Gamo Swarm Maxxim G2 .22 Cal Pellet Rifle

I bought this Gammo .22 Cal after my tried and proven Ruger .177 finally gave up. I mainly use the air rifle in a residential neighborhood to eradicate squirrels. The Rugar did an ok job but I wanted something with a little more power.
Pros and cons:
Pros: This air rifle packs a punch; I can usually dispatch a squirrel with a single shot at distances of 100+ feet. The accuracy is good. With a good hold, trigger control, and follow through, I can cover 3 shot groups at 75’ with a ½ dollar and many times with a quarter. This is plenty accurate for what I need. The balance of the air rifle is good. The optics are an adjustable 3-9 scope. No parallax adjustment and no focus adjustment for different distances but for the money, it’s what I expected. The air rifle does come with a clamp-on rail system and the kit includes the rings. The trigger isn’t too bad for what this is (some take-up and creep but once you get a feel for it, the trigger is consistent). I like the composite stock. It’s “grippy” enough. I’ve never had the benefit of a 10-shot magazine and will say that it is nice not having to reload and fumble with a pellet for each shot.
Cons: The cocking barrel is operated with a heavy spring. I have to place the butt on the ground and operate the barrel cocking with two hands. I am however small at 5’8” and 130 lbs. I’d be confident that larger people could operate it with one hand. I also appreciate how quiet the air rifle is. I missed a squirrel at about 30’ and it didn’t even flinch.
Biggest complaint is that the owner’s manual is of NO BENEFIT. The manual contains too many inaccuracies, and it just does not provide useful information to properly setup the air rifle. For instance, the 10-shot magazine instructions are useless. Nothing to help know which way the pellets go in (point first or base first) and nothing to show how to insert the magazine into the breach. There is nothing in the manual on the trigger adjustments. Although there is a small allen head where you’d expect it to be for adhusting the trigger, there are no detials and nothing to indicate the proper size allen wrench or whether it is SAE or metric.
Overall I’m very happy with the air rifle and look forward to running out of targets very soon.

Fast shipping. Nice personal touch from seller with note and a pair of safety glasses.

Rifle is well made. Have a quality feel. Easy to cock. Decent trigger pull. Accurate enough to hunt with in the back yard.

we had rabbit digging holes behind a seawall and we tried traps with no luck. Bought this gammo air rifle, shot 10 pellets through it to sight in the scope and the next day our seawall was safe from that guy.

I bought a 22 Gamo Maxxim 2 to kill groundhogs that are eating our plants in the back yard.

(3rd update – loading mechanism broke after about 30 days (so I couldn’t return rifle to Amazon). Called Gamo, they sent me new loading mechanism at no cost to me after I described issue, I put it on the rifle just now and just hit soda can 35 yards away, rifle seems to be working okay. I suspect the loading mechanism frequently breaks in these rifles–anyway I’m satisfied, to me Gamo handled this issue well. I do have some doubts about the loading mechanism beyond a couple hundred shots. Therefore revising from five stars to four. Still a good rifle. Just not looking forward to revisiting this issue again.)

My previous air gun was an old .177 bb gun that shot about 330 fps. This rifle really puts that one to shame. I bought the .22 version of the maxxim. I watched a youtube video that considered many different air rifles and in that video this rifle was the best for me. I’ve put about 100 pellets through the rifle, mostly Gamo Red Fire pellets, which I have found to be very accurate and lethal. I bought a H&N Baracuda Hunter Extremes which have like philips head screw pattern hollow points. I’ve only shot one pellet this way.

(update 8/3/2022. I absolutely love this rifle, it has dispatched several groundhogs. It is accurate and fun to shoot. HOWEVER, it frequently fails to load a new pellet (and there is no indicator to show that a pellet has charged, or that there has been a failure to advance the magazine) which has led to me dry firing the rifle multiple times. You have to get in the habit of double checking the pellets-left indicator number to make sure it has gone down when you have recharged the rifle.)

Accuracy and trajectory: From 19 yards to 39 yards I do not offset my crosshairs. On my old bb gun the bb would drop about 4 feet at 39 yards. This rifle with gamo red fire pellets was the death of most of a family of groundhogs. Two kills yesterday at about 20 yards. One kill the previous day at 34 yards. I don’t consider myself a great marksman but I don’t see any place in my back yard that’s safe for animals I want to kill. At 39 yards I’m putting clean holes through 1/2″ boards. I shot a pen I used as a target, offhand, from 39 yards, with one shot. I’m not saying all my shots are that good, but I can definitely choose where on a groundhog body I want my shot to hit at 35 yards.

Other info: The cocking force is pretty serious. This rifle is not for kids. People are saying 30 lbs? People consider me strong but I have to strain to charge the weapon. I can do it and I could have done it when I was 17. I’m just saying it’s not something just anyone can do. I like the magazine idea. I bought an extra magazine but by accident I bought the 177 magazine instead of the 22 so I have been using the rifle with only one magazine and I basically have no problem with that. A follow up shot is not always easy to get off because it takes several seconds to recock the weapon and reaim it.

Setup: I had to read the instructions and watch a youtube video or two to figure out how to put the scope on and zero it. My scope is not dead on, I am mentally challenged in the scope zeroing department. I had to figure out roughly where the rifle is shooting and make sure it’s close to the crosshairs but I’m still pretty challenged. But I do know where the pellets are going to the extent that I can kill a groundhog, not to the extent that I can win a competition. It took me a while to get comfortable with how you load the magazine and how you put it on the weapon. The noise is not too bad. It’s definitely subsonic and the report is not that loud. My neighbor who is my friend did not appear to know I’d been shooting it, although I had taken several shots with it before I talked with him. Not as loud as a 22lr. If you forget you’ve pumped the rifle the pump disengages the second time so that prevents mistakes, which is good. The directions say it is potentially a problem to put two pellets in if you forget and repump the rifle, which could be a problem, and I’m not sure if that has happened to me. Whenever I think I might have made a mistake charging it I shoot it at a target not a groundhog. The other potential problem is that you pump the rifle when the magazine is empty, leading to an empty chamber and potentially dry firing. I am not certain but I may have dry fired the rifle a few times due to mistakes in this regard, although I understand that can be extremely bad for the rifle. But so far it’s still powerful and accurate. I saw reports that sometimes pellets fall to the ground and do not get loaded from the magazine into the barrel, but I have not seen this happen to me. Possibly fake news.

Power: The power is less than a 22LR. I have targets I shot with a 22LR and this and generally the bullets go deeper. But this thing is lethal. I would not shoot a deer with it except in a survival situation but someone on youtube claims to have killed a deer from 46 yards.

My wife doesn’t like real guns but she doesn’t mind air rifles.

I am curious how far I can walk this rifle out. My back yard ends 39 yards from my shooting position and I don’t know where I can go to shoot, so I’m not sure if I’ll find out. I’m pretty sure I can hit a target out to 60 yards without too much difficulty.