Price :- £1500
Intended Purpose :- rapid fire semi automatic 10m air pistol
Power :- Compressed Air
Caliber :- 4.5mm / .177
Length / Height / Width in mm :- 398 / 148 / 50
Weight :- 1050g (Without barrel weights)
Sight Radius :- Adjustable from 316 - 365 mm
Front Sight :- Moveable front sight, width 4.5mm
Rear Sight :- Rear sight width adjustable from 1.5-6.5mm
Barrel Length :- 233mm
Trigger weight :- 500g
Trigger Adjustments :- First stage, Trigger weight
Trigger Blade :- Adjustable in length by 8mm, rotates 30 Deg
Trigger Type :- Electronic, Micro switch operated
Power Supply :- Two 1.5v AAA Batteries (Alkaline)
Air Cylinder :- two included, both with built in pressure gauge
Charge pressure :- 200Bar
Includes :- Carry Case, Toolkit, two 5 shot magazines, barrel weights, fill adaptor
Options :- Single shot Mag, Dry fire mag, different grip sizes.

03-01-2010

Well a few years have now passed by since I first bought my original LP50 pistol. You can see my review of that here :- Steyr LP50 Some similar items are described the same as the first review, but I have included the text here so it forms a complete overview for those that have not read the first one.

I have since bought many different air rifle and pistols to add to my collection. Many thanks to Harry Preston of Sportwaffen Steyr / U.K. for making me more than welcome when I went to collect my pistol. We had a great morning chatting about various shooting topics and I even learned a bit about the internals of a LG110 rifle during a service.

This is now the most up to date of Steyr's pistol line up along with the new LP10E. The E in both the LP50E and LP10E stands for the new electronic trigger system.

The electronic trigger system was developed for the LP10E pistol, but the engineers at Steyr thought that they may as well give the same option to the 5 shot pistol shooters as well.

So what you get is very similar in many ways to the original LP50, but this time the body and grip have been altered to accommodate the batteries, electronics, switch and solenoid required to operate the firing mechanism.

I have not taken it apart to see how it all works! The original LP50 has a frightening number of precision moving parts. The new one now has wires batteries and circuitry so I will not be messing with either of them. Steyr also don't yet have an exploded drawing of the LP50E or the LP10E on their website. Although the supplied handbook does show an exploded parts drawing.

The handbook list a few of the new features compared with the LP50.

Ball bearing trigger free from wear (Training)

Trigger Pressure constant while releasing shot

Turbulence reduced due to 8 duct compensator

Capacity of 25,000 shots from 2 standard 1.5v AAA batteries

Multifunctional grip adjustment can be retained by flexible electronics system

Individual adjustment within the 500g trigger pull

Proven functional reliability due to Patented Steyr-regulator

To use the pistol it must first be switched on. The on-off switch is located on the left hand side of the right handed grip. At the bottom of the metal battery cover. When the switch is moved to the on position the red LED should flash once to indicate that the batteries are healthy. If it does not then they need to be changed. You change the batteries by removing the two hex headed screws with the supplied toolkit. The metal cover can then be removed and the cells removed from the plastic carrier.

I suspect that even if the 25,000 shot count is not reached and the batteries are not flat that it would be a good idea to change the cells every 12 months or so anyway. I would hate for the cells to leak and ruin the electronics located behind them in the grip.

I think Steyr has a couple of advantages compared with some of the other manufacturers with their design. They are able to maintain the grip adjustment screws due to the way the wired plug connects the micro switch and solenoid in the pistol frame to the battery and electronics in the grip. This gives greater adjustment for the shooter over the grip angles relative to the frame and allows for fine tuning of the hold.

The trigger on this pistol as you have may have gathered by now has no direct connection to the release of the sear that fires the action. Instead it is connected to a micro switch that when operated allows the electronics to energise a tiny solenoid which then operates the sear.

This does make the trigger very different in feel to the traditional mechanical version. There is no sudden break of the trigger on the electronic version when the pistol fires. You take up the first stage movement then apply gradually increasing pressure, the gun fires and the same pressure is still on the trigger. A mechanical trigger would have lost resistance on firing and moved till it came to rest on the trigger stop.

I like the feel of the electronic version, but then I already use electronic triggers on a few of my Daystate air rifles. The trigger on the Steyr does seems to be a rather giant leap over the ones fitted to the Daystate's though. The Steyr trigger is totally without any play or movement in any direction other than backwards or forwards on release of the trigger. It does not move from side to side at all. This is again and improvement over the original LP50 and LP10 triggers. I assume the later mechanical LP10 ball bearing triggers have also reduced an sideways movement?

The electronic version is also stated as being a ball bearing trigger. I assume this is what provides the solid but very smooth feel.

Moving on to the rest of the pistol. It comes supplied in the high quality fitted case. This contains the pistol, instruction manual, two air cylinders, two five shot magazines, the brass air filling adaptor a Steyr branded pellet tin safety clip and a toolkit.

The tool kit contains a single hex ball driver, a flat bladed screwdriver and three hex keys. Plus a couple of spare O-rings for the cylinder connection nipple on the pistol. This is a little different to my original LP50 toolkit. The flat bladed screwdriver is needed to adjust the trigger on the LP50E.

The air cylinders are self contained and have an inbuilt valve to keep the air in place when removed from the pistol or pump. The end of the cylinder is fitted with an easy to read gauge showing the useable pressure range in green. Overcharging the cylinder is not recommended as it will put undue strain on the rest of the guns valving components. It will not increase the output power of the pellet. The cylinders are dated with the year of manufacture. I think they have a 10 year life span. After this time they will have to be inspected and remarked or replaced if you want to use them for international ISSF events. In the U.K. at the moment there is no required pressure test in place for small air cylinders like these.

The pistol is fitted with an air pressure regulator. This ensures that a constant pressure is fed to the pistols firing system and should maintain a constant shot velocity over the whole 200bar to 80bar of the air cylinder. The air regulator uses a series of Belleville washers to form the internal spring required for pressure regulation. I think I was getting 100 shots or so from each cylinder before it needed refilling.

The cylinder screws onto the nipple on the pistol underneath the barrel. This is fitted with an O-ring to seal and should be lubricated now and then with only a silicone based grease. Do not use any other type of grease on high pressure air systems. The last few turns of the cylinder will open the valve and let the air feed to the pistol. It is now ready for use.

The pistol is supplied with two 5 shot magazines made from aluminium alloy. The five shot magazine is simply loaded by dropping in each pellet and pressing them down a little with your thumb.

Loading the pistol is achieved by first cocking the action. This is done by moving the two grips on either side of the magazine port rearwards until a small click is heard. This does not require much movement. The magazine can now be inserted.

The magazine loads from the left hand side only and this can only be done in the correct manner due to the groove cut into the top of it. The magazine will ratchet along and must be pushed fully home to allow all five shots to be used.

Don't forget to turn the pistol on!

You can now shoot the pistol, after each shot the the magazine will automatically index along and the hammer spring and sear will be re cocked using air pressure. The pistol can be fired as fast as you are able pull the trigger. 5 shots goes by very quickly! If you fire a sixth shot by mistake then the action must be manually re cocked before you are able to extract the magazine. This is done by pressing the small magazine catch lever on the left of the loading slot. Be careful if you press this with a fully loaded magazine as is can release under spring pressure and fly out at rapid rate of knots. Best to apply your thumb to the end of it and let it slide out slowly.

This pistol is great to shoot with, I really like the balance and the sight picture. The trigger is in my opinion a vast improvement over the LP50 one and that was pretty good to start with.

The sights are fully adjustable in several ways. The whole rear sight base can slide forwards and backwards to adjust the sight radius between 316 - 365mm. It can be tricky to get a good constant hold at the longer radius though. So I have left it all the way in. This is in conjunction with the front sight blade which can be moved to one of several positions. The front blade is 4.5mm wide as supplied but several other widths are also available.

The rear sight adjustments are as follows.

The setscrews have to be turned as follows:
High hit - turn height-adjusting screw in direction H
Low hit - turn height-adjusting screw in direction T
Right hit - turn side-adjusting screw in direction R
Left hit - turn side-adjusting screw in direction L
One click of the side-adjusting screw changes the point of impact position
by 1.2 mm at a target distance of 10 m.

In addition to the gap in the rear sight can be adjusted between 1.5 - 6.5mm along with the slot depth between 1.5 - 3.2mm

As already mentioned the grip can be removed using the single hex headed cap screw. Then gently pulling it away from the frame, the wires are on a spring to keep them out of the way. The adjustment screws on the frame of the pistol now allow the frame angles to be adjusted within the grip position.

I believe that the as supplied grip is no longer manufactured by Morini (It does not have their markings on it) but is still really excellent quality and made in a nice dark coloured high grade of Walnut. Alternatives are already available if the shooter requires a custom made item. Rink Formgriffe are one of the best aftermarket grip makers and already offer them to fit the LP50E and LP10E.

This pistol has the same vented barrel that the LP50 and LP10 have with three vertical holes drilled along the last 110mm of the length. They look to be spaced about 26mm apart. The barrel is Nickel plated and shiny silver in colour inside and out as a result of this. I would think this will effectively prevent any corrosion from occurring. The barrel is covered by a machined alloy shroud. This contains grooves along its sides to allow any or all the four supplied weights to be fitted. These just slide it and can be fixed in position with the grub screw. They will not mark the shroud due to the small nylon pad used on the end of each screw. The weights are used to adjust the feel and balance of the pistol. I prefer shooting it without them at the moment.

The vertical holes are designed to vent the air pressure behind the pellet and this reduces the air blast that follows the pellet as it exits the muzzle. In addition to this there is a now a brand new design, round (Hurray) 8 port compensator cone fitted just in front of the muzzle. This is designed to further defect any air blast and direct it away from the pellet. I cannot tell if it is any better than the old square cone on my LP50 but it does look very well engineered and actually fits in the round hole! I would love to see some high speed photography that shows the effect of the cone when the pistol is fired.

Overall the rest of the pistol is incredibly well manufactured. All the alloy parts are anodised to perfection and there are no defects in the fit or finish. All the screws and adjusters are solid and feel like they will last a lifetime of shooting. My original LP50 has had many thousands of pellets through it in 5 years or so and still looks and feels like new to operate. I suspect this one will be the same. Other manufacturers could learn a thing or two by looking at the production values and engineering that go into these pistols.

The electronics maybe unproven over a long period at this stage, but as they are modular I expect if there is a problem it will be a simple job to just plug in a replacement part. I would hope with Steyr's involvement at the leading edge of an Olympic sport, that they would be around for a few years to come. I work with electrical control systems for a living and know how reliable some equipment can actually be.

So far I think Steyr have raised the bar again and produced a truly fantastic product.

I look forward to many years of shooting with this pistol and it will be interesting to see what they come up with in another five years or so?

Thanks

Mark

Manufacturer:- www.steyr-sportwaffen.com

UK Importer

Harry Preston Sportwaffen Steyr / U.K.

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