Here she is. 4 sections: 1. Arrival/Looks,2. Power, 3. Accuracy, 4. Misc. I shot her up in northern Arizona, and squirrel hunted with her.
Pictures are up!
Pellets: CP, JSB Jumbo's, TF Wadcutters.
Scope: Leapers 3-9x40
Rings: Leapers Accushot High
1.
I ordered the gun on the 11th (Vet's Day) and Compasseco shipped on the 13th. She arrived on the 20th. Came double boxed, with only three foam blocks holding it. But, she had only a few extremely tiny marks on her. Out of the box, she looked GREAT! Compasseco was very nice by giving me some freebies (see misc section). If there is any doubt at all the the TF89 is the AR1000, they can be shattered; the users manual was for the AR1000 magnum. The 89 is a very nice dark wood of some sort, with pressed checkering on the forearm and handgrip that is not very deep. I am O.K. with that though.SAG has replaced the old iron sights with fiber optic ones, which I REALLY like. They are very nice; just put the red in between the green and fire! The scope stop is junk, (see accuracy) and should either be made better or not included at all. The cocking has some grinding, but after shooting it has gone down a bit. A tune will fix that hopefully. For me, the cocking was a breeze. It is not "extremely light" or whatever Compasseco advertises, but it is not hard by any means.
THE BARREL LOCKS VERY LOOSELY. The barrel has dropped after the shot on me to many times. When setting the gun down on my sand bags, is must do it very gently or the barrel will fall. To me, this is a safety hazard.
The trigger was nice for a plastic one. The first stage was "good enough", but the second stage had to much creep. Muzzle break was fine. Once I get a good scope I might replace it with a better one. As you can see from my pics, she is a good looking gun. She looks like a real killer with a scope!
2.
This gun has some power. It has some heavy recoil (for a air gun; comparable to a .22 firearm) and it tore up my scope (see accuracy) It twists to the right (the spring) after firing quite a bit, but that does not effect shooting. I shot a small Grey squirrel with it and it knocked him right out of his tree. Clean kill. It is quieter than a .22 firearm (no powder or supersonic boom), but it might be enough to agitate the neighbors. For power testing, I grabbed a Elk femur (I shot at my cabin, which is in the middle of the national forest where there are elk everywhere. Great place to be!) I found on the ground not far from where I was shooting, and set it up at 10yrds. If you have never seen Elk bone, it is comparable to cow; that is THICK! I drew a bulls-eye and fired away with a mix of the free pellets Compasseco gave me and some CP's. This gun shot THROUGH both sides of the bone..... WOW! TONS of power!
3.
And here is where my troubles started.......
I put on the brand new Leapers scope with the Accushot rings. If you look at the pics, you can see how good it looked! I was so excited to go shoot! I had not shot her with open sights yet, but went straight to the scope. All my shooting was off a table, with sand bag. Very steady the entire time.
It was not a good day to shoot. 10-20mph winds in 20-30* temps was not fun. But, I tried. I set up at 10yrds to sight it in, about 50yrds away from the cabin. You can see from the pics of my 1st group, I moved my way up towards the bulls-eye before it got VERY cold and windy, and I was forced to go inside. While still to windy to shoot, I set up the power test and some cans to shoot off my front porch. I probably show 50-100 pellets for fun then, not for accuracy. Midway through, I noticed that my rings were sliding back. I adjusted them, and tightened them down more. A little while later, (25-40 shots), they had slid AGAIN! I was not happy.......
Just to try it, I put the scope stop on.......
10 shots later, something flew by my head...... you can guess what......
So, I tightened the rings to their max......
It stayed to windy to shoot any more that day....
But, when I awoke, it was all calm! So I went out, set up for 30 yrds, and began to "Finish" sighting in the gun. My groups were shot gun groups! How could this be? I knew this gun could be accurate! I would adjust left, and she would shoot high! I had to put a huge 100yrd target behind the trap to see where the way off shots went. The scope was still moving, but very little. I wondered if the scope could be bad. If the recoil could have of moved the scope, it may have damaged the internals also. I shot using the open sights.... They shot quite a bit low. At 30yrds, the red fiber optic sight covers up the entire black circle. Well, needless to say, after adjustment, she shot great with open sights. VERY accurate gun. It was the scope that was bad. I went out and shot the small Grey squirrel after that (see misc.) Now I just need a scope that can match these open sights....
4.
Still need to find that perfect pellet, need to get a better scope. Getting her Gene tuned in the near future.
Small Grey Squirrel Hunt:
http://www.gatewaytoairguns.com/airguns/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=23067&posts=1#M183338Free Stuff:
Pellet Trap
Wadcutters
Hat
Targets
Bad Stuff:
Scope
Rings
Scope Stop
Pellet Trap
Good Stuff:
Targets (thin cardboard for good holes)
The TF89!