Posts Tagged ‘techforce’
Wadcutter Weapon – TF Contender 59
“Wadcutter Weapon”
Compasseco Contender TF-59 review
Written By,
Eric Eikenberry
Writer / Contributor www.AirGunWeb.com
Review Product Provided by: www.compasseco.com
TechForce Contender 59, the rifle does not have open sights, you’ll need a scope.
If you browse around on the internet some you can easily find many wise words from Tom Gaylord, who is something of a master at the art of shooting high-power springers. I, as I’ve learned, am not. Not yet anyway! His wise words about trying a variety of holds bounced around in the back of my mind as I was trying to get the Compasseco Contender-Series TF-59 to group. Let me back up for a minute and go over the basics first.
TechForce Contender 59, .177 cal.
Although this rifle has better bluing and a nice dark stain over its “mystery wood” (Chinese Beech?) stock, it’s immediately apparent this is a Chinese-made air gun. The flat, straight areas of the stock have some waviness to them, as if someone grew tired of block-sanding halfway through the job. I’ll be the first to admit that sanding wood isn’t much fun, but it’s absolutely necessary if you want to impart a sense of value to your product. That said the metal work is very nice, with clean edges, clear engraving on the assembly, and a very nice vented muzzle brake over the barrel’s crown. The stock lets the rest of the rifle down somewhat. I’d prefer to see a lighter stain, which would mask sanding imperfections and nicks. This wood can dent easily so you have to be careful how you handle it. There’s a thick rubber shoulder pad which isn’t pretty, but does get the job done. It appears to be bonded on with glue, but there’s no drippy residue at the edges, which is nice.
Clean edges and tight tollerances make the TechForce Contender 59
is a nice looking and shooting rifle.
TechForce Contender 59, Front Muzzle break
The trigger guard is plastic, but the trigger itself is a stamped steel piece which could benefit from a little more smoothing with sandpaper. A touch of 800-grit wet-dry paper on the sharp edges makes it a comfortable trigger under the finger. Although there’s a tension adjustment screw, even at its lightest setting it’s still pretty firm. It is, though, very smooth. Lined up on target, there are no catch, no jerkiness to the trigger’s action. Just a long smooth sweep back to the release point. Combined with the “flick forward” safety, this is a fun rifle to shoot. A note to parents purchasing this for a teen; the trigger does not reset if you pull it part way and release it. The rifle’s sears have moved and this leaves the air gun in a dangerous state if you don’t reset the safety and re-cock the barrel.
TechForce Contender 59, Decent trigger for an inexpensive rifle.
The cocking action is light and short. The tested velocity that Rick established before shipping it to me (824 average with RWS Hobby pellets) showed a decent bit over 800 fps when brand new. Fully broken in, I’ll guess that it’s drilling lightweight Daisy Precision Max wadcutters down range at around 750 fps or so. It absolutely hates Crosman Premier Domed pellets or RWS Superdomes; they’re too long for the entry to the barrel. It feels like Tech Force cut a slightly oversized “pellet seat” at the breech end of the barrel. Longer pellets hang out and the edges of their skirts get squashed when the breech closes. I don’t have a pellet swedge, or a pellet seating tool, and I’ll hazard a guess that most folks searching for an air gun in this price range don’t either. Both would be required to shoot longer pointed and domed pellets accurately.
TechForce Contender 59, Mounted with a Crosman 3x9x32 Scope makes a deadly combo.
It does simply love to eat the inexpensive Daisy Precision Max Wadcutters. That’s a short, very lightweight flat-nose pellet with a very sharp edge on the head. They’re also Chinese-made, and appear to be a good match for the bore of the TF-59. They drop into the pellet seat perfectly, and with the right grip, they’ll land in the same hole with nearly every shot. They are not, however, as “precise” as Daisy would have you believe. Quite a few of them come out of the can with bent skirts, or a touch of extra lead hanging on the inside of a skirt. You will see some fliers, but generally-speaking, they’ll all land within the kill zone of a small pest.
