Well folks, I am quite sure some of you have seen those interesting looking Beeman P17 single stroke air pistols thinking they looked intriguing.
Well, keep in mind that both Beeman and Marksman are owned by SRI Industries, and that Marksman sells the exact same pistol as the model 2004.
I bought the Beeman named P17 at a local Gander Mountain for about $50.
Well, first the good.
This pistol is astonishingly accurate, even rivaling my most excellent Gamo CFX, which itself puts 5 Beeman Ram Jets inside 0.4" at 25 yards.
I didn't do any group size measuring for reasons I will get to below, but I was able to strike ping pong balls at 25 yards almost 100% of the time using the included red dot sight.
Another positive is that the trigger is just wonderful, with a tiny bit of creep at the beginning, which I prefer to feel as a way of taking up slack in anticipation of it breaking in the second stage.
Now, that I mentioned the good, time for the bad.
The red dot, while really handy, tends to make target acquisition tough because it acts almost as would sunglasses, which is to say that it darkens the target a bit in all but the brightest sunlight.
Also, that red dot's adjustment knobs, while easy to adjust in the field, are far too easy to adjust, which is to say simply picking up the pistol can cause an inadvertent bump to knock off the sight in.
Another thing quite a few people have complained about is that it can be tough to load certain pellets, and I agree, but only with certain very hard antimony alloyed and snug fitting pellets, namely the Crosman Premier Hollow Point.
However, I found that there are plenty of other pellets that load without making me get a blister on my thumb, with the Beeman Silver Ace and the Crosman Field Point Hunting being two that went in with ease, and they also both shot far more accurately than I could have expected.
Now that I have gone over the good and the bad, time for the ugly.
In a word: Leak!
I bought one of these only two weeks ago, learning all the pros and cons with it for about 150-200 shots, then I thought my ears were playing tricks on me.
I started to hear a faint hissing sound, which I at first discounted, since no air gun should leak at all with so little use.
I didn't really notice a velocity loss at first, but then I let it stay pressured for one shot for longer than one minute, then fired, and, sure enough, the muzzle pop was FAR lower, and the pellet hit with what was obviously considerably lower impact.
I shot it about 50 more times, hoping all along that it would settle down, but the leaking sound only got increasingly louder, and the interval between cocking and pressure drop became so short as to make the pellet come out slowly enought that (no, don't try this at home, folks!) I could catch it with no pain in my open palm!
Okay, so MAYBE I had an airgun made on a hangover Monday morning over in China.
Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to retain the receipt, so I took it back to Gander Mountain, and to their credit, they offered to give me a refund outright.
I knew that they had three more of the same airgun on the rack, so I requested instead to try one of those in the hopes that my first one was a fluke.
As I walked away from the register after ringing up my second P17, I mentioned that I would keep a death grip on the receipt just in case this second time around, I had another lemon.
Well, I am sorry to say that this one didn't even make it past the 100 shot mark.
If anything, it leaks much worse than the first one, and, if left to sit for a full two minutes, will not even launch the pellet out of the barrel AT ALL.
Blah to this shoddy workmanship.
It breaks my heart to see the Beeman name pasted onto a third rate airgun that is little more than a paperweight, but that's what happens, folks, when the founder who has made such an excellent reputation elects to retire and sell to someone who wants to ride the name and said reputation without maintaining the quality and workmanship that made the acquisition so attractive in the first place.
Shame on you, SRI, for such abominable workmanship.
Oh, and kudo's to Gander Mountain, as this is not really their fault, and they are eager to take care of problems, but I hope that they demand their money and shipping back for my two defective pistols, and I further hope that they ship their remaining stock back to SRI with a note saying "Do us and yourself a favor, and kick your QC department in the head for us."
For crying out loud, even the rinky dink $20 Marksman 1010 Classic is far superior to this junk!
That 1010 may look crappy, and it may not get beyond 200fps, but at least it is durable and does not leak.
Oh, one other thing to keep in mind, folks, and that is that not ALL Beeman branded airguns are crap.
Certainly some of the air rifles and other air pistols, especially the vaunted P1 pistol and the R-series rifles, are as good as ever, as those are rebranded Weihrauch or Theoben rifles.
So, don't avoid ALL Beemans, but do your homework first before buying one to ensure that you are getting the superior German or British workmanship that Weihrauch or Theoben still provide.
Just my $0.02.