Passing gas: one man's journey toward air-gun Nirvana

American Handgunner, July-August, 2004 by John Connor

You've seen it already. Heck, you probably had one as a kid. It's ba-a-a-ck! If Crosman has made any changes to this thing in 20 years, I think it was limited to replacing the crummy wood grip and fore end with crummy-looking wood-grain plastic. It ain't pretty. But I can easily imagine some o1' boys at Crosman discussing changing it, and concluding, "Nah. Shoots like a house a' fire, don't it?" And it does!

The 1377c is a "pump up" pneumatic, meaning you can increase air pressure from two-pump "easy does it" to ten-pump "'field mouse detonation" power. But limit yourself in ten pumps, okay? Don't do what you did as a kid, with font of you taking turns resting your arms while one put the 300-pound 49th pump into your Crosman pellet rifle, then having Fat Alvin stand on the lever for the 50th. Bad things could happen.

The sights are good, the trigger's good, balance is, well, good. The only negative I could see is that loading the pellet into the chamber, which is like a single-shot bolt rifle operation, couldn't easily be done with gloves on. In total, all that "just good" stuff adds up to much mo' better. The big shocker with the Crosman came on the target, in black, white and little round holes. Final eval on the Crosman: It's cheap, plain, simple, durable, surprisingly accurate and hits harder than any of that European stuff. I like that. Reminds me of a lot of pals I served with. In overall performance, the 1377c was like a '72 Chevy pickup with bad valves placing second at Daytona. Hooda thunkit?

I'll Take Care of That

I told Mrs. C, the Memsaab Helena, we had to keep the Walther Nighthawk because it's just so cool and fun and the stone kind of bargain as those shoes she didn't really need but couldn't pass 'em up at the price. She bought it. I noticed she's been hoarding her little aluminum V-8 juice cans, and not in the recycling bin. Also, she's thinking about slapping a Burris SpeedDot on one of her Les Baer .45's. She's hooked.

Then I told her we had to keep the Crosman for mouse control. She said, "But we don't have a mouse problem!" Oil, sweetie, I can fix that. A couple of slim baguettes of French bread slid into the woodpile ought to do the trick. Now, where's my little pink Barbie-Bike?

For more info, contact www.eaacorp.com; www.crosman.com; www.webley.co.uk; www.waltheramerica.cont.

SOPHISTICATED TECHNICAL EPHUS

For accuracy testing, shooting was done from a wadded-up jacket rest on an ammo can. Three-shot groups were fired--or poofed?--on official bilingual 25-foot targets at a distance of--we thought, why not?--25 feet. Projectiles were Beeman German-made precision match wadcutters. Velocities were not chronographed because, well, who cares? I didn't hear any sonic booms.

Pistol                 Best Group    Worst Group

Baikal IZH46              3/16"          7/16"
Crosman 1377c              1/4"          3/4"
Walther Nighthawk          3/8"          9/16"
Webley-Scott Tempest     1 1/8"       Still Looking

Check groups by the Crosman Clunker and the Russian Olympian. For $200 more, you buy 1/16" on target at 25 fett--but the Russian can also do it offhand, and all day long. The Walther's capable of beetleblasting at this range. The Webley can keep 'em mostly in a bucket.