Shoot all day for pennies with these Daisy Wadcutters.
Once I had an accurate pellet, I experimented with the hold and discovered that the TF-59 can be extremely hold-sensitive. Gripping it firmly sent the pellets off in all directions! Holding it loosely in the traditional springer hold did no better. There’s a substantial amount of spring vibration which is transmitted through the rifle and I suspect this interferes with the accuracy when loosely held. The BEST results came when I simply laid the forearm of the stock on my block-wood rest, with a micro fiber towel under it, and placed the thumb of my trigger hand directly behind the action, on the top of the stock. Pulling the rifle back against my shoulder, and pulling down on it, then squeezing the trigger produced one-hole groups with this cheap Daisy pellet at 20 yards. Sometimes it seemed subsequent pellets were going right through without touching the sides of the hole! Shooting the heavier Crosman Premier Domed pellets didn’t help due to their tight fit. Sometimes they’d be too loose (one dropped straight through the barrel!), other times too tight. The drop off in velocity was audibly noticeable! While a wadcutter isn’t my favorite pellet, I’ll take anything which I can buy for $3.99 a 500-count tin and drills 5-shot 3/8ths” holes at 20 yards!
Not a bad group at 20 yards from an inexpensive rifle.
That bottom hole is not part of the center group.
And that’s the whole point behind this hobby… to drill consistently tiny holes dead on the POI. Sure, there are wildly expensive rifles which will do this time and again. It’s nice to find one in the sub $80 price range which can be paired with a good scope and inexpensive pellets and yet will still rip holes in the 10 ring! Good values can be hard to find. Grab one like this while you still can!
Written By,
Eric Eikenberry
Writer/Photographer
Titles: HPI, Fast Fours, Hot 4s, Street Machine, Banzai, Track and Race Car, Performance BMW, BMW Car, Bimmer Roundel, Excellence, Modified, Modified Luxury & Exotics, Modified Mustangs, Mustang Enthusiast, Pontiac Enthusiast, Corvette Enthusiast, Mopar Enthusiast, Nissan Sport, Mazda Sport, Rotary Speed, Subiesport, S3, Grassroots Motorsport, Japanese Nostalgic Car, AutoGuide.com.
Copyright 2009 www.airgunweb.com & Dog River Design, LLC.
Compasseco’s TF-89 aka “Hammerin’ Hank”
One of the great things about watching a legend perform is that they constantly demonstrate their magic. They’re never and on-again, off-again items. They’re legends because they’re a threat to change the game every moment they’re on the field. Hank Aaron was one of those types of players. A true legend. Well, by comparison, so is this Tech Force Contender-Series TF-89 .22 I’m trying from Compasseco.com. Just as long as you do your part, it’ll hammer a pellet downrange into the same hole time after time. Rick’s already said a few words but he tossed one over to me to see what I think. Here goes…
Just like on a date, you want to make a good first impression. The TF-89 comes across as a high-quality product in appearance. The blueing on the steel parts is dark, consistent, and attractive. The brown stain on the wood stock is evenly applied, and the checking is quite good. It does make the rifle easier to hold, though the reach from the back of the hand grip to the trigger is a stretch. I’ve got big hands and it’s a reach for me to get my finger comfortably on the trigger, which is done in a shiny chrome finish with its own semi-checkered face. The trigger guard is a thick ABS-type plastic, which does look difficult to break, and there’s a thick rubber recoil pad on the end of the Monte Carlo stock. No lying folks, this is one gorgeous piece of work!
