October Staff Picks: Budget PCPs, Bare-Bones Blades, and Bionic Knees
Our October favourites: featuring budget-friendly rifles, tactical knives, and a very good reason why our workshop is currently running on hopes and prayers.
A Skeleton Crew for Halloween
Right, before we get to the shiny new gear, let’s talk about the scariest thing happening to us this Halloween. By the time you read this, our beloved Tee is having her knee swapped out for a newer, presumably Terminator-spec model. Naturally, she’s taking time off to recover. Craig will be running around looking after her, and from the sounds of it, Tee is significantly more terrified of Craig being left in charge of the house than she is of the surgeon’s scalpel.
What does this mean for you? If you are eyeing up payday deals or planning ahead for Black Friday and Christmas, bear in mind the shop floor will be looking rather thin. For about two weeks, it will just be Luke and Karl holding the fort as a literal skeleton crew. Consequently, no workshop repairs will be done during this time. Please don’t ask; it’s like asking a fish to climb a tree; the answer will be a polite but firm "no".
On a broader note, the cost of diesel in the UK is currently looking incredibly bleak. Craig, our resident private courier who usually ferries your airguns straight to your doorstep, is weeping every time he looks at a forecourt price board. This, combined with soaring global freight costs, has heavily impacted imports. To keep shipping expenses from being passed onto you, we, like everyone else, are ordering in larger quantities but less frequently.
If you are after a specific spare part from our imported brands like EPIC, AGT, KalibrGun, Vector Optics, APOLLO, Rokstad, Xamorest, Manbily, or NateChrony, we will add it to our next bulk order. If you absolutely must have it immediately, you’ll be footing the excess delivery fee. We hate it too, but buying parts piecemeal right now is like ordering a single brick and asking for it to be delivered by helicopter.
Our Honest Take: Best PCPs Under £1000
We’ve also just released an updated version of our Best PCP Air Rifles Guide, broken down into under £500, £750, and £1000 categories. Unlike the usual industry fluff pieces that read like an over-enthusiastic sales brochure, ours actually includes the pros and the cons.
All guns have shortcomings. Yes, even the brand-new ones. To the bloke in the comments quoting, "It's a new gun, it shouldn't have faults", clearly, you know absolutely nothing about the complexities of mechanical engineering. Expecting a rifle to be flawless out of the box is like expecting a British train to run on time. They all have their quirks, and the sooner we accept that, the better we can shoot them.
Anyway, rant over. Let’s look at what the staff are spending their imaginary money on this month.
A quick recap on September’s Staff Picks: Tee's pick won the popular vote, but Luke’s pick sold the most. We’ll call it a draw.
This month, the running order was decided entirely by who shouted their choice first. The latecomers were visibly annoyed, which, frankly, makes it all the sweeter.
Craig's Pick: Remington T-Rex Wood Sporter Bolt Action PCP
Unsurprisingly, Craig shouted first. It’s no secret we have a lot of time for the new age of Chinese air rifles, and that absolutely extends to the Remington T-Rex (known everywhere else on the planet as the Snowpeak T-Rex).
It is a brilliantly presented budget PCP that features an onboard regulator, iron sights, and Picatinny rails for both optics and accessories. Craig, being a traditionalist at heart, opted for the wood variant. Yes, it costs a bit more than the bargain-basement synthetic version, but putting a warm wood stock on this action is like putting a leather interior in a Ford Transit; it just makes it a nicer place to be. He claims he’s willing to look past the slightly odd green accents on the gun because, underneath it all, it's a phenomenal low-cost hero.
It’s a cheap gun, so it has its rough edges, but the buy-in fee to get a regulated PCP of this capability is staggering. In fact, the synthetic version currently sits firmly on our Best PCP under £1000 tier list.
Karl's Pick: Dachs Knives GNOM Skeletonised Full Tang Tanto Knife
Mouthful of a name? Yes. Mouthful of a knife? Not at all. This is a brutally simple, highly effective tactical skeleton knife forged entirely from Böhler N690 stainless steel. That makes it a premium powdered metallurgy blade built for top-tier performance.
Karl picked this because it’s a brilliant blank canvas from Czech bladesmith Dachs. You can run it bare, bolt on some custom scales, or wrap it in paracord. The modified Tanto/cleaver blade profile is a very clever touch. It allows you to apply serious downward pressure for camping and bushcraft tasks without snapping the tip, which means it’s built like a tank but weighs less than your average Sunday roast. It’s a tool that does exactly what you ask of it without making a fuss.
Tee's Pick: VictOptics C1 4x32 Prismatic Scope
This is slightly left-field for Tee, but her reasoning is absolutely spot on. The number of people who look at prismatic scopes and dismiss them as a gimmick is astounding. Let’s clear this up: a prismatic sight is inherently better than a traditional lens scope. They are harder-wearing, more compact, and significantly lighter because they have fewer internal parts to rattle to pieces. If someone ever figures out how to give a true prismatic variable zoom, the traditional telescopic scope is entirely finished.
For now, we have fixed magnification, which is usually quite expensive, except for this little VictOptics C1. It’s a budget-friendly 4x optic that airsofters love, but Tee realised it’s a brilliant option for pest control. She runs a lightweight Vixen setup. Slapping a massive, heavy 4-16x telescope on top of a lightweight rifle to shoot rats at 20 metres is like using an articulated lorry to pop down to the shops for a pint of milk. It makes zero sense. This 4x prismatic is lighter, cheaper, and gets the exact same job done perfectly.
Luke's Pick: Remington 870 Tactical Side-Lever PCP Air Rifle
Luke’s pick is cut from the same cloth as Craig’s. We’ve only had two of these through the door, but it’s already cementing itself as a low-cost hero. In reality, this is a JTS AirStryke Carbine that SMK has imported and slapped a Remington badge on. Why they named a PCP air rifle after the world's most famous 12-gauge pump-action shotgun is a mystery we don't have the time to solve, but we’ll let that slide.
Here is why Luke picked it: consistency. You only get about 40 shots per fill, but of those 40, around 30 of them have a sub-10 FPS spread. That sort of consistency over a string embarrasses a lot of rifles costing four figures. Could it be a fluke? Possibly. But at this price bracket, who cares? You also get a sliding AR stock with an adjustable cheekpiece, iron sights, Picatinny rails, and, unlike Craig’s T-Rex, this one is actually threaded for a silencer right out of the box.
Over to You: Who Wins This Month?
So, who are you backing this month? Are you leaning toward the traditional wood of Craig's T-Rex, Karl's bare-bones Czech steel, Tee's lightweight prismatic logic, or Luke's incredibly consistent (but strangely named) 870 Tactical?
Drop your vote in the poll below, let us know what budget heroes you are currently running, and be sure to wish Tee a speedy recovery. Mostly so Craig doesn't accidentally burn the house down while trying to cook dinner.
Who gets your vote?
Craig's Pick: Remington T-Rex Wood
Karl's Pick: Dachs Knives GNOM Skeletonised knife
Tee's Pick: VictOptics C1 4x32 Prismatic Scope
Luke's Pick: Remington 870 Tactical
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