One of the highlights of my airgunning year is in January when the SHOT Show rolls into Las Vegas. This is the launchpad for the leading airgun companies to present their full product lines and introduce all the new products for every discipline from competition shooting to hunting. It’s also an opportunity to see all the ancillary gear I like to geek out over: scopes, charging gear, projectiles and everything needed to head out on a shoot.
In this issue I will look at some of the guns and gear that are either new releases, important updates or just so cool I had to talk about them. While I can’t cover every item from every airgunning manufacturer or retailer, I will look at some of my personal picks from the likes of Air Venturi, Hatsan, Umarex, AirForce and JTS.
What’s New From Hatsan
Hatsan is a company that has been turning out some of my go-to hunting guns for several years, with a diverse product line that goes from compact small-game PCP pistols all the way to seriously powered big-bore rifles such as the .62-caliber PileDriver. Hatsan delivers solidly built, highly accurate and very powerful rifles for virtually every application. They also offer one of the best value propositions to be found. The products I gravitated to this year include the TacBoss rifle and the Surge PCP air compressor.
The TacBoss is a competition grade rifle in .22- and .25-caliber that delivers the accuracy, power and feature set for serious competition shooting or long-range varminting. The gun is cycled with an ergonomic sidelever mechanism that has a buttery smooth action, and the accuracy is facilitated by the two-stage adjustable trigger, fully shrouded high-quality German barrel and externally adjustable regulator. The adjustable folding stock and nicely shaped pistol grip make this a great platform for a long-range prairie dog rig.
The Surge is a cost-effective compressor with a relatively small footprint — capable of filling integrated airgun reservoirs or filling tanks directly. It can fill a 1.6-liter tank in about 45 minutes with a much shorter fill time to top off tanks as pressures drop. It has a one-hour continuous run time with an automatic shut-off when the desired pressure is reached. It is oilless and air-cooled, with a digital temperature gauge and overheating alarm.
One of the other things I like about the Surge compressor is that it comes in at a great price point. In the past, you had to buy an HPA tank and then find a place to have it filled, which added ongoing costs and inconvenience. This setup allows you to keep all your guns charged and ready to go, and over time is more cost effective as well as being much more convenient.
Pyramyd Airguns is one of the largest online airgun retailers in the world, carrying an extensive range of airguns and adjunct gear covering just about every aspect of the sport. Air Venturi is its production arm, working with global manufacturers to develop a diverse product portfolio that includes some of my favorite guns. In my opinion, Air Venturi changed the game when they introduced the Avenge-X modular platform design at the 2024 SHOT Show. But this year they had two guns that really resonated with me, the OmniStorm and the MicroStrike.
The OmniStorm is a gas piston break-barrel air rifle, and you could be forgiven for thinking nothing really innovative happens with this technology. Springers (mechanical and gas piston) are arguably the largest market segment in adult airguns, but incremental change comes slowly. However, the OmniStorm does offer a significant technological advance: an external port that allows the gas ram to be charged at different operating pressure settings between 205 and 550 psi.
The key is an external tuner port that connects to an easy-to-use handpump equipped with the integrated OmniTuner pressure gauge. The advantage is that this system allows the power to be dialed up or down, while providing excellent shot-to-shot consistency. And a side benefit of the OmniTuner is that along with the change in power output there is a concurrent adjustment in cocking effort. This means Dad can optimize the rifle for small-game hunting in the morning, then dial it down to reduce the power and cocking effort for the kids to shoot in the backyard afterward.
Another compact little carbine that immediately got my attention was the MicroStrike, an ultra-compact PCP available in .177-, .22- and .25-caliber that would be a perfect small-game gun, especially for backpacking or taking along on the e-bike or stashed in the kayak.
Besides the compact and ergonomic design, the specs are also quite impressive. It runs an externally adjustable regulator and hammer spring to allow the performance to be dialed in for a specific projectile or application and provides excellent power up to 30 foot-pounds of energy and an 80cc air reservoir filling to 4,350 psi that provides a shot count of 30/fill in .177-caliber down to 24/fill in .25-caliber. With a sidelever cocking mechanism, two-stage adjustable trigger and adjustable folding stock, this gun continues the Air Venturi concept of guns that can be individualized for fit and function.
