.22 Air Arms s410 Carbine Review

There is a part two on this air rifle written after using it for a year, you can find it HERE

  My latest joy!

I'm in air gun heaven.

It took a while but I finally got my .22 S410, paid off in installments over the last three months. I have to thank Allsports of Gloucester as well as my wifey for  this as it was a Christmas and birthday present combined, and Allsports were very happy to hold the rifle for me until it was paid off, just like they did with my AA Shamal last year.

Allsports of Gloucester.

It cost £550 secondhand with a 3-9x40 Bushnell Trophy scope and Air Arms moderator. As expected for it's age it is not anti tamper which is always a bonus. Being a carbine it is very short even with the moderator fitted.

Sits nicely  when kneeling.

Just the right size.

The stock being made of beech makes it very light compared to the Shamal and easy to handle. It weighs 6.27 lbs without a scope and moderator, is 41 inches long with the moderator and 36 inches without. In .22 it is capable of up to 70 shots from a full 200 bar fill, although I find it best to give it a 175 bar fill and get 50 shots, just how many shots do you need when out hunting anyway?!

Sits nicely to the shoulder

Typical of all Air Arms, the blueing is very deep and well polished, and the aluminium is adonised to the darkest black. For a secondhand rifle it is in near mint condition, and that is what you will find if you get an air rifle from Allsports.

Looks new, near as dammit.

The magazine holds ten pellets and cycles easily if you cock the bolt firmly, 

Cocking bolt curves upwards making it more comfortable to cock.

being solidly built it can take this and I found if I cycle it lightly, it doesn't rotate the next pellet every time.

Magazine loaded and fitted, it does help to have a seating tool for loading the pellets though.

Pull the cocking handle back to remove the magazine.

Though the moderator may seem long in comparison to the rest of the rifle it is whisper quiet when fired, and still would be ideal for use in a hide or from a motor. In fact I had trouble telling the difference in volume when firing a pellet and firing it with no air in it, all you can hear is the hammer striking.

Unbelievably quiet moderator, to be this quiet it has to be this long.

Below the moderator is the fill valve which is a clip on type with a solid aluminium screw on cap to protect it, as a carbine it is good for 40 to 50 spot on shots.

Brass filling port and protective end cap.

There is an on-board pressure guage to tell you how much air is left, though I generally prefer the guage on the pump for a more accurate reading.

Built in pressure guage, it's all new to me.

The stock has checkering on the pistol grip and the forestock, but I like to support the rifle with my finger tips as this let the rifle move up and down with my breathing.

Chequering on the pistol grip

Chequering on the forearm.

The monte carlo cheekpiece is ideal for hunting and HFT shooting, though I have to admit it's not as good as the one on the Shamal, but all the same it is very comfortable.

I just love the styling of the comb!

At the rear of the rifle the rubber butt pad is very comfortable, and even though it's not adjustable it fits perfectly.

comfy ventilated butt pad.

Standing, kneeling or prone at any anglem, the butt sits comfortably against my shoulder, giving me a perfect picture through the scope.

Don't worry, it wasn't loaded!

The trigger is very light and although there is no safety there is no chance of a premature shot. It's two stage with several points of adjustment and though i've not looked into it as yet it is perfect as it is. It's not too thin and is set back which I find really helpful when taking a shot, it's different to the trigger on the Shamal which is also a pleasure to use.

excellent trigger, nice and light.

With a fill of 175 bar, the rifle is set at the start of it's sweet spot and is good for at least 50 shots before it starts to drop of it's POI, though in a hunting situation I wouldn't need more than 20 shots at the most.

While looking over the Bushnell scope I found the serial number for my rifle, it's printed on the tube where the hammer hits the valve below the magazine index assembly.

serial number should tell me it's age when I can be arsed to look into it.

The 3-9x40 Bushnell Trophy scope is a splendid upmarket scope; though there is no adjustable objective or illuminated recticle, the quality of the lenses is superb. 

The mag ring on the left is very smooth

The view is crystal clear with amazing constrast and still holds a picture in near dark conditions, it certainly puts my Nikko Sterling to shame even though they are pretty impressive as scopes go.The caps for the cross hair adjustment are set very low, which is something I really like the look of and has a very fine mil dot rectical.

Nice low turrets.

Also being short sighted and having to wear glasses, something I find with a lot of cheaper scopes is that I have to slip my glasses up my forehead to get a focused sight picture , but with the Trophy I simply have to wind out a ring on the eye piece to get a focused picture with my glasses on or off.

I took the S410 down the woods to see how it compared to the Shamal which is unbelievably accurate.

The AA Shamal is unbelievably accurate and feels almost twice the weight

 At 30 yards the scope was out by 4 inches to the left and 6 inches down, but after several sighting shots the rifle was shooting true to 12 and 30 yard. All shots were taken sitting with my back to a tree, supporting the rifle with my off hand resting on my knee. I had to crane my neck to get a good sight picture without parralax as the scope is set up for your more traditional shooting positions.

In the woods and ready to go with a bag full of different pellets.

I sighted in with Air Arms Diabolo Express as they tend to be brilliant in PCP's, but I might give Falcon Accuracy Plus a go as they are lighter and I have been spoiling myself with .177 lately. They will give a flatter trajectory and certainly proved their worth in the Sharp Innova, but AA diabolo's with their 16gr of knockdown power will do for now without a doubt!

These first shots left me with a smile on my face, now to concentrate on a good 10 shot grouping.

.

At 30 yards, out of the 10 pellets in the magazine, 4 were used to fine tune and the final 6 made a decent ragged hole, though when the breeze started you could see the difference.

Just trying to compensate for the wind as i haven't used .22 for a while.

But when I waited patiently for the wind to still I managed to get a pretty decent group from 28 yards, again resting my back to a tree and supporting the rifle with my hand on my knee.

Actually 9 shots in the ragged hole as the bottom one was a flier.

All in all I must have put about 7 magazines worth of pellets through the rifle which left me with under 100 bar reading on the guage from 175 bar from the pump guage. This is the start of the sweet spot for this carbine and in hindsight I should have only put 5 magazines worth of pellets through in this session, because unwittingly I left the rifle with too little air pressure in it, and by the time I got around to pumping it back up again two hours later, all the remaining air had leaked leaving it empty. I won't be making that mistake again, that's for sure!

Just one more picture as it's so nice.

I'm not sure if I should fit sling studs to it as it is light enough to carry all day, but I do want to get some flip up covers for the scope as Allsports has a whole load of them at £5 each at the moment. Also i'd like to fit a bipod and lamp, as I don't think the extra weight will make any noticeable difference to this well balanced excellent piece of British engineering. 

TTFN

Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe. 

Webley Hawk Mk II Accuracy

And General Handling.

4x32 Range Right scope fitted to the Webley Hawk and one unimpressed pooch

Now i'm happy with how the Webley Hawk is performing after a little tinkering, it's time to see just how accurate she can be with what ever .177 pellets i have. All pellets sit deep in the breech when loading, but there is no more than 10 FPS variation in velocity. I perfer pellets to sit firm and flush in the breech, but in this case i'm going to have to make a tool to seat them the same depth each time which should reduce some of the variation in velocity. I always felt that deep seating a pellet increases the transfer port size and effects a rifles power, though that is not always the case.

Making dinner while changing the main spring

With both inner and outer Relum main springs fitted the rifle takes a little more effort to cock than before, though i'm happy to note that it hasn't made the rifle any harsher to fire. 

Inner and outer Relum spring replacing the tired original with top hat, the inner spring bound up with the top hat.

To much preload to guide by hand

Blood on spring compressor to prove the point.

A block of wood helped guide the spring.

Fitted on 1st attempt.

The trigger has no first stage travel and breaks cleanly without pulling the shot, just like my other 1970's British springers. The off hand balances the rifle about four inches in front of the trigger guard, 

Point of balance shows the rifle is front heavy.

 this is at the end of the the cocking slot on the stock which is pretty long because of the one piece cocking link. 

Very long cocking slot.

The rifle is front heavy because it sits in a Mk III stock and not the Mk II it should have, 

Trigger catches on the Mk III trigger guard.

and because of this i turned the trigger guard around to give the trigger some clearence. 

Before.

After, trigger doesn't catch on the guard.

Though whether this gives the rifle a little more pull length i'm not sure, it's certainly comfortable for me to shoulder and my cheek rests on the combe without having to stoop my neck.

Because the rear sight is not adjustable for windage until i can repair it and probably fill a whole blog on it's own, 

Rear sight in need of repair.

i fitted the Range Right 4x32 scope which gives a clear and crisp view as it did to great effect when i used it for hunting with the Sharp Innova. 

4x32 scope will sight the rifle.

It's just unfortunate i only have barrel cleaning rods for .22 as the barrel could do with a good clean, though i do have a brass wire brush in .177 i will have to wait till i get some cleaning patches to clean it properly.

The brass brush alone will not clean the barrel thouroughly.

Using a left over cardboard box as a target and for sighting in the scope i went down the woods where it wasn't blowing a gale, 

Old boxes left over from Xmas are good for target practice.

five shots had it sighted in enough for me to test the grouping. I hadn't cleaned the barrel so whatever groups i achieved would improve when i got around to cleaning it, but for now it would give me a fair idea of how it would shoot even though my off hand wasn't in exactly the same place for all shots. Out of the AA Diabolo's, H&N Field Trophies and Geco Wadcutters i found the 

In the woods and ready for target practice.

Geco's to be the most accurate at 15 yards, giving me a two pence size group every time if i sat with my back to a tree holding the rifle gently and supporting my off hand on my knee. 

Pretty good for 15 yards with a dirty barrel.

There was very mild surge and recoil so following through was easy. however at 30 yards there was too much crosswind and the wadcutters loose it at that distance. What i did discover was that the scope had crept back 3 mm along the dovetails while testing the rifle, i suppose i will have to fit it more securely next time or invest in a scope stop.

Have to do something about that scope shift.

Happy with these results i headed back home where i cleaned the barrel by pushing a .177 brass wire brush through the barrel, using some Map Pro 7 gun cleaning oil on the end of 3 mm thick metal wire being careful not to touch the rifling. I repeated this about ten times then pushed through small squares of dried baby wipes, the first one came out filthy so i repeated this till they came out clean. 

Yep! that barrel was pretty dirty alright.

Looking down the barrel i could see a marked difference as it was now clean an very shiney, all i need to do now is put some pellets down it to coat the rifling before i test it again. I also need to take it out more often so i can find a hold that is constant from shot to shot, as with all my springers that would be supporting the stock in front of the trigger guard with my off hand.

Ready for a retest.

Now all i have to do is wait for a less blustery day or find a more sheltered part of the woods, until then..

TTFN

Wing Commander Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe

Trigger reassembly

This is how safety, sear, trigger, and two springs should sit inside the trigger housing.

Slide in safety, fit spring in sear pin hole then fit in housing,  with the aid of needle nose pliers line up spring loop over the sear hole and safety hole in trigger housing, then insert pin.. Sear pin first, followed by safety pin.

Fit circlips to secure pins.

Use pliers to get sear in correct position and fit trigger with return spring in place, then insert pin through housing hole, safety, and trigger.

Fit final circlip to the trigger and you should be ready to go, if not just try it again till you get it right eventually.

And that's how it's done