This is the 1010 air pistol.



You push down the "slide stop" thing above the grip with your thumb, pull the slide part to the rear, and push it forward again. This charges a spring powered piston- the barrel pivots upwards and you can slide in a pellet or bb; drop it down, safety off, and it sends it on it's way at a sluggish 200 fps

This pistol has a LOT of weight to it, primarily because it's supposed to look like a 1911 or something. I'd say about 80-90% of it's weight is the metal body which is pure aesthetics.

I've had one for several years (to the point where it's "shot out") but I've always been a fan of the simple design, and I've always wondered... if you get rid of all the crap, and get down to the basics (the piston/spring assembly, barrel, cocker, trigger...) would it be possible to create a "survival pistol"?

The pistol grip and frame that everything sits on can be a no-slip polymer or rough rubbery stuff around metal (like truck bed liner?), and the whole pistol could be signal orange for the PC crowd. The grip itself can be "skeleton" like to further reduce weight (and maybe a small compartment to hold pellets built in). The bulky metal cocker can be replaced by a 550 cord loop or a more compact "grenade pin" type thing, so you can still cock it without too much effort. The 1010 runs about $30, so the survival pistol probably could be around the same price...

I whipped this up in a few minutes to give an idea...










So you have a lightweight, bare bones pistol that doesn't need any external source of air (like C02 cartridges), has no unessesairy weight or bulk for "looks", and only needs pellets

While it's not fancy, and probably has a short effective range (25 feet?) due to the low velocity and short sight radius, it's better than seeing a squirrel just outside of reach when you haven't had anything to eat in days and your snares just aren't cutting it. A slingshot might work (or even a sling) but I've never been able to get the hang of those to be honest.

To boot, you can have and use it where normal firearms might be illegal. Not a big concern if you're trying to survive, but it means you can practice with it and carry it in a vehicle or bag without getting in too much trouble if someone happens to see. Here, I can use pellet guns in my back yard for target shooting, but using even a little .22 would probably get the cops out here fairly quickly.

I know the velocity is low, and I'm not sure how far a pellet going 200fps will kill a squirrel or similar small game, but most pistols I've seen (other than expensive ones specifically for hunting) are only 200-400 fps and most of the 400 fps ones require C02 canisters.

I'm not sure if something like this is feasible, it's just been floating around in my mind for a while now. It would be quite a marketing niche that, as far as I know, isn't filled.

My question is, would any of you guys find something like that useful if such a thing was on the market?