Wow have things changed in airguns since my youthful days of BB gun wars! Benjamin is now owned by Crosman Corporation, and people hunt big game with big bore air rifles!
When we were kids, we used to stick all kinds of things down the bores of our air rifles—loose shot, toothpicks—anything that would fit, just to see what would happen. Well, someone at Benjamin decided to stick an arrow down one of these big bore airguns and the Pioneer Airbow was born.
The Pioneer fires full length, 375-grain arrows at a blazing 450 feet per second and has been the talk of the hunting industry since its debut. There are a lot of states where this is legal for hunting, and I’m sure we’ll see other places eventually come on board.
My friend Jim Shockey has used one to take a 2,000-pound bison and points out how the Airbow makes archery accessible to a whole new group of hunters who can’t draw a bow or are fearful of crossbows. “It’s a game changer,” according to Jim, and I couldn’t agree more.
In addition to the Pioneer, Crosman/Benjamin showed the Bulldog .357-caliber big game hunting rifle that can drive a bullet up to a pig-killing 800 fps, and the .25-caliber, 8-shot Marauder air rifle.
Scott Mayer
www.tacticaltshirts.com
www.john1911.com
“Shooting Guns & Having Fun”
In 2008, Mayer returned to the editorial side of publishing, this time in the digital field, as Editorial Director for Guns & Ammo, Shooting Times, Handguns and Rifleshooter online magazines. After a brief stint in 2011 as the Digital Media Director for an ABC TV affiliate, Mayer returned to the outdoors industry and Safari Club International where he is currently Assistant Publisher and Multi-Media Communications Editor.
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