Air Match 600

This is a relatively rare 10-meter match pistol.   It's an Air Match 600.  It's an Italian made, single-stroke .177 cal pneumatic. Picked this up yesterday from Precision Airgun.  It's been languishing in a display case for a while.  Apparently, it fell over in the case at some point and the front sight blade broke off.  The owner handed it to me and ordered, "fix it".   Since there's so little information out there on this gun, sharing some pics and impressions seemed entirely appropriate. 












Assume that the owner gave it to me because he knows I have a weakness for 10-meter paper punchers.  I just like them.  Besides, for all I know, he probably broke the sight off on purpose when he saw me pull into the parking lot.  Cagey.  Anything to get me to just take it home and try it.



 

Stippled grip with an adjustable palm shelf.  The shelf has minimal vertical adjustment.  I believe that the grips came in three different sizes.  If that is the case, these are likely the mediums.  My size large hand just barely fits.  There's no rake adjustment to the grips.

The only ergonomic malady is the sharp bottom edge of the trigger guard.  The right rear portion digs into my middle finger.  If it was mine, the corner of the guard would absolutely have to be relieved.  Though I didn't adjust it, the trigger has a multitude of adjustment screws.  The blade is movable fore and aft for position.  There are also screws--presumably for first and second stage travel as well as pull weight.  Trigger is currently breaking just a bit over 500 grams.

Underside of the pistol has a steel rail that accepts various weights.

This small pivoting lever connects/disconnects the compression chamber to allow for dry fire practice.  Here, the lever is set in the normal position.  Rotating it forward, then cycling the pump arm sets the trigger but does not charge the compression chamber.  Interesting.

The gun has a removable front sight extension.  The added length should provide greater accuracy.

Side lever cocking--like a Daisy 7XX pistol, but no inexpensive casting here.  The lever is solidly built from a billet of aluminum then anodized.

It swings out almost parallel to the muzzle to set the trigger.

When the lever is open, the barrel pulls forward with a linkage to expose the breach for direct loading.  Closing the lever takes considerably more pressure than the similar Daisy.  The Daisy 7XX guns do have a longer cocking lever though.

I remember when this pistol first came into the shop, it didn't work.  Borris, at Pyramyd Air, repaired/replaced the seals, though I don't know which seals--or how many--he changed out.



Fired the gun across the chrony using RWS Hobby pellets.  The velocity ranged from a high of 382 to a low of 376 fps over ten shots.  Six feet per second is a pretty small spread.  Probably no surprise, but I'm going to hang on to this one after I finish it.

I'll fix the front sight next time around.