23-Jul-2026
Spring rifles are supposed to be the affordable end of airgunning, the honest workhorses you buy before graduating to a PCP. Nobody told Air Arms. The Pro-Sport is a full-length underlever spring rifle built with the fit, finish and pricing of a premium PCP, and it exists for one reason: to be the finest expression of the spring-piston airgun that money can reasonably buy. This review looks at whether the most elegant springer in production is also one of the best.
The hidden underlever
Visually, the Pro-Sport is unlike any other springer. Its cocking lever is concealed within the stock's forend, lying flush along the underside of the rifle so that the lines are completely clean; at a glance it could pass for a smart sporting PCP. To cock it, you release the lever from its catch, draw it down and back through its stroke, load a pellet directly into the exposed breech, and return the lever home. The sliding breech is protected by an anti-beartrap mechanism, and the whole operation has a machined precision to it that makes most rival springers feel agricultural.
The concealed lever is not just cosmetic. Keeping the mass of the mechanism inside the stock centralises the rifle's weight between your hands, and the Pro-Sport balances beautifully for a full-sized spring gun.
Build quality
This is where your money goes. The metalwork is deeply polished and blued to a standard that has largely vanished from production airguns, and the stock, in beech or genuinely handsome walnut, features a high cheekpiece, a curved and chequered grip, and lines that owe more to a best sporting rifle than to a working airgun. Air Arms builds the Pro-Sport in the same East Sussex factory as its PCPs, and the same obsessive quality control shows everywhere you look. This is a rifle people buy partly because they cannot stop looking at it, and there is nothing wrong with that.
The firing cycle
Under the skin sits a conventional spring-and-piston power plant tuned with typical Air Arms care, delivering just under the 12 ft-lb legal limit in .177 or .22. Spring rifles live or die by their firing behaviour, and the Pro-Sport's is tight and quick, a brisk, well-damped thump rather than a drawn-out twang. It rewards a consistent, relaxed hold in the way all springers do, and shooters coming from PCPs will need to learn (or relearn) the art of letting the rifle recoil the same way every shot.
The trigger is the celebrated CD trigger used across Air Arms' spring range, a two-stage unit that many shooters rate alongside Weihrauch's Rekord as the best in the business. It is crisp, adjustable and entirely worthy of the rifle around it.
Accuracy
Master the hold and the Pro-Sport is a superbly accurate spring rifle, with the fixed barrel and direct breech loading contributing to consistency that belies the recoiling action. Half-inch groups at 25 to 30 yards are realistic from a practised shooter off a soft rest. It will never match a PCP shot for shot, no springer will, but as a self-contained rifle needing no bottle, pump or compressor, it delivers everything the format allows.
At around 4.1 kg it is a substantial rifle, and combined with the effort of the underlever stroke it is best suited to adults; this is not a starter gun for a young shooter.
Pro-Sport or TX200?
The inevitable question. The TX200, Air Arms' other underlever, is slightly cheaper, slightly more utilitarian, and its exposed lever makes it a touch quicker and easier to cock. Mechanically the two are close relatives and equally accurate. The TX200 has the competition pedigree, it remains the default choice for spring-gun field target classes, while the Pro-Sport is the connoisseur's rifle, chosen for its handling, its looks and its concealed-lever engineering. Neither is the wrong answer; the TX200 is the tool, the Pro-Sport is the jewel.
New Pro-Sports typically list around £700 to £800 depending on furniture, with walnut commanding the premium it deserves. Used examples hold value well, and the mechanism is straightforward for any competent gunsmith to service, or for Air Arms themselves, whose parts support for their spring guns is excellent.
Verdict
The Pro-Sport is a rifle nobody needs and a surprising number of people, once they have handled one, decide they cannot live without. It offers PCP-grade craftsmanship in a rifle that never needs an air bottle, a trigger and firing cycle at the very top of the spring-gun class, and looks that no other production springer can touch. If you believe the spring rifle is worth perfecting rather than merely tolerating, this is the argument in walnut and steel.
Browse Air Arms rifles for sale on Rightgun, including Pro-Sports and other spring rifles from sellers across the UK.
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