Umarex Innovations
Umarex has been manufacturing innovative rifles over the past few years, such as the Hammer big-bore rifle and carbine models in .50-caliber. This design offers a regulated powerhouse with a unique two-shot shuttle magazine. Umarex also released the arrow launching Air Javelin, powered with both CO2 and sporting a conventional PCP design, which worked like a charm for me hunting hogs and javelinas this past year. The gun on display at their booth that caught my eye this year was a new version of the Air Javelin, with a whole new power source!
The Nitro Javelin takes the established arrow launching platform that has been around for a couple years and introduces a fundamental change by leveraging last year’s introduction of the NitroAir prefilled cartridge. This cartridge uses compressed nitrogen gas at 3,600 psi to launch arrows at crossbow performance levels. I haven’t had an opportunity to shoot this gun yet but was told that it sends a 170-grain arrow at a bit over 370 fps, which is in line with the performance of the PCP version.
Where this technology gets interesting for me is that the NitroAir cartridge was originally developed for the Umarex Komplete air rifle that shoots standard .22-caliber pellets. There is a cost per use calculation to be considered for this rifle; the start up cost is much lower (and spread over time) when compared to purchasing tanks and means of refilling those tanks for a standard PCP rifle.
In a nutshell, if you are going to use the Komplete primarily for small-game hunting and occasional target shooting to sight-in and practice, it makes economic sense. On the other hand, if you plan to shoot a couple of tins of pellets every week it does not. But arrow guns are generally purchased for hunting and are often shot at a lower frequency than a standard pellet rifle, and this flips that whole cost calculation. I think this gun will resonate with deer and hog hunters who want to get into an arrowgun at a more affordable price point without the entry barrier of acquiring charging equipment.
AirForce Airguns
AirForce is a U.S.-based manufacturer of PCP air rifles that has been turning out the classic Talon line of airguns for many years and is well known for its Texan big-bore rifles, ranging in calibers from .257- to .51-caliber. This gun has a proven track record for big-game and predator hunting and boasts a large and dedicated user base. But at this year’s show it was its Raw MicroHunter 1000 that attracted my attention. Rapid Air Worx (RAW) is a longtime builder of fine airguns of British origin that moved operations to the United States several years ago, and is now part of Auto-Numatic Corporation, which is the retail division of AirForce. I have used RAW rifles for long-range varminting and they are very well crafted with outstanding accuracy and power.
People who know me know I have a weakness for compact PCP rifles, especially those that manage to maintain the performance of a full-size rifle. The RAW MicroHunter is regulated with an adjustable hammer spring, delivering the equivalent performance and precision of the full-size rifle. The MicroHunter variant is built on an ambidextrous HM1000x Chassis and comes configured in either .177-, .22- or .25-caliber. Maintaining dimensions of 27-inch length overall, weight of 5.6 pounds and a stock that implements a buffer tube compatible with AR stocks, M-Lok and multiple Picatinny rails, this seems like it will be a great small-game gun.
JTS Dead Center Pellets
JTS is a brand that has come onto the scene over the past couple years, though it has roots in the airgunning world going back decades. A couple years back, at its first SHOT Show, I was really impressed with its Airacuda line of PCP airguns, quality guns made of wood and steel, metal magazines, sleek design and great pricing. And during this time, they have also extended the range of ancillary products, including scopes, compressors and pellets. Though released a while back, the JTS Dead Center pellet lineup has become a top seller for the company but is not as well-known as it should be.
The Dead Center pellet lineup consists of Diabolo-style pellets in .177-, .22-, .25-caliber, and a new .30-caliber, with several weights and dome configurations available in most calibers. Airguns can be decidedly fickle in pellet preference, but one of the things that has impressed me with the Dead Center pellets is that they are excellent performers in most of my guns. They are consistent, packaged well to minimize the occurrence of deformed pellets, and as an added benefit, very cost effective.
Looking Back
One of the reasons I attend the SHOT Show every year is to visit with manufacturers and arrange to borrow samples of products to test on various hunts and range sessions throughout the year. These loaners generally stay with me for a few months, allowing time to put them through heavy field use and form an opinion of how they fit various shooting applications. The opinions presented in this initial review are based on the handling of the products, sometimes with limited range testing. I also had the opportunity to review the specifications and discuss them with the engineers and representatives of the manufacturers.
This was an early look at many of the new products at the 2025 SHOT Show and, of course, there were several others we’ll be seeing throughout the year. I do look forward to getting my hands on every item discussed here and taking them along on my hunting excursions for some serious real-world testing. So, if you are an airgunner already, or a hunter who would like to add an airgun in your hunting toolbox, keep following the pages of Predator Xtreme to see what’s working in the field.
