The new Beeman Competition PCP Air Rifle was a surprise at the 2020 SHOT Show. It’s a clear part of a turn-around that’s taking place at the company bearing this venerable name as they showed a variety of new products – some of them very innovative…
In recent times, Beeman airguns have become synonymous with rugged low-end springers like the Longhorn and the many dual-caliber breakbarrel air rifles models that have sold in vast numbers across the USA.
More recently the company has moved into the PCP air rifle market with competitive models like the Chief, Chief II and Commander…
Now at the 2020 SHOT Show, we see this new competition air rifle that’s clearly aimed at 10 Meter target shooters. Company representatives told HAM that the target MSRP is in the region of $700. With that in mind, this new air rifle – it’s described as the Model 1380 in Beeman’s catalog, but carried Model B59 on the breech – has an amazingly comprehensive and sophisticated specification.
Starting with the trigger, this is multi-adjustable and had a very good feel. Remember that this was a late prototype of some type (the serial number was 0015), so it’s clearly fairly close to production-ready as you can see from the photographs below. Beeman staff suggested availability would be in the Summer 2020 timeframe.
The firing mechanism incorporates a dry fire capability too. Of course, the Beeman Competition air rifle is to be available in .177 caliber only. With a 3,000 PSI fill, the company estimates up to 200 shots per fill at a muzzle velocity of around 550 FPS.
Although a scope was fitted for display at the show, this is clearly a rifle designed to be used with peep sights. Both the breech and the muzzle brake were machined with dovetail rails for fitting front and rear sights.
Clearly a huge effort has been made to produce a high quality stock offering adjustability in just about every manner required by the competitive shooter. Below we see the adjustable pistol grip. It rotates and can slide back and forth to achieve ideal positioning for the trigger hand.
At the rear, we see a multi-adjustable comb and buttplate. The number of possible adjustments here really matches that of the stocks fitted to much more expensive air rifles intended for competitive target shooting.
There’s also an adjustable “hamster” under the forend. As you can see, the stock is manufactured from Beech wood with metal adjustment and clamping components. If the accuracy matches the stock design, the Beeman Competition Air Rifle could be an attractive option for club match shooting.
A second innovative air rifle was the Model 1357/1358 bullpup PCP. This was clearly a design at the first prototype stage. However it did show an innovative underlever – yes, you read that right, underlever – cocking system.
The concept behind this front-located cocking lever is to place the cocking lever in the most useful-possible location. Beeman representatives claimed that this makes the gun easy to cock for repeat shots without breaking concentration on the target. I tried it and they’re right!
Fill pressure is listed as 2,000 PSI and there’s a 10-shot rotary magazine. Two calibers are planned, .177 and .22 cal.
A third new product is this .177 caliber PCP target pistol, below. Beeman says that this model fils to 3,000 PSI and offers 60 shots at 600 FPS.
There’s a 12-shot magazine and adjustable trigger.
Beyond air rifles, Beeman also showed a new HPA compressor and multiple HPA pumps. Although not completely novel, they are another indication that the company is moving forward in a positive way, expanding its footprint again in the airgun market.
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