New Talon SS Arrived, WOW!

To be honest the first time I saw the Talon/Condor line I thought, no way would I be able to justify spending $450+ on an air rifle. Well I did some research and noticed that $450 isn’t all that much if you start looking at match rifles and single hole shooters. 😯 $4500 would be a good starting point with competition rifles.

When compared to typical ammo pellets are dirt cheap and with a pump you get an infinite supply of ‘gunpowder’. So it has benefits over your typical rifle that can nearly justify the price in ammo alone. That isn’t even considering the quiet ‘slap’ compared to the obvious gunfire ‘crack’ when fired. You can shoot it in your house if you want and the police won’t be showing up in pairs. 😆

I’m a target shooter and a ballistic tester when it comes to rifles. I love to fish but just can’t hunt, unless of course I needed food, then it’s no issue. Learned to skin and process a multitude of animals before I was 15, my neighbors in Maine were serious hunters and I would go out all the time with them to carry game and ammo.

So after two 5 minute pumping sessions the needle read about 2800psi and during the 15 minute break I attached the bipod, tri rail and the scope. I was getting roughly 50 pumps a minute and I was surprised it took only 2 sessions to get the tank near the 3000 mark… 😀

Is it OK to dry fire these rifles? I thought I read it was…

Spun up the power wheel to about 8, put in a Kodiak heavy and prepped the backstop released the safety and plugged a piece of VG fir plywood at about 15′. Smack, one noise and the back of the plywood was punched out with the front of the pellet at the back surface of the plywood. Damn Daisy wouldn’t even go through a piece of cdx 3/8″ ply… Removed the pellet to find it almost a perfect sphere when compressed by the ply. The Talon packs a pretty powerful punch, I was impressed.

So today after work it gets sighted in and cycled a few times for good measure.

Here she is…

So for all those on the fence asking: Is it worth it? You bet your ass it is!!! 😉

So, like a true newbie I naturally have a few questions…

Dry firing, ok or no ok?

Bringing the rifle and tank to higher elevations? If it is full will it burst the disc? Say up to 3000ft-3500ft from sea level?

Is the bipod supposed to swing back a forth and if I make it less swingy is that ok?

And finally…

The small o-ring at the adapter to the pump, is it better to leave this compressed or to remove the adapter from the pump base after each use?

The tophat is set at 2.795mm or 0.111″ is this normal…?

Big thanks to Steve at SS Airguns for the excellent rig and big thanks to A266, WOK, YN and TT for this generous and informative forum!

JW (synopsys)

Formally JimW.