SPA ARTEMIS SR900S SIDE-LEVER AIR RIFLE, .177 CAL

This is the ARTEMIS S900 (in synth) which in our opinion, is one of the more powerful magazine-fed spring piston air rifles on the market. It certainly does not feature all the ergonomical and ease-of-use features associated for example, with the GAMO SPEEDSTER Gen2 and certainly does not have its easy cocking force, however, on this rifle, you will get to enjoy the perks associated w/ a fixed barrel and of course, a threaded muzzle end for an included silencer. The terminal section of the barrel has a polished brass thread protector on, for storage purposes.

The rifle stock is a very rugged polyprop sort of beefy dimensions, that appears purpose-built to withstand a solid beating / harsh use. The stock as you might see, is a solid steel tube housing the mainspring and of course, the spring piston. There is a slot open to the rear of the stock that serves as an inspection window to the stock bumper spring (which btw is adjustable by means of the big disc-top steel machine screw. By threading this screw out, you can remove the oblong adapter out, switch it around in the slot and reinstall the said screw, which adjusts the length of the stock. We only noticed two holes on this adapter, though if you need the stock shorter (on the two factory settings its fine for the typical adult male), you could always try to make a plan with the adapter. The bump spring that you can see, of course, is for recoil absorbing purposes. In conjunction w/ the serrated, curved rubber buttplate, this does allow, for the given power this rifle puts out, for a generous amount of shooting stability.

The grip on rifle offers you an AR-15 type pistol grip, which is hollowed out (presumably to reduce weight). The trigger itself is awfully reminescent of the M25 pcp rifle, which has a crisp two-stage action and looks the same as the one on the aforementioned. Unlike the SR1000, SR1250 and GR1600 models, there is no automatic safety on this rifle. Instead, you just have a push-through / button on the upper part of the trigger blade, as on the M25 / PR900 / CP2 / P15 / P35 etc.

The nice feature to the cocking lever here, is that it has a ratcheting funnction, so that, should the lever happen to accidentally slip free from your grasp, it won't slam back against the stock and moreover, it won't reset the progreess you made cocking the lever, which is a nice touch, especially after you realize that you might have started cocking the gun in an awkward position and need to change position. The cocking lever in its entirety, is manufactured out of steel. The cocking action actuates the pellet probe in tantem. This is very similar again, to the PCP rifles that ARTEMIS manufactures.
There are no open sights on this rifle as the pictures indicate and on top of the rifle action, there is a dovetail cut-out on top of the action to fit mount rings on. The rail of course, is split to accomodate for the magazine / single pellet loader, however, at the rearmost of both rail sections, there are grub screw inserts in threaded holes, which can be raised by threading the grub screws out. These will then serve as mount ring backstops to prevent the rings from sliding backward after sustaining recoil.

Also cool feature to this rifle is that, unlike the CP2 / PR900 / CR600, the ratchet catch of the lever prevents the user from double loading a pellet. You can however, manually still hinge the sidelever out which will retract the pellet probe and cause the magazine to self-index. If you hinge the lever forward again, you'll double load a pellet, so just be aware of this. If you accidentally or for whatever reason hinge the lever out again, you can always remove the magazine to prevent the probe from chambering a consecutive pellet.

a Single pellet loader of course, comes included and it does allow you better accuracy, as the multishot magazine does add a bit of handling on your pellets, which reflects in the longer range accuracy.

The barrel itself presumably can be removed, however, the applicable grub screw appears to be affixed w/ some LOCTITE. That probably is for the best.

The stock furthermore has a set of three slots to store your three magazines, w/ magnets therein to correspond with the magnets on the base of the multishot magazines. This is really nice and certainly unique in this market.