Servicing of Competition Airguns

[sohampaul11]

I am into 10 m shooting. Currently am shooting in the open sight category with a Precihole Club Elite. I intend to pursue 10m Air Pistol in the near future. I'm financially strained but I still shoot for the sheer love of the sport. Over time,I learnt that the best airguns to own are the spring piston ones. Reason-Reliable,easy to maintain and service. But spring piston guns cannot be used in competitions due to the obvious limitations. So,I looked towards SSPs because of their independability like the spring piston ones. But read a lot of reviews where the guns stopped working due to loss of air pressure or damage to seals. THis wouldnt have been a problem had I been in the U.S. But this is India,and I dont know where to go to for servicing this type of powerplant. Then I looked towards PCPs. They are a high investment but eventually are worth their money. Still there are same problems with the seals albeit slightly lesser than the SSPs. The only thing that's holding me apart from spending a huge fortune on an imported air pistol is the availability of spare parts and servicing. I dont intend to buy Walthers or Steyrs right from the start,because I cant invest that much since I'm a student with a very limited source of income which comes from teaching a couple of students. I looked at the IHP PCP air pistol,and though it is affordable, I heard a lot of reliability issues with it. My current choices are Daisy Triumph 747,IZH 46M,Alfa Proj and at the most Hammerli AP20. Please suggest me any one of these which is reliable and easy to maintain. As also, where to look for for servicing issues. I'm also open to a plethora of suggestions.

[dev]

The IZH 46 m has a habit of blowing its seals. You can replace them easily as one set comes with the pistol. If you go through a lot of pain and somehow contact Tim @mac1airguns.com he has cured the Baikal of this problem. I don't have any experience with the others. I had a steyr Lp 10 which only a qualified airgunsmith in Delhi helped me to maintain.