Air Rifles

I know this is a fishing forum but obviously at least some of you are hunters since there is this hunting sub-forum. Which is great, because I'm doing research on air rifles and am thinking about purchasing one. I'm not a hunter and know next to nothing about guns so this is all new to me. What I'm looking for is a good quality air rifle to just shoot at targets with for fun. My brother brought one home when visiting a year or so ago and let me shoot it and I enjoyed it quite a bit. He tells me that Gamo is a pretty good brand. So I've been looking at the Gamo Hornet .177 and the slightly more expensive Gamo Big Cat 1250 .177. I don't really want to spend more than, say, $150 at this point. After all, I'm just planning on target shooting with it. Not going to hunt squirrels.

Right now I can get the Gamo Hornet from ****'s online for less than $100 with a $20 over $100 coupon they have going on until tomorrow evening. Would the Hornet be a good purchase for me?

Thanks for any help or info you can provide!

Nobody?

Well, I went ahead and ordered the Gamo Hornet from ****'s online.

[QUOTE=fishin'fool;503418]Nobody?

Well, I went ahead and ordered the Gamo Hornet from ****'s online.[/QUOTE]

Pretty cool.........

You know.........Lewis and Clark used an air rifle when the trekked across the country looking for the east/west passages.......

[url]http://www.nramuseum.org/the-museum/the-galleries/the-prospering-new-republic/case-28-romance-of-the-long-rifle/girandoni-air-rifle-as-used-by-lewis-and-clark.aspx[/url]

Added another Link:

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni_Air_Rifle[/url]

Interesting. Thanks for the links GeoFisher.

Looking forward to receiving my Hornet, hopefully by the end of the week. I'll update this thread when I receive it.

Sorry for the late post here. Gamo is a Spanish Company and I have their Whisper Quiet Air Rifles thats used Inert Air Technology instead of a metal spring to power the rifle. It's pretty accurate from 40 yards and I put the 4x Gamo scope on it. I like it so far. But I've only shot it a couple of times. It's the one that will shot at 1300 FPS with the platinum type bullets. The PBA pellets are a little more expensive than regular lead pellets but I can use either type of 0.177 Cal Pellets. This Gamo is a single shot rifle were the barrel breaks open to cock the Sealed Air piston. It's loaded at the breack end of the barrel with a single pellet that you drop into the end of the barrel.

I bought mine after two of my Crossman 77's failed to hold the seal for the CO2 cartridges and the CO2 all leaked out in a day. I need to have the seals fixed to make these two rifles good again. I like the Crossman Rilfes as they use a rotary clip that holds 12 pellets and it's a semi automatic. If the CO2 is full and the seal is good it will shoot all twelve pellets with accuracy. It's great for shooting squirrels and rabbits with it's muti shop capability. But the velocity is only about 760 fps.



Good luck with you new Gamo Pellet Gun.






[QUOTE=fishin'fool;503418]Nobody?

Well, I went ahead and ordered the Gamo Hornet from ****'s online.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the reply.

I received my rifle last week and I've been having a lot of fun with it. First thing I did was install a slightly better scope (a Tasco Pronghorn 4x32). I live next to a big open field and shoot in the direction of the field at a big tree that I've attached a 2'x2' piece of 3/4" plywood to. And to the plywood I tape paper targets. I also bought a small spinning target set however I'm not a good enough shot yet to have had any success with it. However I'm still working on zeroing in the scope.

I've mainly been using Gamo Rocket pellets and I've fired around 100 through the rifle so far. I did pick up a few different types of pellets last night at Sportsman's Warehouse: Gamo Red Fire, Gamo Raptor PBA, and Crosman pointed and "Premier" hollow point. Unfortunately the PBA pellets are simply too loud for me to use in my neighborhood.

Overall it's a pretty fun and challenging hobby and I highly recommend the Gamo Hornet.

Your post triggered another memory. I now remember trying to zero in my scope on my pellet gun. My first mistake was trying to do this with a broken adjustment on the old scope. And the second mistake was doing this on a windy day.

I waited until the winds calmed down that evening and then installed a newer scope with better windage and elevation adjustments.

