Gamo Whisper - My Take

[hiroller]

I decided to try out the Whisper. I've always been curious about this rifle and it was on sale at a local store for 199.00. I decided to give it a try; plus, the store is a 5 minute drive and I have 30 days to decide if I'm fully satisfied with my purchase.

Out of box this rifle looks and feels good. It's light, balances well and I like the fact the rear site is steel and has nice solid clicks. Before firing it I decided to strip it down to clean it well. There was lots of grease where they should be so I gave it a good wipe down inside and out.

The barrel wasn't as dirty as other new rifles I've cleaned, but it needed a cleaning nevertheless. Bob mentioned in his review that the weed eater line would get caught up in the suppressor area (unless you have a perfectly straight line) but I recall someone else mentioning using a straw to protect the baffles when cleaning. I found that thestraw method not only helps protect the baffles, but it also makes it easy to run your weed eater line through. Just insert the straw into the muzzle and work past the baffles until it stops and hold it in placewhile run your line through the breech. It'll run right past the straw and baffles and come right out the muzzle. You can then pull itwithapatch through the barrel and straw. My wife is chronic straw freak - she has to have them for everything she drinks so thankfully we have thousands of multi-colored/sized straws in our house for all our straw needs.

The powerplant is about as loud as just about any other 1000fps I've heard so it was hard to gauge the actual noise level out of the muzzle from the shooter's end, so I had my wife fire off a few rounds from the Whisper and Varmint Hunter(CPHPammo) while I was about 30 ft away off to the side and I'll have to say, it's considerably quieter than the Varmint Hunter. On the Varmint Hunter, you can hear the spring and the sound of air rushing out the muzzle, sounding almost like a sharp pop. With the Whisper, you can still hear the spring from a distance, but thatsound overpowers the muzzles pop by far.The baffles definitely do their job to dissipate the small rush of air escaping the muzzle. I'm curious about their shape and design but it's really hard to tell from looking in the muzzle. They're plasticandlooklikeamonoliticbafflestack but I'm not 100% sure. For the price of the rifle and the attached suppressor, it's a hell of a deal as opposed to spending $200 on an ATF Form 1. IfIdecidetokeepthisI'mdefinitelysendingitoffforagoodtune to help quiet down the action.

IjustmountedaCenterpoint3-9x40onherandamwaitingfortheloctitetocurebeforeIstartshootingheragain.I'd have to say that I'm pretty impressed so far but I'llprobablypostanotherfollow-uponmytakeoftheWhisperafterafewhundredmorerounds.

Jay

[Big_Bill]

Congratulations on your new Whisper Jay,

And for sharing you take on it, a fine review for sure !

It sounds like your going to be happy with her !

Bill

[gamo2hammerli]

...and it's pretty accurate too.  I like mine.

[hiroller]

I'm surprised at the out of box accuracy compared to some other springers I've tried.  I already have about 400 rounds through her and she's just beginning to smooth out a little.  While all my other rifles really like CPHP pellets, my Whisper throws them all over the place.  She does much better with JSB Exacts and surprisingly even better with Daisy Wadcutters.  The JSBs and Daisys all fit very loose (to where I can tilt the barrel back and it'll fall out) whereas I've noticed that the CPHPs have a very snug fit in all my rifles, but she shoots much tighter groups with the looser pellets.  I'm heading to the store this morning to pick up some other pellets, but in the meantime I'm just putting lead through her as much as possible until she starts smoothing out a bit more.  

I have never shot those PBA rounds due to what I've read about them, but was a bit curious last night.  I have half a dozen of these cannisters laying around so I decided to try just one round.  I called my wife over so she can hear it, closed all the windows and shot a few lead rounds at my trap at 5 yards.  I then loaded a raptor and let it rip.  Boy was that LOUD!  It was pretty darn close to my .22 lr.  I honestly think my .22 with Aguila sub sonic ammo is much quieter than that!  My wife just about freaked out as well.  I guess like regular firearms with suppressors, they'll do little to suppress if the ammo isn't subsonic - same goes for these guys.  I dunno,  must be a physics thing...

[SGTMEATSAUCE]

Also check out the pellet reviews section and see what other Whispers shoot.... I use the Pell tool to seat all different pellets to the same amount into the rifling, kinda making all pellets equal, none ever are so loose the could fall out, 70% of all pellets I have shot and really tight and have to be stuffed into the chamber, only 2 that I have shot are even remotely loose, but tight enough they would not fall out even if shaken. You must have a really loose chamber.

I find it odd also, since my whisper will ONLY shoot CPHP. nothing else will even group.

rifles are just very individualist.

-Mark

I purchased a Big Cat and a Whisper just a month apart.  Almost all pellets fit the Big Cat loosely but the same pellets will fit in the Whisper snug.  I believe it's a crap shoot on the breech as to whether you get a tight or loose one.  I haven't shot the Big Cat much but the boy I gave it too claims he can stand a pellet on end, nose up, and shot it from 50 feet away indoors.  He shoots it alot inside their butler bldg type garage.  As for the Whisper, I don't think ours is quite as accurate as the Big Cat if the boy's claims are true.  But it is a lot quieter than any other airgun in the neighborhood.  After a simple polishing and lube job, the twang and vibration noise from the power plant definitely improved.  Tune her, lover her, kiss her and shoot her.  You purchased one fine air gun.

