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CO2 Gamo P-25 air pistol: Part 1

Gamo P-25 air pistol: Part 1

by Tom Gaylord, a.k.a. B.B. Pelletier

Gamo P-25 air pistol
Gamo P-25 is a 16-shot blowback pellet pistol.

Okay, now for something a little different. The Gamo P-25 air pistol is a 16-shot pellet pistol with blowback and a rifled barrel. This pistol operates on CO2, and the 12-gram cartridge is hidden inside the grip.

Normally, a gun like this is a BB gun, but this time there’s a rifled barrel — and the chance to shoot many different lead pellets, plus a trigger that’s both single-action and double action. Because of the blowback action, you’re going to shoot this gun single-action most of the time.

The P-25 is a 21st century handgun is every respect. It’s nearly all synthetic, entirely black and the grip is fat, as though enclosing a double-stacked magazine. The fixed sights feature three white dots — like night sights, but without tritium inserts. Align the three dots and put the center dot over your target…and I assume you’ll have minute-of-soda-can accuracy at 25 feet. We’ll find out more about that when we test the pistol for accuracy.

I like the fact that this pistol comes with blowback. That gives a realistic feel to each shot, which makes this a good trainer for maintaining firearms proficiency. When we get to the accuracy test, I’ll let Edith shoot the pistol and give her assessment, too. The gun I’m testing is serial number 12F31301.

The P-25 is a large pistol. Maybe it looks like a pocket pistol in the photograph above, but in person it’s larger than an M1911A1 in all ways, save length.

Trigger
The trigger is very strange. Usually a single-stage trigger is crisper and lighter than a 2-stage trigger, but this one isn’t. While the pull weight isn’t that heavy, there’s a country mile of takeup even in the single-stage mode — i.e., when the hammer is already cocked. Once the takeup is done, though, the trigger breaks cleanly enough. It isn’t exactly crisp, but it is light and very predictable. I don’t think I’ll have any trouble with it.

The double-action pull is relatively light, though you’ll only feel it on the first shot after installing the magazine. Once the gun fires, the slide blows back, cocking the hammer for every successive shot.

The trigger blade is very wide. I find that gives a nice feel to the pull when I’m trying to control the let-off or point at which the trigger breaks.

Safety
The safety is another matter. It’s one of those Euro-lawyer safeties that have a center switch that’s pulled back before the lever can be moved. There’s no way to operate this kind of safety with one hand. It blocks the trigger when its on.

Gamo-P-25-air-pistol-safety
The toothed bar must be pulled back (to the left) before the safety lever can be moved.

Magazine
The magazine is a stick type with two circular pellet clips — one on either end. It’s a drop-free design, and the release button is on the left front of the grip frame, where a right-handed shooter expects it to be. The mag has to be ejected and turned around for the second 8 shots.

CO2
This gun runs on CO2. The manufacturer says it gets up to 425 f.p.s. with pellets, and we will test that for you in Part 2. The cartridge is hidden in the grip, and this time the enclosure is different. The bottom rear of the grip is pulled away from the rest of the grip, and two-thirds of the CO2 compartment is exposed. When the cartridge is installed, a conventional piercing screw tensions and pierces the cartridge. Don’t forget to put a drop of Crosman Pellgunoil on the tip of each new cartridge as it’s installed. That will keep your gun sealed for many years.

Recoil
The P-25 is moderately heavy, at 29 oz., so the blowback action causes a fair amount of bounce. It feels not much different than a medium-weight .22 rimfire pistol shooting standard-speed long rifle rounds.

Barrel
The barrel is rifled steel. That gives me some hope that this pistol will also be accurate. If the blowback feature doesn’t use too much gas, the P-25 could turn out to be a very nice plinking air pistol.

