42 AIRGUN WORLD http://www.airgunshooting.co.uk
THE INSIDE HISTORY OF
FX AIRGUNS
Our US correspondent, Stephen Archer, talks to
Fredrik Axelsson, founder and owner of FX Airguns
US AIRGUNS
Stephen: How old were you when you started
shooting?
Fredrik: My first airgun was a Diana. It was a
Model 25 or 27 in 4.5mm calibre. I had it
when I was just 6 or 7 years old. In those days,
every young boy in Sweden had an air rifle
whilst growing up.
Stephen: What gave you the interest to work
with airguns?
Fredrik: When I was 19 or 20, I rediscovered
my old airgun. It made me feel inspired and I
started shooting it again. One day, I went to
the forest and found some bigger pellets in a
tree. I pulled one out and – WOW! – it looked
like a monster compared to the 4.5mm pellets
I had been shooting. It was a 5.5mm! So, I
found some catalogues and started to look at
5.5mm calibre airguns. I ended up buying an
Air Arms spring rifle because that was one of
the best available at the time. Immediately, I
started to think how I could improve it and
came up with the idea that I could make a
gas-ram system. I didn’t call it a ‘gas-ram’; I
just wanted to get rid of the spring, so I did
that and it worked. Then I was hooked like
there was no tomorrow! I was crazy about
airguns after that.
Stephen: What made you interested in PCP
airguns?
Fredrik: In my twenties, I did a lot of thinking
about airguns. It seemed to me that I could
design a better airgun, one without any recoil
that was super-accurate. At that time, I didn’t
have any other airguns to look at. I didn’t know
what a PCP rifle was, but I got the inspiration
for using compressed air when I saw a picture
of a paintball rifle. So, I was thinking I should
use compressed air, or CO2, or something. I
made some CO2-operated guns, not with
knock-open valves, but a different kind of
valve, and they worked, too. So everything I did
was just working. That gave me even more
inspiration to do more work. Instantly, airguns
was my biggest hobby!
Stephen: Can you tell us how FX Airguns got
started?
Fredrik: There was a Swedish airgun importer- Rnhem – and they imported some air rifles,
including the Sportsmatch GC2. The GC2 was
a very famous air rifle at that time. I didn’t
know any details about it, but it was produced
by a brilliant Englishman, John Ford, through
his company, Sportsmatch.
I was buying Webley guns from Rnhem and
putting a gas-ram into them. I was not a dealer,
just a private person buying from the importer,
but people seemed to like my guns. I also
bought some BSA airguns from Stegr, another
importer, and put gas-rams into them. Of
course, I showed them my CO2 stuff, so they
invited me to a big trade show. In fact, they
invited everyone in the business and there I
met John Ford.
John’s GC2 was an amazing air rifle that cost
over $2,000 even in 1991. He invited me to
England, so I went over and met Terry Doe,
Nick Jenkinson and all those famous airgun
people.
I had made some prototypes and John said
they were the most incredible things he had
seen in his whole life.
“Everything’s fantastic, Fredrik,” he said,
“but there’s one problem. They’re so
complicated. These guns will cost £3,000 and
there’s no one who’s going to be able to afford
them. You have to do it simpler.”
So, the airgun world was open to me from
the beginning because of John Ford. I took his
advice and then started to make a rifle with an
integrated three-stage pump, but that’s
super-complicated, too. Then I contacted
Webley & Scott and they couldn’t believe it.
You made six strokes super-easy and it could
make six shots at 12 ft.lbs, but it was just too
complicated so I took the pump off and put a
tube there instead. That was my first PCP rifle.
It was called the ‘Axsor’. Also, I made a
hand-pump at that time.Fredrik’s office is where he ‘lets
his brain go bananas’!