The NEW Air Boss from Kervan - Bossing It!

Right, hands up who hasn’t heard of Kervan? I certainly hadn’t until The Shooting Party, the UK distributor, contacted me to discuss the prospect of a review. Well, it turns out it’s one of a growing number of eager Turkish manufacturers now producing airguns. Kervan began operating in the gun trade in 1993, barrel production, firearms parts etc., and first dabbled in air rifle PCP production back in 2017.

Meet the boss!
The Kervan Air Boss is the culmination of their efforts to date and this big, bold airgun is strictly adult fayre. The visuals are dominated by that massive 425cc buddy bottle up front, along with a chunky, full-length barrel shroud. Plus, the radical profile is completed with a tasteful Turkish walnut stock.
We certainly get a lot for our money, as the Air Boss comes supplied in its own hard case, along with two 12-shot magazines, spare seals, and a filling adaptor. At the time of compiling this article, The Shooting Party were offering a package deal. Snap up the Air Boss, along with a PAO 3-9X42 SS scope, an AirForceOne ‘Get Shorty’ silencer, and a 2023 dated 3L air cylinder, and you can save yourself £100 with an all-in combo price of £818.97, against the RRP at £918.97. Select the gun only, and it will set you back £599. All very encouraging so far.

Specification
Look closely and Kervan has incorporated plenty of great features into the Air Boss, with a perfectly positioned manometer on the right side of the action, so no looking down the barrel here! Clearly marked, and easy to understand, it shows the green section as the pressure band in which to work i.e. a minimum of 100 bar, and the upper limit, the 250 bar max specified. The Air Boss shows a side-lever action and takes a cassette-style magazine that holds 12 shots at the ready. Dovetail rails run along the top of the receiver, and there’s a manual safety catch and a threaded muzzle. Charging is via a Foster valve, and the trigger comes with an adjustable match blade. Phew! That’s quite a spec sheet.

Finish
Overall, the finish to the metalwork is pretty evenly applied. Nothing is blued. Instead, the shroud and receiver get a wholly practical matte black finish, whilst the buddy bottle gets a thick gloss coating. Not so practical if you plan to go hunting. Everything looks robust and well made, with the only real detraction on my test gun being the side-lever itself, the finish of which was patchy, to say the least, and shouldn’t have passed the QC stage. I was probably unlucky.

Thumbing it
As for the woodwork, this gets a matte finish, and the mild smell of linseed told me it’s oil-based - all carried out to a pleasing level. Unsurprisingly, Kervan sources Turkish walnut for the Air Boss, and whilst my test gun wasn’t that glamorously figured, the configuration, fit, and feel are genuinely hard to fault. The thin shelf of a forend does its job shielding the lead hand from the cold steel of the bottle, although some slight flex could be felt in the aim every now and then. The stock neatly forms an integral trigger guard too, and my hand just dropped naturally to the sleek, thinned-down pistol grip. The plus points keep coming, as Kervan has got so much right here. Shoulder the airgun and it soon becomes apparent that the butt pad is a quality item. It’s nicely concave, with soft, flexible rubber doing a proper job. Blimey.
The icing on the cake is of course the adjustable cheekpiece, and this just requires a small Allen key to be inserted into each brass lined hole, gently slacken the bolts, then raise, or lower the comb to suit. With a scope bolted into position, perfect eye/scope alignment is just minutes away. Set, tighten, and reap the benefits thereafter. Excellent.

Guidance notes
An instruction booklet is enclosed, covering such things as removing the stock, basic trigger adjustment, adjusting the power (only to be done with the stock off), the charging procedure, filling the magazine, and dismantling the barrel/shroud assembly. There’s also a reference to a single-shot option, although no tray came with the rifle.
The trigger is technically 2-stage, and in use, the unit tripped quite sweetly. A pretty light first stage, with a small amount of travel, and a slightly creepy but fairly light second stage release point. Just as well, as the instructions only relate to the match blade, which is easily tweaked, rotated, or lowered, via the tiny screw connecting it to the pillar.
Instructions for filling the mag are a little vague, but for anyone familiar with this style of mag, the process is fairly obvious. Twist the cover right around clockwise and hold against spring pressure, whilst inserting one pellet skirt first into the one hole from the rear. Keep a finger over the rear to prevent this from falling out and fill each chamber in turn from the front, then close the cover.

Pressure point
And so, to the small matter of pressurizing the system. The gun itself is marked up with ‘250 bar max pressure’ on the receiver, but the recommended pressure from the distributor is 200 bar, and I would concur, if for no other reason than the gun is placed under considerably less pressure over its life, if not pushed to the limit. The airgun comes supplied with a specially extended filling adaptor, which makes it a lot easier to get fingers in to snap it over the inlet valve. With the adaptor screwed into a quick coupler linkage, it’s a simple matter of plugging straight into the air supply, assuming it’s a female Foster cable. It’s all very civilized, and with the prescribed 200 bar administered and allowed to settle, the adaptor can be removed. I should point out at this stage that there’s no dust cover on the valve, which is a minor irritation.

Results
I must say, I was eager to see how this boldly styled airgun would shoot, and my first task was to zero it. Locating the magazine into its slot from the right-hand side can be a little fiddly, but once in position, it works really well. Better than being a slack fit as many are, let’s face it. Pulling the biathlon-style side-lever back cocks the action, sets the trigger and hammer, and indexes the next pellet, and everything performed faultlessly throughout my test. The shot cycle is quite loud, but bear in mind that the barrel runs the full length of the shroud, with no expansion chamber, so this isn’t surprising. Unscrew the neat, knurled blanking ring up front, and you’ll see the barrel. Spin on a silencer, and the muzzle report all but disappears, leaving that signature metallic ring of the firing cycle.

Accuracy
My test gun did prove slightly pellet fussy, with JTS Dead Center pellets initially printing ¾” groups over 30 yards. Switching to Air Arms Diabolo Fields halved this to just 3/8” c-t-c. Moving back to a more challenging 40 yards, I managed a little over 1/2” at best. All very competent, and the decent trigger, smooth cycle, and ergonomics, all played their part.

Chronograph data
The 425cc buddy bottle should provide plenty of shots, in theory, so it’s time to see what this Kervan can do over the chronograph. From a settled 200 bar fill, I recorded the figures for 11 magazines (132 shots) and stopped with a residual pressure of 110 bar showing on the manometer. Looking back at the chronograph readings, the fact that the Air Boss is not regulated is suddenly laid bare, and the figures show clearly a slow decline in velocity over the charge. In fact, allow for a 10 fps reduction in velocity over each magazine used and you won’t be far out, certainly where my test gun was concerned.
While using JTS Dead Center pellets, 568 fps (11.5ft/lbs) was the starting velocity, and if the best consistency is needed, then the first 36 shots were within 30 fps. Take the first 60 shots and these were within 50 fps. Over the bulk of the charge, 132 shots, the total spread was around 136 fps. Pick your sector of the charge, and there’s usable performance for sure.

Verdict
An honest assessment has to find that the shot count is a little disappointing, given that whopping great bottle, and compared to some like-for-like rivals. However, for those of us who aren’t obsessed with a huge shot count, get past that, and the features on offer, robust build quality, looks, and handling, result in an airgun that delivers on so many counts. Don’t forget the package deal offer, but as it stands, the gun-only price of £599 represents great value for money.