If I had to make a list of the best airguns costing under £400, the Kral Puncher K would definitely be on it. This solid little PCP combines solid build quality with good looks and accurate shooting, and all at an extremely good pice.
It is unfair to describe the Kral Puncher K as a cheap airgun, because it doesn’t look or feel cheap. Its price is cheap though; made in Turkey and distributed in the UK by Range Right, the walnut stock model seen here has a recommended retail price of just £365 – and the black synthetic stock option is just £349.
This airgun punches way above its price point as far as its performance goes, but I also happen to think it looks great too – particularly the walnut version, which has the aesthetic of a classic sporter while still looking up to date.
The K in the Kral Puncher K’s name denotes the fact that it’s a carbine. It is just 86cm long and weighs about 3.4kg – the synthetic is a bit lighter at 3.2kg. Those compact proportions make for a gun that handles very nicely. It is well-balanced and, thanks to its shorter length, comes into the aim quickly and is well suited to the confines of hide shooting and farmyard pest control.
The Puncher K’s ambidextrous stock has a long forend with a lovely sweep to it. It has some nice grain patterning and there’s even some tiger stripe patterning apparent in the woodwork of the review gun. I would go as far as to say that the timber on this stock is of a batter standard than what is currently regarded as the norm for airguns costing twice the price. If they all look this good, you can add serious pride of ownership to the Kral Puncher K’s long list of attributes.
There are smart patches of stippling on both sides of the forend, and on the underside there’s a metal thread for easy attachment of the supplied Picatinny accessory rail. The pistol grip doesn’t look particularly long but has plenty of room to accommodate my big hands. It is very comfortably contoured for thumb-up or thumb-round shooting and features the same tactile stippling as the forend.
Moving back, the cheekpiece is well defined and was sufficiently high for to ensure good eye alignment with the Konus Eternity 6-24x50 scope that I paired the Puncher with. The butt is finished with a ventilated rubber pad, and the black spacer between it and the woodwork is a nice touch that complements this airgun’s classic styling.
You can use Picatinny or dovetail scope mounts, thanks to the Puncher K’s dual rail system. The two sections of rail straddle the magazine, which stands proud by about 11mm, so you do need to ensure that your mounts are high enough to keep the saddle of your scope clear of the magazine.
The metalwork on the Kral Puncher K has a very tidy black anodised finish, and the 400mm barrel is fully shrouded. The shroud looks great but it doesn’t provide much sound suppression. If you’re a hunter and want to keep muzzle report quiet, you will be pleased to know that the shroud is finished with a half-inch UNF thread for silencer attachment.
Despite its low price, the Kral Puncher K comes supplied with two magazines and a single-shot tray. It’s a decent magazine – it’s pellet-friendly and holds 14 shots in .177 calibre, 12 in .22 and ten in .25. You load it with the side with the arrow facing you. Turn the face plate clockwise as far as it will go to tension the spring and then drop a pellet into the first bay to hold it in position. You then turn the plate anticlockwise, dropping a pellet nose-first into each bay until the plate clicks back into its original closed position.
That magazine is driven by a great little sidelever mechanism, which has a biathlon-type dropdown handle. The lever can’t be reversed for left-handers but, being righthanded, I found it to be very well positioned. The mechanism is sprung, so the rearward stroke starts to flip back as soon as you unlatch the lever. It isn’t as slick as the actions you’ll find on airguns costing over £1,000, and it would be unreasonable to expect it to be. Most importantly, it does a fast and reliable job of cocking and reloading the gun, time after time.
Trigger mechanisms can be a letdown on affordable PCPs, but the two-stage unit on the Kral Puncher K is very good. It has a match-type blade that can be adjusted for height and angle. The release is also adjustable but the one on the review gun was good straight out of the box. It had a fairly short and light first stage which came to a very distinct stop followed by a very predictable, creep-free second stage break.
There is a rocker switch type safety catch positioned just above the trigger on the righthand side of the gun. You thumb it back to make the gun safe, then nudge it forward when you’re ready to take your shot. The switch is almost silent in operation – something that hunters will appreciate.
The .22 calibre test gun was pushing out a healthy muzzle energy of around 11.5 ft/lb. It was doing that pretty consistently with muzzle velocity remaining within seven feet per second over a ten-shot string. The Kral Puncher K does not have a regulator, so you can expect there to be a subtle power curve as you work through its fill. It does feature a power adjustment dial – positioned just in front of the sidelever handle – which could prove useful if you need to wind down its output for backyard plinking.
The Puncher K is a cylinder gun and the pressure within that cylinder is displayed on a gauge in the belly of the stock. Maximum fill pressure is 200BAR and from that you can expect in the region of 80 shots at full power. When it is time to refill, just pull the cap off the front of the cylinder and snap on the supplied connector.
As for the all-important accuracy test, this little Kral put in a very respectable performance, and more than meets the standard I demand for targeting live quarry. I’ve taken it out on a few nighttime rat shooting sessions on the farm over the past few weeks and, paired with the DNT Thermnight, it has made easy work of picking off rodents out to 25m.
It is a comfortable gun to shoot from all positions, but I obviously used the support of a bench to test its grouping. Ragged single-hole groups were the norm at 30m and those groups generally remained within one inch, centre to centre at 40m. The Kral Puncher K doesn’t claim to be a competition standard airgun, but it has the potential to put in a solid performance on the club range and is much more than a basic backyard airgun, which is what most offerings at this price point amount to.
I think the Kral Puncher K is a brilliant airgun for under £400, and it is capable of outperforming others that cost significantly more. The thing that impresses me most about this little airgun is that, although it is very competitively priced, there are no obvious signs of corner cutting. It looks great, its build quality is good and it’s accurate. It would make a brilliant first airgun for shooters of any age from teens upwards, but it is also a reliable option for more serious airgunners who want an accurate PCP that doesn’t cost a fortune.
From: Range Right
Manufacturer: Kral Arms, Turkey
Model: Puncher K (walnut stock)
Length: 860mm (34in)
Weight: 3.4kg (7.5lb) – walnut version
Barrel length: 400mm (15.7in)
Length of pull: 350mm (13.7in)
Maximum fill pressure: 200 bar
Shots per fill: 80
Muzzle energy: 11.5 fl/lb
RRP: £365 (£349 for synthetic stock)
First published 4th February 2025
