Best Budget PCP Airgun EVER? Air Venturi Avenger .22 Cal Air Rifle
4th Jun 2020
I am going to make a bold statement: The Air Venturi Avenger is the BEST BUDGET AIRGUN I have EVER shot! PERIOD.
I have gotten a couple jabs (rightfully so) on my social media channels that I only show airguns that cost more than my first car (which by the way was a rusted out 1984 Chevy S-10 I bought from my Dad for $1200 and a full summer of lawn mowing).
I think that critique was fare so I set out to rectify this. I gave myself a $600 budget to build out the ULTIMATE budget airgun kit. So here it is!
So first off the actual gun itself....
At $299 the Air Venturi Avenger is packed with features you will find in air guns 3 times more expensive. It was like Air Venturi and Pyramyd Air got a bunch of us airgunners into a room and said - what do you want? GO!
The thing that jumped out at me right away was the externally adjustable regulator! But I was hooked once I got behind the fully adjustable trigger and dare I say.... match grade!
Without touching a thing I burned through a full 10 round magazine (which by the way it comes with 2x mags and 1x single shot pellet tray) with pellet on pellet accuracy zeroing at 25 yards. Moved out to 50 yards and check out this group slinging 18.13 JSBs at 880 FPS! That is just nuts for a gun in this price range with ZERO tinkering!
Other items worth mentioning.... The Avenger has a Max Fill Pressure of 4,351 PSI (300 BAR) which gives you a TON of regulated shots. Unlike a lot of other budget guns that come with fill probes, this comes with a foster fill port under a cap at the end of the air tube. LOVE the safety and cocking mechanism. SMOOTH and I mean like butter smooth.
I love the picatinny rail that comes with it under the front for bipods and IR lights. The top scope rail is slick in that it accepts both picatinny AND dovetail scope rings.
When you pick it up it does feel very lightweight and plastic-y so don't get me wrong, it doesn't feel like a $1000+ gun. But from a features and performance standpoint this gun checks ALL the boxes.
Let's add some accessories to round out the $600 budget!
I reached out to Yolanda Du and DonnyFl to do a quick test with one of their adapters for the Nova Vista Liberty that looked like the same size of the end cap on the Avenger. She sent one for me to test and sure enough - it fits!
So now you can run a DonnyFL TANTO Suppressor and at only $99 it makes the Avenger into a mouse fart gun! It was decently quiet with the empty shrouded barrel - but with the DonnyFL TANTO it is Hollywood hit man quiet!
To round out this ultimate budget kit I went with UTG QD Medium Rings holding a Hawke Sport Optics Vantage 4-12x50 (saved $70 with a refurb). Gave her some locking legs with a UTG bipod and was ready to rock!
Gear used:
Avenger in .22:
https://www.pyramydair.com/s/m/Air_Venturi_Avenger_Regulated_PCP_Air_Rifle/5136
DonnyFL TANTO:
https://donnyfl.com/collections/ldc/products/1-22-x-5-inches-tanto
Supressor Adaptor:
https://donnyfl.com/products/nova-vista-liberty-1-2-x-20-a50?_pos=1&_sid=9b4b122c5&_ss=r