Beeman Silver Bear 1783 Review

Overall Rating

Inexpensive Moderate Power Solidly Built

Automatic safety is a pain Scope was not sighted in as stated on box Stock has a certain cheap feel to it

Got my Beeman Silver Bear at Wal Mart for $25 on clearance. I lucked out and got the one box that had not been returned. In talking to the sport division guy, I found out most had been returned because the scopes were knocked silly in transport. True to form, my scope was wacky. The crosshairs were so far out of whack that they formed an X instead of a cross. Oddly enough, I still managed decent groupings at roughly 20 feet with an out of camber scope. Decent shooter, but power is limited. I shot through an empty box but it didn't have enough power to flatten the pellet. Awful lot of noise for such low power but it makes it sound more powerful than it is. Fake muzzle suppressor looks good although I usually grab the barrel to cock it. The only bad point worthy of discussion is the stock. Even the Chinese can made a cheap wood stock, why use a plastic stock with a really cheesy looking butt pad? In fact, I can tell the butt pad was added to change this from a youth to adult air rifle at the smallest expense. Hey, what can you expect for $25?

Members' Comments onted3929's Review

• ted3929 on 14th Aug 2005

  Update: Don't know what happened, but the gun literally started to fall apart within 2 weeks. First it started dieseling, something it didn't do out of the box. It blew so much smoke it started to obscure my vision (inside shooting). Then the accuracy went down the flusher. The scope that had worked so well in the beginning now was ineffective. Now I can't hit a flock of barn with the stupid thing.
  
  Anybody else had this problem?

• ted3929 on 18th Sep 2005

  Finally, this gun gave up the ghost. The piston went kaput roughly 30 days after I got it and with less than 100 pellets through it. Fortunately, Wal Mart took it back without a fight, but I really would expect more from Beeman.

• blackjack on 3rd Dec 2005

  I purchased my beeman from Wal-Mart also. It is my first air rifle. Lot of fun to shoot. The only real problem I had was that its difficult to load. Makes me wonder why it didn't come with a loading tool to help ease the time consuming loading process. Overall it's a nice air rifle for the money. I only wish it came in all black too.

• Hunt4life32 on 13th Aug 2006

  I have a Silver bear too (see my review) but i have a problem whenever i shoot in the feild at about 23 yards i get 1 inch groups and its pretty accurate unfortunatly sometimes after shooting and zeroing it in next time i take it out its all over at least 2 inches off where it should be shooting. Also where do you oil a break barrel rifle? ( i'm used to multi pump air rifles) but anyway when it is sighted in a shoot it out my 2nd floor window and then it shoots 2 inches up and 1 inch to the right. Do i need a new or better scope? Please help me!!

• Hunt4life32 on 14th Oct 2006

  I can't get the Beeman Silver Bear 1783 air rifle to hold a zero with any scope. Please can you help?

• ted3929 on 15th Oct 2006

  You can pretty much forget it holding a zero with any scope. The barrel is hardly a piece of engineering technology. Even with the supplied scope I could never really get it to post small groupings after the first 25 shots or so.
  
  I think the major problem is the breech connector. After breaking the barrel several times to load and cock the mechanism, I think it starts to sag, and never really locks back into place the same every time. This is a common problem with break barrel air rifles, not just the Beeman Silver Bear model.