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- Gamo Gamo Viper Express
- patgreen123's review
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Picture courtesy of patgreen123.
| Accuracy | 7.3/10   |
|---|---|
| Handling | 8/10 |
| Value for Money | 8.2/10 |
| Reviewer Rating | 8.1/10 |
| Overall Rating | 8.9/10 |
By patgreen123
on 6th Oct 2006
| Accuracy | 10/10 |
|---|---|
| Handling | 10/10 |
| Value for money | 9/10 |
| Overall value | 10/10 |
 patgreen123's recommendation | |
Great at close range
Good looking
Extremely versital, the ability to shoot shots and pellets
Shot rounds pattern great
Great for rats or birds
Shot rounds are expensive
$229 price tag is a little steep but acceptable
I was looking at airguns online and I came across the Gamo Viper Express air rifle. It sounded like an interesting concept so I purchased one from Pyramidair for $229 along with some shot cartridges. A week later it showed up at my front door. Upon opening the box, the gun looked quite nice. It looked just like a single shot 28 gauge break open shotgun. It shoots special .22 shot shells that are for sale for around $8 for 25 of them. The gun also shoots pellets through a special adapter.
The next day I picked up my new gun and headed over to my friend's house. He has a good deal of land and we shoot there a lot. We shoot a lot of pest birds that nest in the barn on his property. However we couldn't shoot at them in the barn with our 1000fps guns for fear of putting a hole in the wall or the roof. Instead we would have to wait for them to fly out and land on the fence or the trees. When I pulled out the Viper Express, my friend was quite interested. So when I said, "Let's go try it out", he immediately suggested we go to the barn. My friend threw small rocks up into the rafters to spook the birds out. As the rocks hit, three birds flew out. I picked out the nearest one to me and fired. I saw a small puff of feathers and the bird dropped. Several of the 20 pellets per shot hit the bird. Both of us were very impressed. Throughout that day, we managed to bag about 15 starlings and blackbirds, and 1 rat with the Viper Express alone, shooting them out of the air as they fly into and out of the barn. I went through about 30 shots that day for the Viper Express. And overall I was very impressed.
Target tests gave around a 6 inch pattern at 10 yards which is what the manufacturer claims, and penetration tests showed that the shot will penetrate 4 layers of heavy duty shipping cardboard which is all I had to shoot at the time. Shooting the gun is much like shooting .22 bird shot from a rimfire rifle, but this rifle is more affective due to the barrel being a smooth bore and the shot patterning tighter. When you shoot bird shot out of a rimfire rifle, the rifling sprays the pellets out much quicker and is much less affective. Also, the #9 shot carries more energy than the #12 shot of most .22 bird shot rimfire rounds. I have not tried pellets with the adapter and am not going to. I am quite happy with the performance of the rifle. I would definitely recommend it to a friend for shooting rats and small birds on the ground and in the air at 10-15 yards, sometimes a tad further.
| Helpful | Unhelpful | Agree | Disagree |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Total Respect: +5
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