Author Topic: Gamo Whisper review Part 1 (out of the box)  (Read 5605 times)

Offline CharlieDaTuna

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Gamo Whisper review Part 1 (out of the box)
« on: July 31, 2007, 10:26:04 AM »


 



The Whisper evaluation will be done in three stages.
1- Out of the box..first impressions.
2- Pellet and accuracy review.
3- Mechanical (internal)review.

I’d like to thank Gene for his participation in doing the evaluation of the Gamo Whisper. Gene will also be doing the accuracy and pellet review in the next few days. The mechanical review will be the last and after it has a thousand or so shots through it, probably in a week or so.

In the next day or so we will also put up some pics in the Album section.

Right out of the box, the new Gamo Whisper is impressive in both feel and looks. The first thing that you notice as you pick it up is how surprisingly light it is and much lighter than it would appear. It’s sleek looking even with the ambidextrous synthetic stock. You immediately become aware of the fluted bull barrel and large by comparison muzzle brake/sound suppressor and that it has raised iron sights mounted on the gun.

Let me make note here; the noise reduction device is in fact a form of a silencer incorporated into the muzzle brake that is in fact fixed, not removable and has been approved by the ATFB for Gamo production only. That being said, we on this forum will not refer to it as a “silencer” but as an “Integrated Noise Dampener” or IND”.

The stock is a bit different than any other Gamo stock to date and the fore grip and cheek piece are well designed to accommodate most shooters. The pistol grip is of a size that will be appreciated by almost any shooter unless he had relatively small hands.

In the past, it seems that some of the rear adjustable sight on the Gamo’s had looseness in the adjustments and detents and would wear. The reason for that is most of them had plastic dials. The adjustable sight on the Whisper is very firm and they have a very positive locking detent in both the windage and elevation. That’s because all of the adjustable rear sight is made of steel with the exception of the fiber optics and mount.

As you pull it up into the shooting pose, you feel it fall comfortably into place in your shoulder… it just feels good with its large rubber butt plate seated. I suspected that it might feel a bit barrel heavy but not so. You pull it up, shoulder it and it just seems to snap into place.

Gene was the first to handle the gun and before he shot or even cocked it for the first time, his words were “I’m gitten’ me one of these” and “could I get him one”??? . Now everybody knows that Gene is not an “instinctive/impulsive” buyer…lol… Sorry Gene…not yet.

Our first step was to take a few measurements on the gun. The overall length is approx. 45 ½ inches. The COG (center of gravity) is + or – 1/8 four inchs in front of the trigger guard. Trigger pull length is 14 inches. The brake is 7 ½ inches long.

The weight of the gun was 6 lbs 3 ounces without any glass. As I stated earlier, it felt and is light.

The first thing we did was cocked the gun and looked down the shoot chute. It was like a mirror and the rifling was beautiful to say the least. I prepared to run a couple patches down through the barrel just to clean out any excess lubes that might be in the tube. Whoa….there’s a problem Charlie.

It’s very difficult to use a pull through in the Whisper because of the chambering in the silencer. It seems to have four chambers (I’ll determine that later) in it and unless your line is absolutely straight and stiff, it will catch the chamber edges as it tries to pass though and will get hung up. It makes no difference whether you go through the breech end or the muzzle end. The way that I resolved the issue was to cut off 7 inches of a 1/8 inch piece of dowel, took some heat shrink, coupled the dowel and pull through together, fed the dowel in and pulled the pull through far enough to grasp it and then pulled it through. A problem that I foresee is that if a patch ever comes off it the chamber area, it will probably be very difficult to extract. That said, be very careful here until something has been worked out. I do have a couple of ideas for a push through but we’ll cross that at another time.

One other point while we are at the barrel. It is going to be very difficult to crown the barrel on the Whisper but I don’t think that will be an issue because in all of the years and hundreds of Gamo’s rifles that I have worked on, I have seen only one or two crowns that have had to be dressed. Bad crowns on Gamo’s are extremely rare. I have seen a few crowns that have been damaged over the years, but because of the design, the crown in the Whisper are protected from any damage.

Another obvious thing that stands out with the breech open is the there is no seal in the yoke that we are so accustomed to seeing. The seal in the Whisper is built into the front of the action tube instead. Also, it is not a “high rise” seal, looks like a standard o-ring style and I would think be less susceptible to damage but we will see.

Now it was time to make some noise. I cocked the gun and set it on the bench for about 15 minutes while Gene and I had a cigarette. (Yeah… we both smoke) I don’t usually bother doing that because springs usually set the first time you cock them and retain most of the memory but I wanted it to be well set and holding.

The first few shots were out in the back yard getting a few pellets through it prior to the chrony process. As was expected, it has the infamous trigger pull issue that Gamo and all Gamo owners have come to know as well as some spring vibration and twang. This is quite common in all springers of course and there are solutions for that, but that being said, it was no worse that many others that have come through the shop and is inherent to the gun.

Now to the chrony. As per my usual procedure, we used 12 shots in each series. Then the high and low shot is removed and the remaindering 10 are used. Keep in mind that this is a brand new gun out of the box and until the barrel is seasoned a bit, the shots velocity is usually a bit loose. As the barrel seasons, it has a tendency to tighten up. Here is the way that it went.

