Canadian Airgun Forum

hi everyone
i have been keeping an eye out for a decent pellet gun.
it will be used mostly for pest control where a 22 wont be a good idea.
going after starlings and pidgins.
maybe some squirrel and rabbits later on but its not a big must.
a local store has the daisy powerline 953 targetpro for sale for $60 and they are giving away a scope to go with it.
i am wondering if its a good deal or if there is something else i can buy.
i don't want to pay an arm and leg for it. as it wont be my main rifle, just need something decent and accurate for the pest that just wont go away.

for the record, i have a gun license and a hunting license with small game tag, also the house is in the country. so i have done my homework in that area and I'm covered.

It may not be a great hunting gun, but I'd buy that 953 with scope for that price in a heartbeat.... It's one of the best youth and starter airguns around.... If you don't want it, please PM me with the information....

Bob

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Dominion Marksman Silver Shield - 5890 x 6000 in 1976, and downhill ever since!
Airsonal; Too many! Springers, Pumpers, CO2, but I love my PCPs and developing them!
Proud Member of the 2000+fps Club!

mrhex, good to see u made it to the site my friend. You will find a TON of info from some great folks on this site.
Bill

hi bill, thanks for the tip for the site, it does have a ton of info on here.
i asked a buddy at work and he said to look at the store, so i went in and the girl behind the counter told me about a sale that will start tomorrow morning, but i guess they have had a lot of inquiries about the 953 so i hope that i can get there 1st thing in the morning and pick one up, and best of all, i have 30 days to bring it back even if i use it.
after posting this up, a friend from toronto emailed me asking to pick one up for him too, so it looks like ill be getting two tomorrow morning.
i have also heard daisy guns like daisy pellets, so i think i'll be off to princess to get some pellets and start zeroing that scope in.

the pidgins are really getting in the way at my place, every morning i wake up to my car just covered in white and grey splatters all over the place. and at my buddies, the starlings are dive bombing people, brave little f**kers eh, and they sit somewhere high and call out for their buddies to come over and they also dive bomb people and even his dog.

its time for them to go.

Damn! I would buy one at that price in a heartbeat too! I'm already considering paying double that price to get one from D&L, and they're probably going to charge me at least $30 shipping to send it the 60km from their warehouse to my home...

where's the sale at ?

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"A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle"

The sale is at TSC, starts 6am this morning. It's on the 2nd page of their flyer.

http://www.tscstores.com/

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The bitterness of poor quality is remembered long after the sweetness of low price has faded from memory. -Aldo Gucci

yes it was at TSC, there was a HUGE line up at the one in kingston this morning. people go nuts for these things, i ended up buying 3, one for me and two for friends.
the guy in front of me in line bought 4. LOL
the girl behind the counter was saying that they wouldnt last as peopel are buying a few at a time for friends and stuff...

now to zero in that scope and see how much power it actually packs. the package claims 490 FPS, but these things are generally not so dead on right out of the box.

Update for those of you that care.

I got the 953, it came with a 3 to 9 x 15 scope, pretty decent one actually, and a 5 round mag, an the single mag holder of course.

Right out of the box, the scope wasn’t attached and I didn’t really like how the stock position sat, it really got in the way of loading. So I moved the mounts apart a bit to give me more room. Also flipped the thumb screws around as I wont be taking the scope on and off a whole lot. Other than the scope adjustment and a bit of cleaning the rifle was pretty good right out of the box.

I started to do a rough zero at 10meters and got it pretty close to the cross hair with in 10-15 shots, and then moved back to the 25 meters and did some fine tuning of the scope.

I was really surprised as to how little recoil the gun actually has, I had read about how it’s a recoil less gun but I didn’t believe it till I stared to fire up some flat tip match 7.9gr pellets.


Once that was done, I moved on to find the best pellet to match the gun, I didn’t have a large selection with me, I had Crossman flat tip matched, pointed and hallow point.


So I started to look at stuff around the house that I can shoot to test the penetrating power of each of the pellets as well as zeroing, these were the results, all at 25 meters.

