Precihole px100 match pro initial review
Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 8:37 am
Hi,
I've recently purchased the px100 match pro from precihole and am surprised about how little discussion this rifle has generated online.
I purchased this rifle exactly one week ago and here is my initial impression of the rifle.
Please note that I have just started shooting and have not tried the triggers on any of the German counterparts.
I'm mostly nitpicking here. The rifle is a dream to shoot for anybody entering into competitive air rifle shooting for the price range (45,000 from precihole website) . Can it compare against the walther and anschutz rifles? Probably not. But it is a very accurate rifle and has brought down the cost to enter into this sport. I'm a big fan of precihole products (having bought the nx100 club elite in March 2019) and an even bigger fan of their customer support. Having personally interacted with the team members working at precihole, I can tell you that they are very nice and patient people.
Okay so back to the px100 match pro.
Trigger:
1) it has a wonderful trigger. Crisp, smooth and fully adjustable. It can be adjusted in terms of length of first stage, weight of first pull, weight of second stage and trigger positioning in up/down and forward/backward positions.
2) the trigger adjustment screws are a huge pain to fiddle with though and gaining access to them is not always easy.
3) But all of that said, the trigger is arguably the best feature on this rifle in my opinion once you get it adjusted as per your preferences.
Stock:
1) the stock on this rifle has a decent butt and cheek plates which can be adjusted for height and length. But that is about it when it comes to adjustment. I'm 6'2" and the butt plate fits comfortable on my shoulder once fully extended. There's not much to tweak here and it is a simple but effective design which I've come to like now.
2) the rifle does come with 3 weights on the stock to help you balance the rifle better which is really nice. I would have preferred to be able to have barrel weights as well to balance the gun better as well as increase the overall weight of the rifle. It weighs just over 4kgs whereas the German counterparts generally weigh considerable more 4.5-5.2kgs with the option to add or remove weights. Nevertheless I spoke to the representatives at precihole when I bought this rifle and they mentioned having barrel weights/additional weights along with other accessories coming to the market soon.
3) the palm rest is made of aluminium as well and does the job well but isn't adjustable at all. Moreover the front screw on the palm rest is connected to a floating nut inside. So if you take off the palm rest, you will have to remove the action from the stock in order to piece everything back together. It would've been nice to have an adjustable palm rest. But considering the design, it does look like if precihole did come up with an adjustable palm rest in the future, it could be retrofitted to this rifle easily. The palm rest also obstructs easy access to the second stage trigger weight adjustment unless you have a really long Allen wrench.
4) the stock around the cylinder is satin brushed aluminium, it tends to get dirty VERY easily. I'm probably going to take the stock off to spray a thin coat of varnish or something to prevent it from getting dirty easily.
Sights:
1) I like the sights a lot. Like everything else. It is a simple and elegant design. The clicks on elevation and windage knobs are crisp with 8 clicks per ring at 10m.
2) the best part is that the rifle comes with a sight adapter for any filters or polarizer you might want to attach to your sight.
3) sight riser blocks. The gun does come with riser blocks and seem to be of very good quality. Personally I'd like to see more sight risers available from precihole with varying heights so you could stack them up to increase the sight height.
Action:
1) the action on this rifle is pretty much the same as in other precihole pcps. Again it is a simple and proven design where the loading lever opens sideways. I like it. No complaints there.
2) the pellet loading bay is a bit small though and you can easily feel cramped while loading pellets into the gun Especially if you wear shooting gloves or load the pellet with your gloved left hand. However it is not a deal breaker and you'll soon get used to it.
3) the gun is VERY SILENT though. Much quieter compared to other pcps.
4) cylinder isn't removable which isn't a big deal and has a pressure gauge on it. It's a 150 bar cylinder and operates all the way down to 70 bar. This is plenty of air to give you about 150 shots on a full tank.
5) make sure to experiment with a bunch of different pellet options but I've observed tighter grouping with lighter pellets.
Grip:
1) I love this rifle but the grip on it is probably the most contentious point for me. It is very skinny and would probably be fine unless you have large hands like mine. Adding epoxy and mseal to bulk and shape it up a bit will definitely help (which I'm going to reevaluate and attempt after a month of daily use). It would have been nice if the company could offer better grips in different sizes. Again the grip is probably fine and most of you might absolutely love it. But it is just my opinion and I don't find it to be very comfortable. I haven't tried the walther or fwb grips so I wouldn't know what's the best but I know that this doesn't fit right.
From what I could tell, the action is fixed to the stock with one screw. So opening it up for servicing and all should be pretty easy.
Final verdict. The rifle is incredibly accurate and adjustable for the price and I absolutely love shooting it. It has brought down the price of admission for 10m air rifle shooting and should give entry level pcps from German companies a run for their money. I haven't tried a lot of different types of pellets through it yet. I've ordered a few boxes of different pellets to try, but after 2000 pellets (mastershot, precipell and gamo ) throughout the week I don't feel fatigued at all even after hours of using this rifle in one session. I love precihole products and can't wait to see the company grow and offer other products as well. What I would like to see in the near future from precihole is an adjustable palm rest and better grips.
Basically i love everything about the rifle and I've said this multiple times that for the price, it is really good. Would I like more customizablity? Sure. But the price of the rifle would go up significantly. Would I like to see the option to purchase the accessories separately? Definitely.
My shooting has improved by leaps and bounds since switching to this PCP from nx100 (with peep sights). I'm hitting mostly 9s and 10s now with the occasional 7 as compared to mostly 7s and 6s before with the spring rifle.
I hope this helps anybody who wishes to buy this rifle and plan on making a hands on review video soon as well, once I get to spend a few more weeks with the rifle.
