Walther Reign UXT .25 Pellet Gun PCP Repeater
A few years back, the clouds parted, the heavens opened up and I experienced PCP - Pre-Charged Pneumatic airguns for the first time. My first experience was with single shot Airforce airguns, another premium range $1000+ airgun brand, and I was just blown away at the insane accuracy, zero recoil, and the experience of no charging or pumping between shots. I could just keep loading pellets and shooting until the tank was low. Recharge the tank and I was in the back yard shooting again in just a few minutes.
This PCP world was different and wildly better after getting over purchasing the supporting equipment which could have been as simple as just a $250 PCP high pressure hand pump… but why only go ankle deep in the pool? I of course also purchased a scuba tank for instant refills and a compressor to charge the scuba tank or any onboard tanks. Now, I need nothing when adding another PCP gun to the stable, and for my “needs”, the Walther Reign UXT was the perfect .25 Caliber thumper to add to compliment my other airguns.
The Walther Reign UXT is a PCP .25 Caliber bolt action style pellet gun with a removable 9-round pellet magazine. Its short, light, fast handling and shooting with great accuracy with a glass smooth bolt cycling feel that resets the trigger and feeds the next pellet
Dealing with a sudden scourge of starlings this year plastering every inch of my property with their chalky crap, I literally could not load pellets fast enough on my single shot pellet guns and at least a few times I just pulled out a suppressed 10/22 and went to work. Despite true blissful happiness with my other single shot pellet guns, the reload speed really killed second shot opportunities. Living outside of the city we also get a lot of unwanted pests that need to be taken care of including some that could need a quick second shot like skunks. I wanted a compact accurate magazine fed pellet gun for faster follow up shots that delivered plenty of thump.
I also wanted quality. Frankly you get spoiled with the high tier stuff and really don’t want to own the entry level guns except for some level of sentimentality, but I also didn’t want to drop $1000-$1500 either. The MSRP of $700 for the Walther Reign UXT would be considered a mid-priced gun for someone wanting to jump into PCP Pellet Airguns and considering the quality, it is an excellent value.
SIZE & WEIGHT
With the exception of a few brands and models of airguns, airguns have become monstrously gigantic and very heavy which is fine for a bench gun, but beyond that use, they are cumbersome. A Benjamin Trail XL NP I sold was nearly 4.5 feet long and almost 10-lbs with the optic - I have .308 Winchester precision rifles that weigh less and are shorter. Though very accurate, the Benjamin Trail XL was not a convenient or easily maneuverable field gun and it was sold in favor of a much less expensive but 50% lighter Gamo Whisper Cat.
As you are standing holding the screen door open with your foot to take a quick shot at a starling, the requirement is a short fast handling and light gun which is pre-charged and ready to go, instead of requiring 4.5-feet of maneuvering room and a tripod to support the weight. The bullpup format 34-inch length and 5.5-lb weight of the Walther Reign UXT .25 caliber pellet gun fits that requirement perfectly.
POWER
From a magazine and power perspective, the Walther Reign UXT in .25 Caliber features a removable high quality 9-round magazine (extras about $30) and delivers around 40-ft/lbs of energy on average. Walther does offer a .22 caliber option, but the .25 caliber model only reduces the overall magazine capacity by one pellet and almost doubles the downrange energy.
Historically, I have been a very big fan of .22 caliber pellet guns due to the power jump over .177 and enjoy the .25 caliber power for the same reason. That power range is about half what a .22LR rimfire would deliver and about twice what I expect from my .22 caliber pellet guns.
I would buy a .357 or .457 pellet magazine fed option in the Reign in a heartbeat if they offered one - wouldn’t that be an awesome format. For this application, this .25 Cal is the right power range with enough power to drop even raccoons with a head shot. If I did need higher penetration, there are always H&N Hornet or PolyMag pellets available which in my test will pass through ¾-inch plywood.
Putting that power downrange in a 9-shot succession is fast with just a quick butter smooth bolt cycle between each shot. Again the Reign UXT format fits the need perfectly and provides the fast follow up shots and power I needed to drop more than one starling at a time as “The Scourge” flew in.
FUNCTIONAL OPERATION - WALTHER REIGN UXT .25 PELLET GUN
Functionally, the Walther Reign UXT is similar to other magazine fed PCP pellet guns. Connect your hand pump, high pressure tank or compressor to the onboard Reign UXT tank and very slowly fill until the gauge needle is under the Red Overcharged Range which is about 3300 PSI. For the first fill, I very gently fill and take a few pauses during filling to let the tank pressure equalize a bit and usually just charge around 60-70% of pressure - a hand pump is a great option for the first fill.
