Blog posts of '2023' 'March'

The airgunning community is a niche community. Oh, nearly anyone you meet has shot an airgun of some sort and it’s not uncommon to find someone who owns an airgun. What I mean by the community being a niche is that an airgun enthusiast is a rare individual. Even rarer is an airgun hunter. You can walk into any sporting goods retailer and find a half-dozen guys who own four or more GLOCKs, AR15s, 1911s, M1 Garands, fill in the blank. You see what I mean? But finding one person who has more than one airgun of any kind, let alone someone who hunts with one, is like locating a diamond out at Murfreesboro State Park – not easy.

Okay, without a doubt the biggest news this year for Umarex USA is the Hammer Carbine. Funny that a carbine is big news, considering that this new PCP is both shorter and lighter than the original Hammer .50 caliber rifle. So is that all there is to the story? Well, no, not at all. The story, for me at least, begins on the range. The range, for trigger-activated devices, is where the rubber meets the road. It’s where you can get a feel for how something will perform and how you interface with the rifle. This past January in the Nevada desert, myself and many other people got our first opportunity to shoot the new Hammer Carbine. So, yes, the Hammer Carbine is shorter, but it’s not just this convenient fact that makes this new PCP so special. The barrel is threaded and topped off with a threaded barrel nut. Now, a consumer can easily attach a sound dampener or just use the rifle like it is, with about a 9 inch shorter platform. Now mechanically, the Hammer Carbine is very much the same as the original Hammer. Loading the magazine, working straight pull bolt action, and operating the safeties is all familiar territory for anyone who’s had any experience with the Hammer.