Match air pistols: choosing your first for 10 m

Buy after a season, not before. Rugeley Rifle Club, a British club shooting under NSRA rules, strongly recommends that new members do not buy air rifles or pistols before joining but spend time getting to know the club’s equipment, and the Norwegian federation’s beginners’ course notes that many clubs lend pistols to shooters who want to wait, or never want to buy. By the end of a season you know whether you will stay, which grip size you take, which hand you shoot with, and which of the club’s pistols you shot best with; the road there is in How to start shooting 10 m air pistol.

Decide what the pistol is for. If it is for the ISSF 10 m air pistol card and the matches shot on it, the rules below decide the class of pistol, and the choice is only new or used and which maker. If it is for the garden, the kind to choose is in Types of air pistols, and the law where you live applies: whether an air pistol may be bought and owned without a licence is answered there, country by country, and it is read before the money changes hands.

The ISSF Pistol Rules, equipment rules for ISSF matches rather than the law, set the class:

Which pistols

Any 4.5 mm compressed air, CO2 or pneumatic air pistol that conforms to the pistol specification table and configuration drawing may be used.ISSF Pistol Rules 8.4.3.5, ISSF Rule Book, Edition 2025 (Second Print 07/2026), effective 1 July 2026

The table

At most 1 500 g with all accessories; a trigger pull of at least 500 g; the pistol with sights mounted must fit a box of 420 × 200 × 50 mm; loaded with one pellet only.ISSF Pistol Rules 8.12 and 8.4.1.2 d

Sights and cylinder

Open sights only, no optical or dot sights. An air or CO2 cylinder must be within its maker’s validity date, ten years at most; equipment control may check it.ISSF Pistol Rules 8.4.1.2 a; ISSF General Technical Rules 6.7.6.2 h

What the makers build to that table is a single-shot compressed-air pistol with a regulator, an adjustable trigger set at the 500 g, an absorber or compensator, on most a dry-fire setting, and an anatomical grip in sizes; the parts are in Types of air pistols. The club’s pistol is one of them, so you already know the class. What you are choosing is a maker, a model and a condition.

New buys three things. A warranty: Steyr’s covers material defects for two years from the purchase, and a used pistol brings none. A fit from the box: the makers sell their entry models in several grip sizes and for the left hand, Feinwerkbau’s P 11 with a universal right-or-left grip in two sizes that can be swapped for an anatomical one, Steyr’s LP 2 with seven right-hand, four left-hand and two ambidextrous grips, Pardini’s K12 Junior in four right-hand and two left-hand sizes. And the box itself: Pardini’s ships with a carrying case, a spare cylinder, the fill and release adaptors, a tool kit and the booklet. On Walther’s own price list the entry model sits well below the top one, and a spare cylinder is a line on the same list.

Used buys a better pistol for the same money, with the history unknown. The risks are the cylinder, the seals and the model. The cylinder has a date: Feinwerkbau gives its cylinders ten years and says the period cannot be extended, Walther gives its aluminium cylinders ten and retests steel ones once at the factory, and says a cylinder without a serial number and a manufacturing date is older than ten years; an out-of-date cylinder is a new cylinder on the price. Seals wear: Feinwerkbau has seal kits for its compressed-air pistols, with the caveat that fitting them is specialist work on some models and that its repairs go through dealers. And some models are past help: Feinwerkbau lists its Models 80 and 90 and its C series, C2, C20, C10, C25, C5, C55 and C55P, as pistols it can no longer repair, with spare parts only while stocks last, and Walther says converting a CO2 pistol to air costs so much that it is not reasonable.

So the honest answer is: used, bought from someone who can fire it in front of you, a clubmate or a target-pistol dealer, if it passes the checks below; new, when you want a left-hand or small-size grip the used market will not offer, or when the warranty matters to you. In both cases budget for a cylinder and a service on top.

Handle it as loaded, never point it at anyone, and shoot it only on a range or where the law allows. Then check:

1. The cylinder’s date, first. Ten years from the manufacturing date stamped on it, by Feinwerkbau’s rule, Walther’s for aluminium and the ISSF’s; no date at all means too old, Walther says. An out-of-date cylinder is not a reason to walk away from a good pistol, but it is a new cylinder on the price, and Feinwerkbau and Walther both say such a cylinder is emptied and not used.
2. Pressure overnight. Have the cylinder filled a day ahead and look at its gauge first thing: a cylinder that steadily loses pressure when left filled is Air Arms’s sign of a worn seal on a used PCP rifle, and a pistol’s cylinder tells the same story. Steyr’s gauges read to 300 bar because its cylinders are tested there; the working pressure is 200.
3. The O-rings. Put your ear to the cylinder thread and the breech for any escape of air. Steyr’s own care routine is to unscrew the cylinder fully when the pistol is not used for a month, never to change the direction of rotation, which can damage the O-ring, and to grease the thread and the O-ring of the pressure reducer lightly with acid-free grease every quarter; a seller who has done that will tell you so.
4. The trigger. Hang a 500 g weight on it, barrel vertical, with the pistol charged and cocked as the ISSF tests it; it must lift the weight. Then work the stages: on Steyr’s LP 2, for one, the first-stage length and weight, the second-stage weight and the stop are adjustable, and every adjustment should move.
5. Dry fire. Most current match pistols have a dry-fire setting, on the LP 2 from the cocking lever; set it and press through ten shots, feeling for a break that stays the same and a creep that does not.
6. The sights. Turn the elevation and windage screws through their range and back: the clicks should be felt and the notch should open and close. A bent or loose rear sight is a repair.
7. The grip. The size is yours or it is not: the makers’ sizes run in letters that differ by maker, so hold it as you hold the club’s. A grip that has been rasped and filled for another hand is work to undo; Fitting an air pistol grip tells you how much.
8. A test group. Ten shots at a card from a rest, with pellets you know, and a second ten with another pellet if the first group is wide; a pistol is only as good as the pellet it likes. Photograph the card and set it beside a group from the club’s pistol shot the same day.
9. History. Ask who last serviced it, when, and whether the cylinder has been replaced, and ask for the paper. Air Arms, of used PCP rifles, treats a seller who cannot remember a service as a red flag and no reason to pay the asking price; the same goes for a pistol.

Five makers’ pages are quoted here, in no order, the ones you will meet at most clubs, each with a top model and an entry model to the same rules:

Which of them is best is a question for the club, not for this page: the one your clubmates shoot is the one someone can help you set up, and the one that turns up used nearby. Below the makers there is a single-stroke pneumatic route, pistols that compress the air for one shot with a lever, sold by a retailer such as Livens as a start in 10 m shooting without a cylinder to fill; what that mechanism is, and the Weihrauch models built that way, are in Types of air pistols.

• A semi-automatic or multi-shot pistol for 10 m: the ISSF loads one pellet at a time, and SSAA’s Western Australian branch writes the rule out, single shot only, no semi-auto air pistols.
• A BB pistol or a CO2 replica: the ISSF’s ammunition rule wants 4.5 mm lead or a similar soft material, and a CO2 pistol’s velocity falls as the capsule cools, which Types of air pistols explains; Feinwerkbau’s own history moved its match guns off CO2 by 2000.
• A pistol with a dot or optical sight, or one that cannot take open sights: open sights only.
• A magnum spring pistol bought for its power: power is the rifle shooter’s question and the garden’s, not the card’s, and the recoil of a spring pistol is what the match pistol was designed to remove.
• A CO2 match pistol from the 1990s bought in the hope of running it on air, or any pistol the maker no longer repairs: Feinwerkbau’s list of unrepairable models is on its FAQ, and Walther says a CO2 conversion is not reasonable.
• A pistol whose trigger will not lift 500 g, or whose cylinder has no date.
• A pistol you have not held. The grip is the pistol’s one part that must be yours.

The pistol is the start. The grip is fitted to your hand with a rasp and filler, inside the ISSF drawing, in Fitting an air pistol grip; the sights are zeroed from your own stance, with the click value from the manual, in How to sight in an air pistol; the rest of the kit, and the trigger weight that checks the 500 g before a match does, is in 10 m air pistol equipment. Then shoot it for a season before you change anything else.

Do I need a match air pistol to start 10 m shooting?

No. Clubs lend their pistols, a club such as Rugeley says to shoot those first and the Norwegian federation notes that many clubs lend them; buy after a season, when you know your grip size, your hand and whether you will stay.

New or used for a first match pistol?

Used, from a club member or a target-pistol dealer, if the cylinder is in date, the pressure holds overnight, the trigger lifts 500 g and a test group is tight; new when you need a left-hand or small grip, or want the warranty. Either way, keep money back for a cylinder and a service.

What should I check on a used air pistol?

The cylinder’s date and gauge, the pressure after a night, the O-rings at the thread and the breech, the trigger against a 500 g weight, the dry-fire mode, the sights’ clicks, the grip’s size, a ten-shot group from a rest and the service history. A seller who cannot remember a service is a red flag.