Excerpt from my CD “Old Airguns & Memeories”
Hello to all;
After spending more time with the Diana Trailscout C02 .177 caliber Rifle utilizing the 3 – C02 cartridge system I previously covered on this forum; I have become very pleased with this units function and performance. It is an excellent lightweight Co2 repeater Rifle, accurate, powerful relatively speaking, 6- 7 ft/lbs, and 85 shots avg. @ 600+fps on a fill; so I decided to order one in .22 caliber.
Pyramid Air had a .22 caliber Trailscout Refurb on sale for $99.00 so ordered one + one extra mag. Very reasonably priced in my view, personally I am not concerned about the refurb aspect, although other folks may be? There is after all a 2 year warranty on these units as I type this. I was told there could be some delay in shipping because of the COVID-19 Pandemic, I ordered on 5-9-20 so we shall see? Well I received it on 5-20-20, not to bad considering COVID-19 panic!!!
The .22 caliber version is a clone atheistically speaking of the .177 caliber with the exception of caliber, synthetic stock etc. I won’t go into detail on description as all this was covered previously in the .177 caliber post I made on this site. What I am interested in is the performance of the .22 caliber.
A note before going forward, regarding the “Refurb” status, after receiving the unit I thoroughly inspected it; there was only one area that I could see suggesting previous ownership, the Co2 cap showed visible marks probably from pliers trying to tighten cap after co2 bulb installation, this was easily cleaned up and touched up with a needle file and cold blue. I suspect this unit was returned because the previous owner had trouble securing the end cap and charging the unit. I have read about others having similar problems. It is actually difficult to tighten the Co2 cap the last little bit, I know I could not do it with just my fingers, so I used a 2 mm allen hex wrench, inserted the long end into the allen head bolts on the C02 end cap (not the swivel cap) and used this as leverage to finish the last bit of tightening of the Co2 cap, worked for me! (Actually Diana should have supplied a spanner wrench for this purpose!) But the above will work fine!
I DO RECOMMEND CHANGING OUT THE C02 CAP O-RING SEAL (RUBBER) WITH THE REPLACEMENT YELLOW/TAN URETHANE TYPE SEAL SUPPLIED IN THE O-RING KIT THAT COMES WITH THE RIFLE, THIS WILL ALSO MAKE IT SOME WHAT EASIER TO TIGHTEN THE CO2 CAP!!!! I used the rubber Co2 cap seal with the first charge, just to see if it would hold; and will replace with the Urethane seal on the second charge!
I could see no other problems so inserted the 3- 12 gm C02 carts as per instructions with the cartridge adaptor and charged the rifle with no problems. I installed a Winchester 2x7x32 AO scope and will use the first charge to adjust and sight in the Rifle and check out other aspects, magazine function, trigger adjustment etc; and did then did a full shot count test with the second charge. This might be a good place to point out as I mentioned previously with the .177 caliber, that there is no anti- double feed device with this magazine fed rifle, so due diligence is required to avoid a double charge!!
I adjusted the trigger and set@ 1.75 lbs. Using Crosman PMHP 14.3 grains first shot across Chronographed registered 565 FPS/ 10.1 ft. lb. this met the advertised spec. of 560 fps. I then tried some 14 grain RWS MATCH which delivered 568 FPS/10.0 ft. lb. again meeting advertised velocity spec. These are the two pellets I used for accuracy testing. I used the loaded magazines for accuracy testing! All testing conducted from bench @ 25 yds. The Crosman PMHP delivered 1.185 inch 5 shot center to center groups consistently and fairly concentric the RWS Match delivered .625 inch 5 shot center to cemter groups very concentric. In essence the Crosman PMHP can deliver consistent 1 inch center to center groups and the RWS Match consistent 5/8 inch center to center groups at 25 yards.
Now I will check shot count, Diana claims 100 shots per charge. I am really only interested in what I call usable shot count, I will use the Crosman 14.3 grain PMHP with the single shot tray, this will give a little more time between shots to allow the Co2 to stabilize , at least that’s my thinking? I will not list all 100 shots (if I can get that many) but rather shot 1, 25, 50, 75,100 etc.
Started the velocity test using a fresh charge and Crosman PMHP 14.3 grain.pellets, shots were as follows : shot # 1 – 571 fps , # 25-565 fps, # 50 – 571 fps # 75 -536 fps and shot # 100 -388 fps . Yep; one can indeed get 100+ shots on a fill! From my perspective the useable shot count would be shot 1 thru 75, an average of 553 fps. 9.7 ft. lbs. should allow for consistent POA for 75 shots, the remaining shots would be for plinking etc. this in my view is “very” good performance (“only a 35 fps. Spread across 75 shots”). Again as I mentioned on the .177 calber version, the Moderators work extremely well on these units, just a Phffffft on firing!!
The Diana Trailscout C02 Repeater Rifles in both .177 & .22 calibers are very good bargains (in my view) $119 new, $99.00 for a refurb! I had no problems with the .22 magazines!!
On a side note ; I permanently attached a small storage box on the stock of each.177 &.22 unit unit, to store the mags and one can of pellets, this allowed me to always have mags, and pellets readily available at all times , also helped keep me from misplacing the mags!! I can load up 3 mags and head out and have a full day of shooting and not need anything!! I will enclose a photo, some may consider the boxes distracting, but I will go for function over form in most cases anyhow!! Not a recommendation for anyone else just works for me!!!!
Garey
