Gamo CF-30 Review

Overall Rating

Great price, no frills, full power, accurate 12 foot pounds air rifle. Ultimate budget air rifle.

Can be fussy with pellets, needs a skilled grip to get the best out of it, requires very frequent cleaning.

I recently purchased a second-hand Gamo CF-30 in .177 which had had only a couple of tins of pellets fired through it. The stock was badly scratched in a few places, so I painted it black and gave it a coat of satin varnish. Lovely. I also bought a Gamo red dot sight because the iron sights were not up to much. I was pretty happy with the performance overall. The CF-30 is a full power rifle, and mine loves Bisley Magnums (for some reason they are a lot tighter than Bisley Pest Control or Bisley Practice, which can almost fall through the pop-up loading port). The Magnums make the rifle perform much like a .20 cal in terms of trajectory. I fired a few hundred pellets at 25 yards, getting 1" groups fairly easily, with the odd flyer or two. Then I noticed some quite heavy fouling around the loading port, and bought a cleaning rod set (heavy wire brush, light wire brush and furry, fluffy brush). With a small amount of WD40 (a quick spray to lubricate the wire, not enough to leak into the chamber and diesel) I was amazed at how much crud came out of the barrel. I cocked the rifle to raise the loading port, making sure I didn't damage the seals with the wire brushes, and gave it a good old scrub. Then I put the fluffy one down to mop up the rubbish. Finally I closed the port and gave a quick (and careful) run down the breach. The performance gain was immediate! The rifle grouped into 3/4" at 25 yards with the red dot. I went straight out and bought a 4x42 Nikko Gold Crown scope because I felt the rifle now merited a bit more spent on the sights. Groups were consistently tight for only about 200 shots, even with pellet lube. I reckoned I was doing something different with my hold (spring guns being notoriously sensitive to how they are held), but eventually I cleaned the barrel/port again when the Gamo manual said (they say about every 500 shots), and the accuracy was immediately back and doing even better at half an inch. Many £250 rifles can't do better. The CF-30 and its derivatives are budget rifles. The triggers leave a lot to be desired (take the 'adjusting' screw out completely is my advice!) and the scope rails are not great. However, these rifles are capable of great accuracy with a bit of controlled shooting and, more importantly, constant cleaning! I suspect it is the pop-up loading port that makes the CF-30 foul so quickly. The pellet is not loaded directly into the breach, as in most under levers or break-barrels, nor is it pushed gently into place by a probe as in most multishot pre-charged pneumatics. The pellet has to jump from the loading port into the breach at enormous pressure and speed. This must lead it to deposit a whole bunch of lead before it is comfortably in the main barrel. As more is deposited, more friction results, so more lead is scored off the next pellet, leading to seriously wayward velocities and poor engagement with the rifling. Some would call this a design flaw. But with very regular cleaning (100 shots or so) and a light touch (let the spring play its part in the follow-through) the CF-30 is an air rifle I would recommend to anybody who wants value for money and cares about consistency.