Definitive Guide to Barra 1866 Cowboy Series

The 1866's basic construction is plastic and a mix of stamped and cast metal. It feels good in the hand and when shouldered. Given the price point of under $80 (at the time of writing), Barra did a good job with the materials and overall fit and finish. The stock is ambidextrous, with the cocking bolt favoring right-handed shooters. There's a hammer that functions as the safety and the "lever" action, which is connected to a long arm for the pumping mechanism. BBs, up to 50, can be loaded into the port on the left side of the receiver. Pellets can be loaded one at a time via the port on the right when the cocking bolt is cocked rearward and open.

Let's jump into the tail of the tape here. The Barra 1866 has an overall length of 39 inches and weighs 5.88 pounds. It has open sights, a fixed front ramp, and an adjustable rear sight. The rear sight is very basic, with a height adjustment and a plate for windage. You'll need to loosen the screw to adjust the plate and then tighten it back up. There are no fine adjustments, so precise sighting can be a bit of a challenge with a lot of trial and error. Please keep in mind that it does not have a scope rail, so you cannot mount an optic. Lastly, the Barra 1866 features a 20-inch rifled steel barrel.

Setup and Operation

The 1866 operates like many other multi-pump pneumatics. Before you can pump up the rifle, you need to cock the bolt. If you have BBs loaded, the magnetized tip of the cocking probe will likely grab one to load it into the breach when you close the bolt. This is great, so long as you are not trying to load a pellet. Our suggestion would be to either load and just shoot BBs, or leave the BB reservoir empty and only single-load pellets, as you may become frustrated with BBs constantly getting in the way. You can also try to angle the gun so that the BBs are less likely to find their way to the probe when you cock the rifle.

Loading pellets presents a challenge beyond BBs getting in the way. We found that pellets often wanted to flip backward when loading them in front of the pusher. This is probably because of our fat fingers, so it may not be an issue for youngsters or folks with smaller hands. With practice, we overcame this problem and had a good time shooting our test rifle.

With the loading process solved, we can now move on to pumping up the rifle. As mentioned above, you'll need to cock the bolt to allow air to build up in the rifle. Make sure that you set the safety before cocking and pumping. You do not want an accidental discharge of a live BB or pellet.

The Barra 1866 is a multi-pump pneumatic, which means that shooters can control the power simply by the number of pumps used to charge the airgun. The 1866 requires a minimum of 2 pumps and can take a maximum of 10 pumps. We will discuss the relative increase in power per pump when we get to that part of the guide. On a side note, the pumping action is easy and uniform, and it does not increase in difficulty when you get to the maximum pressure. Barra has done a good job here, and most shooters should not have any issues pumping to 10 pumps without getting worn out.

Once you've pumped the 1866 the desired number of times, you can take aim, release the safety, and squeeze the trigger. We'd normally say "gently" squeeze the trigger, but the 1866, with a trigger pull of about 6 pounds, requires more of a grip-it and rip-it approach. Please don't misunderstand; as you'll see when we get to the accuracy portion, the heavier trigger pull did not cause us any issues with accuracy. But we want folks to know that the pull is heavier than expected.

To fire again, shooters will need to repeat the entire process:

1. Safety on
2. Cock the bolt and load your BB or Pellet
3. Close the bolt
4. Pump up the gun
5. Release the safety
6. Take aim
7. Squeeze the trigger

Performance and Accuracy

Now, let's get into performance and accuracy, and there's certainly a lot to talk about here. Starting with BBs, we loaded up our rifle with Umarex precision BBs and shot our target using 10 pumps for each shot. On paper, the Barra 1866 maxes out at 800 FPS. Unfortunately, our test sample only managed to hit the high 600s, topping out at 679 FPS with the 5.1 grain Umarex Precision BBs. Here are our test results at various pumps.

• 2 - 412 FPS / 1.9 FPE
• 4 - 534 FPS / 3.2 FPE
• 6 - 602 FPS / 4.1 FPE
• 8 - 646 FPS / 4.7 FPE
• 10 - 679 FPS / 5.2 FPE

What about BBs and accuracy?

Umarex BBs - 5 shots with 10 pumps each shot at 12 Yards with a spread of 13 FPS and a standard deviation of 4.8.

Well, it's clear that BBs struggled to achieve good results in our testing. Our guess is that the rifled barrel and these BBs simply don't get along. Fortunately, we also shot pellets, and the results were a complete 180.

We shot both the 7.0 grain RWS Hobby pellets and the 7.9 grain Crosman Premier Hollow Points. We'll go through the details of each starting with the Hobby pellets.

We measured chrony numbers at 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 pumps and got the following results

• 2 - 318 FPS / 1.6 FPE
• 4 - 493 FPS / 3.8 FPE
• 6 - 574 FPS / 5.1 FPE
• 8 - 618 FPS / 5.9 FPE
• 10 - 645 FPS / 6.5 FPE

First off, if you're not familiar with "normal" pump pneumatic airguns, these are pretty decent numbers with energy that should make backyard pests quake in their boots. Many sparrows and squirrels have succumbed to a lot less. Fortunately, when it comes to accuracy, pellets really shine in the 1866. Check out this group at 12 yards

5 shots - 8 pumps per shot at 12 yards with an extreme spread of 6 FPS and a standard deviation of only 2.2 FPS.

For our last test we shot the readily available 7.9 grain Crosman Premier Hollow Points. Here's what we got from our pump spread testing.

• 2 - 315 FPS / 1.7 FPE
• 4 - 491 FPS / 4.2 FPE
• 6 - 546 FPS / 5.2 FPE
• 8 - 602 FPS / 6.4 FPE
• 10 - 626 FPS / 6.9 FPE

5 shots - 8 pumps per shot at 12 yards with an extreme spread of 13 FPS and a standard deviation of only 4.8 FPS.

Given that we were shooting with open sights, we feel the Barra totally delivered on accuracy here.

Summing Up

It's important to consider the target audience here. This is an ideal starter airgun for young shooters on a tight budget. The Barra 1866 Cowboy Series Multi-Pump Pneumatic delivers value, performance, and accuracy. Things like the rear sight and difficulty loading pellets are similar across most products in this genre, so we can't really fault it for those. As for not hitting 800 FPS, that's par for the course, unfortunately. In Barra's defense, we don't know what ammo was used for their testing, so without that data, we are just guessing. We can say that with pellets, the 1866 certainly hits the mark. It's easy to cock and pump, and the open sights work well enough to put our shots in the black. It makes enough velocity and energy for target shooting and some light pest control, too. Its unique design and better-than-expected build quality made it a pleasure to test.