is the gamo whisperer any good as quite varmint plinker that will not exercise the natives?

Yes, dont buy the combo, the scope doubles as a tent stake. do buy the GRT-III trigger.

quote:

Originally posted by hockea:
Yes, dont buy the combo, the scope doubles as a tent stake. do buy the GRT-III trigger.

Yes, I will second it.

For not much more you can get a decent gun, and be happy.
Or look for a good used gun by any of the quality makers.

Air Arms, Daystate, any of the German guns, Older BSAs the new ones suffer from rubbish quality control (ever since the link up with GAMO).

Love the rifle, but starlings & sparrows DO NOT! The scope is the weak spot. try the Power pellets.

How efficient is the "silencer" on the Whisper?
Is it worth buying?

I am not sure about the whisper, but with most springers in general I would not worry too much about noise when plinking around the back garden. Most of the new powerful Gamos will probably not be offensive unless you use one of those super light 'cracker' pellets in one that will probably sound like a bazooka going off, and am not sure how good they are for the spring either.

I believe the triggers on the Gamos are generally not great and it is hard to shoot well when you can not predict when the trigger will break every time. I think that you can also get fully-shrouded pcps these days too which seem to be all the craze at the moment as they negate the need for an external silencer which would probably be very useful in the USA. I would certainly try save up for one of those or go for a Diana or Weihrauch first. Rather save up a bit more for a quality gun, then you probably won't have any tears or regrets later!