The most powerful airgun Part 1

by Tom Gaylord

People like extremes, and new airgunners are always asking me what the most powerful airgun is. I will attempt to answer that today without being too cute.

You have to look at the powerplant
The type of powerplant determines the potential maximum for all airguns. Unlike firearms whose variables are few, airguns have one additional variable in the way the compressed air or gas is either generated or supplied. That variable makes all the difference in how much power can be generated by a gun.

Airguns come with many types of powerplants. The "big three" are spring piston, pneumatic and CO2. And right away, we have an "air" gun that doesn't really use air. The CO2 gun should actually be called a gas gun, I suppose, but then you'd have to differentiate between that and Freon, green gas, red gas, propane and I don't know how many others. So for this discussion, a CO2 gun is an airgun.

But it doesn't end there. There are also catapult guns that launch the projectile mechanically. Some are like slingshots, which is where the name catapult comes from.

And pneumatics break into three main types - precharged, multi-pump and single-stroke. So each of them has to be considered separately.

And let's not overlook the classic BB gun action seen in the Daisy lever action guns. It's a hybrid combination of a catapult and a spring piston powerplant. And, as long as we are talking BB guns I suppose we should consider the Crosman 350's strange poppet valve. The same valve is found in the M1 Carbine from Crosman. It's a type of spring piston in which the compressed air is restrained by the valve until the pressure rises over a certain point. Then it bursts through the poppet and blasts the BB on its way.

Let's consider spring piston guns first.
The most powerful spring piston airgun that I know of is the JW80 by Whiscombe. It has opposing pistons that come together like clapping hands. Each is powered by a separate mainspring and the rifle is cocked by three strokes on the cocking lever. I don't own a JW80, whose dual pistons are separated by 80mm, but I do have a JW75, which is nearly as powerful. I have seen 32 foot-pounds from my rifle, though 35 are possible with the heaviest pellets. A JW80 should exceed that by a foot-pound or two.


This JW75 is an underlever spring piston air rifle with dual opposed pistons. Separate springs drive them together like the clapping of hands, producing more power than any other spring piston gun, to the author's knowledge.

John Whiscombe has stopped making airguns, so the few that he made (a few hundred of each model, I'm guessing) are all that exist. Expect to pay at least $2,500 for a nice one with one barrel today. Many of them have interchangeable barrels and the one I own has all four calibers, which makes testing different caliber pellets in the same gun a breeze.