I’ve had the Umarex Ruger 10/22 CO2 Pellet Rifle sitting around for a bit but just haven’t gotten around to reviewing it. When I saw it at SHOT Show a couple years back I was super excited about it probably because I though it was going to have internal blowback action making it function very much like the real steel 22LR Ruger 10/22. Once I finally got it in my hands I came to discover the Umarex Ruger 10/22 CO2 Pellet Rifle did not in fact have internal blowback and for the most part was a double action shooter. Yes you can work the Bolt Handle to cock the internal hammer making the Umarex Ruger 10/22 CO2 Pellet Rifle more of a single action trigger but you won’t be doing any action shooting this way, you’ll have to shoot in double action for that.
Getting on to my Field Test Shooting Review for the Umarex Ruger 10/22 CO2 Pellet Rifle this is how it went! As always a placed 5 rounds through my Chronograph to see what the real world fps was. Umarex claims with the detuned Canada version I was testing right around 450 using light weigth alloy pellets which are generally going to be around 5 grains. I like using lead pellets so I went with some 6.9 grain RWS lead pellets and was able to get a decent average fps of 420. (Keep in mind the US version is claimed to get around 650 fps using standard lead pellets). The temperature was around 24 degrees Celsius or 75 degrees Fahrenheit in my indoor Sea Can Airgun Shooting Range so not overly hot but a bit on the warmer side.
Next I setup a fresh paper target 30 feet down range and load up a full 10 round magazine and emptied it into the target shooting from a seated and rested position. I decided to shoot the Umarex Ruger 10/22 CO2 Pellet Rifle in single action for this test requiring me to charge the bolt handle before each shot. I was impressed to see a nice 10 round grouping with about half of my shots inside the bullseye and the other half just a little to the left, elevation was bang on and the grouping was just under an inch with all shots overlapping a bit.
I’m kind of thinking I may have prematurely written off the Umarex Ruger 10/22 CO2 Pellet Rifle because it didn’t have blowback action. I was expecting the trigger to be long and heavy but the trigger is actually really good even in double action mode so don’t let the lack of blowback action turn you off for the Umarex Ruger 10/22 CO2 Pellet Rifle at least in terms of trigger pull. Where the Umarex Ruger 10/22 CO2 Pellet Rifle excels in in consistency. It has the ability of being a real tac driver and as it’s based on the Ruger 10/22 platform I imagine there are all kinds of add-ons you can get for it. If you own the 22LR version and want to be able to shoot a 10/22 virtually anywhere for even less then the cost of 22LR ammo then consider picking up yourself one of the Umarex Ruger 10/22 CO2 Pellet Rifles in our Canada or US online Replica Airguns Stores.