{"id":1411,"date":"2011-06-13T01:06:28","date_gmt":"2011-06-13T08:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/?p=1411"},"modified":"2011-06-14T11:05:57","modified_gmt":"2011-06-14T18:05:57","slug":"the-gamo-silent-stalker-whisper-%e2%80%93-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/the-gamo-silent-stalker-whisper-%e2%80%93-part-i.html","title":{"rendered":"The Gamo Silent Stalker Whisper \u2013 Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Gamo Silent Stalker Whisper<\/p><\/div>\n

Well, it happened again: I ran into another<\/em> air rifle that I seem unable to shoot well. The first one was about ten years ago, a Beeman Crow Magnum air rifle built by Theoben with a gas ram in it instead of a spring. It was, quite simply, the prettiest piston powerplant air rifle I\u2019ve ever seen. The quality of the bluing on the barrel and receiver was phenomenal, and the stock, carved out of some exotic wood, was gorgeous. And I couldn\u2019t shoot it for beans. In fact, I was lucky to hold inch-and-a-half groups at 10 yards with it.<\/p>\n

The second air rifle to flummox me is the Gamo Silent Stalker Whisper<\/a>, and that happened just last week. We\u2019ll get to my tale of woe in just a little bit, but first let\u2019s take a tour of this new air rifle from Gamo.<\/p>\n

The Silent Stalker series, available in .177 and .22, is apparently Gamo\u2019s first venture into the world of gas-ram powerplants. Gamo calls theirs IGT \u2013 Inert Gas Technology.\u00a0 All that means is that, instead of the spring that you would normally find in a spring-piston powerplant, there is a gas-filled cylinder.\u00a0 When you break the barrel of the Silent Stalker to cock it and load a pellet, instead of compressing a spring, you are compressing the gas within the cylinder until the trigger latches. When you pull the trigger, the gas is permitted to expand, driving the piston forward, compressing air in front of the piston, and providing the power to drive the pellet out of the breech and down the barrel.<\/p>\n

The advantage of the IGT (gas ram) powerplant is that there is no spring to fatigue, kink, or wear out. There is no spring noise during cocking and no twang, vibration, or torque when the shot is triggered. I believe that Theoben originated the use of this technology in air rifles, and, in addition to Gamo, Weihrauch, Theoben, and Crosman all offer versions of gas ram powerplants.<\/p>\n

In addition to the gas ram powerplant, the Silent Stalker Whisper also incorporates Gamo\u2019s ND52 noise damper technology which is essentially a non-removable silencer built into the muzzle end of the barrel.<\/p>\n

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The Gamo Silent Stalker Whisper features a thick rubber butt pad and an ambidextrous polymer thumbhole stock.<\/p><\/div>\n

At the back end of the Silent Stalker Whisper (SSW) is a thick black rubber butt pad. Forward of that is a matte black polymer thumbhole stock that is ambidextrous and finished with a very fine grain pebbly finish for easy gripping. Forward of the buttstock, the trigger guard is molded of the same material as the stock and surrounds a black plastic trigger and a black metal non-automatic lever safety. Push the safety toward the muzzle to enable firing and pull back toward the trigger to safe the action.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The fiber optic front sight sits on top of the ND52 noise damper.<\/p><\/div>\n

Underneath the forestock near the forward end, there is a slot that provides clearance for the linkage when cocking the SSW. Moving ahead is the barrel. The muzzle end holds the ND52 sound suppressor and a hooded red fiber optic sight. Moving back toward the receiver, the barrel is surrounded in fluted polymer right back to and including the breech block. (Peering at the breech block when the action is fully broken, I think I can see circular metal wear plates on either side of the breech block.) On top of the breech block is a rear fiber optic notch sight that is adjustable for elevation and windage. Moving back again, there is an elevated dovetail for mounting a scope at the rear of the receiver. The SSW includes a 3-9×40 scope with one-piece mount. That\u2019s all there is to the Silent Stalker Whisper<\/a>. Because of liberal use of polymers, the entire package \u2013 rifle, scope and mount, which stretches 46 inches from end to end \u2013 weighs only 7 lb. 2 oz.<\/p>\n

Next time, we\u2019ll take a look at what it is like to shoot the SSW.<\/p>\n

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jock Elliott<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, it happened again: I ran into another air rifle that I seem unable to shoot well. The first one was about ten years ago, a Beeman Crow Magnum air rifle built by Theoben with a gas ram in it instead of a spring. It was, quite simply, the prettiest piston powerplant air rifle I\u2019ve…»<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1411"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1546,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411\/revisions\/1546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}