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General Information Articles
From Compasseco Tech Force 79
By Tom Gaylord
Features abound in this affordable 10-meter rifle from the Orient. Precision is one of the real buzzwords that get an air gunner's juices flowing. Since the end of World War II, one of the best selling and maybe the most unheralded, categories has been the target guns. For a long time there were only rifles in this category, but the introduction of Walther's LP 53 and the line pistols that soon followed it expanded the market to include handguns too. Robert Beeman once told me that the solitary basement shooter with his top-of-the-line 10-meter rifle occupies a significant sector of the entire market. At first I didn't understand, than I began to meet these shooters. To my utter surprise, most of them don't just own one fine rifle, they own many. In fact, I know many shooters with more than five world-class target rifles, and a fewer that own more than 10. At some point, time turns their collection into a significant slice of 10-meter history, though when they first bought that Walther LGR or FWB 300 it was state of the art and I am sure they must have thought they would ever need another target air rifle. The reason for this phenomenon seems to be tied to the word gprecision.h As with few other sports, air gunners can purchase exactly the same equipment as world-class competitors. Though there are many Airgun smiths who modify sporting air guns, virtually no one can improve upon the perfection that pours forth from the factories in Europe, more specifically Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This close association with perfection has also spawned a healthy, secondary market of 10-meter guns for those who want to compete at a more affordable level. These are primarily youth shooters, but they are quietly shadowed by adults who want to own and shoot the same guns. Enter Daisy's Avanti line and the Crosman Challenger. Ten years ago it would have been heresy to suggest that Chinese air guns could also play in this game. When everyone was concentrating one one-hole accuracy at 10-meters, the Chinese were busy trying to make guns that functional at a base level. But in the mid 1990's the Chinese SS2 landed on these shores and changed all that. A reasonable copy of the FWB 65, the SS2 will never win awards for beauty, but it has an accurate barrel and a better-than-good trigger. Close on the heels of the SS2 came the even better BS4, an honest competitor the FWB 300. While not equal in the looks department (but significantly closer than the SS2), the BS4 gives nothing away when it comes to accuracy. Priced at about one-third of a new FWB 300, the BS4 caught on quick as a club gun. And the gbasement Bobsh bought them too. For years I have said that these two air guns prove the Chinese can rifle a barrel well when they want to. I have seen continued improvement in their sporting models over the years, but nothing like the quantum leap made those two target air guns until now. At the The Sportsman QB77 was the .177 version of a Chinese's famous 167. The QB22 mimicked the .22 caliber 160. The rifles were developed for the Chinese representative Henry Harn, based on a Crosman 160 modified by Tim McMurray of Mac1 Airguns. Tim loaded a 160 with the most desirable of his custom modifications, then turned his rifle over to the Chinese to be duplicated. The project was not aimed at copying the existing air gun, but rather at resurrecting one of the finest classic air rifles and producing it again at an affordable price. The project ran for several years and many air gunners have the QB22's and 77's they cherish highly. The QB78 was introduced later as a lower cost alternative to the QB22/77 and that muddied the waters considerably. For one thing, the quality of the barrels suffered. You might get a great one or it could be a disaster—only shooting would tell. Unknowing shooters were attracted by the lower price, which served to kill the move tightly controlled and expensive 22/77 project. Some found the newer rifle not to their liking because of a lack of quality. I have no feel for where the QB78 (Tech Force, if you buy from Compasseco) is today in terms of consistent quality, but be assured that question was the forefront of my mind during this test. I know the Chinese can make a great barrel when they want to but whether will is a separate question. In a target gun like the TF79, accuracy is not just an important component it is the single most important component! Of course things like fit, controls, trigger and reliability are also important, but a target gun without accuracy might as well not exist. The TF79 is accurate! Actually it is surprisingly accurate. I won't say gcfor the price,h but