The open sights get high marks. I like the front blade, which is made of machined metal and screw-mounted to the barrel-weight/muzzle brake. The ramp in front of the blade is grooved with fine lines to kill glare. The rear sight is an all-metal assembly too, with a thumb screw with small click stops for vertical adjustments, and a flat-blade screw, with detents for the horizontal settings. The rear blade is curved, so it won’t reflect light back into your eyes. Rick noted a problem with his rifle’s rear sight nicking the inside of the stock when cocked (the barrel travels a LONG way back). Mine just barely touches the horizontal screw on the stock, and has removed a thin sliver of the finish. It has not managed to change the accuracy any. I handed the rifle to a neighbor, who was a State of California Corrections Officer, and to qualify every ninety days on a rifle with open sights. At twenty yards, in my standard backyard range, from a standing position, he promptly drilled a hole right through the center of a Coca-Cola can. “Oh, that’s right where I was aiming.” he remarked with a bit of surprise. I could have told him that would happen.
It’s a tad on the heavy side, but not horribly so. Anyone used to a hunting rifle wouldn’t find this out of the ordinary. It has a pronounced jolt during firing though. If you don’t have it set firmly against your shoulder and don’t keep a good grip on the trigger area, your groups will open up. When we say “open up” we mean “you’ll miss outside the 5 ring on a 25 foot bullseye, at 20 yards”. With practice, and a good scope, you can sweep the 8, 9, and 10 rings completely clear. I found that this particular rifle loves domed or pointed hunting pellets It’ll pop those one after another, into the same ragged hole. Shoot the end out of a soda can? No problem. Pulp small grapefruit at 20 yards? Sure, why not? It’s a little less accurate with wadcutters at that distance, in that some of the pellets fall ¼” farther away from the others, but they’re all within a 2” circle. The heavier, aerodynamic RWS SuperDomes will probably retain more power at 30 yards and beyond, but I haven’t had the opportunity to test it at that range yet.
The cocking action is smooth and long, and really doesn’t feel as heavy as advertised. I’d thought with the shorter barrel length (17.9”) that it might be difficult to manage, but it’s not. It does provide a good workout though! The trigger effort falls in the medium range; not too stiff, not too light. An adept “hunting trigger” would be a great description. I must note though, if you start moving the trigger into the “second stage” then stop, even though the safety can be reset manually, the sear will not reset on the trigger. It will dangle loosely, with no spring pressure on it at all! The rifle should be re-cocked if you’re going to carry it around after passing on a shot that way. You can feel the second stage start to move before it “snaps” with a crisp break, so the actual release can be appropriately judged. I’ve been trying this rifle against a BAM B26, with the 4-lever “Rekord” trigger clone, and the best I can say is that it’s “different”. I wouldn’t rate either one over the other at this point. The B26 trigger is smooth and light, but doesn’t have a crisp breaking point which means I’m often surprised when it goes off. The TF-89 doesn’t surprise me. I KNOW when I’m about to set it off, and that makes me more accurate. I would like a little less crispness, but as the sear wears some, that issue will improve.
While it’s not immune to typical springer holding issues, I found that, with a Centerpoint 3x9x32mm variable objective scope mounted on an Accushot 4-screw single-piece mount, it has a nice balancing point right around the end of the checkering on the arm closest to the trigger. I can wrap my thumb up on my left hand, find the checkering, and know I’m in the “happy spot”. If I let the rifle lay on my open hand, the torque from the spring will cause it to rotate to the left, affecting accuracy by about .5” up and to the left. If I keep my fingers loosely wrapped around the arm of the stock, the problem goes away, and the pellets hammer one after another into a big, raggedy-edged hole in whatever medium I’ve selected as a target. The destruction that near-900 fps wreaks upon particle board and pine must be seen to be believed. If I were ordering this rifle to own though, I’d certainly get a scope with 12x or higher magnification. First, I love to see what I’ve just nailed, and second, I’m just about as blind as a bat sometimes. 9x just isn’t enough magnification for me, even at 20 yards. You’ll want to shoot this rifle at distances over 30 yards, just to see what it can do.
As far as the “magic bullet” pellet, Rick says to try the Crosman Premier Hollow-points, but I haven’t found any at my local stores. I don’t quite live at the end of the earth, but I can see it from my house! I’ve tried the Gamo Match Wadcutters, the RWS SuperDomes, RWS Hobby wadcutters, and Crosman Premium Pointed pellets. Based on my shooting, I feel this particular rifle really likes the Crosman Premium Pointed hunting pellets. After looking at these dime-sized 5-shot groups, done at 20 yards with just a touch of wind, I don’t think I’d be able to better them no matter what pellet I use! The SuperDomes almost group as nicely as the Premium Pointed pellets but offer a little more mass. This means they strike low if the scope’s adjusted for the Premium Pointeds. Either of these would be an excellent choice for hunting. We’re just splitting hairs at this point (pardon the pun)! Also, with just over 1000 pellets through it, chances are good that it’ll still break in a little more in the next month or so. The bigger question is, will my technique improve? Ever? I could hunt for a day with this rifle and bag more than enough game to feed my family for a week, if only I could get them to eat wild jackrabbit!
Rick feels that the .22 version of the TF-89 is the perfect caliber for this power plant. While the .177 is definitely faster-shooting (1100 fps!), it would be interesting to try it with some of the heavy Beeman Crow Magnum or Silver Ace pellets, just to see if it could be slowed down enough to retain the accuracy of the .22 with some of the velocity and trajectory of the smaller caliber. If, on the other hand, you want a tack-driving, hard-hitting, classy-looking checkered stock spring-powered hunting rifle, you won’t go wrong with this TF-89 .22! Just like ol’ Hammerin’ Hank, it’s a legend in the making because it always delivers the good stuff.
Written By,
Eric Eikenberry
Writer/Photographer
Titles: HPI, Fast Fours, Hot 4s, Street Machine, Banzai, Track and Race Car, Performance BMW, BMW Car, Bimmer Roundel, Excellence, Modified, Modified Luxury & Exotics, Modified Mustangs, Mustang Enthusiast, Pontiac Enthusiast, Corvette Enthusiast, Mopar Enthusiast, Nissan Sport, Mazda Sport, Rotary Speed, Subiesport, S3, Grassroots Motorsport, Japanese Nostalgic Car, AutoGuide.com.
Copyright 2008 www.airgunweb.com & Dog River Design, LLC.
TechForce® QB78 Review
Hello again. I bet you thought we’d NEVER get another review posted. Well, frankly I was beginning to think the same thing. Fortunately we’ve found some really talented contributors and we are starting up again with this article submitted by Gerald Austin. Gerald found us via our youtube page and agreed to take a look at this rifle for us. So let’s get to it!
TechForce® QB78 Review
Written By,
Gerald Austin
Contributor for www.AirGunWeb.com
editor@airgunweb.com
The QB78 has been around for quite a few years. I remember back in the mid 90′s when I was fairly active in field target and a few of my friends were impressed with the gun. I remember shooting it then thinking it was “nice” but never had the opportunity to take a close look at the gun. I have owned a Crosman 2260 and Crosman 180 for some years now and have always been looking for a GOOD way to mount a scope. The QB 78 takes care of this with a steel grooved receiver.
The rifle came to me as a return with no indication of what it was returned for. The overall look of the gun was very good. The stock was much darker than ones I had seen before with some slight character marks that appeared to be the result of handling and not related to factory workmanship.
The bluing was a medium to deep blue with just some slight variations that would only be noticed by someone paying very close attention to that feature.
The craftsmanship on the remainder of the gun showed some signs of details that could be improved upon but didn’t make me think this gun was not worth the price I had seen advertised.
The buttplate and stock did not flow together well. The fit of the buttplate to the stock showed areas of up to 1/16″ mismatch.
The buttplate was loose upon receipt of the gun.
A few machining marks were visible that were blued over including a
tool mark around the circumference of the cap.
The trigger right out of the box was a little creepy and had a little more side to side movement than I cared for as it was slightly distracting when shooting from a bench. After a few rounds with the gun as supplied, I removed the action from the stock and adjusted the trigger using the instructions provided in the owners manual. The operation was much more pleasant after the adjustment but could probably benefit from some polishing and lubrication. The side to side movement still existed but was less noticable.