All things considered, at this point the Gamo P-25 air pistol looks like a good one. I hope it delivers on that promise.

author avatar
Tom Gaylord (B.B. Pelletier)
Tom Gaylord, also known as B.B. Pelletier, provides expert insights to airgunners all over the world on behalf of Pyramyd AIR. He has earned the title The Godfather of Airguns™ for his contributions to the industry, spending many years with AirForce Airguns and starting magazines dedicated to the sport such as Airgun Illustrated.

24 thoughts on “Gamo P-25 air pistol: Part 1”

  1. As blow back action pistols go in the UK, this is a a nice looking cheaper one. And not only that but it fires lead pellets along with it’s big brother the P 85. I’ve been uming and arhing over buying myself an action pistol for a while so what you find in your reports will be of great interest.

  2. As blow back action pistols go in the UK, this is a a nice looking cheaper one. And not only that but it fires lead pellets along with it’s big brother the P 85. I’ve been uming and arhing over buying myself an action pistol for a while so what you find in your reports will be of great interest.

    TTFN

    Best Wishes, Sir Nigel Tetlington-Smythe

  3. “The safety is another matter. It’s one of those Euro-lawyer safeties that have a center switch that’s pulled back before the lever can be moved. There’s no way to operate this kind of safety with one hand. It blocks the trigger when its on.”

    They seem to wear off quickly (well it did on my Beretta PX4) it can now be operated with one hand. Not as easy as say a 1911 or SIG safety but it can still be done.

    J-F

    • I’m sure someone will figure out a way to block the inner slide to the rear (unless the position of the slide is the real safety control and the big paddle is just to allow one to move the small part around).

      As a right-side safety it’s not conducive to “action” shooting — but it is much worse looking than the nasty one on the CP-99. The Gamo appears to need the retract and then a rotation downward. The CP-99 has a “press-in” lock and then the safety slides horizontally — something that /can/ be done with one’s trigger finger, though it is a strange motion.

    • Steve…

      B.B. takes the official blame for the collateral damage. That’s one of those rules that women have. It’s always the man that did it.

      twotalon

      • Well it could be argued that he asked her to shoot it so it could be blamed on him.

        When my lovely wife broke my smart phone by dropping a can of lubricant on it and I had to buy a new one she tried blaming it on me, because she dropped the can of lubricant on the phone but I was the one who didn’t put it away when I was done fixing the sink.

        There’s always a way to blame it on other people if you look hard enough.

        J-F

  4. Due to the rifled bore and the fact this can shoot pellets or bb’s if I read this right, I’ll have to and find this thing used on Amazon. I can’t see going down to the cop shop gatting a background check and pistol permit and have this shipped to an FFL dealer as if it were a .357 magnum. Until then I have to stick with my Walther PPK/S which is smooth bore and bb only. But otherwise fairly identical in shape and function. My only real regret with that gun is I didn’t buy the all black version. I went for the chrome slide. When the gun came in I found the slide wasn’t chrome it was champagne and the sights got lost on the target so I ended up painting the sights with a marker. One day I am thinking of picking up the PPK/S in black but I have my eye set on a few exciting new offerings from Crosman.

  5. So close! Yet so far…..

    I got all excited because it looks like it should be the same size as my p-64 Radom carry gun (Polish PPK/s copy in 9×18 Makarov). Then I got to the real size description… I really want a rifled barrel, lead pellet, action pistol to match the size, shape and weight of my P-64. So far, just the PPK/s bb guns.

    Well…. It might still be fun!
    /Dave

  6. B.B., I look forward to your continued report on the PT-25. Both of the non-tactical PT-25 and the PT-85 share the same instruction manual (such as it is). I expect these two share the same internals and function the same. It will be interesting to see you this PT-25 shoots low, a common complaint with the PT-85. It will also be interesting to see how accurate this PT-25 is.

    You Part 1 and Part 2 of a report on the PT-85 Tactical back March of 2011:
    /blog/2011/03/gamo-pt-85-blowback-tactical-air-pistol-part-2/

    Part 3 was to test accuracy, but I haven’t been able to find Part 3. I understand that the longer barrel of the tactical makes for greater muzzle fps, but from what I have read it doesn’t improve accuracy. I expect there are a few variables involved but I am somewhat surprised at this.