A little quality brass nozzle adapter extension is provided that connects perfectly to my quick disconnect scuba tank hose and that slides into the gun. The pressure relief valve is closed on my scuba tank kit and I can slowly open the scuba tank valve to fill the UXT tank. Another option is to use my Umarex Ready Air high pressure compressor which can fill the Reign UXT in about seven minutes. If you are in the mood for a workout, a high pressure hand pump could be used, but frankly that is some work, and I would rather just use the near instant refill ability of the scuba tank, which I refill when needed with the compressor, or use the Umarex Ready Air if my scuba tank is empty. Once pressure is achieved, the bleed off valve is opened and then the quick disconnect can be removed. Obviously eye protection is a must during this process.
Walther has made loading the magazines easy with a very high quality magazine that includes a thumb wheel and a ratcheting mechanism. With the bolt open, magazines can be inserted from the left or right supporting ambi shooting. Notably the changing bolt handle is also able to switch the left hand operation. Lefties will appreciate this feature… but being correctly handed by God, the factory right hand configuration was perfect for me. Operation is simple from there. Insert a magazine shoot, work the smooth and light cycling bolt, shoot, work the bolt…etc. The Reign UXT is a pleasure to shoot with very fast follow up shots. 9-shots later, you can slide in another magazine (if you purchased extras), and you are back at shooting.
Given the size and format the Reign UXT has a smallish sized tank which means that it will deliver about 40-shots per fill in the optimal power range, but I did push that to about 80 shots and was still connecting but accuracy suffered a little. For best accuracy you do want to be in that optimal power range, which oddly enough is not at full charge but around 2400 PSI or about the cardio max for most people with a hand pump.
Even though the power was dropping off it was still dropping birds nicely after 70-75 shots. 99.5% of people will likely never shoot 8-magazines of pellets in a row, so from my perspective it has more than enough power for an afternoon of fun without requiring a refill. When you do, a high pressure PCP hand pump and a few calories burned pumping is enough to get the tank up to the 2500-PSI mark which is a good sweet spot for the Reign UXT.
REIGN’ING QUALITY
Walther quality has always been very high even all the way down to their airsoft guns. Walther really works hard to put quality in the guts and then uses injection molding technology and modern design to save cost on the chassis. The chassis is injection molded from a similar material they use on their PPQ handguns, other firearms, and airguns and is a high quality polymer.
Cracking the chassis open to adjust the adjustable trigger pull and sear engagement, you do see the quality within and that Walther did not build the Reign on a budget. The namesake “Reign” should speak for itself that Walther wanted to assure this was a top quality PCP as their flagship US PCP rifle. Quick fills are simple and fast with the supplied QD brass fill adapter and the integrated gauge is a very nice addition that not all PCPs in this range feature.
Where I think Walther was legally forced to miss the mark was with the moderator. In my head, I kept thinking it should have been way quieter. I ran a borescope into the moderator and it is nothing more than a hollow tube with no baffles. I would have preferred a removable moderator for the potential to upgrade later but the ATF laws on airguns have been so inconsistent. I understand the reasoning for not making it baffled or removable as a German made import product and dealing with ATF and import restrictions. The report of the Reign UXT does not seem to turn neighbors heads when I take a shot, so it appears to be neighborhood friendly enough, but it could be a world quieter. Perhaps there will be a future upgrade option at some point.
Bullpups are a different animal and people either love them or hate them. Usually people have a difficult time with the larger scope offset, however I personally love this format. The stock is well designed and comfortable. Little design elements are nice such as the carryover 2020 PPQ grip pattern, very solid aluminum scope rail mount, and lower integrated picatinny rail for lights and bipod mounting. I mounted a centerfire spec Magpul bipod was mounted to the lower rail. I would have liked a little sound deadening in the polymer stock, but the quality, design, and finish is really very high. Walther put money where it counts. The bolt assembly is all metal as is the aluminum top rail and of course the barrel is solid steel vs being a plastic shroud.
THE WALTHER REIGN UXT VS SOMETHING HIGHER TIER
Some of the Euro shooters will note they have a higher tier version of the Reign with a “real” removable moderator which this version is not, an upgraded Lothar Walther match barrel which this is a good quality Carl Walther barrel, and an adjustable regulated air supply which the US version is an unregulated air supply. However that upgraded Euro version is also around $1200+ USD and is hard to get into the country due to the evil threaded and suppressed barrel.
WHAT BUGGED ME
I love the form factor, size, weight, quality, power, magazine feed system, and accuracy. There is also a fun quotient to the Walther Reign UXT gun that screams put a red dot or low power variable optic on me and blast away. The Reign UXT is more than accurate enough to take advantage of higher power magnification, but still fun just blasting away.
Trigger pull adjustment without partial chassis disassembly would be super awesome. I have to wonder though, how many warranty claims result from disassembly and trigger monkeying by unqualified newbies. I tweaked the trigger pull down a little, but it was good enough for me out of the box for what I wanted to do with the gun.
