The Walther Falcon Hunter in .22 is a great choice for small game hunting.
I recently received a Walther Falcon Hunter in .22 caliber for review as a hunting rifle. This is a relatively new gun to the market, made in Turkey, that comes complete with a synthetic stock already camouflaged in Mossy Oak format. No need to add any tape to this stock for added concealment!
The first thing I noticed about the Falcon Hunter was the length. This is a long gun, slightly over 4 feet long. It is a full-sized gun for an adult, and individuals of smaller stature or children will find this gun a bit much to carry and hold on target due to the overall size. But though it is a large gun, the synthetic stock helps to keep the weight down to about 8.25 lbs.
The open sights on the Falcon Hunter have Tru-Glo fiber optic inserts to help you focus on the target if you decide to do without the scope. However, the scope is a nice 3-9x44 with a blue-illuminated reticle that helped me a bit this morning during my early squirrel hunt. But more about the hunt in a minute.
As in most evaluations, I first take the gun out and check the screws and trigger screws that help secure the action in the stock. One thing I found interesting about this gun is that is has two forearm screws to each side, and they are counter-threaded. To tighten them, you turn left, not right.
The trigger and trigger guard are plastic, in keeping with the synthetic stock that this gun comes equipped with. The trigger is a nice, wide blade, and you have a nice tactile response from it as you fire off a shot. The trigger is also adjustable, but I found the setting right out of the box to my liking and used it without any adjusting.
A nice feature that may help a shooter with a larger frame is an adjustable buttpad, one that you can lengthen or shorten by adding or removing the included inserts that come with the gun. A correct length of pull is of great importance to many shooters, and the recoil pad solves this issue in a simple but effective way.
After reviewing the manual and checking out some of the features of this Walther, I sat down to do some shooting. For this test, I used the following pellets with the following 5-shot averages for velocity:
Gamo Hunter - 790 fps
Beeman Kodiaks - 627 fps
JSB Exacts - 734 fps
JSB Predators - 764 fps
Crosman Premiers - 801 fps
A note about what pellet to use. I tried the above pellets, and the accuracy was average to good on all of them at 20 yards. What I did notice was that the spread in velocity from shot to shot was quite large for the Gamo Hunters and the Crosman Premiers.....so much so that at extended ranges it might make a difference in shot-to-shot point of impact. The Gamo's had a spread of almost 90 fps, while the Premiers spread out over 40 fps. The other pellets tested were much closer in shot-to-shot comparison, with the Beeman Kodiaks and JSB Predators giving the smallest deviation of only 11 fps.
Here is the highest fps tested with the Crosman Premier 14.3 gr pellets.
This chronograph reading comes from firing the JSB Predator pellet over the sensors.
I decided to hunt with the Beeman Kodiaks as they gave me near-20 fpe readings, as well as the best overall accuracy from this powerful springer. Take a look at some of the 20-yard groups I got shooting at a rusting bathtub:
This is a pic of 3 Beeman Kodiak pellet smears on the rusted metal of an old bathtub.
The single dot next to my finger was my aimpoint. The group above it is 5 shots at 20 yards. Not a bad group, very useable for hunting!
I elected to use the included Walther scope and mounts for the hunt, and before setting out this morning for a hunt, ran down stairs and re-checked the scope rings for firmness. I had been shooting a couple of days, and had noticed a slight creeping of the scope through the rings, so I wanted to make sure they were firm. As it was, the rear rings were a little loose, and I tightened them back down. That was a mistake, and I'll explain why in a minute.
As you can see, the Falcon Hunter comes with a very nice rail and scope stop already installed. It provides a nice, firm place to mount your scope, and held up nice under the recoil of this powerful spring-piston airgun.
The safety on this gun is handily located near the thumb, easily accessed and used. It is re-settable, and you don't have to fire the gun to reset the safety if you don't want to. Just push it back in and you are good to go. It clicks firmly in and out of the safe/fire position without hesitation.
Now, back to my hunt and my mistake I mentioned earlier. I set out after some squirrels, and had shots available almost immediately. But I was missing at ranges of less than 20 yards, and wondered what I was doing wrong. Then it dawned on me that I had tightened the rear scope rings again, and had inadvertantly changed my point of impact. So I had to do a quick and dirty test on a tree, noticing that my shots were now low and left as opposed to slightly high and center at 20 yards. With this little problem all figured out, I proceeded to hunt again.
I managed two squirrels this morning with the airgun, one at 25 yards, and another one at almost 40 yards! I searched over the two squirrels as I was skinning them and noted that the pellets had passed completely through both squirrels at each range, once again proving the efficiency of this gun as a hunting tool. The power was there, as was the accuracy.
This gun didn't quite reach the advertised velocities from the manufacturer, but it is still a powerful airgun for the hunter. The cocking effort is significant, much more than the advertised 27 lbs. I estimate it is nearer 35 or more lbs. of cocking effort, and the length of the barrel makes you reach way up for a grip on the muzzlebrake. As mentioned, this gun is for a larger person.
For $259.90 at the time of this review, you get a good-looking gun, with the needed power for small game hunting, an adjustable length of pull, and a scope and rings all included. Not a bad deal, I'd say!
