daisy powerline targetpro 953 review

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Average Ratings

Accuracy	8.7/10
Handling	9.3/10
Value for Money	8.8/10
Reviewer Rating	8.2/10
Overall Rating	8.1/10

85% Recommended17 out of 20 Reviews

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By Peter Mitchell on 26th Jun 2007

Peter Mitchell's Ratings

Accuracy	8/10
Handling	10/10
Value for money	10/10
Overall value	9/10
Peter Mitchell's recommendation

Good Points

Love how it feels right out of the box. My friend wanted to buy the "Winchester" version of the Daisy while the Powerline 953 caught my eye immediately. He wanted the Winchester rifle until he tried cocking it, then he decided he liked the Powerline more. I love how it shoulders, the weight of it and how solid it feels. I love that their is no recoil whatsoever which is great for hunting gophers (see below). I found it placed some very nice groupings (-1/4") at 20 yards.

Bad Points

While I very much approve of the 5-round clip idea, I found my clip doesn't always feed well. I have to play with the clip a bit to line it up and often the pellet will be half-fed into the breech. A slight tug on the clip to the right or left allows me to jack the pellet into the gun.

General Comments

I know many have suggested the Daisy Powerline should not be used to hunt anything larger than a bird. I've used it for a month now to hunt gophers. That said, I must give a couple of qualifiers. First, here in Saskatchewan, Canada we have two kinds of gophers: small, dumb ones called "ground squirrels" (still a gopher nonetheless) and larger, smarter ones that are a golden brown. I have hunted primarily the smaller, dumber "ground squirrel" variety as well as pups of the larger, smarter brown ones (the larger ones would be comparable in size to a grey squirrel). Through trial and error I learned that by using a field tip pointed pellet (Crosman's - don't use the round headed pellets as they do not penetrate as well) and a high powered scope (3x-9x zoom ... I have bad eyesight), carefully placed shots to the head have been most effective to eliminating these pests (torso shots are cruel as the creature suffers needlessly). The effective kill range is a maximum of 30 yards, but I recommend shots be done most often at 20 yards or less. Shooting these kinds of gophers in the head would be similar to shooting at 20 yards a 50 cent piece if the gopher is an adult from the larger-sized family. Once hit in the head the gopher bleeds profusely and is dying quickly. The ones here in Saskatchewan tend to flip about like a fish out of water. True, the shock of the impact does not kill immediately (as in the case of a .22 bullet), but since the creature is dying due to brain hemorrhaging I am able to come up to it quickly and place a second shot - point blank - into its head, or one in the chest into the heart ... a fairly humane way of putting them down, I think. The benefits of hunting small pests with a pellet rifle of this kind are: 1) you can hunt where .22 rifles would be discouraged - people are less nervous of you hunting nearby when they know your rifle is a pellet rifle and not a .22 or larger calibre rifle (2) they are very quite rifles and do not scare the gophers very much, (3) there is next to no recoil (my 14 year old daughter hunts with me and is not afraid to use the air rifle).

The downside is obvious, the limited range of the pellet rifle in comparison to using a .22 rifle (i.e., you're hunting at 10-30 yards versus shooting outwards of 100 yards). As well as the issue (for some) of the rodent not dying immediately (although I have seen some die within seconds of being hit by one pellet to the head - it all seems to depend on WHERE they were hit in the head that affects how long they live after the hit - in either case we're talking about seconds of living after impact).

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