I bought the Notos to use in our barn where pigeons roost and make a mess. I however don't like shooting more than 12-15fpe at max in there. No point. So my goal is to tune it to 12fpe. Taking it out of the box I was very impressed with the build honestly. Feels much nicer than a $250 gun.
Only knock to that is I see a Phillips screw or 2 on the gun and I think that makes it look cheap. Most screws i see are allen screws so why they used a phillips at all seems silly. Not a fan of the safety but I've had worse. Mag takes alittle to get aligned as pushing it all the way is a hair too far. Trigger a tad heavy once adjusted nicely but I can fix that. Fill probe I just don't like them, but do like it's a one piece machined probe.
Those are my negatives out of the way, now the good. It feels really good in the hand. Really lightweight yet solid feel. The cocking lever while I wish it was on the other side, it feels really nice and smooth. The trigger like I said while heavy, is actually quite crisp and predictable once adjusted. Gun is quiet. Shroud does its job and actually the barrel seems very stable. Happy about that. The pic rail is nice having all that room available to mount basically anything you'd like. And my quick accuracy testing shows it does very well. No paper just shooting dirt clods to get roughly sighted in.
Let me say this I've done the Prod before. Regulated, tactical stock and LDC. What roughly $600 total? Benjamin should be embarrassed by selling a stock Prod for what I've seen $380 the cheapest at Utah Airguns. This gun puts it to shame even when upgraded as above. I was a Benjamin fan for along time, with the Mrod mainly but as a company they have severely fallen behind on the new offerings out.
Anyways so my Notos I mounted a Swapfox red dot and it fits perfectly. Before I shot the gun I tore it apart and took off the air tube to adjust the regulator down. Impressed with the machining. I adjusted the reg down one half turn. I then removed hammer spring and cut off 3 coils off the spring. Put it back together and seems to still be shooting faster than 12fpe. However I shot 4 mags and went from 3500psi to 2200psi. So it is shooting slower. I'm waiting on a FX Chrono to come in to see how its doing and will update once I do get it.
Overall I'm very happy. Looking forward to playing with this gun more.
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