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30 March, 2011

AR2078 Improvements and Accuracy Comparison with Daisy 953

Archer Airguns customer Kevin Cuyler sent some useful ideas and information about his new AR2078, which he describes as "as beautiful rifle and easy to operate".

First, Kevin addressed the issue that the peep sights on the AR2078 have their "up, down, left right" indications stamped in Chinese characters only. To make it easier to remember which way to turn the turrets, Kevin filled the directional arrows with red and green paint - thus providing an easy way to manage that issue. He also fitted home-made plastic occluders that are fitted to the peep sight with Velcro and aid target concentration when shooting.


Kevin also tested accuracy of the AR2078 against his Avanti 953 with the results shown below. You can also see the patches that Kevin used in cleaning the barrels of both these air rifles. He was concerned that the patches from his new AR2078 were dirty and a suspicious orange (=rust?) color. But I was able to reassure him that the barrels on all Shanghai air rifles are treated with a preservative liquid before shipment to prevent rust until use. That's a great idea from the factory, but the material they use is rather hard to remove and is rust-colored! I do give the barrels a quick clean as part of our "Gold Service", but it's very persistent, as you can see. Anyhow, it cleans, or shoots, out after a time and it's certainly not rust!


You can see that Kevin's a great shot and why he's pleased with both air rifles! He has a number of "comfort mods" in the works for making his AR2078 easier to use and, hopefully, he'll share them with us in future....

5 comments:

Anonymous,  Thursday, 31 March, 2011  

The Daisy 953 is, for it's price, surprisingly accurate. The somewhat heavy and creepy plastic trigger, however, makes it more difficult (for me) to shoot it accurately offhand. I'll take the AR2078 over the 953 any day.

Stephen Archer Thursday, 31 March, 2011  

Thanks for your comments. I've not shot a 953 myself.

Anonymous,  Saturday, 02 April, 2011  

I have a 953 in my collection and rave about every chance I get. Looks like it proved itself well in this review. Very well in fact. Yes? Lets not forget the 953 retails for over $100 less than the AR2078. As far as the trigger - very easy to make significantly better.

Anonymous,  Friday, 22 April, 2011  

Mr. Archer, do you happen to know what manner of hold (or rest)Kevin was using when he shot these groups? Also, do the upper (red-centered) targets represent groups, or are they single shots aimed at the centers? Do you know if the Daisy was shot using aperture sights? Thank you.

GaryN Saturday, 26 November, 2011  

For your 953, you can get a booklet from the CMP (http://www.odcmp.co/Programs/publications.htm) "Tom Johnson's Sportster Tips" that has the instructions to fix the trigger. Of the 3 trigger modifications, the only one that really needs to be made is to deburr the trigger sear, and luckily that is also the easiest of the mods to do. You get 80% of the benefit from that one modification.

To balance it out, you have to buy the diopter sights for the 953. This adds $40-100 (depending on what sights you get) to the price of the 953. The better Gamo sight is about $100, which is more than the cost of the 953.

About This Blog

This blog shares information, ideas and knowledge about air rifles. It compliments the information Stephen publishes on the Archer Airguns website, on YouTube and the Chinese Airgun Forum.

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