When I decided to do some serious airgun silhouette, it occurred to me, I did not have the appropriate pistol. At the time I had the 6M and the Daisy 717. Only the Daisy showed some promise on the range. IN fact with a scope mounted I could watch the pellets fly toward the target. And in too many cases watch the wind move the pellet by the silhouette. There had to be something better, so I did my research. Naturally I looked toward the 10 meter pistols. Velocity was good in the 500 feet per second range. Grips were not too bad for a two handed hold. In most cases that is. During this search someone mentioned I should look at the FN8 Falcon. So I looked for information about the pistol. What little I could find I liked what I was reading. There simply is very little published about the pistol. Ron Robinson did publish a book Misadventures of Manic Compressive that has a complete chapter on hunting with the pistol. The whole book is a great read in my opinion. But that was after I purchased my Falcon.
My wish list of attributes the silhouette pistols should have, are as follows. Velocity over 500 fps., grip comfortable for standing silhouette. Caliber .22, maximum allowed by NRA, capable of mounting a scope easily. Good iron sights for open sight category. And perhaps the most important to be very accurate out to the ram line at 18 yards. With these requirements I had in mind was to get couple more Grand Slam pins, one in any sight indoor and any sight outdoor.
Lets see how the Falcon stacks up. It has a 8 inch barrel under that is the air reservoir. A standard configuration as far as PCP rifles and pistols goes. The air tube is rather small at one inch outside diameter. Stock is walnut no great figuring but nice. Grips are sort of reminiscent of a XP- 100. At one time I shot the XP and liked the stock very much, another big plus for the Falcon in my opinion. But unlike the XP all controls for the pistol are on the left hand side. The cocking handle is on the left as is the bolt. That way a shooter does not have to change his grip every time he/she shoots. Since I had no way of checking the accuracy or the velocity I had to take some articles as fact. Iron sights were a disappointment. Only one picture I seen had them installed. But when I ordered the pistol none were available. A set back but not a big one, I was planning to shoot open sight category with a Tau-7 anyway. So I ordered the Falcon with only one extra, a match trigger set to about 6 ounces. Can't remember what the total cost was but I don't remember much change from a thousand dollar bill. No matter, when the pistol arrived I knew I could get my Grand Slam pins with this piece of machinery.
First thing I did was mount a Tasco 2-7x32 scope with parallax adjustment. This scope seemed to compliment the pistol very well. Not too large or long and the magnification is more than I need. Mounts are made by Millet and fit the 11 mm rail perfect. After a zero was established I was set for some hard data. Before the inevitable pellet testing I wanted to set the velocity. With a full charge of air the first pellet went over the Chrony chronograph doing 576.5 fps. Using a 16. grain pellet that calculated to 11.44 foot pounds. If anyone participated in any air gun silhouette they would have noticed the animals are not hard to knock over. Once they are hit that is. When using the Daisy I know a split pellet will only turn the animals. Not so with the power of the Falcon. Any shrapnel from the .22 pellet seems to knock the animals down. Better shooting would do the same as far as knock down is concerned but, that is besides the point.
For a split second I even gave some thought to increasing the power. As is just under the 12 foot pound range the pistol barks with authority. But just in case someone wants to adjust the power it is a simple procedure. First the grip has to be removed. Then the rear action plug is removed to expose the hammer spring tension control. The hammer spring can also be changed to meet your particular needs. But I did not change anything as far as power. In fact I did not change the trigger setting either. No changes at all, and that is very unusual for me.
So lets get to the accuracy part. I chose for the test some pellets that performed well in other rifles and pistols. Crossman Premier, JSB Straton, Beeman Silver Ace, JSB Exact, RWS Superdome and JSB Jumbo. JSB Straton is a semi pointed pellet. I also heard it referred to as,( truncated ). And the JSB Jumbo is a standard match type flat head pellet. Silver Ace has rounded edges otherwise it could be a flat head also, the rest are round nose. All groups were shot at 18 yards ram line. Since the Falcon will be used for silhouette that is the longest yardage I wanted to see how accurate it is. I do remember some articles shooting at 30 yards and one at 50 yards. Can't seem to recall what the group was at the 50 yard line, but at 30 yards .50 inch spread was normal for three different pellets. I tested in ten shot groups. Pistol was refilled after every 20 shots. I could shoot more than 20 in fact I went the complete match of 40 shots one time with one fill. But at 20 it is easy to remember to fill and the hold is pretty much the same through the match. All pellets were lubed with Balistol. Here is how they stack up:
