Went out for a quick little shooting trip today, and one would think I would be happy with two groups like this:
And I would, if those were two groups shot at 100 yards...but they aren't...it's 1 group of 6 fired at 25-yards.
The weapon in question was my new Gamo Whisper I got for Christmas, and I was trying to site it in at 25-yards.
First, the positives. It feels very well put together, and it's easy to load and fire. The trigger is very crisp and smooth...impressively so. I have no complaints with the 'gun' part of things.
It was the optics that were the problem. The pellet rifle came with a scope base, rings, a scope mount, and a Gamo brand 3-9 scope, with Allen wrench's to put it all together. Everything went together smoothly at home, and within 10 shots, the pellets were going right where they were supposed to go.
I put the rifle down, and went to put some cover stickers on my target. When I came back, my first shot was dead center, but two inches low. Hmmmm. Adjust, and back on target. Two shots later, I was back to being low. Son of a...
About the 8th time I adjusted the elevation on my scope, I noticed that the scope mount was actually 'jiggly' on the base. And I had left the Allen wrenches at home. Poop.
I tightened the little screws as good as I could by hand, but the rest of my practice was somewhat unsatisfying. I know that pellet gun can shoot 1 hole groups at 25-yards, but not when the scope was sliding back and forth a quarter of an inch in between shots. Hence the nice horizontal alignment, but the questionable vertical repeatability. Plus, I was using the hood of my truck as a rest.
For penetration testing, I used what I had available, which in this case was russet potatoes. Not small ones either...I used some safety glasses to give them scale.
This is the entrance side:
And here is the exit side:
I have to say, I was pretty impressed with the through and through penetration of the potato. It's not a small potato...about 2 inches in width, and it was still pretty hard. The pellets I used for this testing were Gamo PBA Raptor's that came with the gun. I have to imagine if I can get that kind of penetration on a potato, it would do on any animal I would ever think of to use it on in a responsible manner.
As for the Whisper part of it's name...it seemed very quiet. I really didn't have anything to compare it to. It certainly doesn't sound like a gun, which is convenient for something that would have gun-like effect on rabbits and squirrels.
If I can just get the scope mounting issue squared away, I think I will be pretty happy with this new toy.
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