This ain't your grandfather's BB gun...

I remember the BB gun my grandfather used to let me shoot once in a while at rabbits that invaded his garden when I was 10 or 11 years old. It was a lever action gun with no safety and when you shot it you had to aim high to make sure the BB would reach its target. More often than not you could see the BB leave the barrel and fly through the air toward the target…the velocity of the BB was pretty slow.

Fast forward to last week - watching my Addicted to the Outdoors teammates consistently knock squirrels out of the tops of trees with the GAMO air rifles we had all been issued at the Squirrel Masters Classic in Alabama, brought one thought to my mind: "This ain't my grandfather's BB gun."

Indeed it wasn't.

I knew air rifles had changed - for the better - since those days shooting at rabbits in my grandfather's garden. I just didn't realize how much they had changed and how much for the better until last week.

The GAMO Whisper Fusion Pro assigned to me and most of the other hunt participants was a far cry from the BB and pellet guns of my youth - and thank goodness for that! The GAMO was quiet, very quiet. It was also very accurate much to the despair of the squirrels we bagged with the .177 caliber rifles during the hunt.

How accurate? I was able to shoot a three-shot group at 25 yards from a rest you could cover with a nickel. For me, that's pretty accurate. I saw others using the same model air rifle shoot even tighter groups. One of my fellow outdoor writers shot a three-shot group that touched!

Technically speaking, the single shot Whisper Fusion Pro in .177 caliber sends pellets downrange at 1400 feet per second. It features a break-action barrel cocking system with an automatic cocking safety. That means when you break open the barrel to cock the rifle, the safety automatically goes on. I don't know about you, but I find that comforting.

I was expecting to have to jerk the trigger, but was pleasantly pleased to find the two-stage adjustable SAT (Smooth Action Trigger) easy on the finger with a less than 4 lb. pull which accounted for some of the rifle's accuracy. The rifle comes with a synthetic stock and easily accommodates both right and left hand shooters.

At eight pounds, it weighs no more than many whitetail rifles I'm used to carrying through the woods. The 18-inch steel barrel has a fluted polymer jacket and Whisper Fusion technology (re: silencer) built in. The rifle even features a recoil pad that adsorbs nearly 75 percent of the rifles' recoil…not that you'd feel it anyway.

It comes with TruGlo sights, but better than that, the rifle comes equipped with a 3-9 x 40 air rifle scope with an adjustable objective. The scope comes mounted and bore sighted right from the factory.

So much for the technical side of things.

From a hunter's perspective, this rifle is accurate, quiet, economical and just down right fun to shoot. I plan to use mine to keep squirrels out of my attic and unwanted starlings away from my bird feeders…and, of course, plink some cans and targets now and then. I've already got one of my neighbors wanting to borrow it for the same purposes, though I think he just likes the idea having fun with it, too.

Can't say I blame him.

For additional information about GAMO air rifles and pistols, check out their website at www.gamousa.com or drop an email to Fedor Palacios, their marketing communications manager at fpalacios@gamousa.com.