The hollow can posing as a moderator/silencer does something, but very…very little. The “single chamber brake” does take a slight bark out of the .25 caliber pops, but could be loads better if it had even a couple washer style baffles. Given that the Euro airgun market is so far ahead of us on suppressed airguns and the extra $1 cost on a few polymer baffles is a bit disappointing considering there are other airgun brands that manage to import fiex suppressor airguns. Add in the fact that the brake is non-removable is pretty infuriating, but is tied to ATF and import laws. Yes, it does matter who you vote for folks.
The need of a fill adapter that could get lost is a bit annoying vs just having a fill nipple. Why no one considered a storage recess somewhere on the chassis is surprising...I am going to lose this if I don’t figure out a way to mount this to the gun. Though an adjustable regulator would likely add $200+ to the price, it would have flattened out the pressure curve a bit and allowed extended shot strings. The Reign UXT tank is 3300 PSI, but without a regulator that is really not its happy place and seems to like to get charged to only about 2500 PSI which delivers good first shot accuracy and still the maximum velocity.
With an adjustable regulator, it would have allowed full charges to 3300 PSI with the ability to adjust that pressure down and ultimately have a wider and longer running optimal shot window. Option B for Walther would have been to just increase the size of the tank by a few inches. A marginally larger tank is more forgiving and would have extended and widened the pressure window a little.
Would the still maturing US airgunners pay for all those extras to nearly double the price to well over $1200? Well, Walther did not think so and we get what we get with this Reign UXT. For the price and target market, I think Walther made the right compromises. It would have been a hard sell at $1200+ for a polymer chassis airgun that is now going head to head with all the other premier tier US made guns which do not have all the goofy import restrictions.
OPTICS MOUNTING & SHOOTING IMPRESSIONS
With any bullpup, the scope to bore axis is high which can seem awkward, however really these days so many of us are dialing in the turrets for distance anyway that it makes little difference. The aluminum picatinny top rail mounts solidly into the action.
I mounted a Hawke Optics Sidewinder 30 SF 6-24 SR Pro Reticle for testing which delivers outstanding clarity. I have used Hawke Optics on many builds and believe they are a real value with a lot of features, excellent clarity and quality that are built to handle recoil on any firearm or airgun caliber. I just recently tested their higher tier Frontier line and the Frontier and one step down Sidewinder line are worth every penny.
Accuracy was extremely good, with some 5-shot 50-yard groups under ½-inch. Even hastily shot ½-inch’ish 50-yard groups were the norm when inside the power curve. With that noted, it is not like everything goes totally to hell outside of that window.
Even in the 50-80 round count range, I was still dropping starlings at 50-yards with a little more holdover, so good enough. Generally, I like the mid-weight 25.5-ish grain pellets such as the proven Diablo and Diablo Field domes, however the 35+ grain heavyweight pellets noticeably packed a more audible thump in the pellet trap and could be useful at longer distances.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Walther did a fantastic job with the sleek format with very well thought out ergonomics that make the Reign UXT very fun and powerful to shoot across a lot of applications. A really good fun optic range for the Walther Reign would be either a low power variable optic or something in the 3-9 or 4-16 range with a low enough bottom magnification range that you can still do some fun blasting and enough higher magnification to take advantage of its accuracy potential which I was frankly a bit surprised by.
If you think about the crazy designs the firearms market has thought up, the often wacky airgun designs easily top those. “Function” seems to wildly trump “form” often with some airguns delivering harsh and ergonomics with designs that look like they were cobbled together with random parts. Especially with PCP airguns, many tend to look like movie props from sci-fi films. By contrast, the Walther Reign UXT really has exceptional ergonomics, a US button style safety, with a design that feels really comfortable and shoulders naturally. The ambi configurable bolt handle, left or right side magazine port, all work and feel natural.
From my perspective, shooters are not going to buy the Walther Regin UXT for insane accuracy, they are going to buy it because it's a high quality, short and light maneuverable PCP form factor that is very accurate, powerful, and capable. Most importantly, the Reign UXT can put 9-pellets downrange accurately enough in around 10-seconds (my best time) all for a very fair price. All around a fantastic gun.
Walther .25 Caliber Reign UXT Bullpup Air Rifle Features
- 9 Shot .25 caliber Rotary Magazine
- Compact Bullpup design
- Fully Ambidextrous
- Lightweight Design
- Integrated Picatinny rails
- Quick Detach Sling Mount
- Tough All-Weather Polymer Stock
- 3,300 PSI Capacity HPA Tank
- Up to 40 Shots Per Fill
- Adjustable Trigger
- Distinctive Walther Grip Texture
- Fast Action Cocking Lever
- Integrated Pressure Gauge
- Made in Germany
- 32.75" overall length
- Fixed muzzle brake
- Solid Picatinny rail
- Very ergonomic
- MSRP $700