[hiroller]

Well, I spent the better part of the day shooting with the scope but had some trouble getting decent groups. I had a few other tins of different pellets this time so I took the time to try them all out. Again, the looser ones grouped much better. The Daisy's came first, then JSB Exacts followed by Gamo Match, which surprised me since the quality of the Daisy pellets aren't that great. The Gamo hunters grouped much better than CPHP, but they too fit a bit snug unlike the loose fitting match pellets. With the scope on and shooting at 10 yards however, my groups weren't really improving at all. I would get a decent group going for the first few rounds, then there would be sudden shift (huge shift), which would group good another few rounds (rested). I had it down to 2 possible things; either it's my hold/position changing or the scope/mounts are shifting. This also makes it hard to find the sweet spot and I've been trying every inch from the trigger guard forward, but she continues to make a small spot of decent groups, then shift.

I made it a point to pay attention to my shooting position and all the little details to try to pinpoint the problem, as well as to keep an eye on the marks I made on the mounts prior to shooting, but the problem persisted and it didn't seem anything was shifting. I decided to remove the scope and mounts to see if any damage had occurred to the soft scope rail. There was none so I cleaned her up really well and decided to re-mount the scope using 2-piece rings instead of the 1-piece it was on. I added a scope stop behind the front ring for added support. Prior to mounting the 2-piece rings, I shot about 50 rounds using the open sights again, and my groupings were much tighter than with the scope on. I put a small soda bottle filled with water out at 25 yards and fired 5 rounds at it from the kneeling position with open sights. They were all a hit and went clear through (and that was using the pellet it shot worst with - CPHP).

Another possibility came to mind after this and it's that the weight of the scope (it's pretty friggin' heavy) may have changed the recoil pattern of the rifle to where it's making it really hard for me to find a good shooting position. Well, the new mounts pushed the scope about 1 inch forward and are a little lighter thant he 1-piece. Today I'll put another few hundred in to see if anything improves. The scope is fine, but there may be some shifting and settling of the mounts/scope I'm not aware of that's affecting my groups right now, or possibly just the weight of the scope slightly affecting things.

if you use the stock gamo scope that came with the whisper, the general consensus is that they are garbage. they either slide around or never get into focus.

that centerpoint should be okay though, but the gamo mount isn't very reliable. the pin will start to egg out pretty quick.

-Mark

[SGTMEATSAUCE]

For whatever reason one out of ten of my shots are always a flyer, weird it is either 2 inches straight down or 2 inches right everytime, I never miss with a flyer to the left or rarely if ever high. Every pellet I have does this. Another thing to note loose or tight seems to have no bearing on my shots(35 ft indoors) and also the extra flanges, flaps, or extra casting seems not to affect accuracy either, like my Tomahawks if set up on the cup end many seem to lean like the tower of Pisa but shoot straight. Rockets has all kinds of extra casting etc and shoot straight, once in awhile I get triangle shaped CPHP and just throw them out(actaually I save them in a jar with the used lead from my trap and my brother in law melts them down into bullet reloads)

[hiroller]

Man, what a day.  I was still having the problem with grouping with that scope so I tried the Gamo scope that came with it.  Same thing - it groups well but is extremely sensitive to position to where the groups will change.  I got it down to one spot on the rest, no shoulder and just my trigger finger and that worked well for awhile but I couldn't see myself shooting like that all the time.  I decided to mount my bug buster and give it a try and what do you know...perfect groups all the way.  She still preferred the wadcutters, but there were no shifts in groups at all, even if I changed my grip location.    

The Centerpoint I was using is about 1.5lbs whereas the Bug Buster is under 1lb.  Has anyone had this issue?  I'm thinking it may be a combination of the weight of the scope as well as how I handled the rifle with a heavier scope, but I don't have this issue with my Varmint Hunter, however it is a heavier rifle.

[gamo2hammerli]

...but most of my springers have a flyer once in awhile because I think because they're not tuned.  The way I see it and read it on GTA....the compressed spring shoots forward and rotates when the trigger is pulled.  On some of my air rifles...I may have a flyer around the 6th shot....while others may have a flyer around the 8th shot.  :0   The lighter the rifle...the more I feel the gun pull in different directions....which will definately affect accuracy.

Also....are the scopes you're using AO (adjustable objective)?  Maybe you're have pallalex problems?  Just a thought.

[SGTMEATSAUCE]

I have the stock Gamo POS 3x9 x 40

[hiroller]

I wanted to cut down on some of the vibration (short of getting a tune) and decided to fill the stock.  I used to use pillow stuffing  (the polyester stuff) to reduce vibration and dampen the noise on subwoofers, and decided to stuff the butt with a bunch.  Man, that thing took about 1/3 of a pillow; I crammed it tight until no more would go in.  I re-mounted my Centerpoint scope and started shooting.  There was a HUGE improvement!  She still prefers loose fitting pellets but now I can group endlessly and the groups no longer change drastically when I move my position around a bit.  Even with the pellets she couldn't shoot worth crap before like the CPHP are hitting much better.  Looks like stuffing the butt stock helped reduce quite a bit of shock that was throwing things off in the beginning.  What a relief - now I can go out back and have some fun...

I beleive you reduced the recoil a bit, but have you noticed any reduction in sound by filling the stock? I am curious..........

-Mark