TRIPLE TREAT!

He may not appreciate the name – but Tim Finley certainly likes the gun

I’ll say right off the bat that I don’t like the name of this gun. The Crosman Triple Threat sounds a bit too aggressive for my UK ears. The marketing departments of the multi-million dollar Crosman USA corporation don’t figure what a Yorkshireman would think about a name they give one of their guns to make it stand out in the massive American plinking market, so it’s called the ‘Triple Threat’. I’d have gone with ‘Triple Treat’. That’s the last I’ll say about the name, but I will say straight away that it’s utterly a brilliant, fantastic and very clever idea having three interchangeable barrels on a CO2 plinking pistol!

To start with, the classic revolver shape catches the eye; when first launched, it was called the ‘357 Triple Threat’ and it does look like an amalgamation of a few different revolvers. The ‘triple’ in the name stems from the three different barrels you can fit to the pistol’s revolver frame, and in the blister pack you get a three-inch, a six-inch and an eight-inch barrel. That’s not the only trick up the Crosman’s sleeve, though. You also get two rotary magazines; a ten-shot for 4.5mm lead pellets and a six-shot for 4.5mm steel BBs.

SINGLE OR DOUBLE

It runs off a single 12-gramme CO2 bulb, housed in the grip. The black plastic grip in itself is a handful, even for me, because the two sides have to be taken off. A nail nick in the base allows you to prise off the first one, but you need both off because the CO2 bulb-piercing system is a folding toggle screw, and this will not turn if you leave the right-hand grip side in place.