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| REVIEW: Daisy 880 |
lthomas987 (26/F/Iowa) |
11/15/1999 10:11 am EST |
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Lets start by acknowledging that the Daisy 880, a
$35 gun found mostly at discount chain stores like
Walmart and K-Mart isn't the sort of gun most people
would reveiw. However it is the sort of gun lots of
people look at and wonder about, and lots of them get
sold every year, including the one I
bought. Here are the basics, the Daisy 880 is a multi-pump pneumatic, with adjustable sights, and fires either pellets or BBs, it has a resivoir that holds quite few BBs, or pellets are loaded individualy. The saftey, a crossbolt trigger block type, is realativey easy to opperate once you get it broken in. The saftey was very stiff at first though. The barrel is rifled steel. Overall weight 3.7 lbs. So what does your $35 get you? Well an almost entierly black plastic gun, the barrel is rifled steel, and most of the weight of the gun. The front sight is a post, the back is a rounded bottom V. The rear sight is adjustable, it has a black notched plastic ramp one can slide forwards and back to adjust elevation, and windage can be adjusted by losening a screw and moving the notched plate. I have had the best luck adjusting the sights by the bend to shape method actually. It also has a 3/8" rail on it to take a scope or other sight. The gun feels cheap, well it is cheap, I always get the feeling that I might break it when I am pumping it. The lever wobbles sort of wildly. The gun is too light to provide any sort of encouragement to use good shooting positions. Bone support doesn't much matter when you can hold the gun all day and not get tired. This trait does however make it an exellent gun for teaching a youngster, especially when combined with its small size. It can be hard to load, the pellets have a tendancy to want to fall into the BB resivoir, once you get the trick it isn't too bad though. Then you have to close the bolt, which moves easily up and to a point, but requires signficant force to push the rest of the way. Many times I have found myself unable to fire because the bolt was not fully closed. The trigger feel is distinctive, and the pull is far less mushy than one would expect, certainly not the crisp feel of a target trigger, but once again good enough that you can get a feel for what the real thing should be like. With Daisy MaxSpeed pellets (the cheapest I can find) it puts together nice tight groups. I don't have a vice so I can't get a good indication of how tight. It does quite well with three pumps at 25' indoors. Orignialy I was very disapointed with its performance, but I was trying to shoot it with only 2 pumps and heavier pellets. Once I gave it a bit more power it performed much better. While the Daisy 880 is a pretty mediocre gun it does have some merits, not the least of which is price. All in all I think for $35 this is a great beginners gun, if you aren't sure if you like shooting or the person you want to teach is going to like shooting, you aren't out too much cash. It is small and light enough to use with an elementary schooler. But accurate enough to teach, because nothing is more frustrating to a learner than doing everything the same way and getting results that change all the time. The Daisy 880 comes in several models which can be seen at the Daisy website, including one with a fiber optic front sight, and another with a scope. Is it a great gun no. Is it a good value for your $35 yes. I wouldn't hesitate to buy this gone to teach a kid, or even an adult, the basics of shooting. Especially if you wanted them to have a gun of their own, after all nothing is more frustrating for a kid than having a gun they can hardly manage, and that shoots so poorly they can't tell if they are improving. |
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