Huben Latest GK1 wunderpistol wonderment

SteveV said:

Very impressive - Ron you are killin' me with the numbers, as in LOW group sizes and BIG velocity figures - ME WANT!

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AirNGasman said:

Yes, I realize this photo looks similar to another I've posted; but isn't.

View attachment 475608

After rotating the 3X Thompson-Center pistol scope in the mounts today to better square with the pistol, it had to be re-sighted in.

Wanting to zero at 30 yards despite left to right gusty crosswinds, thought I could ignore them virtue of the 22.07 grain JTS pellets traveling 880 FPS for 30+ foot pounds. The first group in red shows how much just rotating the scope in its mounts can affect zero.

Figuring 1/2" click increments at 100 yards equal roughly 1/6" at 35, I went three clicks down and 6 left to get the second group in black. The horizontal stringing suggested I shouldn't have ignored the crosswinds (by holding dead-center every shot).

But upon marking that group and "rebuilding my house" (shooting position on the sand-bagged bench-rest), the wind had laid enough that I again ignored them while shooting the last, .55" group in green.

Every group can be covered by the quarter pictured, and the .68" average group size is less than 2 MOA. The trick to employing this thing at ranges never imagined possible with a pellet pistol (like, out to 70-80 yards) is remembering it shoots like a rimfire target pistol!

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AirNGasman said:

Just as in pistol form, I doubt any mini-carbine approaching the (small) size and (light) weight of a GK1 would approach the power, accuracy and WOW-factor of a GK1.

I keep expecting the WOW to wear off, but it hasn't. Likely because I've dreamed of hunting-capable air pistols for over a half-century, and previous steps in that direction have come excruciatingly slowly, and in SHORT strides. The most impressive pre-GK1 hunting air pistols have been similarly accurate 20 foot pound PCP pistols like the (bolt-action) P-Rod, (side-lever) AP16, and (six shot revolver) Duk Il/Evanix Hunting Master; all excellent pistols.

Then along comes the SEMI-AUTOMATIC, 19 shot, two to THREE times as powerful GK1, that returns higher shot counts per fill than anything before! Think it will be a while before I take this thing for granted. All I have to do is take it out and SHOOT it, and I fall in love all over again.

It ain't just LUST; but there's plenty of that too.

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AirNGasman said:

Assuming you mean RAW 1000 and HW44, though I've owned neither, I can offer semi-educated opinions BT.

I did own a RAW TM 1000 rifle for years; capturing State & National Champion titles with it, and posting two perfect scores. And I've read and heard enough (from friends that owned them) about the RAW 1000 pistol and HW44 to offer some basic comparisons to the GK1.

The GK1 is a totally different animal than any other. A competition pistol it isn't; but as a hunting pistol it know no peers.

Though part of my motivation for buying a GK1 originally was to launch a new, 40 foot pound pistol field target competition (or class), any pistol field target competitor benefits greatly from LARGE, HEAVY scoped-pistol rigs, and the GK is neither. Nor would I recommend mounting a giant rifle scope on it, like used in PFT. But while coming to those realizations I also realized it's strengths put it in a class all its own for handgun hunting and FUN.

On the other hand (pun intended), the RAW sits atop the heap for pistol field target competitions. I used the plural context for competition purposely, as that is one way the RAW shines brightest. Although some others can match its performance for A (particular) FT competition, in my opinion the RAW is the best choice for anyone wanting modularity enough to own the best choice for AAFTA and Extreme Pistol FT competitionS. Besides availability in any of the three PFT calibers (.177, .20 & .22), the RAW is readily tuned from well below AAFTA PFT power levels to well above EFT power levels. It's also easliy convertible to mini-carbine configuration.

Some Brocock owners might argue them capable of similar flexibility to RAWS.; but truth is, not as readily as the RAW. BTW and FWIW, I use a Brocock for EFPT.

In my opinion the HW44, though a fine PCP pistol, lacking ready flexibility, is more one-trick pony. That I find its profile and plastic stock aesthetically hideous is a moot point; some find it attractive.

As with most purchases, price will be a huge deciding factor for many/most folks. Also as with most purchases, the best are the most pricey.

Hope this helps.

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AirNGasman said:

Wasn't all that long ago that an air pistol capable of producing 14 foot pounds was considered a (relative) HAND CANNON. That's only because it WAS (relative to other air pistols of the time). For a rough time-line perspective-

In the early 1960s my first Co2 BB pistol (a Daisy) seemed quite a magnum compared to my very first BB pistol; a Daisy 179 Spittin' Image that spit out BBs solely from the force of the hammer blow! The Co2 pistol being not only much more powerful but also a semi-automatic, suffice to say its FIREPOWER was magnitudes greater than a SPITtin' Image!

View attachment 476721 View attachment 476720

By the mid sixties a .22 Crosman 130 multi-stroke pneumatic pistol seemed as proportionately powerful as its size. That suggestion was reinforced when I managed to pop a sparrow off a barbed-wire fence that was knocked 2-3 feet back by the impact of the .22 Crosman Superpell wadcutter carrying about as many foot pounds (2-3).

Fast forwarding to the early eighties, I literally bought Dr. Beeman's hype of the Beeman P-1 "Magnum" spring-piston pistol. Producing over 500 FPS in .177, it could easily be considered a magnum air pistol of its time. Unfortunately due to the fact recoiling spring-piston pistols are the most challenging of handguns to shoot well, most prospective prey was in no danger... long as it sat still!

Not so once I not only discovered (fifties and sixties-vintage) .22 Crosman 150 Co2 pistols in the mid eighties, but their fine accuracy and power potentials when trigger-smithed, souped up, and scoped. Matter of fact I not only considered the 150s the first capable small-game hunting air pistols, and still do, but honed my pistol skills to a fine edge with Crosman 150s. How fine? Besides employing them in NRA Silhouette competition with good success against actual competition air pistols and competitors, my subsequent immersion in silhouette competitions improved my shooting skills to such levels as to adopt purposeful brain shots in most hunting situations; including offhand brain-shots with rifle and pistol. Some of those Crosman 150 offhand shots are among my fondest memories in over sixty years of hunting. The most poignant include a 25 yard offhand brain-shot on a gray squirrel that hit the eye I was aiming at (in the late eighties), and a 35 yard offhand brain shot on a cottontail (in the early 2020s).

View attachment 476699

The birth and subsequent growth of Pistol Field Target competition has probably done more to advance air pistol power and accuracy potentials, and into a much more compacted time-frame, than anything else in air pistol history.

Similar to how Rifle Field Target competition had its beginnings a couple decades earlier, in the early days of Pistol FT competition (2008-2011) we used .177 and .22 Crosman Co2 pistols against 3/4" to 1.5" kill-zone small-game field targets to emulate realistic air pistol hunting quarry at realistic distances of 10 to 25 yards. Our early FT pistols typically producing 6 to 10 foot pounds, as PFT shooters' skills and pistol modifications evolved, 12 foot pounds seemed not only a generous, but natural power limit considering that was the original power limit in Rifle FT (and is still in much of the FT universe).

As typically power-hungry Americans' air pistol modifications continued to expand previous power and ranges, eventually airgun manufacturers recognized enough market to follow suit. Within a few years of its birth, Pistol Field Target maximum target distances increased form 25 to 30 yards, then to 35 yards, as the minimum kill zone size shrank from 3/4" to 1/2".

By the late 2000-teens the maniac driving the Pistol FT bus not only brought Extreme Rifle FT competition to Texas, but decided he'd... correction- WE'D outgrown previous PFT bounds and founded Extreme Pistol Field Target competition. In his immense wisdom... correction- immense LUNACY, The Fool decided Extreme Pistol FT should embrace not only the AAFTA RIFLE power limit of 20 foot pounds, but the maximum AAFTA RIFLE target distance of 55 yards!

But for some inexplicable reason, The Fool did not also embrace AAFTA's minimum RIFLE kill-zone diameter of 3/8" to further torment Extreme Pistol FT shooters. My 'guess' is he might have wanted to create the ILLUSION he is not stark, RAVING MAD by leaving the 1/2" minimum PFT kill-zone size unmolested. However anyone who knows him also knows that IS an illusion... AT BEST!

It would now seem with manufacturers and airgunsmiths producing ever more powerful air pistols, the air pistol power flood-gates have burst wide open. Not to infer there haven't been supremely powerful big-bore air pistols for decades. But supremely powerful .177-.25 caliber air pistols are not only a relatively recent phenomenon, but are now mass-produced in target-grade, target-sophistication, target-accurate platforms readily available for whatever mass consumption demands them.

I have often referred to "The Golden Age Of Airguns" of (roughly) the 1940s through the Sixties, when Crosman produced not only exponentially more airgun models than anyone before, but the most impressive designs. Friends, we're enjoying a second airguns Golden Age; we air pistoleros especially.

Gotta love it!

No-one more than I.

.

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I'm just getting started with the wonderment over the wunderpistols.

