Gamo delta fox gt whisper

Airguns needn`t be expensive to still offer fun especially if all you are after is a casual afternoons plinking or target practice with the family.

With most older-style air rifles they were wood and all-metal still making them heavy for the younger shooter but with newer polymers and injection mouldings there are now affordable and good handling air rifles available.

I was at C H Westons in Brighton picking up some classic air rifles when my gaze saw what seemed to be an all polymer pint-sized air rifle. The Gamo Delta Fox GT Whisper in .177 is an eye-catching design and ideally suited to the novice shooter on a budget.

Priced at £79.99 the Delta Fox is a break barrel rifle with thumbhole polymer stock and polymer coated barrel with High Vis open sights and a lower output of about 5ft/lbs.

Breaking Good

Made from a tough black polymer moulding the two halves are glued together for strength and gives the rifle a nice texture finish yet keeping it light weight. It has a matt black crinkle finish and there are three recessed panels in the forend for grip, whilst the pistol grip has a single raised panel for extra support. The thumbhole section is very open, so great for easy access and with a slim yet straight upright position which is surprisingly comfortable. The stock is ambidextrous, there is no cheekpiece, and it is finished off with a large, hard, black rubber recoil pad with ventilated sides. Length of pull is 13.5 inches, so reasonably short, but not too short – still comfortable for an adult-sized shooter to hold. The trigger guard is integral to the bottom of the stock with access for one stock screw and two further screws hold the forend to the cylinder.

The design is typical of a break barrel sporting air rifle, having a small detent sprung in the breech face that locks into the bottom of the air cylinder. It’s a hard plastic/ polymer as is the breech itself, with the barrel being a metal liner that is housed within. This is then totally shrouded along its length ending in a bulbous integral silencer chamber.

The barrel measures 19.5 inches from breech to the muzzle shroud end, but actually the barrel is only 15.5 inches long inside and thus there is 4.0 inches of free space for a noise dampening effect. The outside is fluted and recessed to give a less plain look and the sights are housed within moulded housings.

The foresight has a ventilated hood with a bright red High Vis dot. This is complemented by the rear sight that has twin green high vis dots and is adjusted for windage and elevation by thumbwheels calibrated in 0-9 increments.

For a small gun the lock up is very positive and gives a repeatable alignment of the barrel to the air cylinder.

Cylinder, Trigger and Safety

The cylinder too is trim, measuring a scant 1 1/8 inch diameter and 9.5 inches long, but is all steel and has a traditional blued finish with the Gamo logo and name in gold etched into its surface. There is also the proviso of mounting a scope via twin 11mm dovetail rails and 6.5 inches long.

Trigger-wise you have a smooth surfaced slim plastic trigger blade. On cocking the trigger engages and cannot be de-cocked, so a fail-safe here. The trigger pull is a two-stage affair with a long first-stage and then a quite lengthy creepy second-stage finally breaking at 5lbs pressure. It won`t win awards for finesse but on a rifle at this price it’s fine.

The safety is manual and is a blade positioned in front of the trigger that needs to be pulled towards the trigger to set and then pushed forward when you want to shoot.

In The Field (garden!)

The Gamo is so light it handles surprisingly well and all the family could hold, cock and load the rifle with ease. There is no real effort to cock and as stated before it locks up very well. The breech is sealed via an ‘o’-ring situated in the face of the air cylinder, not the barrel, and it sits squarely. Once cocked and loaded the trigger is not superb but most novices will be fine with it. Despite the pseudo silencer the Delta Fox actually had a reasonable snap to the muzzle sound, but not unduly noisy. There was also a little spring noise but the lock time was quite fast.

Accuracy wise I set up some targets at 20 yards instead of the usual 30 yards, as this seemed more logical for a junior rifle. Power is limited, stated at 5ft/ lbs, in reality it ran close at 4.75 ft/lbs with the A.A.Diabolo Express achieving 498.8fps and 1.25 inch groups at 20 yards. Even faster were the light 7.2gr domed Geco pellets at 503.1 fps for 4.1ft/lbs energy. They were accurate too, with 1.0 inch groups at 20 yards. Best accuracy went to the RWS Hobbies at under an inch and very consistent with a power output of 3.4ft/lbs and 472.4fps.

Overall pellet results were good for this plinking gun, so no worries; for the younger shooter and safe back yard plinker the Delta Fox has a lot going for it.

Conclusion

Cheap, reliable, powerful enough and accurate at short ranges, the Gamo Delta Fox GT Whisper puts a smile on the face. You can fit a scope and the accuracy tests were achieved with one but, actually, most of the time we spent shooting it with open sights at spinners and paper targets. This is good-value and a good-looking rifle for the money. What more do you want?

My thanks to Mark at C.H.Westons (01273 326 338) for supplying the Gamo Delta Fox GT Whisper

PRICE: £79.99
DISTRIBUTOR: BSA Guns Ltd www.bsaguns.co.uk