that's what I am thinking. For the $179.00, you get a target rifle that will shoot alongside Daisy's 888 Avanti and the Crosman's Challenger 2000. And accuracy isn't where the good news ends, for this rifle comes with a boatload of remarkable accessories and standard features. Sights When the Chinese copied the FWB 300, they also copied the rear aperture sight. They didn't finish the metal as nicely as Feinwerkbau, but I'll be darned if this isn't just as precise as the most costly German sight! In fact, Compasseco retails just the sight for $89.95 for everyone who needs a replacement for their 10-meter pellet guns. But they also put the same great sight on the TF79 as a STANDARD item! This is exciting, because it puts a $350.00 sight in reach of a whole lot more shooters. Of course the rear sight clamps onto a standard dovetail base, so all you heretics out there can mount a scope quite easily. The front sight is a globe that accepts sheet steel inserts. The rifle comes with a post and an aperture, but when I tried to install a Lucite aperture from Champion's Choice it was half a millimeter too large to fit. Too bad as the rear sight readily accepted my Gehmann adjustable aperture disc which solved the problem of a too-small hole in the factory disc. More Neat Stuff Besides the sights, the rifle is supplied with tools, a separate sporting rear sight (!!!) I tested the rifle with powerlets and on bulk Co2, but if I owned it I would probably run it bulk-fill exclusively. The cost savings are tremendous. Instead of 80-90 cents per fill, you will pay less than 7 cents, if your gas cost $14 for 20 pounds. Powerlets are more convenient away from home base, so you can always convert from one to the other, but the thrifty air gunner (is there any other kind?) will run on bulk gas. And with this gun, you can fill either way assuming you have a bulk tank setup. The Trigger If you read the 180 article in this newsletter, you already know everything about the trigger. Since the 79 is based on the TF78, the trigger is also. Or is it? Actually there is a difference in the 79's trigger-an improvement if you will. Where the regular Crosman trigger has a solid one-piece blade, the blade on the 79 is two-piece held together by a pin. Between them, a small spring keeps tension on the lower blade until your finger contracts it during the pull. This gives the feel of a light first stage without compromising the safety of the sear engagement. You can have your cake and eat it, too. For serious competitors use a single-stage trigger pull. They have learned that a two-stage pull is best for safety, as well as trigger control. But the standard Crosman trigger does not lend itself to two stages unless some clever arrangement like this one has been made. I can hold the TF79 on target and bounce my finger through stage one as many times as I want—the second stage is in no way compromised. When I am ready to get serious, it's always there for me. Adjustments are easy to make and very positive. They can be locked in place with small nuts on each of the two adjustment screws. The only compromise seems to be the trigger return spring. Instead of a simple screw to tension the coiled return spring, a separate slider has been added. The slider is slid to the desired point that puts whatever tension you want on the spring, then a screw from the side locks the slider in place. This arrangement adds one extra part and a layer of complexity that I find surprising in a gun built for economy. It obviously cost more to do it this way so there must be a good rationale behind it. I just can't see what it is. What The Gun Lacks Okay, it has all this neat stuff and a really wonderful trigger-surely there must be some things missing? Ergonomics come to mind. Neither the butt plate nor the cheek piece are adjustable. The rifle presents you with one fit. gTake it or leave it.h Of course, you can install an adjustable butt and cheek piece of your own if you want to, but the rifle comes without either one. I found the cheek piece a bit too high for easy sight alignments. So if this were my rifle, I'd get out the wood rasp and take it down a bit. Another gdrawbackh is the finish of the wood. It is a bit lackluster, as is the wood, itself. And the metal finish is also on the matte side and is not highly polished. But bear in mind, the original Crosman 160's were also not highly finished. If such things mean a lot to you, this probably isn't the gun to buy. If you want accuracy in an affordable package, however, the TF79 is right there with the best of them. Physical Dimensions This seems like a larger rifle when you hold it—especially when compared to a standard 160/TF78. The pull is only 13h but that's what you want in an offhand rifle because your shooting arm is bent at