AirNGasman said:

Wasn't all that long ago that an air pistol capable of producing 14 foot pounds was considered a (relative) HAND CANNON. That's only because it WAS (relative to other air pistols of the time). For a rough time-line perspective-

In the early 1960s my first Co2 BB pistol (a Daisy) seemed quite a magnum compared to my very first BB pistol; a Daisy 179 Spittin' Image that spit out BBs solely from the force of the hammer blow! The Co2 pistol being not only much more powerful but also a semi-automatic, suffice to say its FIREPOWER was magnitudes greater than a SPITtin' Image!

View attachment 476721 View attachment 476720

By the mid sixties a .22 Crosman 130 multi-stroke pneumatic pistol seemed as proportionately powerful as its size. That suggestion was reinforced when I managed to pop a sparrow off a barbed-wire fence that was knocked 2-3 feet back by the impact of the .22 Crosman Superpell wadcutter carrying about as many foot pounds (2-3).

Fast forwarding to the early eighties, I literally bought Dr. Beeman's hype of the Beeman P-1 "Magnum" spring-piston pistol. Producing over 500 FPS in .177, it could easily be considered a magnum air pistol of its time. Unfortunately due to the fact recoiling spring-piston pistols are the most challenging of handguns to shoot well, most prospective prey was in no danger... long as it sat still!

Not so once I not only discovered (fifties and sixties-vintage) .22 Crosman 150 Co2 pistols in the mid eighties, but their fine accuracy and power potentials when trigger-smithed, souped up, and scoped. Matter of fact I not only considered the 150s the first capable small-game hunting air pistols, and still do, but honed my pistol skills to a fine edge with Crosman 150s. How fine? Besides employing them in NRA Silhouette competition with good success against actual competition air pistols and competitors, my subsequent immersion in silhouette competitions improved my shooting skills to such levels as to adopt purposeful brain shots in most hunting situations; including offhand brain-shots with rifle and pistol. Some of those Crosman 150 offhand shots are among my fondest memories in over sixty years of hunting. The most poignant include a 25 yard offhand brain-shot on a gray squirrel that hit the eye I was aiming at (in the late eighties), and a 35 yard offhand brain shot on a cottontail (in the early 2020s).

View attachment 476699

The birth and subsequent growth of Pistol Field Target competition has probably done more to advance air pistol power and accuracy potentials, and into a much more compacted time-frame, than anything else in air pistol history.

Similar to how Rifle Field Target competition had its beginnings a couple decades earlier, in the early days of Pistol FT competition (2008-2011) we used .177 and .22 Crosman Co2 pistols against 3/4" to 1.5" kill-zone small-game field targets to emulate realistic air pistol hunting quarry at realistic distances of 10 to 25 yards. Our early FT pistols typically producing 6 to 10 foot pounds, as PFT shooters' skills and pistol modifications evolved, 12 foot pounds seemed not only a generous, but natural power limit considering that was the original power limit in Rifle FT (and is still in much of the FT universe).

As typically power-hungry Americans' air pistol modifications continued to expand previous power and ranges, eventually airgun manufacturers recognized enough market to follow suit. Within a few years of its birth, Pistol Field Target maximum target distances increased form 25 to 30 yards, then to 35 yards, as the minimum kill zone size shrank from 3/4" to 1/2".

By the late 2000-teens the maniac driving the Pistol FT bus not only brought Extreme Rifle FT competition to Texas, but decided he'd... correction- WE'D outgrown previous PFT bounds and founded Extreme Pistol Field Target competition. In his immense wisdom... correction- immense LUNACY, The Fool decided Extreme Pistol FT should embrace not only the AAFTA RIFLE power limit of 20 foot pounds, but the maximum AAFTA RIFLE target distance of 55 yards!

But for some inexplicable reason, The Fool did not also embrace AAFTA's minimum RIFLE kill-zone diameter of 3/8" to further torment Extreme Pistol FT shooters. My 'guess' is he might have wanted to create the ILLUSION he is not stark, RAVING MAD by leaving the 1/2" minimum PFT kill-zone size unmolested. However anyone who knows him also knows that IS an illusion... AT BEST!

It would now seem with manufacturers and airgunsmiths producing ever more powerful air pistols, the air pistol power flood-gates have burst wide open. Not to infer there haven't been supremely powerful big-bore air pistols for decades. But supremely powerful .177-.25 caliber air pistols are not only a relatively recent phenomenon, but are now mass-produced in target-grade, target-sophistication, target-accurate platforms readily available for whatever mass consumption demands them.

I have often referred to "The Golden Age Of Airguns" of (roughly) the 1940s through the Sixties, when Crosman produced not only exponentially more airgun models than anyone before, but the most impressive designs. Friends, we're enjoying a second airguns Golden Age; we air pistoleros especially.

Gotta love it!

No-one more than I.

.

Click to expand...