Okay, this is a good gun. Gamo has made some pretty good products that I have been pleased with so far, and the Varmint Velocity is no exception. What makes this gun great?
The Gamo Varmint Velocity is a well made gun that performs well and costs very little compared to most other airguns. It has the same accuracy level as many other more expensive airguns, with a good energy level, making this a great value airgun.
Okay, I like this gun, read on to find out why.
Would I Recommend This Gun?
Not a part of me holds back from recommending this gun to really anybody. See, this gun is a very cheap thing; it only cost us about 80 bucks, though the price has since gone up to $100 on Pyramyd Air
, though that is still incredibly cheap for what you are getting out of the deal.
The gun shoots and handles just like many other more expensive airguns, with a power output, handling level, and accuracy level of some airguns that cost over $200, again, making this gun one of the greatest value airguns that you could probably ever get your hands on.
Gamo does a great job with everything that they build, and this is no exception to that rule.
Core Features
Okay, so if this airgun shoots and handles just like many of the other more expensive airguns, why is it this one costs so little comparatively? Well, many Gamo products have features like their Recoil Reducing Rail (RRR), which does exactly what it sounds like, working to be as easy on the scope as possible, a feature that this gun doesn’t have.
So I guess you can say that even though this gun is well made, it is not engineered to the same level as many other Gamo Products are, which allows the price tag to come down, though what you get with the gun is solidly built.
The rail is a standard dovetail rail, 11 mm, with nothing special to note about it, though because it is not the fancy Recoil Reducing Rail that many other Gamo guns come with, the scope that you will mount will have lower profile, making it easier to sight, easier to mount, things like that.
The stock scope is nothing too special, a simple and not too fancy scope that gets the job done, without any unnecessary items, but built well.
There are no open sights on this gun, which is a bit of a disappointment, but I don’t normally use open sights, making it only a very small disappointment.
The stock is very nice though, being made of polymer, with some abrasion in the front to aid in gripping. Coming with a double sided Monte Carlo design for those left handed shooters, with a thick and soft rubber buttpad, shooting this gun is a very comfortable experience.
I often say that a buttpad on an airgun is not always necessary, as the recoil produced by an airgun is pretty small, but it is nice on a springer airgun, because the recoil is much greater on a springer airgun than on another type of airgun with a similar power level, making these a pretty nice feature.
The grip is a little fat though, making it so that if you had someone with particularly small hands holding the gun, they may have difficulty gripping the gun properly, reaching the trigger or the safety.
Speaking of the safety, it comes in the same fashion as many Gamo safeties do, a trigger-like structure inside of the trigger guard, just in front of the trigger, push it forward and the safety will be off, pull it in and the safety will be on.
Just be mindful that when the safety is on, it sits pretty close to the trigger, and you may have difficulty turning it off. Also, this is where the fat grip may keep someone with small hands like a child from reaching the safety. If it sits forward, the safety is pretty far from the grip. The grip is not huge, but it might be problematic for a child.
The trigger itself is pretty okay. Its not a bad trigger, but it is heavy. The pull weight is about 4.8 pounds, which is a little heavier than normal for a trigger.
If we take a gander at the barrel, we see that it is of course a break barrel, but with a fluted polymer sheath. This is only cosmetic, and I like the visual that it gives off, though the barrel is not flush with the powerplant. When you look at where the barrel and the powerplant come together, you see that there is a little edge where the barrel and the rest of the gun do not come together flushly.
This has no bearing on the performance of the gun, but if you want everything about your gun to look in perfect order, this may be a sticking point for you.
All in all, this is a simple and elegant gun that is built so be pretty solid. Its polymer stock allows the gun to handle some tougher weather, but because the spring is a normal mechanical spring, cold weather will have an effect on the performance of the gun.
So keep that in mind as you take this thing into the woods.
Performance
Without any prior experience with this gun, I took it out to 25 yards and shot the thing, testing its performance. I have to say, it did pretty well.
My groupings came out to be just over quarter sized, and if you were to not count the outlier in each group, then it would be quarter sized. This was a pleasant surprise when I took another look at the price tag on this gun, because, as I have said before, this gun that we got for about $88 shoots just like some of the ones we bought for over $130.
Shooting our 8.44 grain pellets, we got a muzzle velocity out of this gun of about 888 feet per second, which is pretty close to where you want your pellet speed to be. About 850 fps is the most optimal speed for your pellet, if it goes much faster, it generates turbulence that throws it off target.
So the gun shoots with a respectable velocity, what does that mean for its energy level? Well, with 8.44 grain pellets flying at about 888 feet per second, we can get about 14.77 foot pounds of energy, which is plenty of energy to tackle pretty much any small game that you would encounter, though I would not recommend you take a .177 version to go hunting small land game.
With the smaller pellet heads, you may be at risk of over piercing your target, which would be kind of bad.
Okay, so a respectable amount of energy with a standard caliber, with a nice bit of accuracy to boot. A very well performing gun, by all normal metrics, but what about the sound level?
At the butt of the gun, our decibel meter read a volume level of 111.2 db, which is pretty average for a springer airgun, which is interesting, because even though the gun does not come equipped with a lot of the features designed to keep the volume level down that you might see in some other Gamo products.
This is a little surprising to me, but what that means for you is that the gun isn’t particularly quiet or loud. Your neighbors will probably know if you are up to something if you go shooting in your backyard with this thing, but you are probably not likely to draw any particular attention to yourself.
Once again, this is a good gun overall.
Things I Like
I am a fan of the simplicity of this gun. While I do like features such as a gas ram or the fancy Recoil Reducing Rail that other Gamo guns come with, or silencers built into the gun, I appreciate the simplicity that this gun comes with.
Sometimes with highly engineered machines or products, you need a highly engineered solution if something breaks or needs maintenance. Because of the simple nature of what this gun offers, when the spring needs replaced or maintained, you can do that yourself. Granted you are more likely to need to fix it, but gas rams you cannot insert into a gun yourself.
So its just nice to have options available to you so that you can select what will fit you best.
I am also a fan of the rubber buttpad. Because of how light this gun is, only about 6 pounds because of the synthetic stock, the recoil in the gun is bound to be more pronounced than it would be in a heavier gun, making the butt pad a nice feature.
The fact that all of this comes together in a package under $100 is probably the best part– have I mentioned that yet?
Things I Would Change
Okay, so even though I would say that for the money you are getting a good deal , there are a few things that I wish were better than they were in the gun.
First off, since this gun is intended to be a budget airgun, I would have expected to see some open sights added to the thing. There are no open sights though. This is not a bad thing, but I probably would have added some open sights to give an option for folks who may want to get a pellet gun, but who may not have the funds to get a scope to go along with it, that way it can be an even more budget item.
I would also adjust the grip to make it a little thinner. I mentioned how it was kind of thick, and that I didn’t like that too much, as it may limit how well a child or another small person may be able to handle the gun.
I also would like to see the safety moved forward a little. I know that that sounds kind of weird because of my comments on the grip, but if you were able to trim it down, then you would also be able to reach the trigger more easily, and with the added space that you can reach, it would be easier to turn the safety off than it currently is.
