Yes, I am a proud owner of quite a few Gamo springers..
Even though Gamo has littered the market with their economy type springers. Apparently they have made a nitch in the market. They may not be a high quality springer but there is hope.
My experience came a year ago when I moved to South Carolina to retire. Noticed allot of ground rats and tree rats all around my property. I was in the process of adding onto the house I bought and had allot of construction material laying around covered up during the late fall and into the winter.
I remember my late brother who lived in a remote area in Oregon had bought a Chinese pellet gun to get rid of the varmints. So I started a search on the Internet. Came across air gun forums right away. I registered and read posts for a couple weeks and tried to understand all the air gun lingo..
Finally I started asking questions. Gamo was the biggest topic on this particular forum. So I took some advice and went out and bought a Gamo Shadow 1000. Brought it home and started eliminating the rats and squirrels. When I would kill 5 rats, 10 more would show up the next week and the same with the squirrels. Was going through allot of pellets at the time and went back to the forum for more knowledge. My next purchase was a Gamo Hunter Royal 1250. When I got it via UPS, I found out that it had way too much power for what I was using it for.. Next was a Gamo CFX Royal .177 which turned out to be allot more accurate than the Gamo Shadow 1000.
Since that point I had met a gentleman named Bob Werner, AKA Charlie Da Tuna..
He is a springer gunsmith and a very very good one at that. So one by one I had him tune, de-bur and replace the Gamo stock triggers with his own triggers. As I got each of the Gamo's back, I could hardly believe the difference in how they performed. I now have 12 Gamo springers now along with several others, Co2's, PCP's and a couple of used air guns I bought off the auctions. All of the springers I have had tuned and trigger mods by CDT.
So the idea of just buying one air gun to kill varmints turned into a fantastic hobby of mine now. I shoot allot of paper and still am active killing varmints.
I have had the opportunity to shoot many other air guns, which cost up to 4 times as much as any of my Gamo springers. Some are of very high quality.
I will finish by saying that Gamo air guns have allot of potential to be very good shooters. I have recently replaced my first Gamo Shadow 1000 stock .177 barrel with a Lothar Walther .20 choked barrel. I always wanted a Beeman R1 or R9 in a .20. Now I think I have found something better..
Even though I own some very nice PCP's and other springers, I always reach for my Gamo's to shoot with most of the time. The challenge of learning the proper technique of holding and shooting a springer is such a personal challenge.
Gene_SC
I am a baby in the airgunning world, but give me time and I will catch up.