    I have shot quite a bit with my PT-85 and I will shoot even more now that the outside temperature will be consistently warm. I deem it a good air pistol to use for hand gun fire arm training. I just have to take time to follow what I have learned about shooting a hand gun accurately.

    ~Ken

    • Ken,

      That gun broke. The barrel fell out and could not be reinstalled by me. So I never did get to do an accuracy test.

      That gun was an all tricked-pout version with a fake silencer. This gun is just standard, and I don’t anticipate having the same problems.

      B.B.

  7. B.B., I told myself I would remain silent about this but I am really angry with myself. I didn’t go to the NRA convention; my wife didn’t want me to go but she did tell me to go “if you must”.

    So, I didn’t go. Then, yesterday (Monday), I learned that Pyramydair was there with a 10m shooting range. When I looked at this and the list of air rifles they had available to try out (5 shots for a dollar) I wanted to flagellate myself. Listed, among others, were Air Force Talon SS, Evanix Max and Rainstorm, Sam Yang Big Bore Rifles, ShinSung, and Sumatra air rifles.

    The travel distance was about 30 miles. I could just scream, but I don’t want to see the guys in white coats. ~Ken

    • Ken,

      There is always an airgun range at the NRA Show. And Pyramyd AIR has run it for at least the past 5 years. It’s a great way to get to shoot rifles you may be interested in. Cheer up, they will return to Houston in several years, so you will have another chance.

      B.B.

  8. Looking at these action pistols, I’m always drawn to the triggerguard. And the more I look, the more I wonder what in the world Walther had in mind with their crazy ski slope at the bottom of the guard of their Nighthawk/P99 which chafes my finger. If the slope doesn’t contact your finger it may as well not be there. If it does, your finger will chafe over several repetitions. There’s no way this thing could possibly be helpful. What were they thinking?! I’m also still struggling with the double-action trigger of my SW686. Man that thing is heavy. I’m supposing that precision shooting must be pretty much out the window except in a very rough action pistol type format. But the single action is real poetry.

    BG_Farmer, I understand that the Texas Rangers of the 1930s would tie off the grip safety of their 1911’s with rawhide. I can understand why. Even though I’ve gotten very familiar with this pistol, every so often when I have my thumb hooked on the thumb safety, the trigger will not release in what would be very inopportune in the face of a threat.

    Titus Groan, yes, I was horrified at the description of the prion disease which B.B. linked and which I had never heard of.

    As for Jack Dempsey, there’s an interesting story which I could go on and on about; the man is a great hero of mine. Yes, he is considered a transitional figure from bare-knuckle boxing to the modern sport. But his early experience went way beyond bare-knuckle competition. Where he grew in Colorado, everyone was fighting and Jack was a professional fighter by age 15. His common method was to walk into a bar and claim to whip the toughest man in the house in exchange for money pooled from the bystanders. His naturally high voice and skinny build made him a laughingstock, but he could often get a fight by starting a hat around and putting in a dollar himself.

    Clobbering the downed opponent was within the rules, so Jack did not innovate this although he certainly took full advantage. He is most often associated with the neutral corner rule because he fatally hesitated to go there after knocking down Gene Tunney for the famous Long Count.

    Yes, Jack Dempsey did invent the bob and weave, now a staple of modern fighting technique. It’s why I argued at length that he would have beaten Mike Tyson in his prime since Tyson was just an imitator. Jack’s bobbing and weaving as described in his book is much more sophisticated than what you see today. Against Ali, Joe Frazier would move his head in a predictable U-shaped pattern which Jack explicitly warns against. So no wonder Joe got punched so many times that his eyes closed and he lost. Jack kept from getting knocked out by Gene Tunney with a much more sophisticated and unpredictable movement pattern that you can see on film.