I've recently purchased the px100 match pro from precihole and am surprised about how little discussion this rifle has generated online.
I purchased this rifle exactly one week ago and here is my initial impression of the rifle.
Please note that I have just started shooting and have not tried the triggers on any of the German counterparts.
I'm mostly nitpicking here. The rifle is a dream to shoot for anybody entering into competitive air rifle shooting for the price range (45,000 from precihole website) . Can it compare against the walther and anschutz rifles? Probably not. But it is a very accurate rifle and has brought down the cost to enter into this sport. I'm a big fan of precihole products (having bought the nx100 club elite in March 2019) and an even bigger fan of their customer support. Having personally interacted with the team members working at precihole, I can tell you that they are very nice and patient people.
Okay so back to the px100 match pro.
Trigger:
1) it has a wonderful trigger. Crisp, smooth and fully adjustable. It can be adjusted in terms of length of first stage, weight of first pull, weight of second stage and trigger positioning in up/down and forward/backward positions.
2) the trigger adjustment screws are a huge pain to fiddle with though and gaining access to them is not always easy.
3) But all of that said, the trigger is arguably the best feature on this rifle in my opinion once you get it adjusted as per your preferences.
Stock:
1) the stock on this rifle has a decent butt and cheek plates which can be adjusted for height and length. But that is about it when it comes to adjustment. I'm 6'2" and the butt plate fits comfortable on my shoulder once fully extended. There's not much to tweak here and it is a simple but effective design which I've come to like now.
2) the rifle does come with 3 weights on the stock to help you balance the rifle better which is really nice. I would have preferred to be able to have barrel weights as well to balance the gun better as well as increase the overall weight of the rifle. It weighs just over 4kgs whereas the German counterparts generally weigh considerable more 4.5-5.2kgs with the option to add or remove weights. Nevertheless I spoke to the representatives at precihole when I bought this rifle and they mentioned having barrel weights/additional weights along with other accessories coming to the market soon.
3) the palm rest is made of aluminium as well and does the job well but isn't adjustable at all. Moreover the front screw on the palm rest is connected to a floating nut inside. So if you take off the palm rest, you will have to remove the action from the stock in order to piece everything back together. It would've been nice to have an adjustable palm rest. But considering the design, it does look like if precihole did come up with an adjustable palm rest in the future, it could be retrofitted to this rifle easily. The palm rest also obstructs easy access to the second stage trigger weight adjustment unless you have a really long Allen wrench.
4) the stock around the cylinder is satin brushed aluminium, it tends to get dirty VERY easily. I'm probably going to take the stock off to spray a thin coat of varnish or something to prevent it from getting dirty easily.
Sights:
1) I like the sights a lot. Like everything else. It is a simple and elegant design. The clicks on elevation and windage knobs are crisp with 8 clicks per ring at 10m.
2) the best part is that the rifle comes with a sight adapter for any filters or polarizer you might want to attach to your sight.
3) sight riser blocks. The gun does come with riser blocks and seem to be of very good quality. Personally I'd like to see more sight risers available from precihole with varying heights so you could stack them up to increase the sight height.
Action:
1) the action on this rifle is pretty much the same as in other precihole pcps. Again it is a simple and proven design where the loading lever opens sideways. I like it. No complaints there.
2) the pellet loading bay is a bit small though and you can easily feel cramped while loading pellets into the gun Especially if you wear shooting gloves or load the pellet with your gloved left hand. However it is not a deal breaker and you'll soon get used to it.
3) the gun is VERY SILENT though. Much quieter compared to other pcps.
4) cylinder isn't removable which isn't a big deal and has a pressure gauge on it. It's a 150 bar cylinder and operates all the way down to 70 bar. This is plenty of air to give you about 150 shots on a full tank.
5) make sure to experiment with a bunch of different pellet options but I've observed tighter grouping with lighter pellets.
Grip:
1) I love this rifle but the grip on it is probably the most contentious point for me. It is very skinny and would probably be fine unless you have large hands like mine. Adding epoxy and mseal to bulk and shape it up a bit will definitely help (which I'm going to reevaluate and attempt after a month of daily use). It would have been nice if the company could offer better grips in different sizes. Again the grip is probably fine and most of you might absolutely love it. But it is just my opinion and I don't find it to be very comfortable. I haven't tried the walther or fwb grips so I wouldn't know what's the best but I know that this doesn't fit right.
From what I could tell, the action is fixed to the stock with one screw. So opening it up for servicing and all should be pretty easy.
Final verdict. The rifle is incredibly accurate and adjustable for the price and I absolutely love shooting it. It has brought down the price of admission for 10m air rifle shooting and should give entry level pcps from German companies a run for their money. I haven't tried a lot of different types of pellets through it yet. I've ordered a few boxes of different pellets to try, but after 2000 pellets (mastershot, precipell and gamo ) throughout the week I don't feel fatigued at all even after hours of using this rifle in one session. I love precihole products and can't wait to see the company grow and offer other products as well. What I would like to see in the near future from precihole is an adjustable palm rest and better grips.
Basically i love everything about the rifle and I've said this multiple times that for the price, it is really good. Would I like more customizablity? Sure. But the price of the rifle would go up significantly. Would I like to see the option to purchase the accessories separately? Definitely.
My shooting has improved by leaps and bounds since switching to this PCP from nx100 (with peep sights). I'm hitting mostly 9s and 10s now with the occasional 7 as compared to mostly 7s and 6s before with the spring rifle.
I hope this helps anybody who wishes to buy this rifle and plan on making a hands on review video soon as well, once I get to spend a few more weeks with the rifle.