Gamo 220 Hunter Combo .177 Review

Overall Rating

Light weight, nice solid stock, accurate.

Awful factory trigger, plastic factory butt plate.

Having owned the rifle for over 6 years and have tried numerous other springers and PCPs, so I thought it is time I make some contribution to others considering purchasing the rifle.

Firstly, I want to make a strong remark to those that have considered this rifle inaccurate.
Having won many smallbore rifle shooting competitions I know that many shooter converting to airgunners often neglect the fact that the projectile in a air rifle is not fired from a sealed casing as bullets are, but are pushed by compressed air through a rubber seal. Thus pellet shape and weight plays an enormous role in the accuracy of the rifle. As improper fit of the pellet will cause air to leak, and unbalance the force acted upon the projectile and make the shot inaccurate.

I have tried over 20 different makes of pellets and have found H&N Baracuda and H&N Trophy Hunter to be extremely accurate. Placing 1/2 inch groups at 30 yards with ease. and the 1/2 inch is caused by my own inaccuracy and not the gun.

However, I have since made a few minor modifications to the rifle which i believe has made the rifle much better to operate.

The first and most important modification is the trigger blade. Head to www.charliedatuna.com and order a GRTIII trigger blade ($31) for yourself. The easy to install trigger will really make a big difference, and turn your stiff unpredictable trigger to a soft crisp trigger. (I am in no way financially assisted to write this, this is simply from my own experience).[this also applies to all Gamo rifles, as they all have the same trigger mechanism]

Secondly, I dumped the plastic butt plate and installed a vented rubber one, this extended the stock and canceled much of the recoil.

Thirdly, I installed a Nikkon Stirling 3-9 x 42 scope with parallax. I would have preferred a mil dot, but at the time financial limitation prevented me from getting one. The scope worked fine however.

Lastly, a custom adapter and a custom silencer were made. This is optional in my view as different shooter prefer different feel of the rifle. I installed the silencer mainly to increase barrel weight as the short and light rifle is a little hard to aim at +50 yards. The sound moderation is simply a bonus.

Overall, I really like the rifle. Particularly the light weight and price.
By itself it makes a great bunny buster, as long a suitable pellet is used. And once slightly modified the rifle can out perform many more expensive guns.

If anyone have any questions regarding my review please do not hesitate to leave a note.

Members' Comments onacttacus's Review

• rolocks on 21st Feb 2007

  acttacus - I am interested in communicating with you on the silencer. I will be using this air gun on a golf course for pest control and would like very much to know how you did this. Rolocks ---- rltorbill@aol.com

• nutrition76 on 8th May 2007

  Excellent review, i also have a 220 and it shoots very well. I added a Beeman Universal muzzlebrake plus the GRTIII trigger (what a huge difference). One question for you: how did you remove the butt pad and what did you replace it with. Thanks for your advice.
  
  jim

• gamogun on 21st May 2009

  In your review you said you added a Nikkon Stirling 3-9 x 42 scope with parallax. Did you mean Nikko or Nikon scope?