The open sights suited my eyes well and could be adjusted for elevation with the ramp. Windage could be adjusted by loosening one of the screws on the rear sight but out of the box it was not needed. Using the open sights I was able to get some one hole groups at 33 feet using GAMO Match pellets. My interest though was in seeing how the gun performed using a scope.
I mounted a 4-16 x 40 Centerpoint Scope with a one piece Centerpoint mount. The scope was already mounted on another gun and I took it of of that gun, dropped it onto the QB-78 and sighting in took only 6 clicks of windage and 20 for elevation to be on at 15 yards. During the sighting in process a housfly landed on the target at 15 yards. I was pleasantly surprised when I pullet the trigger and the pellet appeared to go to the exact spot where the fly had been.
At 15 yards the gun consistently made one hole 5 shot groups using Crosman Premier Hollow Points, Gamo Match, Gamo Master Points and RWS Super H Points. I moved the targets out to 25 yards and around 250 round through the gun to get a feel for it. At 25 Yards I was able to notice some pellets performing better than others. And decided I would do the accuracy testing with the Crosman Premier Hollow Points, The Gamo Master Pointed, and RWS Super H points. With each pellet tested I shot a total seven five shot groups. Each group was assigned a group number that reflected the shot number from new CO2 cartridges. Overall the RWS Hollow Points performed the best.
| Pellet | Groups | Shots | Average of Group Size | Min Group Size | Max Group Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crosman hp | 7 | 35 | 0.79 | 0.50 | 1.05 |
| Gamo Master Pointed | 7 | 35 | 0.82 | 0.50 | 1.10 |
| RWS Super H Point | 7 | 35 | 0.65 | 0.35 | 1.00 |
The targets below show the pellet type, shot from new CO2 and the group number.
At 40 YDS I performed some informal testing and was pleased to be able to hit the steel T posts in my pasture 8 out of 10 times. Putting some paper at that distance showed a gun that could give a soda can some trouble at 40 to 50 yards on a calm day. The Bull on the target below is 1″ Diameter with a 2″ outer ring.
The Chronograph showed the numbers below at approx 75 deg F. No Gamo Master Pointed pellets were chronoghraphed. CO2 cartidges were changed prior to testing and a few shots fired prior to taking the readings.
| Pellet | High | Low | Average | Standard Deviation |
| RWS Super H Point | 652.7 | 639.2 | 644.8 | 4.35 |
| Crosman H Point | 646.8 | 623 | 638.9 | 6.24 |
Though the power of the gun is on the low side, I would probably take it to the woods for early squirrel season since the shots are closer due to leaves. The accuracy out to 25 yards is shown on the last target below that I shot before this writing. The leftmost column was shot with Crosman destroyer pellets,, the center column was RWS Hollow Points and the right column was shot with Gamo Hunters. The bottom group on the center column was actually 6 shots as I pulled the very first one. The RWS Hollow Points will be the pellet of choice for this fall.
All together I have used 16 pairs of CO2 cartridges with this gun. Each pair yielding 60+ shots. The gun has been nothing but FUN. I have shot Fence Posts, Paper Targets, Ice Cubes, Houseflies (2 kills at 15 Yards), paper cups, and I don’t know what else. The only performance issues I had were related to the barrel band becoming loose and the point of impact shifting if a barely bumped the barrel. Loosening the screw and allowing the barrel to center itself and then tightening the screw returned the point of impact to within 5 clicks of the original point of impact.
Here is the gun as tested.
The workmanship could use improvement but as far as my opinion goes, looks aren’t anything if it works well. I would like the barrel band a little more secure and the trigger could benefit from a little polishing. At the list price, I find the gun a great value and would recommend it to anyone that wants an accurate and consistent gun at a great price. I just hope they don’t figure out how to run cars off of CO2 !
Copyright 2007 www.airgunweb.com & Dog River Design, LLC.
All Rights Reserved.