Our full review of the ATA Airborne
At 4.3 kgs and 1120mm including the provided silencer, the ATA Airborne is a substantial and full sized rifle. Although that has little to no bearing for those intending to shoot from a bench, hunters will want to consider fitting a sling. The finish is excellent and would not be out of place on rifles costing many times more. Despite shapely angles, especially in the butt section, and patches of chequering on the grip and forend that are in fact tiny repeats of ‘ATA Arms’, the ambidextrous stock is a little blocky but necessarily so in order to balance the large 545cc air bottle.
There is a fixed, solid rubber recoil pad and the cheek piece, whilst lacking any adjustment, provides good eye alignment for a scope mounted on the split picatinny rail. There is a large cut out to accommodate the trigger hand and the pistol grip is nicely angled to address the excellent, two stage trigger. Integrated within the trigger blade, the button safety catch is pushed to the right to make the rifle safe and to the left to fire.
The side lever is not sprung but is extremely smooth and well-engineered with nicely weighted resistance and no notchiness. It operates a 12 shot (in .22) cartridge magazine into which the first pellet must be inserted into the back skirt first.
The large 545cc air bottle is a dominant feature on the ATA Airborne and takes a 220 bar fill with bottle pressure shown on a clear gauge located on the right side of the rifle. Although official shot count figures are not available, it should be good for several hundred shots, thanks also to the fact that the action is regulated.
The 480mm floating barrel is not shrouded but is threaded to receive a provided silencer which does a good job of taming muzzle crack and making the Airborne very quiet to shoot with little to no noise from the firing mechanism either.
ATA Airborne YouTube review
