“Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” If that was ever true, it certainly isn’t anymore. It’s been shunted to the side by sayings like, “Not invented here!” and “If we wanted one like that, we would have invented it!” You have to laugh, to hold back the tears. As an airgun writer, I sometimes hear about developments that haven’t made it to market yet. Many of them never will, nor should they. Most are cockamamie ideas that stink. Every once in awhile, however, something good comes along. The air pistol I’m going to show you falls into that category. The attractive new single-stroke pneumatic is twice as powerful as guns now being made, yet it takes less force to pump. This prototype was made largely from aluminum and off the shelf parts. What Is A Single-Stroke Pneumatic? A single-stroke pneumatic is a pump-type airgun that uses only one pump stroke for each shot. If you attempt to pump it a second time, it loses all the air from the first pump, making it impossible to charge the gun with more than one pump of air. Don’t confuse the single-stroke pneumatic with spring-piston guns that some writers mistakenly call “one-pump guns.” There is no pumping in a spring-piston gun. You compress the mainspring when you cock it. While that may look like pumping to some people, no air is compressed. Made by Weihrauch of Germany, the Beeman P2 is representative of the current crop of single-stroke pistols. Larger than the new gun, it takes more force to pump and is much less powerful. Single-strokes are relative newcomers to the airgun scene. Walther’s LP II pistol, first made in the 1960s, was the vanguard. Instead of cocking a spring that buzzed when it fired, you worked the triggerguard linkage to charge the gun for each smooth shot. Cont to pg2>>>>