We noted the Pioneer Airbow’s introduction when it was announced before SHOT. Crosman calls it a PCP (pre-charged pneumatic) airbow but its bullpup-like design makes it compact and easily maneuverable (though at seven pounds, it runs a little heavier than your average AR). I wouldn’t want to be a hog or a doe on the receiving end of one.

I had a chance to fire the thing last week in Montana.

RF may not have been a fan of its aesthetics, but this thing is two tons o’ fun to shoot. It’s also dead-on-balls accurate. I was shooting at 30 yards or so. The Pioneer packs 3000 PSI which gets you 8-10 full-power shots at a whopping 450 feet per second, giving it more range and making it a lot easier to charge than a crossbow.

At about $850, each one ships with three arrows, a standard 6×40 scope, sling and quiver. If you get a chance to try one, take it.

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20 COMMENTS

  1. Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but your videos will not play on my laptop. When it’s a YouTube vid they work just fine.

  2. Vids work fine on the iPad…
    Dan, are they using scuba tanks to recharge? That’s neat. I get my tanks filled at my local fire station.
    Wonder how many states this would be legal to hunt with… We just got allowed lighted nocks here. Still not allowed to use cross bows.
    The laugh after the young lady shot tells me all I need to know.

  3. Looks cool! I’m curious about how the actual velocity stacks up to the 450 FPS claim, as well as the shot to shot loss. The arrows / bolts are a bit lighter than typical crossbow fare. I’d definitely give one of these a try, although my current gun / ammo budget is on stockpiling ARs, 5.56, .22 LR, and 9mm.

    Incidentally, the vids are running fine on my iPhone 6 running the latest IOS and private browsing.

    • “I’m curious about … shot to shot loss.”

      According to the Crossman website, “An integrated pressure regulator delivers 8 shots at a consistent 450 FPS …”

  5. Another that can’t play embedded videos. Also… most of the stuff that usually appears in the right column is gone, including the login / sign in link. I had to manually find the admin page to sign in.

    OK… refreshed… turned off the ad-block. Got the ADS to play in the video, but the actual video still won’t load.

    • If you want to be able to watch embedded videos, you have to allow certain, shall we call them “entities”, to run scripts as well. In addition to allowing thetruthaboutguns.com to run scripts, you also have to enable one or both of cinesport.com and full30.com to run scripts as well.

  6. I had the chance to shoot one of these and can agree to its accuracy. But the one thing that I noticed that I have not heard mentioned is how loud this thing is. I bow hunt and I can’t imagine any critter not flinching when this thing cracks off. A side note we discovered, the arrows seemed to be standard arrows / bolts with the nock replaced with a rubber piece to help seal and hold onto the shaft. The tip is threaded with a hollow insert just like an arrow / bolt. This is where we noticed a drop in FPS. The tips were coming unthreaded allowing a gap for air to escape lowering FPS. After fixing that with a little wax, we could consistently get 445 fps, with it dropping down to 430 after the 5th shot.

  7. Now if my state will let me hunt with it during the archary season, this may be worth looking into.

  8. Not an air bow but we’re trying a little change up this season. Small game hunting, including quail will be done with air rifles.

    Cause we can and it looks like fun.

  9. Wondering how the hollow bolt launching tube holds up.
    Looks kind flimsy and unprotected.
    I imagine that as I would toss that thing into the mule, it would get bent and fail to function.
    I will just stick with the 6.8 SPC AR.

  10. Pretty cool. Maybe I can add it to my prepper stash…Video works OK on my ultra cheap Virgin Mobil phone.

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