    The signature Dempsey punch is considered to be his left hook which would erupt out of his bob and weave. But you’re right that his straight punches are overlooked. Actually, in his book he talks quite dismissively about the modern jab as an artifact of point fighting. “They flick, they paint, they couldn’t knock someone’s hat off,” says Jack of the modern jabbers. Instead, he says that you want to step hard to turn the left jab into a left “jolt” and finishing blow. The way to do this is very subtle and I studied it for months. Many times I failed on the brink of success and garnered a certain amount of teasing for spasmodically stepping forward in all circumstances as I practiced. But finally I cracked through to the secret technique and it was quite something. When I described boxing as a martial art I was talking more about its sophistication than its comprehensiveness. You would certainly want to supplement it with other styles where allowed. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that in mixed martial arts competition, boxing has dominated as a punching system. The reason was demonstrated in an early event where some fifth degree Karate stylist showed up claiming that his style could not be beaten. But when he unleashed a kick against a 37 year old (!) kickboxer, the guy threw a very orthodox right hand boxing style counterpunch and that was it.

    As to temperament, Jack has been called a wild man brawler, but in his book he makes the interesting statement: “Anger is an unwelcome guest in fighting.” That would apply to any kind of conflict and gunfighting too I have no doubt. And surely the reasons are the same. Emotion makes you forget technique. But the emotions are not turned off either, and you’re right about what someone described as Jack’s “bottomless well of cold fury.” After watching his dark, lean, and sinister figure pacing back and forth in a room, like a caged tiger, someone asked him if something terrible happened to him as a child. He said no; he had always been that way. He was an extremely nice and generous personality who became a very beloved public figure, but that doesn’t seem to have conflicted with this other side. A professional fighter once told me that you can tell people who are natural fighters by a certain edge to their personality, and Jack definitely had that.

    /Dave, yes, you’re right that you get all kinds of people in all circumstances. Some of the best people I met were from Minnesota and they were great in a Minnesota type of way and some of the worst people were worst in a Minnesota way.

    CowBoyStarDad and /Dave, yes it is true that my fellow geography students would be helpless in the outdoors with a map and a compass. This is stargazing brain-in-a-vat type stuff. (50 Quatloos on the newcomer!) We are educating a society of youth who are very adept with the pushing of buttons but not good at understanding what it all means. A teacher of web design at a community college told me that the students of his typically overenrolled courses sometimes didn’t know how to add and subtract. Psychology tells us that learning a new concept will often cause some confusion in the accepted knowledge as the mind tries to integrate the new idea. That would explain some shooting experiences that I’ve had. But it remains to be seen whether the youth that is committing so much to the technology will bring it home again with a real advance in knowledge.

    Matt61

  9. Matt, I have a personal work story that I fear tells where all this technology is headed.
    We had a young woman (18 or so) in our accounting dept who took a bit of a shine to one of our sales techs.
    As he did her.
    One day I was in her little office cubbyhole to get some financial reports. She was busily texting someone…she looked up and said she was just texting her new hoped to be beau.
    Who was on the salesfloor not 20 feet away.
    I asked her why she didn’t just go talk to him and she said (and I’m not making this up)…”I just feel more comfortable texting him”!!!
    I felt like asking her if she realized that if she did ever find the ‘one’ that if they wanted kids they wouldn’t be able to ‘do it’ via their i-Phone.

    • I have to admit that I agree with your coworker CSD.
      When you don’t have the person in front of you especially when it’s a prospect boyfriend you have that extra step (the “send” button) before saying something that you may realize too late sounded weird or akward.
      For me it’s a lot more easier to write something in an email than actually talking on the phone as I have no french accent when I write the stuff down 😉

      I used to talk english daily at work but since I changed jobs I barely talk in english anymore.

      Even when I’m writing it down and I have the change to compose a well tought out little paragraph I sometimes sound like a burbling drunk, now imagine if I was speaking it without the extra time to reconsider what I’m saying?

      J-F

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