Bear River Sportsman 900 BB/Pellet Rifle, 800 FPS

This rifle is handsome, lightweight and comfortable to hold. The pump seals appear to be of good quality and promising a long service life.

First things first: I would not shoot BB’s in it. The manual refers to the rifled barrel as “delicate”. We all know that steel BB’s can damage a rifled barrel, let alone a delicate one.

Some warts and pimples:

– The unique safety is finger breaking stiff to operate. A few drops of oil help.
– The bolt action feels stiff and gritty. A drop of oil again.
– The cam which locks the pump lever in the closed position is a bit stubborn. A drop of oil again.
– The arrangement that the rifle can only be pumped with the bolt open is awkward. Lawyers ruling over engineers!
– The trigger pull is heavy and gritty. I did not have the means to measure it but it feels about 5-6 pounds.
It is crisp however, and with practice you know where the crosshairs are when the trigger breaks.
– Loading pellets is cumbersome at best. The loading port is shaped like a groove or a channel and recessed into the body of the rifle by about half an inch, so a pellet cannot be placed in it, it has to be dropped from that distance. It drops in just right about half the time, more often than not it drops either standing up or upside down, or pointing backwards, or falling into the BB’s magazine. When the latter occurs the manual instructs you to take the gun to a gunsmith. This is silly nonsense. All you need to do in this case is open the BB’s loading door, shake the gun around a bit, and the truant pellet comes right out. This by the way will save you multiple trips to a gunsmith.
The best part of this rifle is accuracy exonerating all of the above. With Winchester pellets, the scope zeroed, I get 5 shot 2-1/4″ groups at 15 yards. One flyer removed, the group is 3/4″. This is as good or better than the Umarex Ruger 10/22 without the headaches of leaking CO2.
A word about the scope: It is very basic but it is not trash as other reviewers have stated. The field of view is very narrow and when mounting the scope you must adjust the eye relief distance to get any view at all. Clarity is good and you may adjust the eyepiece focus but it does not make much difference. The windage and elevation turrets do not click, you have to go by half turns, quarters, and eighth turns, not a problem.
With the iron sights (they are actually plastic) I get comparable accuracy at 15 yards. The fiber optic sights are clearly visible in daylight. The rear sight is adjusted by a screw in a slot which allows it to slide sideways. With the screw reasonably tight you can still swivel the sight around the screw for fine adjustment. Whether this is a fluke or deliberate design I have no way of knowing but it works either way.

Sweet little pump gun for the money! Very accurate! I grew up shooting a Daisy Powerline 856 as a kid and loved its accuracy, light weight and ease of use. After the Daisy started malfunctioning (20 years of use in), I sought a modernized replacement and this Berra seemed to fit the bill. From my first time out shooting her, I can tell you it will shoot inch-sized groups at 30 yards if you have the skill. You just need to know how to shoot, and keep things consistent (same pellets, same number of pumps, use a good rest). Many people who say these guns are inaccurate are introducing too many variables by pumping the gun a different number of times each shot, using multiple types of pellets, etc. Even one pump makes a difference, especially at longer ranges. Why not just pump it ten times every shot? At ten pumps, the power is substantial and will easily kill small game (squirrels, rabbits, birds, etc.) or put a good ding on my 1/8″ steel silhouette targets and send them flying. These pump guns are easy to shoot accurately as well since there is no recoil. The groups you see (pics) were shot from a kneeling position at ten & twenty yards using the provided scope and a camping chair as a rest. The butt stock on this gun is quite cheap feeling plastic, very hollow. However the rest of the gun uses a thicker plastic that actually feels pretty nice. I do not use open sights, but the included fiber optics on this gun seem nice, easy to see and useable. The bolt is plastic as well, but I like that it has the “flip-up-then-pull-back” motion of a real gun. And it works. At first I did find it hard to load pellets in the small opening at the breech, but after a while you will get used to it. There is a method of sort of “rolling them in”. Once you do, it’s very easy to seat them right up in the breech to guarantee consistent delivery into the barrel. The pistol grip feels nice in-hand and gives a more relaxed shooting position versus a traditional rifle stock. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about the slide-type safety on this gun, but I can happily report that I actually prefer it to a standard crossbolt safety now! For me, it’s more intuitive and feels somewhat like operating the trigger. The trigger itself is not the best. Kind of a “grip-it-and-rip-it” motion, but again I stress you will adapt. It’s not a terrible trigger, but I did prefer the lighter trigger on my old Daisy. Yes the scope is cheap but it will work. At least you get one! Try screwing the rear aperture all the way out for maximum zoom (the largest piece that you look directly into). Again I mention, all targets pictured were shot with that cheap scope. All things said and done, I truly believe that fitted with a halfway decent 3-9 scope, this is a 40 yard gun for target shooting and/or small game hunting all day. If you’re in the market for a low cost pump gun, I’d say this is one of your best choices!