Baikal IZH-53M Review

Overall Rating

Good price, rugged, dependable, easy to work on. Real diamond in the rough.

Trigger pull.

The IZH 53M is an entry-level spring-piston pistol. It has a hammer-forged, rifled barrel and (mine) shoots GAMO match wadcutters at 390 FPS. Very (surprisingly) easy to cock, even with such a short barrel. Fires pretty rough at first, but mine smoothed out after only a hundred pellets (100, not 1,000).

Accuracy is very hold sensitive, and the pistol has a pronouced "recoil" when the piston is released. Naturally, accuracy in a $50 springer is so-so, but this pistol will shoot very accurately, if you do your part (the barrel is amazing). Unfortunately, the trigger and sear combination do a lot to keep you from doing your best...

To "tune" the trigger, remove the grips (phillips screwdriver required) and set aside.

The trigger blade is actually a primary lever that acts on the true trigger, housed inside and behind the blade. The two components of the trigger are held in place by the same drift pin. The drift pin located immediately behind the trigger pin is a a stop for the sear lever. The third pin is the axis that the sear lever pivots upon.

Remove the two springs from behind the trigger parts and from under the rear of the sear lever, and set them aside. Take care removing the spring from the trigger; there is a small spring between the trigger blade and the trigger (which simulates a first stage, but serves no real function), and this spring can fall out when tension from the main trigger spring (the big one) is removed. You don't actually NEED the small spring, but just be aware that you could lose it at this point.

With the two large and one small spring removed, you can now drift out the three pins. Remove the two-piece trigger first, it comes straight out the bottom of the action. Then push the sear lever forward and draw it out the front and bottom of the assembly.

I used a Dremel tool with a rubber polishing disk on the mandrel to polish the sear contact areas. Don't use a file, or you might remove too much metal and make the sear unsafe!

After polishing all contact points and buffing with a cotton disk on the mandrel, I put a thin film of 60% Moly on them using a Q-tip, and reassembled the action.

After this tune, my trigger pull was reduced to 19 ounces, and is very smooth.

The long "adjustment" screw on the front of the trigger housing only adjusts for pre-travel. I ended up turning mine in a lot to reduce the travel (there was A LOT). This screw can be turned TOO FAR, causing the gun to fire accidentally or make it unable to cock. So be careful and make small adjustments to this screw, in a safe place.

The sights:

In my opinion, the rear sight alone is worth $30 of the $50 price tag. It is a nice, compact unit with good, positive clicks on the adjusting knobs. Unfortunately, it will barely adjust DOWN to put pellets on target at 10-15 meters. Most 7-ish grain pellets hit an inch or two high. Luckily, the front sight, which is also pretty nice (it's spring-loaded), can be easily raised:

Hold your palm over the front sight, and push it into it's housing a little to keep tension on it. Drift out the retaining pin, and dump the sight and its spring into your hand. The front sight is a long lever that pivots on the drift pin, and if you carefully file off the bottom of the back of the sight, you will raise the sight post, and so lower your point of impact. I find the easiest way to do this is to clamp a file to your work surface and draw the "butt" of the sight along the file to get it smooth and even.

Remove a little material, reassemble, and check your zero. repeat until you can get the sights on at your chosen range, with the REAR sight adjusted to about the middle of it's usable range (dial it all the way DOWN, now one click at a time, dial it UP, and count the clicks until you get to the extreme. Half as many clicks back DOWN is the "middle"...roughly).

This is a nice gun, a great plinker, and very "backyard friendly", with a proper trap or backstop, it makes a good "indoor" gun for bad weather practice. It's too big for kids or small teens, which is a shame, because it would be a great instructional pistol. It would also make a terrific little carbine.

Enjoy!