of Browning ear protectors and slip over the head. Of course, being so near to Christmas, there wasn't anyone else at the range when I was there and so I thought I'd take off the muffs for a minute to see how loud the X20 was. Let's just say that I wish I hadn't have done that - it rung my ears and gave me a headache that didn't go away for a few hours. Now, it could have been my reduced hearing, but the Gamo pellets seem to be slightly less loud when fired. I know that for sure, since every Crosman pellet fired without the hearing protection gave me a sharp pain in the ears. This may have been due to the shape/manufacturing of the Crosmans, the fact that the X20 was dieseling (burning off excess oil/grease when shot), or just naturally loud. Probably should have cleaned it before shooting, but I didn't.

Accuracy. The range was around 50 yards or so. I won't get into measurements for my groupings, since I am hardly sniper-caliber, but let's just say I was overall somewhat pleased by the accuracy of the rifle, given the fact that I was giving my arms an extreme workout cocking this thing, I did OK. I did have to make some minor adjustments with the elevation, but other than that, it was a good experience.

I found that the trigger pull was a bit heavy - I am not sure and don't remember if the trigger is adjustable, but I did find that the trigger could be lighter.

I imagine that this rifle was designed for hunting rather than target shooting, given its power and weight. But for what I paid, I can't see anything that would have soured me on the rifle.

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FEBRUARY 2009 UPDATE: Since my original review, I have read some more about the rifle and some other reviews as well. My original review stands as it is, even though I have since found out that while the rifle may have been designed by Italian Engineers (I believe Stoeger is owned by Benelli), the actual unit was made in China. Now, I know that Chinese airguns have a love 'em or hate 'em type of following, but I haven't really seen anything from a qualitative standpoint that would make me dislike this gun. Further, I have read others who have written about issues regarding mounting the scope but I did not have the same problems - perhaps Stoeger fixed the earlier problems their later releases. I have also heard that the X20 is pretty much a rebranded BAM (Chinese brand) XS-B19 since the parts diagram is almost identical, but without experiece with the B19, I can't comment further.