Crosman Optimus CO1K77X .177-Caliber Air Rifle

I bought two of these rifles for my son and me. My experience with pellet guns ended about twenty years ago, when I used to squirrel hunt with a Daisy Powerline 880 (which was remarkably accurate and powerful for a cheap gun) and a Crosman 2100B that was remarkable, too, but for being wildly inconsistent. I’ve since switched to .22 rifles for small game hunting and bigger rifles for bigger targets. As a law enforcement officer, I am certified in many different weapons and have spent a lot of time in both tactical and range environments. So, I kind of know my way around guns. I admit to having a bias against pellet guns, but the price and scarcity of even lowly .22 ammo (my favorite, honestly) made plinking unappealingly expensive. I thought maybe the Optimus would at least give us the feel of shooting even if it wasn’t a “real” gun and wasn’t particularly high quality. I must confess that I was more than a little pleasantly surprised at the performance of the Optimus! My opinion of pellet guns has changed dramatically, and for the better! I purchased a Gammo rifle last year and found it totally unreliable so I returned it. This was my last shot at trying pellets guns. I am glad I gave it another try!

First, aesthetics. The Optimus LOOKS like a real rifle. It is a little on the heavy side, maybe comparable to a loaded AR 15. But it’s sturdy and there is little recoil. What I didn’t like about the old Daisy rifle I had was that it felt like a toy. The Optimus is real wood and nicely finished. It hefts nicely to the shoulder and you get a reassuringly solid feel.

Quality. As many reviewers say, it’s a solid product. The stock and barrel are durable and well made. The trigger assembly is rigid and not sloppy. I’ve read lots of complaints about the scope but we find it to be satisfactory. I am not much of a scope guy, really, preferring iron sights to glass, but I have to say I am starting to like it. I am NO expert on these by any means but the sights that came with ours don’t feel cheap in any way. They mount firmly and maintain their zero. The “iron” sights are actually plastic. I haven’t used them since we mounted the scope but I don’t feel the quality of the rear is particularly good…flimsy and a little cheap.

Zeroing. I can usually zero a rifle in just a few shots, but these guys were tough. Out of the box, the sights were way, way, way off. It took a good thirty shots to get one of the rifles dialed in but the other took about half that much. Not sure why. Since then, both rifles stayed zeroed. Several reviewers mentioned the 100-shot magic point where the rifles stop throwing pellets all over the place and settle in, but we didn’t find that.

Pellet preference. Pointy pellets were unpredictable. I am glad that these were not my first ammo choice or I’d have sent the guns back! With the same aim point on targets located between 30 and 70 feet we were never sure where the pellets would go. Deviations would be up to a foot, which is really frustrating. Round-topped worked well and consistently, but we had even better results with Crosman hollowpoint hunting pellets. We’d consistently hit the same hole at about fifty feet and within a dime at 70-100 feet. Again, we found the sights to be adequate.

Power. Excellent. Trajectory is fairly flat out to about 90 feet. We zeroed to 30 feet per a British guide I found online and had to trial-and-error our way to figure out where to shoot high or low off the crosshair to adjust for different ranges on the fly.

Ease of use. My son is 12 and thin but quite strong. He has a hard time cranking the barrel down to work the piston. You have to smack it to get it to break, too. There isn’t any instructions included so unless you’ve owned one before you won’t know this. You have to whack the barrel pretty solidly just below the front sight to get it to break. Once you get the knack you can do it easily but at first it seems like you will break something. You won’t. It’s durable.

All in all, I’d recommend the Optimus to anyone who wants a decent plinking or small game rifle. I’ve never used a really high-end gun so I don’t know how these compare but they are better than the lower or comparable ones I’ve tried.