.177 Gamo CFX Royal for the price of...

$400... yes indeed four hundred USD.

I would have never even thought about spending that kind of money on a Gamo (ANY money actually)! No disrespect, but I have been airgunning back in my home country Holland for about 25 years now, and got a decent collection of HW's, Air Arms, FWB, Gunpower, etc. Now my work finds myself in Kazakhstan these days and one looks for a hobby; firearm licenses as usual being a pain, the interest in airpower had been renewed once again. However, with very limited choice, and at exorbitant prices: RWS a few, the nicer models (spring) almost $750. Started to look at "B" brands (again, no disrespect... i'll come to that shortly)... Cometa; not good, terrible appearance, apart from the lots of plastic, also horrible metal finishes. Some Chinese things, I don't even (want to) remember, and a half decent choice of Gamo's. New models, lots of synthetic stocks which i'm not a big fan of, and a solid looking CFX Royal. Tried it, good fit, I like the weight (originally being a 10m match shooter), line of sight, etc... it works for me. Shot a pellet or 2 and noticed the significant spring "TWoooingggg" and harsh shot cycle. Ok... that's the brand thingie again, I thought. So with my birthday coming up the wife got it for me 400 bucks... but hey, if it's all there is, it seemed the best bang for buck$.

Got a quick warning from the shop owner that it's a European "F" version, which means it's 7 Joule... just over 5 ft/lbs Oops... that would need some work, but hey, airguns are a hobby aren't they!?

Shot a tin of pellets with the (plastic) iron sights, then decided to pull the whole thing apart and smooth some things out a bit. And of course try to figure out the trick our friends at the Gamo factory pullet to tune it down to this ridiculous 7 Joule without affecting their production process with alternative parts, increasing costs. Spring seemed nothing spectacular, but standard, preload and so on ok. Had another nights sleep over it and looked again... and discovered something that I hadn't come across before. Some genius decided that the easiest way to achieve set goal was to figure out how much air you needed to loose to get down to the "desired" speed, and drilled A HOLE in the front of the piston ) Well that explains a lot of the Twoing, Smack, Bang with total lack of power! Basically "half-dry-firing" with every shot!

Anyway, wanted to replace spring, hole needed to be filled, new seal, as the original one looked new but already damaged, and needed a scope. Shopping list: Apex seal, Moly, Tar, Spacers, Washers, E3650 Mainspring and a 30MM "Leufake" MILdot scope.

Result; An absolutely lovely shooting airgun, have not had enough time yet for extensive consistency and accuracy testing, but as far as "the shooting experience" is concerned, I would almost say it's on par with some a the big brands' toys that I have! Scope is nice, 30MM tube, took the additional Scope rail that Gamo sticks on the rifle off, lines up better for me. Of course I can't say what made the biggest difference exactly, but closing the hole in the piston head and the Maccari spring with heavy tar obviously must have made the biggest improvements. Other than that I can't say that i'm overly disappointed in the plastic trigger, ok, it's heavy and squishy, but it's not a FWB, I'll live with it for now.

Right, this turned into a much longer story than I expected... but hey it's my first post here, so I'd though let's make the most of it. Conclusion is (again) that airguns are COOL, and (new experience) so is Gamo! Other than that, time to get outside to get plinking ) Will be back with more info when the rifle breaks in and I learn.

Will try to attach few picks showing the whole package, the hole in the piston head, and the tarred up replacement spring.