Plenty of people could use a good air rifle to help maintain their property or provide some light home defense. But regular guns are too loud or dangerous for frequent use or might be heavily regulated depending on where you live. At the same time, you don’t want to just get a cheap air pistol that lacks any real bite.
If you need a versatile, intuitive rifle to help patrol your property and maybe take care of some small critters that pester your grounds, look no further than the Gamo Silent Cat air rifle. It’s sturdy and easy to use and it’s great for killing small rodents, hunting squirrels and similar creatures. It helps accomplish these feats thanks to its noise dampener, located on the end of its long barrel.
The weapon is quite powerful for its size and type. This allows it to pack a huge punch; beware of letting kids use this excellent firearm. It’s still safe despite the power thanks to smart design features included on the stock and handle.
Gamo Silent Cat Air Rifle Review
Amazon.com Features
- Warranty: One year limited warranty
- Skeleton Stock & 4x32 scope!
Gun Specifications
The Gamo Silent Cat Air Rifle is a .177 caliber weapon that uses pellets of the appropriate type. Despite the small pellet size, it has quite a kick that can manage to deliver decent damage to targets and eliminate smaller critters that need eliminating on your property.
The Silent Car uses an 18-inch barrel to deliver its rounds to the target. The longer barrel also helps it muffle its noise through the use of its mounted dampener, described further down below. As a whole, the rifle weighs around 7 pounds only. It’s very easy to carry around.
The stock has cheek pads for right and left-handed users, so everyone can take advantage of its abilities with relative ease. The ventilated pad reduces overall recoil to make the weapon even easier to handle.
When holding the rifle, you’ll notice the thumb socket that’s positioned so that gripping the rifle feels similar to holding a pistol. There’s a safety nearby that you should trigger anytime you’re not about to fire. An automatic cocking safety is included as well.
Opening the barrel to load a pellet requires about 30 lbs of force, which is manageable by most teenagers of either gender. Trigger pulls require around 3.79 lbs of force. That mild force sends out pellets at 1200 feet per second: quite good for hunting small animals, and too hard for casual play. Keep the rifle out of reach of children.
The Silent Car comes with a 4×32 scope. This is ideal for short-range sighting and hitting targets at the outer edge of its effective range. It can also be used to track fast-moving critters since it has low magnification. However, it’s not a very durable scope and you might consider replacing it once you can afford to do so.
Overall, the accuracy of the Silent Cat measures in at about 25 yards. This is the most effective working range for the rifle, although you can hit targets as far as 150 yards out. The farther you go, the more drastic you’ll notice the range drop off, however.
Quality
The Silent Cat’s quality is decent, especially considering its price. The rifle fires accurately within its intended range and delivers enough power to kill any animals within its intended size class, but it quickly loses power once you try to hit farther targets.
In terms of durability, the rifle is middling. The scope, as mentioned above, isn’t the most sturdy piece of equipment like an AR-15 Scope and you may discover after a few hours of use that it starts to wobble. The stock is relatively sturdy and helps dissipate recoil, but the little thumb-hole space by the handle is really tiny. Larger hands might have trouble fitting inside.
The barrel opens and closes consistently even after lots of reloading. It shouldn’t fall apart any time soon provided you open it smoothly each time without the use of a tool or blunt instrument.
Finally, the trigger is usually smooth but has a habit of catching on some models. Take care when first firing your weapon and consider trying maintenance if you notice the trigger’s performance is going down. Overall, it’s a good choice for what it’s made for: defending property and shooting rodents. The asking price is good for these reasons.
Noise of Gun
Since the rifle is generally going to be used for killing pests or small rodents, it doesn’t need to be too loud. In fact, keeping it quiet is likely to make your hunting attempts that much more successful. To that end, the rifle is certainly quiet compared to larger or higher-power rifles.
It has a noise-dampening design that reduces its shot volume by about 25% to 50%. This may not sound like much, but it’s enough that it’s noticeable, particularly if you fire it next to a louder rifle. The dampener is mounted to the barrel and is easily viewable; it’s the larger end of the cone that disseminates the sound as the round emerges.
The dampener can’t be removed, so keep this in mind. Lighter ammunition will be a bit louder since it will more easily break the sound barrier, but overall, the rifle is fairly quiet compared to many other air rifles.
Appropriate Animals
The Silent Cat is designed to hunt and kill small rodents. Creatures like rabbits, rats, and squirrels are all fair game and you should be able to kill them with a single well-placed pellet each time. However, some glancing shots will require another pellet to finish the target off altogether.
For larger animals, the Silent Cat is not recommended. It lacks the power to punch through thicker hide or more fur and will end up only injuring the animal, which is cruel, or making it angry, which is bad for you.
Since it can kill smaller critters, you should keep the gun away from children and never use it for play. Even if it can’t kill a person, it can cause serious damage that will take medical intervention to heal effectively.
Maintenance
Maintaining your Silent Cat air rifle should be relatively easy. Gamo themselves offer a plethora of maintenance products, such as a cleaning set that can be used for most of their weapons, as well as individual gun cleaning oils.
You should maintain your rifle each time you use it, preferably by cleaning the barrel and inspecting the loading chamber. In addition, your rifle should be emptied each time you’re finished using it. A loaded air rifle is a potential danger to anyone who isn’t ready for the trigger to produce results.
Overall, pay attention to your rifle and learn to maintain it properly to keep it working well over the years to come. Failing to do so could cause the air rifle to break during use and potentially cause injury to yourself or others. No one wants their rifle to fail right at the worst moment.
Pros
- Feels easy to use and fire
- Very affordable for most
- It’s quiet and great for shooting skittish creatures
- Low noise means you can use it in suburbs without drawing attention
- Safe to use thanks to safety switch
- Comes with scope
Cons
- Included scope has questionable quality
- Trigger is sometimes finicky
- The thumb-hole space is too small for many people
- Accuracy quickly drops off at far end of range.
Bottom Line
As you can see, the Gamo Silent Car air rifle is one of the best you can buy, especially for its price range. It’s versatile and effective at several different tasks without becoming too hard to manage or maintain. No matter your size or experience with air rifles, you should be able to use it well and get your money’s worth. Thanks for reading!
