I’ve been meaning to get my hands on this gun for a while, but new guns come out and the latest and potentially greatest gun hits the shops and this kept getting pushed back on the review list. Was I wrong to push it back, have I missed something and have I been remiss.
I have with me in all its army green soft touch splender the Kral puncher breaker Bullpup and I must admit that I was a little less than over excited about reviewing this in the past, for no apparent reason really. I suppose it’s a little like putting cheese on chips, my initial reaction was .. what oh no! Then you try them and realise what you’ve been missing for years. Let’s see if the Kral has the same effect on me shall we.
The walk around first then.
The surprise initially was when I lifted this out of the box, the feel of this stock was very Weihrauch hw110 esk. Now I realise that not everyone likes the soft touch finish to their guns, but I find it very comfortable and this one really does feel just like my hw110, so far so good and I had only taken it out of the box. This is a simple two colour combination of the green and black and to me, less is more, I often don’t like things to be too fussy.
Starting from the front the first thing you notice is there is no silencer with it, and believe me without one, as you would expect, it is somewhat loud. Ironically enough you will be surprised just how many people like their gun to make some noise, me, I like to keep the neighbours happy and prefer the quieter life all round, so Weihrauch silencer fitted and ...much better!
The overall length of the Kral without aftermarket silencer is 71.5 cm or 28 1/4 inches long and tops the scales without scope at 4 kg. The barrel is 50 cm long which means this is going to be a full length set up with the side lever cocking action set quite far back, again I don’t mind this because you have the option to cock with your left hand without coming off target too much. Hopefully that longer barrel will make its difference known in the target work later.
Above the barrel is the scope rail, which is the wider more military style that is being adopted so much these days, “picatinny rail”. Now before I forget, this has a fairly budget scope fitted and at the time I didn’t have any medium or higher mounts available and this does need those, don’t try to get away with low mounts, because you really can’t line your eye up with the scope properly. This does have an adjustable cheek rest, but it is horizontal adjustment and won’t cure a low mount issue. This is not the guns fault at all, this was my fault, and inspite of having this all wrong, it was still a surprise in that target work.
Let’s look at this side lever, because again I was very pleasantly surprised with how smooth this action was, a nice pop open action initially and then a really nice firm but not overly heavy action to cock and then click back into place. Nice! I could be really picky and personally opinionated and say I would prefer the arm to be black rather than shinny metal , but just how picky does anyone want to be. Whilst we’re on this side, below the side lever is the safety, which again is very Weihrauch esk and is a simple rocker with push forward for fire back for safe and is, again, just right with a clear click, nothing vague about it. In front of this is the trick part, a power adjuster wheel. Now the wheel is on the right side but the indicator markings are on the left hand side. This is a clickless adjuster, so to tell you exactly what the power setting are is not just a simple activity and I opted for maximum and minimum figures for you. At full power I saw 11.9 ft/lbs and it was pretty regular around 11.8 I was indeed, impressed with its consistency. Wound down to the lowest setting I saw 6.3 ft/lb, so approximately half that of full power. This is of course a sub 12 ft/lb U.K. version, and as you would expect a full range of powers in between.
Below all this is that stock of course. Now this is the synthetic version but various wood finishes are available as well if you prefer. Then I noticed the small push button at the front, and being a typical gadget loving bloke, who was already starting to really like this gun and wondering why I’d taken so long to give this a try, suddenly I was won over, what a simple but sensible idea a compartment to keep your spare magazine in.. I love it!
Working my way back to the front where we started, there is the filler port, which has a nice twist dust cover. It does however have, like so many others, the manometer or air gauge on the end of the air cylinder, (which is a 200 bar fill 280cc item) putting them on the business end is never a favourite of mine, but certainly focuses the mind and does make sure you’re practicing safety principles when checking it.
At this point on the touchy-feely part, I’m really quite taken by this little item.
This one is the .177 calibre version and the easy load magazine holds 14 rounds in this calibre and a slightly lower 12 rounds in .22 calibre. Loading this magazine is pretty easy. It’s a simple process of rotate in the direction of the arrow, drop in the first pellet, head first and then back fill until fully loaded and slot in from the right all the way until it locks home. One of my favourite things about this is the lock open after last shot to prevent you dry firing.
But what about accuracy? Here we go out at the usual 40m range using 8.44 grain JSB’s with the power wheel set at max. Well I’m impressed, when I zeroed the scope in it was really windy. And even then I was quite impressed with this.
. Conclusion.
I do wonder why I left it so long to try this Kral because it has impressed me with its U.K. price tag of less than £480 and what you actually get for that money. Including 3 magazines in the box... impressive, well I say impressive the one problem was , in the box, 2 of the 3 magazines were .22 calibre and one was the correct .177 calibre. best to just make sure your retailer checks that before you get it, to save any disappointment when you get home. Would I buy it or recommend it, yes I would and this feels like a very capable and nicely made gun for target work or pest control. It will need a silencer though.
Overall, yes I’m very impressed. Give it a go if you get the chance.
Stay safe and shoot safe, see you next week
watch the full review here:
https://youtu.be/aPar1jKv1kI