I started with my brother's little break-barrel Slavia .177 when we were kids, about 8 or 9 yrs old.

Dad replaced the piece of matted hair-like crap they used as a seal at the breech, with a neoprene O ring and that improved the power somewhat as it eliminated the leakage there. I shot a lot of squirrels with that rifle, along with starlings, grackles & pigeons in Ron Shiel's & Jack Calvert's barns.

When I reached 12 yrs. old, my uncle gave me my first .22, so I stopped using the air rifle.

About 4 or 5 years ago, I became interested in air rifles again, and bought a few, couple PCP's & a couple higher end springers, Weihrauch rifles, models 97 and 98. They are about the ultimate in springers, as far as quality goes.

Beeman re-brands them with different model #'s and is a marketer here.

Diana, rebrands and sells RWS air rifles, about the second in line to the HW's.

I also have a Brocock PCP .22 cal. air rifle that is made in England and is not owned by Day State, as well as a Texas made Air Force Condor in .25 cal. Both of these are quite accurate and hold an edge over the springers, although I've shot gophers to 56 yards with my HW97 in .177.

Just getting into shooting Air Force Condor as I have a couple moulds for it, shooting 48gr. HPBT's and 51gr. FPBT's. These promise to give better range than the waisted pellets, as the heavier bullets are not as screwed up by transonic speeds as waisted pellets are.

Super sonic speeds really screw with normal pellets, so being adjustable, the Air Force is kept at or below 960fps.

(cheap)Super sonic springers, 1,000fps to 1,400fps that you see on the market are sometimes only super sonic with alloy pellets. All of them are actually really hard on the air rifle springs, breaking these quite quickly. Due to the speeds too fast, they usually do not shoot well past about 10 yards and are very difficult to shoot. All of their screws have to be lock-tighted or they simply unscrew. These rifles are really hard on scopes and only air rifle approved scopes can be used, and even then, some of these rifles will wreck a scope in as few at 5 or 6 shots.

Only PCP (Pre Charged Pneumatic) air rifles can be used with normal scopes.

For PCP air rifles or handguns, you need a method of filling them. I use Scott Air Pack 97 Cu.Ft. tanks that are rated at 4,500psi. If filled to that level, they will fill the PCP's quite a few times, over 40. With 30 to 40 shots per fill, that's fairly cost-effective.

Some guys have compressors to fill their own tanks - there are a number on the market along with hand pumps - which are too hard for an old guy like me to operate.

The local paint ball outfit over charges on compressed air, so no air rifle shooters go there any more. They used to be on par, as in $5.00 to fill a 60cu. ft. scuba tank to 3,300psi, but raised that price to $30.00 which is stupid.

I rent a 200 pound 4,500psi nitrogen tank from Praxair, a local compressed chemical company. This will fill my big carbon fiber tank(s) a number of times, and is good for about 6 months of shooting, thousands of shots. That costs $102.00 with taxes and other government shit charges.

Some scuba shops have the capability to fill tanks to 4,500fps, others do not. Some are cheap, some are not. Some Fire Departments will fill your tanks for donuts and beer, some will not. Our local fire department will not.

I have a Hawke air rifle scope on my Brocock and an Optisan 6-24x56 on the Air Force.

As I've kinda just started into air rifles, I have some knowledge, but of course I am on a long learning streak with this stuff, but will share what I know, if I can answer them. If I cannot, I have the means to find out for you.

edited for re-wording the last sentence.