Crosman Optimus

December 10, 2011.. My grandson Matthew and I shot my BB pistol and air rifle a few weeks ago and had a good time. We are planning to do more of it.

I saw the Crosman Optimus rifle advertised in a Dunhams sale paper for $78.99 with the scope (two days only). It looked like a nice rifle for the money. I did a little research and found good comments about it and didn't find any for sale for under $100 with the scope or without. WOW! I decided that I'd buy it for my birthday.

My first impression is that this is a nice rifle. The sights seem pretty decent for an $80 pellet gun. Shooting in the yard at a pop can at 20 feet, I never missed. The sight picture is very good with the fiber optic sight. The gun has a nice wood stock and rubber butt plate. The rubber cushion isn't really needed for shooting but it makes it anti-skid for when you stand the rifle in the corner.

One thing that I goofed on is that I bought the gun with intentions of shooting with my grandson Matthew, but it's really too long and heavy for him to effectively shoot freehand. I have other pellet guns he can shoot or we can shoot this one from a table.

The vertical adjust isn't calibrated so it can't be used to adjust for different shooting situations. Just adjust it at some fixed range and then use Kentucky windage to adjust for other distances. You can see the little red fiber optics on the notch. This makes the sight picture very clear.

December 19, 2011 - I got the scope mounted and zeroed in. I was shooting in the basement at about 60 feet. The pattern was terrible. It was spread out over about 4 inches! There must be something wrong. I can't believe this thing shoots that bad. I was using two different but similar pellets - Crosman and Daisy pointed. I don't know the weights but I'm guessing they are pretty close. It didn't seem to make much difference which one I used. I have to compare to my other guns this evening. I'm sure they shoot much better than this. I'll also take the scope off and see how it shoots with just the sights.

December 21, 2011 - I shot the Marksman pellet rifle to compare to the Optimus. The sights on the Marksman are aperture and fiber optic. At the distance I was shooting the front sight covered the target spot by about 4x so it was guess work. However I know from experience that this guess work can still result in pretty accurate shooting. The pellets I was using were Daisy Precision Max Pointed 7.2 gr. and some others that were similar but of known brand or specification.

The Marksman - bought in Aug. 2000 for $49 at Walmart

The result for both guns at this distance (about 60 feet) were pretty disappointing.

The hits with the black line in them were from the Marksman aiming at the top dot.

The hits with the circle around them were from the Optimus aiming at the bottom dot. The Optimus is a little better both in group and centered but neither is anything to be excited about. You couldn't begin to use this rifle for hunting.

I can only hope I can find some pellets that will yield better results.

I've bee shooting the Optimus from the garage at plastic jar in the backyard. The jar stays there year round, so all I have to do is get the rifle out of the gun cabinet and walk into the garage and start shooting. Details here.

I've found some pellets that agree with the gun and I have the scope mounted now and I'm pretty happy with the reults.