Tomahawk 7.9?          Gamo Hunters 7.9 gr
962                            992
967                            1001
953                            1000
967                            991
959                            987
973                            990
955                            988
969                            983
982                            981
954                            988

Gamo ProMag 7.25      JSB Exacts 8.3 gr
933                           778
935                           782
950                           787
933                           816
932                           789
958                           814
936                           790
936                           785
943                           828
938                           810


Crosman Prem. HP 7.9     Raptors 5.4 gr
925                                1182
917                                1212
925                                1193
930                                1149
925                                1145
930                                1158
924                                1143
923                                1216
924                                1186
926                                1187

The spread in velocity is a little wide in some cases but something that was expected.

Next I did some trigger pull testing and here are the results on 5 pulls.

4 lbs 6 ounces    4 lbs 7 ounces     4 lbs 6 ounces     4 lbs 7 ounces     4 lbs 7 ounces

Keep in mind that this is a new gun and trigger but by the same token, Gamo uses good quality steel in their trigger sear and intermediate lever as well as the piston, very hard and they do not wear much. In fact, I have never seen any internal trigger parts wear out in a Gamo.

Now about the noise suppression and the IND. The big difference that you will see is in the PBA type ammo that goes Super Sonic or Hyper Sonic (Gamo’s terminology). When shooting the Raptors, they all went Super Sonic. I have shot quite a few Raptors in the past and for the most part, they sound like a .22 long rifle when shot. The Whisper when shooting Raptors sound more like a .22 short instead of a .22 long rifle so there is in my view quite a difference in the report, a considerable difference. When they say a (52% noise reduction) with the IND, that is what they would be referring to and I would think it is probably pretty close.

As far as noise reduction in the mechanical action of the gun, there seems to be little or no reduction or difference, but that was not the intent. The only way to actually reduce the mechanical noise is through tuning and lubing.

Ok…what did we see?? I gotta tell ya…and I think Gene will concur, the Gamo Whisper is the next generation airgun and has a very promising future.

The fit and finish is very good, it feels good, it looks good, it handles good and so far we see nothing negative about it. There are some that think nothing but wood stocks and the wood stocks of the past are great and have their place in the airgun history and will probably always be there. But the future is now, synthetics have come a long way and Gamo has led the way in airguns for the most part. In my opinion, this is the Gamo of the future, will be in the same arena as the CFX and perhaps surpass even that. When it hits the market, sales I’m sure will boom. Based on what we have seen, it’s a great gun at a fair opening price.

And finally… Gene has owned and owns many Guns and many Gamo’s are in his stable and it takes a lot to impress him any more. He’s impressed just as I was. He has the gun at his place now doing the pellet accuracy testing. In fact, he called me just a little while ago ranting and raving about how much he like that gun. I think the future owners of the Whisper will also.

Later….stay tuned

Bob  aka:  CharlieDaTuna
Co-founder of the GTA


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Offline shadow

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RE: Gamo Whisper review #1 (out of the box)
« Reply #1 on: July 31, 2007, 11:21:56 AM »
GREAT FIRST REVIEW Bob 8)  and it sound's like a thumb's up for the Whisper at this point. I can't imagine how she will perform after one of your fantastic tune's. Well it look's like one of these babies will end up in my gun display hehe. Ed
I airgun hunt therefore I am... };)  {SHADOWS Tunes & Camo}  airguncamo@yahoo.com

Offline leftcoast1

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RE: Gamo Whisper review #1 (out of the box)
« Reply #2 on: July 31, 2007, 12:01:31 PM »
Thank you Bob excellent review by Gene and yourself. I'm glad to see Gamo is making sure that people know they are here to stay and play hard. I just wish they would reconsider releasing some break barrels again in .22. I don't own any Gamo's yet but I will very soon.

Thanks Again job well done by both.
Jason
A couple of Springers nothin to get excited about.

Offline Splash

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RE: Gamo Whisper review #1 (out of the box)
« Reply #3 on: July 31, 2007, 12:31:24 PM »
Looks like there's another to add to the growing list, good thing I just sold a boat,hehe. I wasn't sure if the IND would help as much as claimed, but if it makes a raptor sound more like a short than a lr, then it works pretty close.  Hopefully the rest of the evaluation will go as good.
Mike
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Offline shadow

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RE: Gamo Whisper review #1 (out of the box)
« Reply #4 on: July 31, 2007, 01:48:01 PM »
Ok Gene, set the Whisper down for a moment and say something buddy and clean the drool of her too hehe. Ed
I airgun hunt therefore I am... };)  {SHADOWS Tunes & Camo}  airguncamo@yahoo.com

Offline HNT5

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RE: Gamo Whisper review #1 (out of the box)
« Reply #5 on: August 01, 2007, 07:41:42 AM »
Great info. I can't wait for the rest.
Thanks for all you do to promote our hobby and sport

Regards

Nathan

Offline Big_Bill

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RE: Gamo Whisper review #1 (out of the box)
« Reply #6 on: August 01, 2007, 08:08:13 AM »


Great review Bob,



Thanks for including us, during your examination of this New Gamo Whisper !



Sounds to be a Fun Shooter ! With Potential !

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RE: Gamo Whisper review #1 (out of the box)
« Reply #7 on: August 01, 2007, 08:57:57 AM »
Now the question we all are waiting an answer to....do you think a GTRIII will work in the new Whisper?

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RE: Gamo Whisper review #1 (out of the box)
« Reply #8 on: August 01, 2007, 09:25:41 AM »
Ditto on everyone thanking you for the review Bob. Same goes to Gene as well, except Gene seems to have the difficult and laborous task of putting a buncha lead through the beast. Thanks for the hard work you do in testing for our benefit Gene... ha ha.

Bob, you gave your results/thoughts on the IND for the supersoninc. Was there any difference in sub-sonic pellets?

As for the cleaning issue, would those cleaning pellets work rather than a pull through?