I use a lazer bore sighting device that fits the 0.177 cal rifle barrel. Making sure it was inserted into the barrel tightly so that it didn't wobble around. Then shot at a target that's only 25' (FEET) away. Once you get on paper with the Lazer bore sighter then you can start to dial in the cross hairs at 40 yards or some other distance.

Remember that each click of the windage knob will move the POINT OF IMPACT up or down by 1/4" (inch) at 100 Yards. So at 50 yards it will take 8 clicks to move the point of impact up or down. 100/50 = 4/x Ratio Problem.

Note: some more expensive scope may have 8 clicks for each one inch of point of impact movement at 100 yards. Check the instruction manual that came with your rifle scope.

I was trying to sight in my scope and my pellets were all over the paper target and I could not figure out why until I check the rifle scope and found out the elevation cross hair was not moving right. It was broken and not adjusting properly. But this was on a different rifle and not the Gamo. But this was the scopes fault not the rifles.

You are right about the PBA being loud. That's because they go out of the muzzle so fast and brake sound barrier. Mini sonic booms. I've not shot my Gamo enough to figure out it's ballistics in calm air.

I shot this gun while inside Gander Mountain while checking it out in the store. Of course it was not loaded and it was just a test fire to determine how loud it was and what the trigger pull was like. It dry fired as loud and really surprised me as to how loud it was. And this is the model with the built in muzzle brake on it to make it Whisper Quiet. It was anything but Quiet. It was so loud that the guy in the fishing dept came over to the air gun section to find out what was going on. LOL I won't ever do that again!


[QUOTE=fishin'fool;503904]Thanks for the reply.

I received my rifle last week and I've been having a lot of fun with it. First thing I did was install a slightly better scope (a Tasco Pronghorn 4x32). I live next to a big open field and shoot in the direction of the field at a big tree that I've attached a 2'x2' piece of 3/4" plywood to. And to the plywood I tape paper targets. I also bought a small spinning target set however I'm not a good enough shot yet to have had any success with it. However I'm still working on zeroing in the scope.

I've mainly been using Gamo Rocket pellets and I've fired around 100 through the rifle so far. I did pick up a few different types of pellets last night at Sportsman's Warehouse: Gamo Red Fire, Gamo Raptor PBA, and Crosman pointed and "Premier" hollow point. Unfortunately the PBA pellets are simply too loud for me to use in my neighborhood.

Overall it's a pretty fun and challenging hobby and I highly recommend the Gamo Hornet.[/QUOTE]

Well somehow the reticle/crosshair on the Tasco scope I bought broke and it's somewhere inside the scope. So now when I look through the scope there isn't a crosshair. :(

If you read many reviews of air rifles you find that scopes are constant complaint, sometimes the original ones and other times the replacements. Some people say that spring type air rifles are very hard on scopes, probably the vibration. If the scope was new maybe Tasco will replace the it. It would be worth a try. Was it accurate and how do you like the rifle otherwise?

[QUOTE=Olgrey;505277]If you read many reviews of air rifles you find that scopes are constant complaint, sometimes the original ones and other times the replacements. Some people say that spring type air rifles are very hard on scopes, probably the vibration. If the scope was new maybe Tasco will replace the it. It would be worth a try. Was it accurate and how do you like the rifle otherwise?[/QUOTE]

I bought the Tasco scope for $30 from Meijer. Going to go over there tomorrow and see about exchanging it.

The issue with the scope aside, I love the rifle. It's a lot of fun to shoot and I didn't even have it zeroed in fully yet.

Spring action Air guns require a special scope designed for them. The reverse recoil will break the reticle of a normal firearm type scope. I also learned this the hard way with a weaver variable designed for a .22 rifle. Do a search for Beeman air guns they have a lot of info. I have a modified Beeman R1 that shoots a .177 at 1800fps. and shoots one hole group's.

Here's the new scope I ended up buying for the air rifle:

[url=http://centerpoint.crosman.com/scopes/ar22/CP392RG]CenterPoint Hunting and Outdoors, Scopes, AR22 Series, 3-9x32mm Rimfire[/url]

It's pretty nice!