However the company stepped over the line in my opinion, by launching an advertising campaign touting the use of these 5 grain alloy pellets for taking hog sized game. I am posting a statement below that I made on the Yellow Forum.
On a personal note I am not going to remove my writeups because I think many of their guns are a good choice for some airgunners, but I am going to take a hiatus from them until the company acts in a more responsible manner.
I think we’ve all seen the video footage of Steve Scot from Safari Hunter Journal shooting the hog with a .177 Gamo Hunter rifle. As somebody that has been involved with hunting all his life and airgun hunting for a couple of decades, I find this footage very troubling. Those that want to pursue game with an airgun have an uphill battle in this country persuading our mainstream hunting brethren that these are valid hunting implements.
The appropriate airgun (with respect to power, caliber, and accuracy) is an effective and efficient tool for taking larger game, when the hunter knows where to place the bullet, can get into the appropriate range for that gun/game, and is selective with their shot placement. This is not done as a stunt as some have claimed, but to increase the challenge and therefore the meaningfulness of the hunt. It is the same reason some hunters gravitate towards bow hunting, handgun hunting, and muzzle loaders (pre inline shoot-the-deer-at-200-yards muzzle loaders). I personally am not a proponent of shooting the biggest animal possible with an airgun or trying to stretch the distance as far as possible, for me this negates the reason I use an airgun. Having said this, I don’t have a problem with those that do, so long as the gun is capable, the shot selection good, and the hunt legal.
Here is the key statement for this discussion “the gun is capable”. What I mean by this is; that the hunter has a reasonable expectation on every shot that his quarry is going to go down. This does not mean the animal simply drops in his tracks, as even with a large bore centerfire a well hit animal may run and need to be tracked. But that the shot will kill and the animal will be recovered. Every time I put the crosshairs of my DAQ .457 on a hog, a deer, an antelope, a springbuck, etc. I expect it to go down. This is the usual but not inevitable outcome, but when I fail it is me and not the gun. This is the same criteria I use when hunting rabbits or squirrels with a small bore airgun; I’m sure of the gun, sure of the range, and I know where to place the shot, and have a reasonable expectation of the outcome
When this guy shoots a pig with a .177 springer, or anybody shoots any pig with any .177 at any range, they are violating the basic precept of knowing (or even having a reasonable expectation) that shot will kill. Notice that earlier I spoke about an effective and efficient kill but did not say ethical kill. That is because ethical is qualitative whereas effective and efficient are quantitative. Ethics are also to some degree situational; if I were a sustenance hunter trying to feed my family, spotlighting a deer and shooting it in the head with a twenty two rifle might slide by my ethical threshold, where as a sport hunter / trophy hunter this would not be considered for a moment, violating every ethical consideration. But you could consider shooting a deer in the head with a twenty two rifle at 10 yards as it stood stunned be a high power light both effective and efficient. Regardless of the legality and regardless of the ethics, my position is that if it is not effective and efficient it should not be done. Now this should coincide with the legal and ethical guidelines, but for the sake of discourse I’ll separate them.
If you read this forum, you know that I have stood behind lower cost and mainstream airguns that are not well liked by some of the more sophisticated airgunners. My reason is simple; these guns get more people into the sport, and the more people involved in the sport the better it is for all of us. I truly believe that I can go out in the field with a marginal Gamo and far out perform most target and FT shooters (that are better shots with more accurate rifles), because I am a better hunter, the gun I'm using is good enough, and the gun is but a single variable in the process. For this reason I’ve supported companies like Gamo, they serve a purpose and in my mind should get some props for that.
Having said this, for any good this company has done in the past, their positioning of an ineffective pellet for hunting and public demonstration of its use in a wholly inappropriate situation, and then compounding the infraction by flooding the shooting/hunting world with footage of the stunt (and yes it is a stunt) undermines anything good they have done or may do.
Now Gamo is just a company and the decision to use this footage was most probably made by a committee staffed with MBAs , Market Com people, and Product Managers that probably don’t have a clue about hunting. That’s not an excuse and is still wrong. But Steve Scott should know better and he should have known it was not efficient, not effective, and with all of his talk of hunting ethics on his show (which I enjoy) not ethical. But he did it, because Gamo sponsors his show and big money is most probably involved.
I have been accused (and have defended myself) of the charge that since I write about airguns (and get guns on loan) and hunting nothing I say is honest or correct. A well known writer I met at a SHOT Show a few years back told me to expect this, it happens to anybody that has any visibility. So I take it with a grain of salt though it can still leave a bitter taste. Whether you agree with me or not, whether I am right or wrong, what I say is what I believe. Having said this, I think what Gamo and Steve Scott have done is wrong; they took a gun and pellet that were not efficient, not effective and not ethical, and killed an inappropriate quarry with it. Then they promoted it in a way that makes others think that if they buy this gun, this ammo, etc., they can do the same. The fact that this is wrong is so obvious to anyone that understands the guns capabilities or hunting; it will do more damage to the use of airguns for hunting in this country than any single event I can think of.
The reason for this rant is that, as a moderator on one of the hunting forums and a member/visitor to many forums all over the world I’ve seen more and more newbies asking if this stunt is something they could pull off……. if they had a Gamo Hunter and a pack of Raptor pellets. Gamo should be ashamed, and Steve Scott should be livid to have his name associated with this stunt. I will keep a copy of this and send it it out evertime I get an email from some kid, or some newbie to airguns, asking me if I’ve seen the cool footage of the guy that shot a pig with a .177 pellet……. it's very disappointing.!