Gamo Swarm Maxxim Air Rifle: An Owner’s Review


Gamo has some pretty great products, we’ve shot a few and liked the experience so far, but what about the Gamo Swarm Maxxim multi-shot? Is it worth buying?

The Gamo Swarm Maxxim is an affordable airgun with a fair amount of accuracy and a rare magazine capacity that make it an airgun worth buying.

This airgun is a treat, I really do enjoy working with it, and I hope that after reading this article you come away feeling more informed about what you want in your next airgun purchase.

Would I Recommend This Airgun?

I have no issue recommending this gun. This thing is a treat, and the first few times that I shot this gun, I was blown away by its look, feel, weight distribution, and magazine. That’s right, this is a break barrel springer with a magazine on it.

Gamo has a lot of products similar to this, holding a magazine with ten round in it. This is the feature that stole my breath away. While you still have to cock the gun each time you go to shoot, the magazine will drop your next pellet into the breech during each cocking movement.

It makes reloading so easy. I may end up repeating myself a few times throughout this article on this point, but the magazine is probably my favorite feature for sure, and I think a lot of other people will enjoy it as well.

With a price tag of $200, this thing is packed full of features that make shooting a breeze, which is why I would indeed recommend this gun for pest control, target shooting, and simple plinking.

Core Features

The rotary magazine is definitely the part of this gun that is the most unique, and is the reason that I love it so much. Holding up to ten shots, the magazine will drop a pellet into the breech each time you cock the gun.

This process does rely on gravity, so you will have to keep your barrel pointing at the ground in order for it to work, so keep your eye out for that. Additionally, because the pellet falls into the breech, it doesn’t always seat itself perfectly. This has not caused any issues for me, but if you can use a pellet with a head that is just thinner than the tail, that may help it seat a bit better.

Finding a magazine on a springer airgun is something that you will be hard pressed to do by looking anywhere other than at Gamo products. The last time someone succeeded in putting a magazine on a springer was decades ago, so it is pretty cool to see Gamo doing it successfully.

One last thing about the magazine; it has a display that tells you how many pellets you have left in the magazine, not in the gun total. That is important, because if don’t keep this in mind, you can accidentally leave a pellet in the breech, which is of course dangerous.

With a built in suppression system, the gun works to keep itself quiet. It is still fairly loud, but it is among the quietest of the springers that we have.

The Swarm Maxxim also comes with the standard dovetail rails over the receiver, ready to receive your optics system of choice (the gun does come with its own scope), which is necessary because there are no open sights on the gun.

Looking at the pictures, you may be asking if the magazine interferes with the scope, or at least shows itself when you peer down the scope, and the answer is no. Unless your scope is exceptionally low riding on the gun, you don’t need to worry about the magazine interfering with the scope.

Coming equipped with a recoil reducing rail, the Swarm will also work hard to not be hard on your scope, maximizing the life of your favorite optics system.

Moving on to the trigger guard, you may see what looks like two triggers chilling there. The first one is the safety, and it comes to rest right against the trigger when on safe. Push it forward for fire, pull it back for safe. Honestly, I had thought that it was a bit odd at first, but I like it now. It’s easy to access, and easy to use.

The trigger itself is pretty nice, and on our scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best, 1 being the worst, we gave it a 4.5, with it being easy to both pull and stay on target.

The stock itself is nothing too terribly special, but it does come with a rubber buttplate, which is nice, as it absorbs a lot of the recoil from the gun.

At last, if we were to look inside of the gun, we’d see a gas ram in place of a standard spring. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of a gas ram, it operates under the same principles as a standard mechanical spring does, but goes about it differently, kind of like the difference between a gas powered car and an electrically powered car. Both do the same thing, they just get you there differently.

The gas ram is a tube of compressed air, that when squeezed behaves just like a spring does. The further you compress it, the more energy it has behind it, and when you release it, it releases that energy– you get the idea. Where it behaves differently, and where much of the advantage of the gas ram comes from is in the fact that the air inside of it does not compress or expand the same as spring does.

This translates to a smoother cocking action, and a more agreeable vibration level when you pull the trigger, both of which are quite nice for both you and the gun. In addition, you can leave the gun cocked for hours without worrying about fatiguing your spring, and the cold does not affect the performance of the Swarm.

Essentially, the gas ram is easier on your gun and will last longer, but if it were ever to break or leak, you might not be able to repair it on your own.

Performance

I wanted to see how tight of a group I could get with this thing, testing two different pellets in it. I found the experience overall to be enjoyable, with little I disagreed with. The first time I shot the gun, I had not tightened the scope onto the rail, but after remounting the scope, everything seemed to be working just fine.

Shooting JSBOpens in a new tab. and H&NOpens in a new tab. .177 pellets, both of which were domed diabolos. Going to out to 25 yards, I found that my shooting with the JSB’s was tighter than with H&N, being just over quarter sized with one outlier (the image shows another shot hole at the bottom, but that was from me sighting in my scope. The H&N group was much bigger, being about twice the size of a quarter at 25 yards.

Alrighty, now its time to talk about the fun part. How fast does it shoot? Well, the advertised speed was 1300 fps, but I do not put much of any stock in the advertised speed of an airgun. You see, the power level of an airgun is fixed (usually) but the speed that the gun works at is affected by the mass of the pellet.

With the same gun, you can shoot a very light pellet and a standard pellet and the lighter pellet will go faster every time, even though they were shot by the same gun.

Knowing this, we broke out our chronometer, and with our 8.44 grain pellets, we were shooting at about 853 fps, which is pretty much the exact speed that you want for your pellet to go at. If it goes faster than about 900 fps, it begins to lose accuracy, and of course, the slower it goes, the more gravity can pull it down before it reaches the target.

At 853 fps, with an 8.44 grain pellet, the math comes out to be about 13.6 ft lbs of energy, a respectable amount of energy for a springer for sure.

We mentioned the kind of built in suppressor of the gun earlier, and how it works to keep the gun quieter than normal, which definitely works, as this gun is tied for quietest springer that we have here at Airgun Ace.

Coming out at 104 db, the gun isn’t necessarily quiet for airguns as a whole, but it is for a springer. Most of the other springers we have are 10 db louder than the Gamo Swarm. Because the way the decibel scale works, an increase of 10 db is actually a volume increase of ten times, so the Swarm Maxxim is one tenth of the volume level that most springers you encounter will be.

What I Like

Something that I haven’t mentioned yet is the weight distribution of the gun. I find that the gun feels balanced towards the rear, which makes it much easier to hold while standing or sitting. I don’t believe that this has any bearing on the accuracy of the gun, but it certainly makes aiming easier.

Did I mention that I like the magazine yet? Including this feature was a great move by Gamo, and is something that I thoroughly enjoy about this gun. In fact, it is probably my favorite feature.

I also appreciate the sound suppression system. Again, at 104 db, the gun isn’t exactly quiet for an airgun, but it does certainly drop below most springers, making it not so terribly loud when shooting.

What I Would Change

Honestly, I like the gun how it is. Maybe the only thing that I would change is adding some kind of funnel system to get the pellets to drop from the magazine and directed into the breech, but I don’t see how that would be feasible.

This is a great gun, and I am satisfied with it. I cannot think of a thing that I dislike or want to change about this gun, and would highly recommend to other people. In fact, I did recommend it to a colleague and friend of mine a little while ago.

Tanner Rydalch

Hey there, I'm Tanner. I grew up in Idaho, where there is plenty of space for shooting. I think Airguns can be a lot of fun and are a great introduction to firearms.

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