Commerce in Fundamentals

Roberta X recently put up a post regarding the merits of using an air-powered gun as an at-home marksmanship practice device. This strikes me as an excellent idea who's time has come in my own life.

Being less demanding as to the design parameters and similarity to my actual 1911 than is the lady herself (or possibly only substantially cheaper in nature), I have opted to go with this Daisy product rather than the one she appears to have decided upon in comments. My neighborhood Walmart had the Daisy available for $29.63 (plus the usual Governor's Gratuity) which is a marked discount from Daisy's own listed msrp of $50.99. Even with the additional cost of $3.96 for a 5-pack of CO2 bottles, $3.26 for 1500 BB's and the extravagance of a Beeman model 2085 pellet trap for $19.96, at just over $60 for the lot I've still managed to considerably discount the expense Roberta will bear for what is essentially an experiment in alternatives to practicing at a traditional range with an actual 1911 firing conventional ammunition (not a viable option for the Japanesse civilian market the Marui is targetted at).

I note that the Daisy shoots at a greater speed and distance, but question the practical effect this will have at the likely ranges the typical American home or garage will permit. Further, I also question the value of the blowback system her chosen weapon includes given the lack of restriction she experiences regarding opportunity to shoot an actual 1911 in practice. My inclination is that the added detail isn't cost effective outside of the restrictive environment it was designed for, but I look forward to her eventual blog posting on her shooting experience with the gun.

My expectation is that the Daisy will provide sufficient versimillitude to my Colt Commander as to permit reasonably realistic practice from the holster and the like within the confines of my 1-bedroom apartment. A couple old pillows framing the pellet trap ought to suffice as a backstop to keep the misses out of the drywall. The hope, of course, is that combining this with dry-firing and magazine drills with my actual 1911's will result in improvement of my weapon handling and shooting skills at little added financial cost. We'll see.