Air Arms S400 MPR FT, Poplar Stock

Light weight, Looks, Accuracy. Alot of shots per fill. I bought this rifle used and wonder why it was returned. I will be making my own knee rest as i have some poplar blocks in my wood shop.

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This is a beautiful gun. Light weight and very capable of winning field target competitions. Alot of fun to shoot.

I bought this gun to shoot benchrest competition. It is about one-half to one-third the cost of other guns that are competitive in the Light Varmint class (12 fpe) for WRABF/USARB benchrest, shooting at 25 meters outdoors and 25 yards indoors.

The Air Arms T-Bar fill valve sucks, especially when it is cold. Getting the fitting on and off the gun is a real PITA. I have ordered a kit from Best Fittings Ltd, in England, to change the valve to a foster quick detach type. I am pretty tall, so the stock length of pull is way too short for me for position shooting, but not so much of a problem for shooting from benchrests. I would need to get some sort of after market extender to shoot Field Target with it.

The gun is a little "pellet picky", at least for hitting a 10 ring that is less than half the diameter of a .177 pellet. It doesn't seem to group any wadcutters very well(of which I have 10'000). I have found that several Air Arms, or the pretty much identical JSB Exact, domed pellets, seem to shoot well.
With a little patience, the trigger can be adjusted down to practically nothing, which is great for BR, but possibly not so much for FT.
Overall, I am quite pleased with the gun and think it is a great value for the money.

I love this rifle! I have a 3-12-44 accushot scope mounted, if you miss it's your fault. very nice trigger.

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Great accuracy. Incredible bang for the buck. This is really a beautiful little rifle and it is a pure joy to shoot. It has a great track record winning FT meets, too - so it's pretty much up to us, the shooters! And my wife thinks it's pretty (that's important!)

The stock is WAY too short. With all of the extensions added, it still comes up at least 1 inch shy. And the plastic extensions really don't fit the beauty of the rifle - they are extremely cheesy-looking. Solution: budget in the "MPR Metal Adjustable Buttpad" - you will still come out way ahead cost-wise over anything else. Or you can build a decent-looking extension with standard off-the-shelf spacer components and longer 5mm, 80 pitch machine screws. I used 70mm length for adding 2 inches of spacers (waiting for my metal buttpad to come in this week). Mounting a Hawke 30 Sidewinder scope with heavy-duty BKL mounts, I pretty much ran out of forward room. Extending the stock solved this problem, though, giving me more eye relief. You'll also have to fab a new cheek piece for the longer stock. I made one out of a simple 1x2x6" piece of wood, edges shaped & sanded, stained walnut, and mounted right on the original mount. It looks stylish and business-like, and it works great! The bluing is really old-fashioned. We're used to non-rust finishes, and you'll need to oil the gun after every use. So....why five stars? Because these are easy fixes and you're left with a fantastic piece of equipment that you will absolutely love! Besides, we all tweak stuff anyway, don't we? It's part of owning something that you want to put your own personality into.

Filling the cylinder! The online manual is wrong (at least at this writing). The cylinder fills without removal, with a special adapter that comes with the kit. The problem: BPP (British Parallel Pipe) threads! You won't be able to fill your rifle without something to mate the BPP to standard fittings. My solution: The "AirForce Scuba Tank Adapter K-valve, Steel Hose". I removed the hose Foster connector and replaced it with an adapter PN# BPP-FP-5000-02-02, which accepts BPP and standard pipe threads. You'll need to order this from your local industrial supply store, so PLAN AHEAD. Use some teflon tape on the standard pipe side (tapered), but not on the BPP (straight) side. Instead use a 3/8" brass washer and tighten it down pretty well.

I've seen some fill adapters online but be careful - they may be for the older removable tank system.

Pellets! These group the best: 1. JSB Exact Diabolos, 8.44 gr. 2. Air Arms Diabolo Field, 8.4 gr. 3. Falcon Accuracy Plus, 7.33 gr. Generally, heavier pellets fly best, but the Falcons are very impressive even at the lighter mass, meaning they will fly farther/flatter.

Trigger,the feel and looks of the gun,and I get a little over 100 accurate shots out to 50 yards where my targets are set up.

Maybe give the length of pull about another 3/4 of an inch.Even with all the spacers it is just a tiny bit to short to my liking.

Drop dead accurate with Air Arms 8.4 grain,4.52 head size lightly oiled with FP-10 lubricant.I get sub half inch groups and have shot groups smaller than a 1/4 of an inch at 50 yards.Small flies dont stand a chance that land on my targets,and I turn small acorns into a mist.Of course this is from my bench with no wind. But If you know your wind doping skills you can still get 1/2 groups with this gun all day long at 50 yards.With these Air Arms pellets as mentioned above and gun charged at 170 bar on my chrony on a 10 shot string I get a low of 741.8 fps,High of 756.8 fps,Average of 747.9 fps,Extreme spread of 14.75 fps,Standerd Deviation of 4.79 FPS.Also I chronied this gun with the RWS 5.2 grain Hyper Max pellets and they averaged 860 fps on a 10 shot string.Anyway,not only is it accurate,it DOES have enough power at 30 plus yards to bag squirrels.I have also dispatched black birds and grackles out past 70 yards.By the way,I am not carring this gun in the woods anymore.Just like my AIR ARMS S410 Extra FAC,it is to beautiful to accidently get it scratched up.I will stick with my Synthetic Stock FX Monsoon,Condor,TalonSS,or one of my springers to carry in the woods.If you like field target out to fifty yards and dont want to spend over $1000 dollars,this is the gun to buy.You will be pleased!BTW,I forgot mention the silver air stripper on the barrel.It really brings shines on this gun.No muzzle jump at all.

This rifle is very accurate and will shoot with the AA EV2 out to 35-40 yards, very well balanced, has a really high shot count for an unregulated gun and I like the looks.

I would add some weight for more stability for Field target or silhouette shooting. The after market adjustable butt stock is mandatory for anyone of average height and build. This rifle could definitely use a knee rest stock.

This a 12ft-lb air rifle, so plan on working the wind doping skills. It makes for a really nice rifle right up to entry level field target, but if the cash is there and you're serious about competition spring the extra cash for the AA EV2.