Most expensive BB gun you've ever seen

(First, about the last post. Ok, so I admit I've been in a bit of a funk for the past couple weeks. Oh, it wasn't obvious?! The occasional "somber" post will happen. I can live with that.)

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Of the several guns I own my favorite is, at heart, nothing but an old-fashioned, albeit pretty fancy, pellet gun. Introducing the Steyr Mannlicher LP10 precision match air pistol. This little gem of Austrian engineering is a leading member of that elite group of super-precision air
pistols used in international 10-meter competition as featured in the Olympic games. Shown here in my Pelican case are two air cylinders (the long silver things), a couple tins of pellets (green and yellow round things), some cleaning stuff (round black things above the pellet tins), air pressure gauge (the one that looks like a gauge!), fill adaptor for filling the cylinders from a scuba tank (below the gauge), some tools and user manual (long colorful thing to the left of the adaptor and the black thing below it), and pellet velocity meter to adjust the pellet velocity (left of the gauge).

Why is it my favorite? Because I absolutely love accuracy and elegant design. With respect to accuracy, this pistol shoots a single round hole at ten meters when shot from a vice. This is not a
jagged-edged hole, mind you. It’s a perfectly round hole produced by shooting ten pellets of a mere .177 inch diameter at the target. It is the most accurate gun I am ever likely to own.

And the design? Here’s what Pilkguns has to say:

Motionless firing.....

Stabilizer, compensator and barrel ballasting weights control any upward muzzle climb. The recoil causing air pressure (or CO2) recoil is eliminated by the internal stabilizer consisting of a mobile bolt mass. Highest Precision.....
With ultra-short lock time and adjustable muzzle velocity.

Individual Adjustment Features.....
For trigger, line of sight and rear sight blade.

Unmatched Morini Grip.....

Can be adjusted and swiveled in virtually every direction.

Dry Fire Device.....
Can be activated and deactivated without any tools.

Quality made by Steyr Sportwaffen.....
In design, manufacture and finish.

Wow. I have a German rifle that also demonstrates the Bavarians’ passion for precision, but this one takes the cake. It’s simply beautiful to look at as the following pictures attest.

There's something wrong with this picture. I'm holding the pistol in my knees. Can you guess where it's pointed? Well, there's obviously nothing in the chamber. It's not a very good shot, but you can kind of make out the spiral rifling, you know, like the one you see at the start of every James Bond movie. Part of the reason this shot isn't very good is because the barrel is mirror smooth on the inside and you get a bunch of reflections on the inside surfaces.

Here's a better view of the Morini grip. With it's nicely contoured profile, it practically envelops the hand and makes for a very stable hold on the pistol. I absolutely love this grip. In fact, there's a tub of plaster of Paris sitting in my garage which I intend to use to make a mold of the grip (multi-part, no doubt) so that I can make a copy for my other pistol.






Here's a nice view of the trigger with all of it's myriad adjustments. If you look closely you can see several of the adjustment screws and get a sense of just how dextrous this thing really is. This is a perfectly crisp two-stage trigger in the finest European tradition. I just can't figure out why Americans don't like two-stage triggers. They're wonderful and I wish all my guns had them!





Finally, here's a view of the open breech. The large lever on the right actuates the cylindrical silver colored breech block toward the bottom. When closed, it's flat bottom surface (not shown) seals against the green o-ring while the front portion seals against the breech (the visible portion of the barrel in this picture). The pellet is inserted manually into the barrel after each cycle.