Some airgun advancements really do change the game. Gamo’s utterly brilliant mechanism to make a break-barrel air rifle into a multi-shot self-loading is one such advancement. They even took it a stage further, by making the pellet magazine the same rotary-type we are all now familiar with when shooting pre-charged pneumatic, magazine-fed air rifles. They call it ‘the 10x Quick-Shot system’ – ten, of course, meaning the ten pellets you load into the magazine. 

There are no open sights with this gun – the place the rear sight would be is taken up by the magazine system. The barrel itself is shrouded, finished with a large vented muzzle brake, and the fluted bull barrel is 29mm in diameter, making it very easy to get hold of for cocking – the muzzle brake is a touch bigger at 32mm. 

Gamo Whisper X Swarm magazineTried and tested magazine system

Now for the magazine; it’s a tried and tested system with a rotary wheel at it’s heart – a wheel with ten holes for pellets, spring-loaded, so it’s under tension.  You manually rotate around, so each of the ten chambers can be loaded with a lead pellet, in this case .22, and the pellets are held in central wheel with an ‘O’ ring running mid-section of the wheel – only use diablo skirted pellets so the ‘O’ ring can hold them in. 

The rectangular opening on top of the rifle accepts the magazine – push in until you hear a click. To release the mag’ there is a large button on the scope rail side of the mag opening. Handily, is has a bar and arrow eject symbol, the same you find on Blue-ray players. 

Gamo Whisper X Swarm trigger and safetyPut the safety on!

When it comes to shooting the rifle, it has a manual safety catch and an anti-bear trap system. The safety is a small curved lever right in front of the trigger blade. Please get into the habit of putting it on before you cock the rifle. Just pull it back toward the trigger blade to set it to ‘safe’. 

Cocking the action also loads a pellet into the barrel when it reaches full cock. Shut the action with a snap and you can push the safety catch forward to ‘off’ when you are ready to fire. 

Ten shots can be fired in less than 30 seconds with this system. When you are shooting at that speed, watch that you don’t fire on an empty chamber in the magazine. A white warning triangle appears in the window at the top of the magazine, and a white dot appears in a window facing the shooter. Firing on an empty chamber can damage the rifle. You can remove the magazine at any time by pressing the eject button. 

Over the chronograph, the rifle was very consistent indeed, and with a typical magazine of 10 shots, five of them were the same – 566 feet per second. Power output with 16 grain pellets was 11.03 ft.lbs.

Gamo Whisper X Swarm scopeEasy-fit scope

Fitting the scope provided was easy, Gamo also supply a single-piece mount, which has a recoil arresting pin in the rear. The scope rail is pure BSA. It’s clamped to the 11mm machined rails, and it’s 150mm long with a recoil arrestor pin hole. The 3-9 x 40 W1PM scope has ¼” clicks at 100yds, with finger-friendly turrets and has the parallax set for airgun ranges, at 25 yards. The raised scope rail works well because it allows the scope to clear the magazine system. 

Gamo Whisper X Swarm stockUltra-modern stock and trigger

The rifle is fully capable for hunting or plinking and the black synthetic stock is ultra-modern looking with angled lines prominent on the trigger blade, cheek piece, pistol grip and even the thumb hole – or holes in the case of the Whisper X Swarm. 

Two colour touches are the light grey, curved trigger blade, and the thin, light blue spacer on the butt pad. It’s ambidextrous and very comfortable in use with a single textured grip area extending from the fore end, past the integral trigger guard and on to the pistol grip. You certainly know who it’s made by, as well. The Gamo name is moulded into both sides of the stock’s rear, and there’s a logo on the base of the pistol grip. 

Gamo Whisper X SwarmGreat fun to shoot

At the range, the gun shot very well, and I had massive amounts of fun just shooting a break-barrel air rifle without having to mess about loading every pellet. Once cocked, you can lift the loading system arm up and toward you to inspect the breech to see if a pellet is in there – as well as looking at the number in the magazine window. 

I felt very quickly that I needed another magazine or two, and luckily, you can buy these for £29.95.  The 10x Quick-shot never missed a beat in any of my extensive (and fun) testing. It takes the humble break-barrel air rifle to another shooting level.  

Gamo Whisper X Swarm break actionGamo Whisper X Swarm test conslusions

A self-loading, break-barrel air rifle was the stuff of dreams as a young shooter. It really does live up to the hype – it’s awesome!

Specifications

Manufacturer        Gamo
Country or origin                Spain
Distributor        BSA UK Ltd (01217 728543)
Model        Whisper X Swarm
Type         Break-barrel rifle
Barrel length               510mm 
Overall length        1115mm 
Length of pull        355mm
Calibre        .177; .22 (.22 tested)
Sights        None, 3-9 x 40 Gamo Scope supplied 
Trigger weight        1.4kg 
Weight        3.0kg
Price                £239 RRP