They then walk you out the door to keep themselves save from the obvious wackjob, their thoughts, who bought what they eagerly sold.
Pal need for under 500fps??
- Thread starter deerhunter365
- Start date
They then walk you out the door to keep themselves save from the obvious wackjob, their thoughts, who bought what they eagerly sold.
It's probably just short sightedness on the web page developer. They probably just didn't develop a web page for low velocity air rifles and throw everything into the over 500 FPS category.
I tried to order an air rifle from a different web based retailer and it had a similar problem. The best part was they had no contact information.... just a web submission form with a CAPTHCHA of all things!
I wasn't even sure what country they were in! It turned out to be Canada.
I was ticked off enough to jump through all the hoops and loops of their web submission form just to complain about how stupid they were to create an impediment to customer service, and to let them know I would buy it somewhere else. They did respond later, but too late for me to care.
I tried to order an air rifle from a different web based retailer and it had a similar problem. The best part was they had no contact information.... just a web submission form with a CAPTHCHA of all things!
I wasn't even sure what country they were in! It turned out to be Canada.
I was ticked off enough to jump through all the hoops and loops of their web submission form just to complain about how stupid they were to create an impediment to customer service, and to let them know I would buy it somewhere else. They did respond later, but too late for me to care.
While this is true in theory, in practice the dealers often sell 10m competitive air pistols which shoot a 7gr wadcutter at well over 500fps. I've bought two Pardini pistols in the past 10 years, a K10 which shot a 7.2gr competition pellet at 535fps average (+/- 6fps in testing), and a K12 which shot at 520fps with the same pellet. Testing by RCMP would obviously be done with a lighter pellet, putting it way over 500fps, but even with an 8gr pellet these would have been at or close to 500fps and delivered well over the 5.7j muzzle energy. Dealers don't always adjust for Canada's rules. I don't blame them. In Europe it's pretty standard for a 10m air pistol to be somewhere between 510fps and 540fps, as this is sort of the accuracy sweet spot.
It's not anticipated, I suppose, that an Olympic style air pistol will be used in a robbery... but of course the letter of the law makes clear that this makes such pistols 'restricted' class. I never once saw competitors using locks on their pistol cases nor in their trigger guards, that that's counting a couple of shooters who have shot ISSF World Cup events. Two of Canada's top shooters in 10m AP shot at the Richmond club matches while I was there, one practicing there at least every week, often twice a week. They used proper transport protocols on their .22lr and other firearms, but nobody took the air pistols so seriously. And a club member who was a civilian RCMP employee responsible for maintaining the database on firearms registration, following up on expired PAL/RPAL stuff and other fun, said it wasn't really a focus for the RCMP when I asked about such velocity issues. "We have bigger fish to fry" was the line he used. And I agree. Airgun competitors are, in my experience, a very nice bunch of people. Not prone to abusing the massive power that extra few dozen feet per second they're shooting at. Whether an AP is more accurate at 520fps than at 480fps is something I have never seen proven, but some feel it has something to do with time spent in the barrel while the sights are waggling around on the bull. Could be, as it is a game of fractions of a millimetre, and the interval between deciding to press the trigger and actually tripping the sear, is a considerable period. But one trains for a given velocity, and I found no problem shooting scores a bit over 550/600 with mine tuned to 490fps. And I liked them quieter like that. 530fps can be surprisingly loud from a pistol barrel with a sideways ported brake.
To be even clearer - I have never had a license until 2019, when I acquired a PAL/RPAL. I competed between 2011 and 2014, and no one ever asked me for a license whether it was buying an air pistol or joining a club or attending a provincial or local match. Just not relevant as far as they're concerned. I don't know if the same lack of concern was there for air rifle - it would seem a bit of a stretch to leave licenses out there, as those things are usually tuned in the region of 680fps with 8gr pellets.
