TargetTalk

Hi everybody, I am a bull'seye shooter. I am looking for a five shot air pistol. This is what I came up with Steyr P-50 or FWB P58 I want to practice time and rapid fire. I know that they are high in price. I intend to put a red dot on it. I don't know anything about air pistols. all this information came off the computer. r day good for what I want them for. Thank you. Bob

mileaway wrote:Hi everybody, I am a bull'seye shooter. I am looking for a five shot air pistol. This is what I came up with Steyr P-50 or FWB P58 I want to practice time and rapid fire. I know that they are high in price. I intend to put a red dot on it. I don't know anything about air pistols. all this information came off the computer. r day good for what I want them for. Thank you. Bob

Both are good and will do what you want but IMO the Steyr is the better, and more reliable, gun. I personally shoot the older LP5 but it is a very accurate gun, and has been trouble free for many years.

Rob.

mileaway wrote:Hi everybody, I am a bull'seye shooter. I am looking for a five shot air pistol. This is what I came up with Steyr P-50 or FWB P58 I want to practice time and rapid fire. I know that they are high in price. I intend to put a red dot on it. I don't know anything about air pistols. all this information came off the computer. r day good for what I want them for. Thank you. Bob

I have the Steyr with the heavy trigger and set up with a Burris FastFire red dot sight. I removed the iron sights & made a custom mount, but you can buy one from Pilkington.

It works reasonably well. I tend to make the same mistakes with it that I do with my bullseye pistol. However, the lack of recoil makes sustained fire MUCH easier, so it isn't a total duplicate for training.

I would go with the Steyr. I don't think the FWB has a heavy trigger option, but I could be wrong. I also don't know if it would be easy to attach a red dot sight to an FWB.

The Steyr clearly dominate the market with something like 90% market share.

The reason is the very bad reputation of the P55 that had a lot of reliability problems and also its price: the FWB was much more expensive than the Steyr.

Then FWB introduced the P56, it was relatively reliable but not that good and still more expensive.

Recently, FWB introduced the P58, when it was introduced, it was much more expensive than the LP50, nowadays, the price dropped (same for the P44) and it is more or less at the same price as the LP50 but there is little feedback about this pistol.

So, if you want to go for a sure choice, take the LP50 or the LP50E pretty expensive but with a top level electronic trigger (note that the mechanical trigger of the LP50, while not being bad, is by design not at the level of the mechanical trigger of the LP10 while the LP50E trigger is the same as the one of the LP10E). Note also that if you want to sell your pistol, an LP50 is easier to sell used and for a better price than a FWB.

Globally, single and five shots together, Steyr is the clear number one in match AP.

Gwhite wrote:I would go with the Steyr. I don't think the FWB has a heavy trigger option, but I could be wrong.

At this moment, there is no reason anymore to buy an LP50 with the light trigger since AP RF has now a limit trigger weigth of 500g just like for precision AP (500g is really at the upper limit of the light trigger, it is much easier to set 500g trigger weigth with the heavy trigger).

I don't believe the LP50e trigger has a heavy weight option like the one available for the mechanical trigger. If you're trying to train for NRA bullseye and want a heavier trigger you may have to go with the mechanical.

Has anyone explored the question of trying to get a heavier trigger weight for the LP50e?

I have an LP50 with a bushnell trophy dot. It has helped me greatly in timed and rapid fire. You can buy the gun with a heavy or light trigger unit. Also Pilkguns will machine the barrel shroud so it will accept one scope ring. Good luck.

The original trigger ( what Jipe reefs to as light) easily does 500 grams it will actually do over 1000 grams. The heavy trigger was to simulate service pistol.

WHY new?? Buy a sec hand LP5..Just as accurate, FAR cheaper..

Richard H wrote:The original trigger ( what Jipe reefs to as light) easily does 500 grams it will actually do over 1000 grams. The heavy trigger was to simulate service pistol.