the acute angle. The gun is 38h long and weighs 5.5 lbs. The stock is very wide and tall, giving the impression of greater size than the specs would indicate. The size of the gun and the effort required to cock the bolt make the TF79 a suitable rifle for an older youth and a smaller adult. I have no trouble with it, but I note that many women and small men also feel comfortable with it. If you can handle a FWB 150 or a Daisy 888, the TF79 will feel natural too. Troubles At the Start I love it when things like this happen. Everyone thinks the guns sent to us for testing are ggone overh by the highly-trained technicians and tuned within an inch of their lives. Nothing could be further from the truth. When I first shot the gun, the bolt seemed hard to close. After about 150 shots it refused to close at all. I called Duane Sorenson (who at that time was the technician at Compasseco) and we strategized what it could be. We decided since it was intermittent, it had to be something variable in the cocking linkage. To know for certain, I had to disassemble the rifle. When I did, I found a hardened cake of rust preventative material in the hammer spring. Actually, close to a quarter-inch of hard material was blocking the bolt from going forward. I had located the problem, and it required a thorough cleaning to put things right. While I was inside, I cleaned the entire interior of the hammer tube. It wasn't that dirty, but some of the preservative had gotten on the walls of the tube, where it was acting like sand. After reassembly, I discovered that the gun no longer held a charge of gas. Apparently I had probed too deeply into the valve area while the gun was empty. Once again the gun had to come apart, and I had to learn how to repair a gas valve system. Actually the problem was just the O-Ring that seals the valve in the tube, but I took the entire valve out of the gun just to be sure. Duane talked me through every step of the process over the phone. While I feel pretty confident inside a spring gun, I am definitely not a gas or pneumatic gun repairman! But things turned out to be easier than I imagined, and the rifle was soon in operation again. A story like this may discourage some folks, but I tell it to illustrate now supportive Compasseco is after the sale. I did everything mentioned in about six days, including all the disassembly, waiting for the parts, putting the gun back together and testing. Two phone calls with Duane were all it took to understand what had to be done in both situations. The rifle now holds gas perfectly and I know how to strip it if I ever need to. On The Range A target rifle is nothing if it is not accurate. So the proof of the TF79 had to be on paper. As you can see from the target, the gun shot as well as could be expected. It is a real player in the under $500.00 class target air rifles. .177-caliber Tech Force 79 Muzzle 1h from start screen – 60 degrees F 10 Shots .177 Caliber Chinese wadcutters, 7.6 gains High 620 fps Low 614 fps Average 617 fps Extreme spread 6 fps Standard deviation 1 fps Muzzle energy 6.43 ft.-lbs. .177 Caliber RWS R-10 8.1 grains High 599 fps Low 590 fps Average 595 fps Extreme spread 9 fps Standard deviation 2 fps Muzzle energy 6.37fps A New NRA Sporter-Class Rifle? Compasseco sees the TF79 as a new NRA Sporter-class target rifle for junior competition. It would seem to fit that category well from what I can tell. It's based on an inexpensive Sporter, it has none of the ergonomics of the precision class rifles, yet it is quite accurate. Has a great trigger (the equal of any in this class) and it is inexpensive to operate. On bulk-fill it shoots for pennies. More Great Features This story never seems to end. I called Compasseco just before press time and learned that the 79 is also available in .22 caliber! Now you can't use a .22 in a sanctioned match, but many people don't care about that. They just want a .22 target air rifle. To my knowledge, the last target .22 was the Webley Osprey, from several decades ago. Another new feature is an ambidextrous thumbhole stock. As the pictures show The rifle we tested is for right-handers only, but now you can get an ambi thumbhole, instead. And the stocks are also available separately, if you need one. Wrap Up Tech Force 79 .177/.22-caliber Target Rifle Pro – Well-made, accurate, operates on both powerlets and bulk Co2. Great trigger, super rear aperture, ambidextrous thumbhole stock is also available. Con – The hole in the rear aperture disc is very small-consider buying an adjustable disc from a target equipment company. Cost - $179.00, plus shipping. Availability – Contact Compasseco at 1-800-726-1696 Monday – Friday, 9:00 – 5:00, EST or visit their website at www.compasseco.com
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