Review 15 for Gamo Whisper .177-caliber Air Rifle Combo
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 4 out of 5
Good Pellet Gun, July 28, 2008
By newhunterinSV from San Jose, CA
"Got the Gamo Whisper rifle mainly to take care of coyotes and other varmints on my property, so needed something with high FPS velocity to penetrate and kill clean.
I took the gun with the PBA ammo and tested it out on a target box loaded with packing material to test the penetrating ability. The PBA Raptor ammo is loud, even with the silencer, but at 1200 FPS, that should be expected. Still, "loud" is not too bad, as any nearby neighbors would still be miffed to know what that sound was they just heard. It's nothing that'll get them curious. The PBA Raptor ammo does the job, I had it sighted in to a 3" circle with the scope attached and calibrated in about 5 shots at about 50 feet away. As for penetrating power, it definitely cut through several inches of dense paper packing material. Get a clean lung or skull shot on a coyote, and this will put him down. Unfortunately, with the long reload time to cock the arm and load a pellet, one shot is all you'll get on an animal.
I later put up some more targets and used lead pellets which will travel slower, around 1000 fps. I put about 50 rounds through it at ranges from 50 to 80 ft or so, I didn't actually measure off the distance. The drop off isn't as much as I was expecting with lead pellets, only about 1" at around 80 ft.
Firing is quite consistent within a 5" spread at those ranges, and firing offhand, so the gun's pretty accurate for my novice shooting ability.
It's actually a good starter gun, I was able to teach my wife to use it, who's never handled a gun in her life. She was able to get comfortable with it and was within 4" circle at about 50 ft with it.
Notables:
-Good weight and balance, easy to shoot offhand
-Hard cocking arm (too much for my wife to pull)
-Scope included is good quality
-Trigger pull is a bit too long
-Good with PBA Raptor and lead flathead pellets
-Pretty silent with lead pellets, louder with PBA Raptor but still not bad noise level if you've got some trees around to absorb noise.
-no shoulder harness attachments is a drawback"