I know several people who had this trigger and experienced problems when they had to move to 500g after the trigger rule change, they could only marginally obtain 500g. May be it is not with all pistols ?

Now that 500g is the minimum for 5 shots AP events, what is the benefit of still buying the light trigger unit (I mean buying it new, used pistols are most of the time equipped with this trigger unit) ?

Don't know about your part of the world but the lp5 and 50's came with the standard trigger and you had to purchase the heavy trigger on top of it. So cost would be one reason. The main reason I made the post was to clarify what the triggers were and so that people aren't wrongly steered away from the standard trigger that came with the pistols.

My LP5 trigger has always been set at approx. 550 gm and it was never a problem (set that way as a back up for the LP 10). I know of at least two other LP 50s that have been used similarly without any problems achieving or maintaining 500+ grams.

Like Richard, my LP5 (and every one I can remember in the UK) came with the light trigger as standard and the heavy trigger was an extra or special order.

500g+ with the standard (light) trigger is no problem and I cannot remember it ever being a problem with guns presented at equipment control.

The manual for the gun quotes 200g-550g and I know of no reason to doubt it.

In continental Europe (Germany for instance), you can choose the one you want when you \order the pistol, the price is the same.

The problem I heard of happened with LP50's, not with LP5.

It was with pistols used for the five shot AP events and that had a low = <500g trigger weigth as it was allowed before the rule change. When the owners tried to set the trigger at 500g to comply with the new rule, they couldn't or could only marginally achieve 500g and the pistols had to go back to Steyr to fix the problem.

Note that the low trigger weight trigger unit is specified by Steyr to go from 200g to 600g and the heavy one from 400g to 1400g. So, with the current rules, why should somebody, if he has the choice, want to buy a pistol with the 200g to 600g trigger unit ?

jipe wrote:The problem I heard of happened with LP50's, not with LP5.

As far as I'm aware they are the same trigger units

jipe wrote:It was with pistols used for the five shot AP events and that had a low = <500g trigger weigth as it was allowed before the rule change. When the owners tried to set the trigger at 500g to comply with the new rule, they couldn't or could only marginally achieve 500g and the pistols had to go back to Steyr to fix the problem.

That's exactly what I did; apart from the fact that I didn't have any problems holding well over 500g. I know others with the same experience as me.

jipe wrote:So, with the current rules, why should somebody, if he has the choice, want to buy a pistol with the 200g to 600g trigger unit ?

I don't know whether it the springs or the design but, from the one I had and other examples I've tried, the heavy trigger is even worse than the light one, even around the 500g. There might be examples of the heavy trigger that are acceptable but, given the choice, I would choose the light one.

mileaway wrote:Hi everybody, I am a bull'seye shooter. I am looking for a five shot air pistol. This is what I came up with Steyr P-50 or FWB P58 I want to practice time and rapid fire. I know that they are high in price. I intend to put a red dot on it. I don't know anything about air pistols. all this information came off the computer. r day good for what I want them for. Thank you. Bob

You can save a ton of money by picking up a good used LP5. For training 5-shot events (NRA or ISSF), it will do everything for you that the LP50 will.

I do not have the light trigger unit in mine. Since I wanted it to train for 5-shot ISSF events (they have trigger weight minimums of either 1,100 or 1,360 grams), I use the heavy unit and have it set for 1,100+. Works like a champ.

Stan

IPshooter wrote:
Since I wanted it to train for 5-shot ISSF events (they have trigger weight minimums of either 1,100 or 1,360 grams),

No 1360 grams anymore for the sivilian ISSF programs. 1000 grams only.
BTW there has never been any 1100 gram rule....

God. wrote:

IPshooter wrote:
Since I wanted it to train for 5-shot ISSF events (they have trigger weight minimums of either 1,100 or 1,360 grams),

No 1360 grams anymore for the sivilian ISSF programs. 1000 grams only.
BTW there has never been any 1100 gram rule....

Darn, I did the same typo twice! And, I forgot about the weight change for center fire pistol.

I stand corrected.

Stan