Hammerli Air Magnum 850 .22 Caliber CO2 Rifle Review

Well, it's been a few weeks since I last posted. I've since become a father once again (yay!), so I've been taking it easy for the online activities. Anyhow, I have a few moments between diaper changes and such, and since my son is sick today, I'm home with him. He's napping now, so I have an opportunity to get back into the swing of posting here.

Well, lots to post about, and we can talk parenthood and fatherhood and childrearing and what not in future posts for sure, but for the avid air gun and air rifle enthusiasts out there, I want to make sure I put a review in your hands of what I consider to be the absolute best air rifle that I have owned thus far. It is the RWS (rebranded Hammerli by Umarex) Air Magnum 850, in 22 caliber. This is, without a doubt, the sweetest shooting CO2-powered rifle one can get their hands on. In Canada, this baby requires you to have a gun licence, or a PAL, so if you want one of these, go for your CFSC safety course and exams and be prepared to wait a bit, not to mention the mandatory registration of this rifle with the Canadian federal long-gun registry.

First, a little about the rifle. It is an all-black synthetic stock CO2 rifle, which uses an 88gram canister. I guess for those who play paintball, you'd be used to 88g markers, but make no mistake, this ain't no paintball gun, folks (the fact that you need a firearms licence to possess would make that obvious). It comes in .177 and .22 caliber, but why anyone would want the .177, I do not know. It weights around 5.5lbs, and is a little over 40" long (maybe 43 or 44"). It has rails built-in, should you wish to add scoping optics. It uses an 8-round cylinder magazine, which is extremely well made. It also features and automatic safety, and it uses a bolt action system. The factory specs on velocity for .177 and .22 are 760FPS and 655FPS respectively. On a 88g cartridge, the manufacturers say that you can get around 200 shots with it.

At around $250.00 + tax, this rifle is not one of the cheaper ones. But once you get the box in your hands, you'll know that like anything else, if you want quality, you're going to have to pay for it. The rifle arrives in a fairly large box, which upon closer inspection is actually a fitted foam box with an outer wrap-around cardboard shell. Regardless, you should know that your rifle will not arrive damaged. It is packaged really well, with the rifle itself being wrapped in a plastic bag, and includes a nice big bag of silica salt to ward off moisture (of course, I just bought a huge box of silica salt the week before, but that is neither here nor there). It comes with a manual, and two 8-shot magazines. You'll have to buy your own CO2, but that's OK, since they're around five to six bucks per 88g canister.

The feel and weight of the gun is really good, even for my stature. The CO2 is inserted in the front of the gun in compartment, of which the snappable plastic cover removes quite easily (the downside is that it feels a little too plasticky and can eventually break). The CO2 canister is screwed in tightly and then turned about a 1/4 turn counterclockwise (don't worry, the gas will only leak for about one second). Now, with 200 shots, you're probably thinking whether it's wise to get this, since you may not use 200 shots and as such, be releasing the rest of the gas out, wasting it. I know of this concern, as I had it myself, but in looking further and talking with airgun experts, it is actually OK to leave your CO2 cartridges in your rifles and pistols, despite what the manufacturers say. More damage can be done to the O-rings if you were to release the gas manually, freezing the rings. Besides, leaving the gas cartridges in the gun keeps the seals from drying out, and dust out as well. I've done this with no adverse effect on any of my CO2 guns. Still, if you're ultra-paranoid, you can always buy the additional attachment that allows you to use two (2) 12g cartridges instead of a single 88g unit. However, the adapter runs around $100.00, and in my opinion, is not a worthwhile expenditure.

The automatic safety is right on the back of the breech, and you need to manually disengage it with your thumb before taking the next shot (it's a two-stage safety, more or less, with a bigger external button and one inset button that have to be pressed to disengage the safety). This is OK the first time, but when you have to do this 100+ times in a row, it gets a bit annoying.

The bolt, I will have to say, is one of the nicest features on the rifle. It is a huge side bolt and pulls back very nicely. The cylinder magazine is loaded from the left hand side and is locked into place by a switch on the same side. The rifle features fiber-optic sights, but no doubt you'll want to put a scope on this thing. Another additional item you can add is the muzzle-brake, to give it a more tactical look (my wife thought it looked like a silencer, but it's not, since silencers are illegal in Canada).

OK, performance. I found that out of the box, the 850 Air Magnum will shoot around 620FPS when chronied. Now, for a firearms-grade airgun, that may seem rather low, but this is not a hunting rifle, and you can't expect supersonic performance with CO2 anyway. This is probably the fastest and most powerful CO2-powered gun you can buy. Of course, bear in mind that with CO2, the faster you shoot a repeating airgun, the lower your velocity will drop. So while you can probably train yourself to cycle the bolt and safety pretty quickly, don't expect consistent velocity as a result. This rifle's use is really in plinking, target shooting and if you must, small rodent control (and I mean small rodents). The report of the rifle (sound) is not too bad - lot loud at all, and shooting decent groups is possible (provided you have a half-decent scope attached - I use the Bushnell Sportsman 3-9x32mm with AO).

I don't believe you get get a better rifle for the money. There's not a whole lot of .22 caliber CO2 rifles out there anyway, and even less in the firearms-rated range, so this is definitely a must-have for any airgun enthusiast.

JUNE 2008 EDIT: It has become abundantly clear to me that this gun is not designed for Crosman Premier Hollowpoint .22 pellets. Avoid these at all costs. The intial few were fine, but then I started experiencing extreme jamming when the cylinder magazine was cycled. Then somehow, one of the pellets fell back into the bolt action (DO NOT LOAD THE MAGAZINE WITH THE RIFLE POINTING UP). That jammed the bolt action to the point where I could not even remove the magazine since the bolt pin was in the way. Eventually, through shaking it here and here I managed to get the magazine out, but then the bolt would only retract 90%, which of course is useless. I was about 10 seconds from looking to disassemble it (and knowing me, I would have likely destroyed the gun as a result), when I put a Q-tip into what I could see of the bolt and trigger assembly and did some more shaking, and lo and behold, the bolt cycles now. That being said, I looked online and from the people who have experienced similar bolt problems, they said it is either Crosman Premier's or Beeman pellets that contribute to these problems - not to mention a poorly designed cylinder magazine with which the pellets can fall out, skirt-first, into the action. I have read that RWS Hollowpoints or RWS Hobby pellets are the only way to go here, as the mag is only designed for RWS (but not Superpoints). *sigh*