7.9gr flat match, ¾ inch grouping with 5 rounds,
8gr point tip ¾ inch grouping with 4 shots and the 5th I pulled around ¼ inch away, I know I did it cuz there was a buzzing in my ear from the dang fly,
8gr hallow tip, 1 ¼ inch grouping with 5 shots, I was kind of disappointed at the hallow tip actually, I thought it would perform better but meh… one of the shots really looked like it went through the paper side ways, at 1st I thought it was two shots but I counted again and I did notice it was sideways. What a let down.

As for penetrating power, I dug up some old vinyl siding just over 1/32 thick, cut them into 4x4 squares and started to layer them.

Used a pvc pipe as spacer to my back stop (phone book)

The flat match went through 2 layers and bounced off the 3 layer setup no idea what happened to it when it bounced off, I did hear it ping off the fence but it got lost in the grass

The pointed tip had similar results but cracked the 3 layer setup and got stock in there, it was kind of cool to see it all deformed but stuck in between the 3 layers of siding.

The hallow tip went through 1 layer and got stuck in the 2 layer setup. Just for shyt and giggles I tied it at the 3 layer setup and ya, you guessed it, NOTHING. Maybe a little dent the 1st layer but didn’t even make a mark in the 2nd layer. Again a huge let down.

I don’t know if this means it looses all its energy on impact or it truly sucks.

Now on to search for new and better pellets.

I bought 2 of these yesterday. So did a buddy of mine. An excellent buy in my opinion. No one mentioned that the winchester blowback air pistol is also on sale for 89.99! Got one as well!

My best groupings with the daisy last night were 3 holes all touching eachother and a stray upwards by 1.3" and a stray top right by 2". That was 5 shots bench rested at 50ft no scope.

All and all extremely happy with this gun.

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"God made man, but Samuel Colt made them equal."

Crosman 2260/40 Custom
Crosman 2240 Custom
Slavia 630 #77
Winchester 1911 by Daisy
Daisy 953 Target Pro
Marlin 60

I also picked up a pair. I was one of 4 people at Milton when the doors opened and nobody else bought guns. It might be worth a call.

I didn't grab a Winchester 11 because the sale price was the regular US price and I figured I didn't want it bad enough.

Just reserved one at Bowmanville TSC..jsut gave my name no credit etc.. They have 20.
Pick it up tomorrow on the way to the farm and shoot it by end of day!

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Keep you powder dry and your seals oiled.
Shoot straight and safe.

http://plinkercases.ca/

I just picked mine up at Milton today too lol... the Lady had to put mine on hold because when i called yesterday they said the computer was showing 20 left and when i called today they said they had 5 left.

So i just literally got home about an hour ago, opened the box didn't add the scope or nothing went strait to shooting and man is this a great deal for the price.

I shot it at 45 feet using grizzly 8.6gr didn't adjust anything, I fired 6 shots first shot was to see how accurate my sites where set at, the first was a bit low so i just adjusted my aim a little still didn't touch the sites and the next 5 where in a dime.

I haven't even sat down and thought about what i don't like about it
I'm sure I'll be sticking my little fingers in there to see what i can improve on but for now I'm supper stoked with it

if you guys can still get one go grab it.
thanks mrhex for the heads up.

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"A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle"

you are very welcome everyone.
the TSC in kingston has good deals from time to time, just with they had better hours.
the one in brockville has much better selection and hours.

what have you guys been using on the 953?
i stopped at canadian tire on my way home today and pickup some pellets. got the predator pellets at 8gr but they are just a hair too long to fit in the 5 round clip and loading one at a time is a pain in the ars. also got a pack of raptor pellets, they claim they are gold coated steels, not sure if its true or not, but they charged around $10+ for a pack of 100, thats almost 10c a shot, i was thinking about it after i got home and think they will go back to store, they are 5.4gr. they claim they give most pellet guns 20-25% higher velocity, but that would translate to lower kinetic energy.

ACE
what pellet did you use to get that tight grouping? i have been getting just outside a dime, closer to a nickle in prone unsupported position, not all that realistic for actual bird shooting, (the main reason i got this gun).

I mentioned it in the post Grizzly 8.6gr round nose, there all i have a the moment in .177 till my next trip to Le Barons i got them at prices auto and i must say for cheap pellets there doing a decent job, pack of 500 for $6 cant go wrong.

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"A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle"