In early October, I was prepared to depart the chilly northern climes for another hunt in Texas, this time to a friend’s ranch north of Sanderson, Texas, on the US/Mexico border. This was going to be a long road journey, with a rental Jeep covering 1,600 miles before returning to Dallas for my flight home.
My goals were varied: javalina, predators, and rabbits in the south, then enormous wild pigs roaming rampant across the state in the north. I’d brought a pair of strong big-bore air guns for the larger animals, but I was really excited to go after rabbits because I’d received an intriguing small game rifle for evaluation a few weeks before.
This weapon appears to be based on a design that has been around for a long time.
However, it is a Seneca Aspen, a multi-pump pre-charged pneumatic rifle from Air Venturi that combines ancient and new technologies. As with any PCP, this weapon can be filled from an external air source. The inbuilt pumping system allows you to top off the rifle in the field, which sets it apart.
The weapon produced a dozen shots with virtually little shift in point of contact after the initial fill of the.22 caliber version I was using (also available in.25). The best PCP air rifle was topped off and ready for another 10-15 shots after thirty low-effort pumps. Aside from being able to fire numerous shots without having to press the trigger after each pull, the rifle is magazine fed and cycled via a side lever action. The Aspen is a larger gun, which is unavoidable given the pump mechanism’s integration. I was getting around 900 fps with 18-grain pellets and the weight was 8 pounds. The overall length was 43.3 inches.
Initial Thoughts
Right away, a couple things about this rifle impressed me. It was a lot easier to pump than I remembered my old Sheridan or another hand-built multi-pump PCP prototype rifle from a few years ago being. The fact that the design includes a side lever cocking action, which is my preferred method for field rifles, appealed to me. A side cocking mechanism, in my experience, is about the fastest cycling action you can get in a PCP rifle.
I even got used to the pump handle protruding out underneath the 10-shot rotary magazine feeding beautifully. But, to be honest, what surprised me the most was the rifle’s incredible accuracy. I have both the.22 and.25 calibers in my gun room right now, but I’ve only shot the.22, so I’ll stick to that caliber in my comments. Air Gun Maniac, At 40 yards, the rifle consistently delivered 10-shot one-hole groups that could be covered with a quarter. I was excited to use the Aspen as my small game gun for the trip, and I was ready to go after sighting it in!
Despite the fact that I would be hunting larger game for the majority of the week, I planned to have plenty of time to kill rabbits during our downtime. That, I reasoned, would give me plenty of chances to carry this one-of-a-kind PCP through miles of brush and shoot it in a target-rich area. A rifle that shoots well off the bench does not always convert to a gun that is easy to use in the field.
Many shots from a standing offhand or kneeling stance are required to hunt jackrabbits in the thorn- and cactus-covered Texan scrub vegetation. I frequently use shooting sticks when I can locate a bare location to sit. Rather of bench resting my rifle in preparation for a hunt, I put it through its paces with sticks to see what I could expect in the field. I should also remark that this rifle comes with a well-functioning trigger right out of the box. I didn’t find the need to change the two-stage design, despite the fact that it is fully adjustable.
Several hunts for cottontails and large desert jackrabbits in the arid brushlands were strung together over the course of the week. The Aspen, along with an 18-grain JSB Exact round-nose Diabolo pellet, was lethal out to 75 yards on rabbits large and small. Shooting the Aspen was liberating because I knew that after a couple of magazines, I could quickly top it off. I’d frequently charge the rifle while on the move because the pumping effort was so little.
On the big 5- to 6-pound jacks, the Aspen generated an honest 20 fpe, and the laser-like accuracy performed a great job. Head shots were preferred in the deeper brush of the hunted regions, but I discovered that broadside body shots were equally successful, and I consistently rolled these large jacks out to 50 yards. The cocking handle serves as an integrated rest, and the pump handle is positioned in such a way that the rig is very easy to fire from a knee.