It is no secret that I like Gamo products, I think they do a good job, and the Gamo Big Cat is no exception, so why do I like this gun?
The Gamo Big Cat 1250 is accurate enough to produce quarter sized groups at 25 yards while putting out 15.17 foot pounds of energy in .22 caliber. This makes the gun great for target shooting, small game hunting, and simple plinking.
The gun is also assembled well, and the fact that all of this is combined in such a way that the cost stays relatively low makes this thing great fun.
Would I Recommend This Gun?
This is a gun that I would be confident in recommending to anyone. I enjoyed shooting it, so shouldn’t that be enough?
Well, maybe not, but I think that just about anyone would be satisfied with the purchase of this gun. See, it is a well-built gun with a perfect amount of energy for pretty much any small game that you could handle. I would not recommend shooting any invading raccoons with this thing, but otherwise, feel free to tackle whatever small game you want to, just be mindful of your area’s laws.
Its 15 or so foot pounds of energy are not the only thing that make this gun great, its accuracy is very impressive for an airgun, again, my groups were about quarter sized, and some of them were almost in the same hole.
The cocking action is a bit more tough than it needs to be or than seems necessary, which is a downside to the gun, making it so that any children who handle the gun may have difficulty using the thing.
So, I would definitely still recommend this gun to anyone able to cock the thing. Its accuracy and power only come with a price tag of $150, or at least. that is what we pad for it, which is fantastic for what you will be able to do with it.
So, yes, I will recommend this gun.
Core Features
Gamo has some pretty nice features that often come with their guns, and this one certainly has some of those, but this is not a top of the line model, so it doesn’t come with all of the features that it could have, but it is still a well made gun.
Starting with the stock, we can see that it has a few nice features to it. The first thing that stands out is the double sided Monte Carlo stock, which means that the gun is ambidextrous, and if you look a the trigger guard that idea is reinforced, as the safety is a simple switch that moves forward or back, making the gun completely symmetrical, easy to use for either right handed or left handed folk.
With a rubber buttpad, the gun is able to go easy on your shoulder, though admittedly, the recoil on most airguns is not terrible, it can hurt a little if you are not careful or prepared for it, so the buttpad is a nice touch that is greatly appreciated from Gamo. Thanks guys.
One additional feature related to the stock is what the stock is made out of. We see here that the stock is synthetic, making the gun overall lighter, while also being able to endure harsher weather than a wood stock would be able to take. It’s also got a nice little bit of abrasion to help with gripping, also an appreciated feature.
I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but the safety is found in the trigger guard. For someone who is moving from firearms to airguns this may seem a little bit odd, but this is actually a feature that is somewhat common for airguns.
The safety is a simple switch, move it forward and your gun is ready to fire, move it back and the thing is on safe. There is nothing particularly special about this thing, other than the fact that it contributes to the gun’s ambidextrous nature.
The trigger is also nothing too special, it works well, but is not something too fantastic. The pull of the trigger is smooth, but a little too long.
With standard 11 mm dovetail rails, you should be able to mount pretty much any scope that you would like to, if you don’t like the scope that it comes with. Like many, I suspect, I like mil dot sights, and the stock scope that comes with the gun doesn’t have those. Which is fine, the scope works well, but it is not the kind that I would have preferred.
There is not much more to say about the rail itself, just a solid bit that should hold your scope on well.
With a standard rifled barrel, the gun is able to be as accurate as you need it to be, within a reasonable distance of course. With a fluted design for cosmetics, the thing looks pretty nice. There is no kind of silencing mechanism built into the gun, so it is pretty loud.
Sitting inside the core of the gun rests the mainspring, a standard mechanical spring. This is nothing too fantastic or special, just a simple reliable piece of machinery. This does mean that you need to be wary of the cold and be careful to not allow yourself to leave your spring compressed for too long, but it is much easier to fix one of these things if they should break than it is to fix a broken gas ram.
All in all, this is a well made, simple gun that will get the job done well.
Performance
Okay, the important part, how well does this gun shoot?
Well, the answer to that is quite well. If we start out by looking at the accuracy, this thing works really well. I mentioned before that my shot groups with this thing were incredibly tight, for the most part, they were almost in the same hole. There were some outliers from the main group, one of which was about an inch off from the main group, but this gun gave me a pleasant surprise. Again, this shooting was at 25 yards.
When we take a gander at the power level, I don’t think anyone will really be surprised at the performance of this gun. With .22 caliber pellets in 14.44 grains, we were able to see a muzzle velocity of about 688 feet per second, which is fairly typical of .22 caliber springers.
Using this equation: KE=.5m*v^2, we can see that that speed and mass converts to the 15.17 foot pounds of energy that I mentioned earlier. This is all well and good, but what do those numbers mean?
Basically, it means that this gun will be able to take on any small game that you will find, and do so in a caliber that will not over penetrate it. Additionally, you will deliver the energy needed to cleanly kill it reliably with the accuracy of the Gamo Big Cat.
What about noise? Well, because there are no features to this gun that work to keep the noise down, expect consistent noise of 114 db, which is almost as loud as an airgun gets. The loudest airgun that we have is 115 db, so… yeah. If you don’t want the neighbors learning about your exploits, consider giving the gun a good tuning, or just not shooting in your backyard.
Things I Like
I really do like the overall look and feel of this gun, the weight and the sturdiness that I feel as I handle it are really phenomenal.
As I said before, the buttpad on the gun is a really nice feature, one that is not entirely necessary, but one that is nonetheless very appreciated. The dual Monte Carlo stock is another nice thing about this gun, making the gun ambidextrous. This has obvious advantages for you left handed readers.
For those of you who don’t know, a Monte Carlo stock has a raised portion of the buttstock that is designed to hold your head higher so that you can see through the scope easier. This is of course useful when you want to you know… shoot the gun.
Many Monte Carlo stocks have only one side raised, so it is nice that this gun has both sides affected.
Otherwise, there are not a whole lot of features that stand out to me as incredibly noteworthy, but it is nice to have some simple guns out there, to provide a little bit of variety to the market, so that if you don’t want a gun with a gas ram, or don’t think that you need one, then you have that a few more options.
Things I Would Change
There are a few things that I would change, most of which are cosmetic. The first thing that comes to my mind is the barrel of the gun not flush with the powerplant. Now, so far as I can tell, that has absolutely no affect on the actual performance of the gun, its just a little cosmetic hiccup that I would change if I could.
The next item of cosmetic design that I would change or alter is this little bit of plastic that sticks out from underneath the gun just in front of the trigger guard. This again has no bearing on the performance of the gun, but seems instead to be a little cosmetic feature that is designed to mimic a magazine, and make the gun look like a regular firearm.
I guess that there is nothing inherently bad in this, but it does come across– at least to me– as a pointless gimmick. I like airguns for the fact that they are what they are, they are a unique niche item that does something, and while I don’t mind replica airguns, when something like this comes up in an airgun that is obviously not designed to be a replica gun, it just don’t like it.
Maybe you do, art is subjective after all, but this little thing is not something that I enjoy.
