Gamo P-430 Dual Pellet/BB Air Pistol air Pistol

My first pistol of any type, and the first BB gun that I've shot in half a century. The GAMO P430 is fun. I've gone through only a couple of magazines with steel BBs. Thought I was misfiring after a couple of shots, so took a closer look at the paper target: nope, the BBs were going through the same hole, ha! Yeah, I was only 6 feet away, but the sights are pretty good. I too am considering painting bright or fluorescent markings on them. The magazine release, as everybody says, is unexpectedly slick. I like that. When I loaded with pellets (GAMO ammo) the magazine stuck a little; I really had to give it a shove. The gun would fire, but the rounds wouldn't always advance. Weird. One time with pellets the magazine wouldn't drop with a button-push, and I knifed it out easily. I replaced the pellets with BBs, and the magazine performed with its usual grace and ease. I'll try different pellets someday. Good gun. Not wasting CO2 on slide blowback. Rapid fire was fun (I'm a newb, remember). BTW--I taped a paper target to an Amazon box, and put two more boxes behind it (shooting indoors). BBs went through the first box and landed inside the second. Kind of a punch. Nice. You squirrels are on notice.

The trigger is a bit clunky but it has no negative effect on accuracy. The gun is surprisingly accurate. With 10.5 grain pellets and a fresh cartridge at 10 meters, I've been getting quarter-sized groupings. As far as power - I don't have a Chrono but at 10 meters it easily punctures 2-liter bottles of soda with the same pellets. Something to remember - when tightening the screw to puncture the cartridge make sure you tighten it firmly otherwise the hole in the CO2 cartridge will be too small which will affect your ability to take shots in quick succession. As far as the sights, they are very hard to get on target. White nail polish or a brightly colored marker helps. I have glow-in-the-dark tape that I attached to the front and rear sight to make them easier to locate. My only issue has been accidentally pressing the magazine release button. It's not a knock on the gun as the button has a hair trigger and the mag flies out with oomph! I just seem to press it every time I touch the gun. It was frustrating in the beginning but now it's pretty funny. All-in-all it's a cool little air gun if you can find it for around $40. Remember, you can't diesel a CO2.

Update: My second order of this gun is very, very different from the first. The barrel is completely loose. It's rattling around inside so zeroing this gun is impossible. What even is QA? But on a gun this cheap, I STILL can't complain (much). Update to the update: I created a Frankenstein's monster. I cannibalized the barrel and mounts from the first gun, since it had zero vibration and was able to shoot fairly accurate from the first go. This solved the problem. If you notice barrel movement or you can't get reliable grouping, reach out to Gamo for support. The seal on this second gun is holding up better than the first, and I've had no issues using Gamo CO2. crosman CO2 split, and was leaking inside the gun. Very dangerous situation, so I recommend sticking with only Gamo CO2 in this gun also. Premier Hollow Points seem to pack the most punch as far as pellets go, while Gamo pellets seem best for hunting (a bit more reliable on accuracy. I STILL highly recommend this gun, even buying a couple, because at this price you simply can not find anything with this velocy. I sincerely hope Gamo comes out with a metal body version of this, with adjustable sights in a compact form. That's my dream air pistol, even if I lose a bit of velocity. (Don't add blowback, that's just silly on this platform when it performs so well as it is). Original review: This is THE CHEAPEST HIGHEST VELOCITY air pistol on the market. I read all the reviews, so I knew the first thing to expect was a broken mag — that never actually happened to me, but I still have two spares which makes plinking that much more fun. I also knew the main seal on this is not a quality seal, so I expected that to fail too, and boy did it. The entire seal was ruptured after only a few times of using it. You can buy a captain o-ring .177/.22/.25 o-ring rebuild kit and you’ll have what you need to fix it. Mine broke, but it was the plastic clip that holds the black plastic in place for the magazine. Kinda bummed, but it was my own fault. When you get this gun, take a Phillip’s head and fully disassemble it. Clean everything really, really well, then lubricate all of the moving parts and seals. It comes from the factory with a weird zinc like residue that normally builds up after firing lead pellets. After you clean it and put it back together (you remembered to just swap out the seal, right?) you should be good to go. This gun never froze up on me, and aside from me breaking it, the only issue I saw was that it can lock the co2 canister into place if you fire it too rapidly, which will make it a pain to dislodge the co2 canister. Use a blow dryer gently warm it and it will dislodge itself. A simple fix for this would be to “bore out” the chamber for the co2 to allow for those shifts in temperature and if you’re brave enough, I highly recommend you do it.

A+ product, price and shipping

If your clip keeps falling out of the pistol grip, you ARE SO LIKELY hitting the clip release button, RIGHT WHERE YOUR THUMB IS!!! This is by far the strongest (highest velocity) plinker you will find in its price range. One loaded magazine holds 16 rounds I think. That's awesome! Very light. About as accurate as any handgun with generic sights. One CO2 gets about 75 rounds. Not bad, at such a reasonable price!!

After about the fourth CO2 cartridge every cartridge after that would leak out and the gun was useless

I was having problem with a wood pecker eating at my house. and looked at a couple of retail stores but didn’t like any of their products. Ordered this and like it a lot…..the wood pecker, not so much.