Gamo MOD. 610

Unlike many of the budget priced Gamo rifles that I’ve been looking at lately, MOD. 610 is blessed with a traditional hard wood stock rather than a synthetic. The simple beech stock has a mid brown stain and a light amount of lacquering to protect it from the elements. The cheekpiece is quite angular and clearly defined and the butt is finished with a ventilated rubber shoulder pad. Two sets of chequering panels adorn each side of the relatively narrow necked pistol grip, while the forend is plain but quite deep with a rounded underside.

At 43.5” from butt to muzzle the 610 is a full length sporter, and weighs in at around 6.2lbs un-scoped. Balance is good and the 610 sits nicely into the shoulder.

The action has a progressively hefty cocking stroke and although its 17.5” barrel offers more than ample leverage, I can only presume that the slim relatively short air cylinder is home to quite a strong spring. The good news is that the barrel locks up very securely both in the open and closed position, and on inspection of the breech area I was pleased to see Gamo have used a wedge shape-securing latch that engages with a bar when the rifle is in the closed position. I say this as rifles of this ilk and budget price bracket, often have a less efficient sprung ball catch which doesn’t offer such a solid lock up.

Open Sights

Using the open sights, even after my initial first few shots to set zero, I was very pleasantly surprised at how low the recoil and muzzle report actually were. Maybe it was because of the cocking effort I imagined it was going to be a tad unruly in this department but I needn’t have worried. Power output was approximately 10ft/lbs depending on the weight of the ammo. The open sights are of the fibre optic enhanced variety or ‘Tru-Glo’ as they’re now commonly referred to. The foresight assembly is a raised red fibre optic band (as seen from the side) showing as a dot from the rear whilst the rearsight has windage and elevation thumbwheels which operate positively and precisely.

Shooting the test rifle open sighted was a lot of fun and respectable size groups can easily be achieved at sensible ranges. As the rifle is designed to be more of a plinker with punch, with a secondary use as a close range ratter, I used open sights for most of the test period.
Usually with rifles in this sort of price bracket 1” groups aren’t hard to achieve at reasonable plinking ranges and with a little practice.  In that respect the 610 didn’t disappoint, as it regularly brought in ragged ¾” groups at 12-yds.

A relatively lengthy set of well machined dovetails along the top of the cylinder give a good base for mounting a scope. With a Gamo 3 – 9 X 40IR scope on-board I pushed the deceptively punchy rifle to 25yds and though groups opened up to a tad over 1” c-c I’d still feel confident taking smaller quarry out to 20-yds.

The 2-stage adjustable trigger unit is Gamo’s usual layout with a smaller ‘in trigger guard’ safety trigger blade positioned in front of the main blade. Both are manufactured from metal and the manual safety can be pushed forward to disengage with the front of your trigger finger if it has already been pre-set. Should you decide holding off taking the shot then it’s a simple case of pulling the safety blade back into the engaged position. Gamo have retained the old style squared off plastic trigger guard instead of changing to the more rounded metal design found on the latest models of their rifles.

To sum up, if you need a simple to operate, quite powerful plinker cum close range pest control rifle for rats, feral pigeons and the like, then the break barrel Gamo MOD.610 can certainly fulfil that requirement. If you want something with a little more power (at a slightly higher price), you can go for one of Gamo’s more refined (and pricier) models, such as their CF-30 underlever cocking rifle.

PRICE: £118