Hadn't noticed this thread before!
Squirrels and bunnies are NOT safe on my property with this hunter roaming freely! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />
Squirrel and bunny fur make great fish-catchers (I tie flies)!
The rifle is a
highly modded Gamo Whisper. I had a few gift cards at one point, so bought the original rifle (would have liked to have gotten something nicer). In it's stock form, it wasn't good enough for me (I like to tinker), so I started by putting the GRT-III trigger on it. The "iron sights" sucked, so I took them completely off. Also, I didn't like the synthetic stock, so I bought that beech one you see directly from Gamo and made the Whisper guts fit into it (didn't take much). While I had it taken apart, I did a full tune on it.
Shortly after that, I still wasn't completely satisfied. It shot decent groups, but I disliked the spring twang and torque, even after the tune. So I decided to add a gas piston to it. I am pretty certain I was the first person to modify their Whisper to fit one (and maybe one of the only ones to ever do it).
The gas piston shoots much better, and is faster than the spring. No twang, just a solid "thunk" when you pull the trigger. However, the Gamo scope couldn't handle the recoil of the gas piston. It
quickly died. I put a Wally-World special "CenterPoint" 4-16x40 AO scope on it, and it has been fine since. It is harder to [censored], but it doesn't bother me in the slightest. It runs just a bit under 1,000 fps with 8.8 grain Beeman Crow Magnums, and I have lost track of how many squirrels and bunnies it has taken over the last few years.
Here it is right after the new scope addition:
The copper cap on the end is to hold the cross-bolt in place which holds the action together. The new stock had some relieving around that area for a similar plastic Gamo part (which they would not sell me), and the bolt was walking sideways a bit. It made me uncomfortable, so I made this cap out of a plumbing part by pounding it to shape.
Ironic thing is that you can now buy a wooden stocked, gas piston driven Whisper straight from Gamo. Royalties please? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />